s of failures for pupils whose
interests and needs are but remotely served by such subjects.

A recent ruling in the department of secondary education,[44] in New
York City, denies high school pupils permission "to repeat the same
grade and type of work for the third consecutive time" after failing a
second time. And further it is prescribed that "students who have failed
twice in any given grade of a foreign language should be dropped from
all classes in that language." Our findings in this study will seem to
verify the wisdom of these rulings. Another ruling that "students who
have failed successfully four prepared subjects should not be permitted
to elect more than four in the succeeding term," or if they "have
passed four subjects and failed in one," should be permitted to take
five only provisionally, seems to judge the individual's capacities
pretty much in terms of failure. We have found that for approximately
4,000 repetitions with an extra schedule, however or by whomever they
may have been determined, the percentage getting A's and B's was
higher and the percentage of failing was substantially lower than for
approximately 4,700 repetitions with only three or four subjects for
each schedule. It does not appear that the number of subjects is
uniformly the factor of prime importance, or that such a ruling will
meet the essential difficulty regarding failure. The failure in any
subject will more often tend to indicate a specific difficulty rather
than any general lack of 'ability plus application' relative to the
number of subjects. The maladjustment is not so often in the size of
the load as in the kind or composition of the load for the particular
individual concerned. The burden is sometimes mastered by repeated
trials. But often the particular adjustment needed is clearly indicated
by the antecedent failures.

2. DISCONTINUANCE OF SUBJECT OR COURSE, AND THE SUBSTITUTION OF OTHERS

Earlier in this chapter appears the number and percentage of failures
whose disposition was effected by discontinuance or by substitution.
Twenty-four and five-tenths per cent of the failures were accounted for
in this way. This grouping happens to be a rather complex one. Many of
such pupils simply discontinue the course and then drop out of school.
Some discontinue the subject but because they have extra credits take
no substitute for it; others substitute in a general way to secure the
needed credits but not specifically for t