school work. Where the teachers are engaged in parish schools they plan their classes as required by the diocesan school board. In all schools conducted by the Holy Cross Sisters, the first half hour of the day is given to religious instruction by every teacher in her own class. Once a week general instructions in Christian Doctrine are given by a priest.

The Sisters are trained during their novitiate and scholastic for their future work as religious and as teachers. The Congregation has drawn up a plan of study based upon the best principles of pedagogy. The Great Teacher is their Model. They are shown His method of imparting knowledge; His use of the story or parable; His object lessons; His nature-studies.

At

To gain strength for the active life demanded of relig ious teachers in these days, the Sisters depend upon the Heart of Jesus in the Sacrament of His love. All day long from sunrise to sunset, there are "Sisters Adorers" before the Blessed Sacrament. Two and two, they take their places every hour daily before the altar. St. Mary's, in every house of the Holy Cross-the weekly hour of adoration is made, thus insuring perpetual adoration. This custom dates back to 1854 when nocturnal adoration was established. The Sisters in this exercise pray, not for individual needs, but for the community, that through its members and its teachings the Kingdom of God may be spread throughout our beautiful land, and the little ones of Christ suffered to come unto Him through Christian education!

This is perhaps the secret of whatever little success has blessed the work of the Sisters of Holy Cross in the United States during the past seven decades.

S. M. A.

RETARDATION AND ELIMINATION OF PUPILS

IN OUR SCHOOLS 1

The zealous worker in the educational field welcomes every genuine test of efficiency which can be applied to our schools and school systems. He knows how inadequate and unsuitable are some of the standards by which success or failure of the elementary schools is often measured. While in a given case, through deference to established criteria of judgment, he may refer to such indications of efficiency as excellent equipment, superior quality of instruction, and success of the graduates, he realizes that these points do not give complete assurance of the success of the school. He is inclined to feel that the test implied by their enumeration is more appropriate to a higher and more specialized form of education such as the college or university.

The elementary school with its definite aim to provide instruction in the rudiments of learning should be primarily tested, it would seem, as to how well or ill it fulfills its mission to educate the majority of the children it receives. Apart from such important questions as the quality of the instruction given in the school, the character of its administration, and the success of those who have completed the course, this significant item remains to be accounted for, viz. what percentage of the pupils have received the full benefit of the school? Or perhaps the question may be stated more clearly in this way. If all other elements are present in a given school or system such as are implied by superior equipment, administration, and scholarship, and only a small proportion of the pupils receive the full course, while the majority receive

'Paper read at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Catholic Educational Association, Chicago, Ill., June 26-29, 1911.

only one-half or two-thirds of it, the school is in that proportion failing in its mission to do its full duty to all.

The study of all the processes of retardation and elimination sets about to determine the efficiency of the school in this respect. It purposes to ascertain the number of those whom the elementary school has educated only in part, the reasons why these pupils have failed to enjoy the entire benefits of the course, and to propose means for a more satisfactory fulfilment of the mission of the school-to give an elementary education to all the children. That interest in the study is widespread, and that the greatest importance is attached to it, is evident from the number of publications and treatises dealing with it, and from the attention commanded by it in the reports of school superintendents and civil authorities throughout this country. In a bibliography courteously supplied by the National Bureau of Education at Washington for the preparation of this paper are found, under the heading of Backward and Retarded Children, references to fifty-two treatises on various phases of the subject, and in another, under Retardation and Elimination, sixty-two treatises, all of which have been written within the last decade, since 1900.

The results of this study have shown that, in this country particularly, the public schools are supplying an education not to all of the children they receive, but to about one-half of them, that while all are compelled by law to attend school and the course prescribed covers a period of eight years, the great majority of pupils attend for five or six years and do not complete the course. According to one student of the problem, Mr. Leonard P. Ayres, author of "Laggards in Our Schools," ten per cent of the children leave when thirteen years of age, forty per cent when fourteen, fifty per cent of the remainder when fifteen, and fifty per cent of that remainder when sixteen; or in speaking of them by grades, the general tendency in American

school systems is to keep all of the children for the fifth grade, to drop half by the eighth, and to carry one in ten to the high school. It is found that conditions vary greatly in different parts of the country, and that retardation and elimination are not known in certain localities to the same extent as in others. For instance, in Quincy, Mass., for every ten beginners in the elementary school eight reached the eighth grade, whereas in Camden, N. J., for every ten beginners only two completed the eighth grade. The various studies, however, have awakened the educational world to the existence of a most serious problem, and have been fruitful in encouraging further efforts looking towards its solution. As there are many important phases of this twofold subject, any of which could profitably occupy our entire time, we shall here try to see, first, the application of the subject to our schools, second, the most potent factors working towards retardation and elimination, and finally, the remedies suggested to overcome them.

Every teacher is familiar with the dull, the backward, the defective, and the retarded children, and anxious for suggestions to ameliorate their condition. So are all teachers, principals and pastors conscious of the great number of the eliminated, those who for one reason or another leave school before reaching the last grade. As one factor affects the other very perceptibly-the retarded being among the most ready to leave schooland as both are an index of the efficiency of our schools in giving an elementary education to our children, the causes producing them, and the conditions aggravating them ought to be our first concern, that knowing them we may intelligently combat and overcome them. For obvious reasons we shall confine our attention to the elementary schools.

The retarded we accept to include all those children who are behind their proper or normal grades. They may

have begun school late, or have failed of promotion; at any rate, they are all over age for their grades, and when they reach the age of fourteen have not completed the entire course. Those who leave before finishing the course are the eliminated, and it would appear from the data we possess for our Catholic school systems that both classes of children are with us to an alarming extent.

The statistics available for the study of this condition in our schools are very meager. Comparatively few of the reports of the diocesan superintendents and school boards are made public, and these few are wanting in the most essential details for the study of this problem. We are not criticizing the reports, for they are excellent in many and most respects, and are of the greatest utility to the dioceses concerned and the Catholic system generally, and we could scarcely expect that they would incorporate at this early stage in the study of a new problem the details which are deemed necessary. They do, however, throw light on the situation, and although those at hand for the preparation of this paper were representative of the eastern portion of the country, perhaps they can be said to picture the general condition of our schools.

To take one point alone on which some of the diocesan reports offer information, i. e., the distribution of children in the different grades of a diocesan system. We cannot tell from this either the number retarded, or the number eliminated, but we can derive some idea of the prevalence and extent of the two processes. In one diocese there are over 62,000 children enrolled in the elementary schools; 37,000, or over half of the entire enrollment are contained in the first three grades, and the greatest enrollment is in the first grade. The decrease in numbers is very marked from the fourth to the fifth grade, almost a half, and from the sixth to the seventh the falling off in numbers is one-half, as it is also from the seventh to the