II

GENERAL STATISTICS

In presenting these facts concerning private schools admitting boys in grades seven to twelve, it is important to note that a sharp distinction is arbitrarily made between Catholic and nonCatholic schools, both in the master table and in this chapter. Except for a few minor differences which are pointed out where significant, the Catholic schools of the country show a great similarity of type and are more conveniently treated as a separate group. They are organized on a diocesan plan with the bishop of each diocese as ex-officio head of schools; and each diocese is automonous in the formulation of its own laws, in the devising of its own policies, and in the administration of its own affairs without external interference. Each diocese resembles the state unit of public school administration.3

The non-Catholic schools, on the contrary, exist as independent units. They are separate entities, autonomous institutions, doing for themselves as individuals or, in rare cases, as groups what the state does for public schools or the bishop for Catholic educational institutions. Each school or group is a law unto itself. These two types, though fitting the general description of private schools previously given, differ enough to be considered and treated separately.

The private schools contained in the master table are nonCatholic. The data given are derived from the questionnaires, supplemented by whatever secondary sources could be found

The term "Catholic" as used in this study has the connotation Roman Catholic. • All private schools, Catholic and non-Catholic, are subject, of course, to certain supervision by the state authorities and to certain legal restrictions. These are treated at length in Chapter III.

• RYAN, J. H. "A Catechism of Catholic Education." Bureau of Education of the National Catholic Welfare Council. Washington: 1922, p. 12.

• The term "private school" as hereafter used in this study is to be understood as meaning private schools admitting boys between grades seven to twelve. Any other use of the term will be indicated or will be clear from the in case the questionnaire was not answered. It is presumed that information given in the questionnaire is authentic; information from other sources is correct only in so far as the sources themselves are correct. The gaps that appear are due to the fact that complete data could not always be found and the consequent necessity of using what was available.

No list of Catholic schools is presented in this study for two reasons; in the first place, to name the 1373 separate schools would take an amount of space all out of proportion to its value; and in the second place, such a list is already available in the "Directory of Catholic Colleges and Schools".5 In the various tables of this chapter, the data for Catholic schools are taken from this Directory, supplemented by the few questionnaires received from Catholic schools.

The information about the non-Catholic schools gained from questionnaires is for the school year 1925-26. Much of the information from school catalogues is of the same year, although some is for the year 1924-25. The data concerning the Catholic schools represent a combination of statistics for the school year ending June, 1924, and during the year 1925; "they represent perhaps more truly the conditions of the Catholic school system in 1925, since many diocesan superintendents and other school officials found it impossible to forward data to the Bureau until the 1925 school year was under way."" The statistics as a whole, then, may be considered to be as of the year 1924-1925.

Number of Private Schools and Number of Boys Enrolled Table II shows the distribution by states of all private schools. The 2432 schools are scattered in every state in the Union except Nevada; New York and Pennsylvania leading with 222 and 207 respectively. Iowa, Ohio, and Illinois each have more than a hundred; then come in order Massachusetts and Michigan with eighty-nine, Minnesota with eighty-eight, California with eighty, and New Jersey with seventy-five. The states contain

CROWLEY, F. M. and DUNNE, E. P. (Compiled by) Directory of Catholic Colleges and Schools. Washington: National Catholic Welfare Conference Bureau of Education, 1926.

• Ibid., p. 5.

TABLE II

Maine..

New Hampshire.

Vermont.

Delaware.

Maryland.

New Jersey.

Alabama.

Arkansas.

Florida

Georgia

Kentucky.

Mississippi.

Texas.

Virginia..

West Virginia.

Michigan

Minnesota

Wisconsin.

Wyoming.

Arizona.

177274 1373 87320 1059 89954 * This classification of states by sections of the country will be used throughout the study.

ing the smallest numbers are Nevada with none, Wyoming with three, Arizona and New Mexico with seven, Delaware, Utah, and Montana with eight, and the District of Columbia and Idaho with ten each. The remaining states have more than ten schools each, but less than seventy.

The total number of boys in these 2432 schools is 177,274. As might be expected, the number of boys in the various states is roughly though not exactly proportional to the number of schools. The glaring exception is Iowa, ranking third in respect to number of schools but twenty-third in respect to number of boys. The discrepancy here is due to the great number of Catholic schools, each of which has but a few boys.

Omitting the forty schools, the number of whose boys could not be ascertained, the average number of boys to a school is seventy-four; but, though the Catholic schools average only sixty-three boys each, the non-Catholic average eighty-eight each. The former vary greatly in size, including those with both the largest and smallest numbers. Boston College High School, for example, has 1,381 boys. Twenty-three others enroll more than five hundred. On the other hand, 411 Catholic schools, 41 per cent of all Catholic schools and 17 per cent of all private schools, have less than ten boys. Table III shows the distribution of Catholic and non-Catholic schools by size. The majority are small; of 2382 schools studied 1726, or 72 per cent have less than seventy-five boys. The average Catholic school is somewhat smaller than the average non-Catholic, 83 per cent of 1360 schools studied having less than seventy-five boys, while of 1022 non-Catholic schools, six hundred, or 58 per cent, have less than seventy-five boys. Putting the statement in positive form, 42 per cent of the non-Catholic schools have more than seventy-five boys each, and but 17 per cent of the Catholic. Of all schools 28 per cent have more than seventy-five boys.

The Catholic schools comprise 56 per cent of the 2432 schools studied, the non-Catholic but 44 per cent. In respect to numbers of pupils, however, the non-Catholic, in spite of being fewer in number, have a slight advantage with 51 per cent. Their per