is careful reckoning of the cost of each unit of product. In our school enterprise the product may be rated in terms of grades accomplished. Chart V (p. 238) shows by districts and for the city the cost of teaching that resulted in one grade of accomplishment, both for the year 1912-13 and the average for five years preceding that year. Although the cost of a pupil-year of instruction was uniformly more in 1912-13 than the average for the five preceding years, owing to increased salaries of teachers, the results as indicated by the grades accomplished were so much larger that in every district there is shown a reduction in the cost of units of product,

This chart makes easy impressive comparisons of unit costs among the districts, between each district and the city average, and over a period of years in the same district. Such comparisons stimulate and direct analyses of costs, of conditions that determine costs; such analyses, and only such analyses, lead to the intelligent reduction of costs.

Measuring the Quality of the Product.

We have been treating the unit of accomplishment, the grade, as though this unit were uniform, as though the accomplishment of a grade signified that a definite quantity of work had been done, and that of a definite quality. We know very well, however, that the grade is not strictly uniform, either in quantity or in quality; no two pupils covering a grade even under the same teacher make achievements that are identical either in quantity or in quality, and between the best and the poorest pupil that is "passed” there is always a wide difference. More than this, the grade achievements with which we have been dealing have not been checked or influenced by uniform examinations for promotion. No such examinations have been given in the Newton schools within the present generation of pupils. Teachers, under the supervision of their principals, are responsible for their pupils' advancement, and their certification of advancement is accepted. Under these circumstances, is it not quite possible that the teachers of certain districts-ambitious to make a good showing by the quantity of their achievement, "passed" pupils who would not be "passed" in other districts, or have taken pupils superficially over a large amount of work, thus sacrificing quality to quantity? In other

Chart V. Showing by school districts, Newton schools, the average cost of teaching that accomplishes one pupil-grade of advancement. Small circles within the bars have no significance in this or in following charts in which they occur.

words, could the quality, or the real value, of the grade accomplishment that the several districts credit to themselves be measured, might not this reveal achievements radically different from those certified by the teachers-interested parties? Might not such measurements show, for instance, that the product turned out by one district at a low unit cost, on account of the large quantity, was really an inferior article, bought dearly even at a low price?

Realizing all these possibilities, and many more, we have sought a measurement of the quality, or value, of achievement by districts. Such a measure-by no means perfect, but valuable and "fair"-we think we have found in the success- that is in the standing in subjects studied-of the pupils sent by the grammar schools to the high schools. Such a measure, comparative, is shown in Chart VI (p. 240).

This chart shows the relative success-during their first high school year-of the representatives of each grammar school district in all subjects, and in the single subject of English, which is pursued by all high school pupils; this chart shows success by quarters for the year 1911-12 and also the average for four years ending in 1911-12. It is unnecessary to explain here how these measures of quality are obtained; they possess only comparative, no absolute value. As comparative measures, everyone interested accepts them as reliable.

Detailed comparisons, almost without limit, of the comparative quality of work done by the several districts, as shown on this chart, may be made with the quantity and unit costs of work done by the several districts, as shown on Charts III (p. 234), IV (p. 236), and V (p. 238). Merely for illustration, it may be pointed out that the district that stands distinctly ahead of all others on this quality-measuring chart, District 9, stands next to the highest in quantity of achievement in Chart IV (p. 236).

Measurement of the quality of grammar school work by the comparative success in high school of representatives of the grammar schools might be grossly misleading under some conditions, for instance, in a city in which some schools carried nearly all pupils those of mediocre and inferior natural ability, as well as those of superior talent-through the elementary and on into high school, while others sent only a selected few, and those

FROM SCHOOL YEAR 1911-1912
SCHOOL FIRST QR SECOND OR THIRD OR

1

Chart VI. Showing the comparative success of the product of Newton grammar schools as measured by the Newton high schools. Average quality of work of Freshmen in each of the first three quarters of the year 1911-12, also for the four years ending with 1911-12, is represented in English by solid black bars, in all subjects by crossed bars.

generally of superion natural ability, to high school. Such is not the condition in Newton. Here it has long been a dominant aim of every grammar school to send the largest possible percentage of its pupils into some of the numerous and widely varied high 'school courses-and every school is succeeding in this, none sending less than eighty, some sending almost one hundred per cent of their pupils to high school.

Measuring Educational Values.

The academic discussion of educational values is as futile as it is fascinating. Which is more valuable, a course in Latin or a course in the machine shop? Which is more valuable, an acre of land or a loaf of bread? There are, there can be, no permanent, no absolute and universal answers to such questions as these; but there are and there must be, temporary, relative and local assignments of value to everything, material or spiritual, that man desires. So while we educational practitioners have been waiting on the educational theorists for an evaluation of the various subjects of actual or possible school curricula, we have been determining for our own schools definitely and minutely the relative values of every such subject. And we have done this, for the most part, without knowing it. The school administrator simply cannot avoid assigning educational values every time he determines the expenditure of a dollar.

It may give us a shock-but it will be a wholesome one-to confront ourselves with the relative values that we have thus unconsciously assigned to various subjects. Chart VII (p. 242) shows graphically the relative value that was assigned last year to every subject taught in the Newton High School. It had been determined, wisely or unwisely, thoughtlessly or intelligently, that in that school just then five and nine-tenths pupil recitations in Greek were of the same value as 23.8 pupil-recitations in French; that twelve pupil-recitations in science were equivalent in value to 19.2 pupil-recitations in English; and that it took 41.7 pupil-recitations in vocal music to equal the value of 13.9 pupil-recitations in art.

Thus confronted, do we feel like denying the equivalency of these values-we cannot deny our responsibility for fixing them as we do? That is a wholesome feeling, if it leads to a wiser