er than for the ones who do not
leave. A similar illustration is credited to O.W. Caldwell[34], who
makes reference to the large percentage of the failing pupils who leave
high school, without taking any recognition of the equally large
percentage of the failing pupils who continue in the high school.

There is in no sense any intention here to condone the large number of
failures simply because it is pointed out that they do not operate
chiefly to cause elimination from school. The above facts may lead to
some such conviction as that expressed by Wooley,[33] after giving
especial attention to those who had left school, that "the real force
that is sending a majority of these children out into the industrial
field is their own desire to go to work, and behind this desire is
frequently the dissatisfaction with school." A somewhat similar
conviction seems to be shared by King,[35] in saying that "the pupil
who yields unwillingly to the narrow round of school tasks ... will
grasp at almost any pretext to quit school." W.F. Book tabulated the
reasons why pupils leave high school,[36] as given by 1,051 pupils. He
found that discouragement, loss of interest, and disappointment affect
more pupils than all the other causes combined. Likewise Bronner
notes[37] that the 'irrational' sameness of school procedure for all
pupils often leads to "serious loss of interest in school work,
discouragement, truancy, and disciplinary problems." Still it may be
that the worst consequences of multiplied failures are not to those
dropping out. W.D. Lewis observes[38] that the failing pupil "speedily
comes to accept himself as a failure," and that "the disaster to many
who stay in the schools is greater than to those who are shoved out."
To the same point Hanus tells[39] us that "during the school period
aversion and evasion are more frequently cultivated than power and
skill, through the forced pursuit of uninteresting subjects." A pupil
who acquires the habit of failing and the attitude of accepting it as a
necessary evil may soon give up trying to win and become satisfied to
accept himself as less gifted, or even to accept life in general as
necessarily a matter of repeated failures. In a similar connection,
James E. Russell says,[40] "the boy who becomes accustomed to second
place soon fails to think at his best." Such psychological results in
regard to habits and attitude accruing from repeated failures are both
certain and insidious. And