It is readily seen from the above percentages that, as would be expected, the drop-outs are most frequent for the very ages which are most common in the high school. There is no special accumulation of drop-outs for either the earlier or the later ages. But, if in any semester we consider the drop-outs for each age as a percentage of the total pupils represented for that age, the facts are more fully revealed, as is indicated below for certain semesters. PERCENTAGES OF DROP-OUTS FOR EACH AGE, ON THE TOTALS FOR SUCH AGE IN THE FIRST, SECOND AND FOURTH SEMESTERS AGES 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Semester 1 6.8 18.2 23.1 32.6 38.3 35.0 40.0 40.0 .. Semester 2 4.0 8.1 14.8 18.3 22.2 30.0 40.0 33.0 .. Semester 4 0 9.0 11.8 12.5 16.5 24.6 35.2 50.0 .. If these semesters may be taken as indicative of all, an almost steady increase will be expected in the percentages of drop-outs as the ages of the pupils rise. It follows, then, that the older ages have the higher percentages of drop-outs when this basis of the computation is employed. We may, however, make some helpful comparisons of the ages of drop-outs for boys and for girls by merely using the percentages of total drop-outs for the purpose. PERCENTAGES OF FAILING DROP-OUTS IN EACH AGE GROUP, FOR BOYS AND GIRLS SEPARATELY AGES 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Boys 0 4.6 12.5 22.8 25.1 17.4 10.3 4.3 1.9 Girls .2 3.8 15.1 23.9 24.1 19.0 9.5 2.6 2.2 Here it appears that, of all the boys and girls who fail before dropping out, the school loses at the age of 14, for example, 4.6 per cent for the boys and 3.8 per cent for the girls. As a matter of mere convenience, the percentages for age 21 are made to include also the undistributed pupils in Table V. PERCENTAGES OF THE NON-FAILING DROP-OUTS IN EACH AGE GROUP, FOR BOYS AND GIRLS SEPARATELY AGES 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Boys 2.4 18.0 29.4 27.1 15.0 4.4 2.3 0.7 Girls 1.1 16.0 29.6 23.8 16.4 8.6 2.7 1.6 These percentages are computed from the age totals in Table VI, just as the ones preceding are computed from Table V. It seems worthy of note here that close to 50 per cent of the non-failing drop-outs occur under 16 years of age, for both the boys and the girls; but that the number of the failing pupils who drop out does not reach 20 per cent for the boys or the girls in these same years. It is likewise remarkable in these distributions that the percentages for boys and for girls show such slight differences in either of the two groupings. SUMMARY OF CHAPTER II