Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-10-01

schools by illness or by other causes over
which the parents have. or should have, con-
troll. 1t means that in eight years of school
attendance they are really receiving only
four or five years schooling, as measured by
the course of study mapped out, or that
they are not in school at all for several years.
Andrew S. Draper, Commissioner of Edit
cation of the State of New York. has made
this surprising declaration: II had assumed
that practically all of the children who do
not go to the high school do finish the ele-
mentary schools. This is not the fact. l
confess it startled me to find that certainly
not more than three-fifths and probably not
more than one third of the children who en-
ter our elementary schools ever finish them;
and not more than one-half of them 60
beyond the fifth or sixth grade
Professor E. L. Thorndike, in a pamphlet
published by the United States Bureau of
Education, reaches the following astounding
conclusion: "At least twenty-five out of
every one hundred children of the white
population of our country who enter school
stay long enough to learn to read simple
English, write such words as they commonly
use, and perform the four operations for in
tegers without serious errors A fifth of the
white children entering city schools stay
only to the fifth grade. Of the children en-
tering school in Our more favored cities, over
half probably never had man teacher
Humiliating Illiteracy
IF the school reached all the children in the
community, illiteracy would disappear;
but, in spite of a century of free schools, IL
literacy persists. In the United States as a
whole there are among every 200 persons
l07 illiterates. In the North Atlantic States
there are as many as SO to the 1000. 1t is
him fafin tO al n
so many nations of Europe show a much
smaller percentage of absolute ignorance
than does our own. Even in France the
ignorant are only 40 in 1000, while in Ger
many, Sweden, and Norway the percentage
in only in ZOO.
There are nations where education is uni
versally obligatory. 1t is not the case all
over the United States; but illiteracy is
found in States that have compulsory edu-
cation as we'll as in other States where such
laws do not exist. Therefore, it is estab-
lished that in all States and towns number
of children escape the school influence ut
terly. Some parents are even positively hos
tile toward the schools, according to infor-
nation acquired by the authorities.
Clearly, those children who lose all or part
of the years work generally drop behind in
their classes. Their irregularity in attend
ance may result from sickness and be un-
avoidable and it may result from the indif
ference and carelessness of parents and be
absolutely unnecessary. Modern hygienic
and preventive medicine holds that sickness
is not the inevitable accompaniment of child
hood. 1t recognizes schools as likely centers
of infection, and an intelligent public health
service provides for inspection that will pre-
vent the spread of contagious diseases.
This is exceedingly important; for minute
medical inspection has demonstrated that
many children have not the sound bodies
that are the prerequisites of sound minds
1t is certainly disquieting to read that two
thirds of the school children of New York
city have physical defects. Some of these
defects have a direct bearing upon school
progress; for the child who does not see
clearly or does not hear distinctly is OBJ
viously handicapped. To prevent casual ILL
ness, to remedy the disastrous consequences
of physical defect, offers fruitful field of
endeavor. But there are far too many cases
where parents take it for granted that really
unimportant ailments should be reasons for
keeping children away from school.
Backwardness in school is a principal
cause why children leave their studies for
good, and backwardness is often due to the
necessity of transferring a child from one