senior failure? There is the undying question of senior activities. Would any one seriously suggest stamping them out, or even want to? First, they develop and maintain a spirit of loyalty. Secondly, they give a business-training that establishes initiative and independence. Witness the senior annuals, the vaudevilles, the class plays, and what not. The school paper is the best possible apprenticeship for journalism, and other forms of professional, or business life. The day is past, any blind pedagogue notwithstanding, when college, or business life is satisfied with scholarship alone, admirable as it is. Said the father of one of our girls, who took her part well in one June class play, difficult one, too: "I am glad my daughter was in the class-play. Her scholarship alone would not get her into the university which she wishes to enter. The university demands something else." The school of her choice, which happens to be the Alma Mater of our principal is one the fame of which is world wide because of the standard set for its foundation and maintained. The girl herself, during the strenuous weeks of her rehearsals, had kept up her G and E work in her daily classes.

College entrance application sheets, which we are filling out for those who are leaving us are demanding: What qualities of leadership does the applicant display? What part has he taken in school activities? Business men also wish to know the same things. We can no more shut down on all class activities than we can stop the meadow-larks' trilling in the great green open spaces of the spring. We may forbid it, but we cannot stop it.

The failure to accomplish successfully the work of the last term of high school will perhaps lie often in one of two roots. There is the lapis-lazuli night moth whose family is willing she flit around the social lights every night. They are not content, or rather she is not, with her participation in a limited number of wholesome school affairs. Notwithstanding repeated warnings from the school, her family does not awaken to the true condition until a few weeks from the end. Then they must insist that she tutor

all week outside of school hours till midnight. Saturday and Sunday she must get in, not just part time like that, but full time. Chemistry, social problems, civics, English, Latin, down they go. All this has the counterpart in the masculine life of every school also. Let him who dares, confer with that family. Some day some Homeric genius will arise to write the epic of such conference. It is Robert Browning's Prince HohenstielSchwangau who calls attention to the human propensity for the spectacular-any thing rather than daily routine.

Second, there is the student who is working to help himself, or his family, who beyond a doubt has undertaken too much. There is the regrettable case of him who had been permitted to carry a part in his class play. He had been doing some daring, manly work, helping his family-I cannot say what, for that would but serve to label him. I can never forget his white face when I, as his registration teacher, had to inform him that word had come in to me, he could not be graduated. In anguish he told me an uncle had promised him a thousand dollars—that meant a very great deal to him-if he obtained his diploma. He thought that would start him in business. One mistake lay in his uncle's not having given him that thousand dollars, or some share of it to help him through those last few months. Scholarship or anything approximating it demands leisure. One cannot shine as an intellectual sun, day after day, if one has used up one's energy, by working for a large part of each night. The leading citizen of every town, the man of wealth might go to the high school principals and place at their disposal sums adequate, which the principals wisely could use to help such boys and girls, too-for the problem is epicene. Oftentimes the girl is making as hard a struggle as the boy. No, it will not pamper them.

Should, or does the refusal of the diploma come at the very end? We have tried various experiments to forestall any such disappointment. We have excused E students from examinations. We have excused G students. Some pupils have con

sidered that an incentive to painstaking daily work: but most of those would pride themselves on good work anyway. We have even gone to the length of abolishing final examinations for seniors whose work is up at the close of the third quarter of the term. We follow the semester system; each semester is divided into four quarters of five weeks each. The office meticulously sends home, at the end of each quarter, letters notifying the parents or guardians, if, in any subject the grade be down. This is in addition to the green report card which is given to the pupil himself. This is not that we fear that the student will intentionally forget to present his green card at home; but in order to prevent any future embarrassment, should he just happen to forget. The pupil, if he be honest, and we very rarely find him otherwise, generally knows what he is doing. Why should the girl, who has persisted in buying her commencement clothes, when she had been told for weeks, what she was omitting to do, and should get to work and do it, allege as a valid reason that she should have her diploma that she had made her preparations? Could not she wear her things any other time, or any other place? Commencement clothes by the advice of deans and principals, are kept quite simple.

The examination may come and the examination may go. We doubt if anywhere the question of graduation from any secondary school should be rested upon one final examination alone. Where could the school be found which would admit that such was ever the case? In a technical sense it may at times be a deciding factor. Who of us has not resolved that he will have no seniors failing in his classes? Who of us has not resolved that he will work night and day, in season and out of season with his prospects to prevent such catastrophe? We recognize by painful experience there is something more than a nuance between prospects, resolutions on one side, and results on the other. If the class work throughout the term be but the minimum in value; if a final test show nothing accomplished, that the student has not played the game, in spite of our fondest

hopes, even though we count the examination as almost a negligible factor in the five months' work, what is to be done? How can we test the whole until we know all the parts?

Again there are those two faces to the question. In a vital sense, aside from all sentiment, an irreparable wrong is being done to him who is refused his graduation. He is receiving a thrust which may be a life-long wound-no matter now that we consider the thrust self-inflicted. Why, why did we not prevent it? Perhaps this is a subject which he will never need nor use directly in his future. Why should he be held to account for it? Some people ask: "Why not try the solution of a blank diploma, and hope he will satisfy the individual teacher's troublesome conscience by making some better showing in another summary, after some later review?" Think of the university which threw open its doors to the entrance examination failure, who became one of the greatest men of his generation. There can be no colophon as to our judgment of any thinking entity as long as Eternity shall last.

