ealth and, at the same time, advance the interest
of education if state superintendents would rank individual schools,
and if county superintendents would rank individual schools, _according
to the number of children found to have physical defects, the number
afflicted with contagious diseases, and the number properly treated_.

It is difficult to compare one school with another, because it is
necessary to make subtractions and divisions and to reduce to
percentages. It would not be so serious for a school of a thousand
pupils as for a school of two hundred, to report 100 for adenoids. To
make it possible to compare school with school without judging either
unfairly, the state superintendent of schools for Connecticut has made
tables in which cities are ranked according to the number of pupils,
average attendance, per capita cost, etc. As to each of these headings,
cities are grouped in a manner corresponding to the line up of a
battalion, "according to height." A general table is then shown, which
gives the ranking of each city with respect to each important item.
Applied to schools, this would work out as follows:

TABLE XV

TABLE OF RANKING-SCHOOLS ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY

=============================================================
|
SCHOOL | RANK IN
-------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------
| Register | Defects | Children | Children | Children
| | Found | Needing | Treated | not
| | | Treatment| | Treated
-------+----------+----------+----------+----------+---------
A | 10 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 6
B | 20 | 22 | 22 | 24 | 12
C | 30 | 33 | 30 | 36 | 18
=======+==========+==========+==========+==========+=========

Such a table fails to convey its significance unless the reader is
reminded that rank 18 in children not treated is as good a record for a
school that ranks 30 in register as is rank 6 for a school that ranks
10 in register.

The Connecticut report makes a serious mistake in failing to arrange
schools according to population. If this were done, schools of a size
would be side by side and comparison would be fair. When, as in the
above table, schools are arranged alphabetically, a school with four
thousand pupils may follow or precede a school with four hundred
pupils, and comparison will be unfair and fut