High v. Prep Schools

Llewellyn Truman Spencer, assistant professor of psychology at Yale, had sufficient statistics last week apparently to prove that high school graduates were better in intelligence and in studies than were graduates of private preparatory schools. A high school graduate himself and very methodical, he studied the records of Yale undergraduates and learned that in intelligence the high school graduates averaged 71.25, the preparatory school graduates 69.88. In college grades the high school man averaged 73.94, the preparatory school man 68.60.

What Assistant Professor Spencer could not put into his statistics is the fact that practically every preparatory school graduate, smart and stupid, enters college, while from the high schools go practically only the smart ones. The dull high school student becomes a clerk. The dull private school student may become a ne'er do well. But he usually has been through college, where he pulls his fellows' statistical average down.