On the other hand, what we regard as Justice haunts us along with Mercy. Those other students-barring any untoward prejudice on our part, or any undue pressure upon us in making our judgment—have done their work. What of them? Should there be no difference? As for sweet Mercy, the skilful surgeon, for fear of inflicting some temporary pain, will not hesitate to advise the operation which may save the future. Perhaps the sanest, most merciful thing to do, after all, will be to let the boy or girl who has let his senior term slip, take the coldwater consequences. If he have the right stuff within him, he will argue after the manner of rugged old Thomas Carlyle: if he has made his bed uncomfortably in one way, he does not have to lie in it; he can arise and make it again. He will return, unless the financial problem be too incisive, do his work with credit, and make us take back our preceding judgment of him.

There is one thing the student who has found out his weakness in certain subjects often can do for himself. Neither family nor

school may be able to detect instantaneously where his greatest ability may lie. He has to try himself out. He need not be in too great a rush. He can plan to get in some extra credits. A boy who was graduated from one of our schools not so long ago, had won in his four years' time thirty-eight credits, instead of merely the thirty required. Although a few subjects are rigid requisites in all courses, yet in the flexibility of modern high school electives, sometimes he can substitute one credit for another. If, after honest endeavor, I find I cannot sing a note, and my family would prefer I did not try any longer, I need not expect my longsuffering music-master, just because of my Titanic struggles to perjure himself by giving me a lieing certificate. Of one thing I may be sure, there is some thing I may do and do well. I may be a veritable "shark" in solving Algebra problems.

One must admit there is much to be done on the part of the one behind the desk, and the one before the desk. The literal-minded teacher, bent on getting his "sixteen ounces to the pound," needs repeatedly to remind himself that he is seeking not so many isolated facts, but knowledge of where facts may be obtained when needed, knowledge to how to relate, and evaluate them, capacity, positive potentiality. He may again resolve as he thinks of his younger friend: to detect the splendid thing in you; to help you to see this splendid thing in yourself; to fan the flickering flames of confidence in yourself into an eternal fire that be my task. The one who has started out on his Quest and has agreed to accept the guidance of the other may resolve: to appreciate what you are trying to do for me; to listen with questioning, open mind; to prove to you that there is in me-that be my challenge.

T

HE ability to handle with some accuracy the mechanics of written English has long been regarded as the most obvious sign of the educated man. This ability is of so great importance, both for success in college and for social efficiency in life generally, that it is uniformly given as one of the major objectives of the high school. How well does the high school perform the function of affording this necessary training? In the early fall of 1925 the Pressey Diagnostic Tests in English Composition (to be described shortly) were given to the classes in freshman English in a small college for men. A few of these students were repeaters, but the great majority were just

entering upon their college work. The tests used are four in number, one each for capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure. The capitalization and grammar tests were given to III students; the punctuation and sentence structure tests,

to 102.

COMPARISON OF THE RESULTS WITH NORMS

Various surprises were encountered when the resulting distributions of scores were compared with certain grade norms. It would naturally be supposed that any person who could gain admission to college could prove himself superior to the average child in the 7th or even in the 9th grade. But

A detailed analysis of the results may lead toward a better understanding of the situation.

The capitalization test consists of 28 sentences. The initial capital is supplied in each case, but there are no capitals in the rest of the sentence; and the students are to indicate by underlining where capitals are needed. A sample sentence runs as follows: He lives in the west, a few miles north of our old home; the sentence requires a capital for west. However, only 45 per cent of the students indicated this fact. Barely 40 per cent thought that a capital was needed to begin the second line of a couplet. Half of the students capitalized correctly a sentence

The greater frequency of apparent extreme deficiency in capitalization is not easy to explain. It may be due to the confusing differences between literary and newspaper usage in capitalization. As will be pointed out shortly, the group as a whole averages up to the norm for college freshmen, however.

containing Republican and Catholic. Only 51 per cent were able to cope with the sentence: "There," he said, "is the book you wished," which requires merely the initial capital. Other sentences giving trouble involved the capitalization of Rotary Club and Red Cross, French and American, Parisian, and the capitalization of the first word in a direct quotation. Only 4 of the 28 sentences were correctly handled by 95 per cent or more of the students. These required the capitalization of names of persons, of initials of countries and of business firms (the and titles used as parts of names, of names Standard Oil Company). Just why this and the Red Cross, is hard to see. preference should exist over the Rotary Club

The punctuation test consists of 30 sentences. Each has a period at the end, but any other marks of punctuation must be added by the student. An example is: Boys and mens clothes are sold here. In this sentence, only 8 per cent of the students were able to put the two necessary apostrophes in their right places. In fact the classes seemed to be especially weak in the matter of apostrophes; three other sentences involving apostrophes were punctuated correctly by only 49 per cent, 59 per cent, and 62 per cent of the students, respectively, and a fourth sentence, The cat with its nose scratched is theirs, was correctly allowed to remain as it stood by only 24 per cent. The students also showed little knowledge of the use of the semicolon. A meagre 13 per cent could handle the sentence: He has the mat, desk, and table; however, the rug and fan were delayed (the comma after desk was considered optional, in scoring); and use of the semicolon to separate clauses of a compound sentence not joined by a conjunction was known by 59 per cent. Only 11 per cent knew what to do with a sentence requiring dashes or parentheses to set off an obviously inserted element. That quotation marks should be used to mark obviously slangy or technical phrases was known by only 35 per cent. Other points causing trouble were: the use of the colon before a formal enumeration, use of quotation marks to set off the title of