been an increase in the percentage offering the three specialized sciences, biology, physics, and chemistry. The largest percentage gains in these offerings, 6.8 for chemistry and 4.8 for physics, are in those courses about which there has been greatest concern.

Table 2 shows a distribution by region of the number and percentage of schools having the 12th grade which offer neither physics nor chemistry and the number and percent of pupils affected in each region. The wide variations from region to region might raise some questions about science offerings. Why, for example, in the West North Central, the East South Central, and the West South Central regions should there be such a high percentage of schools having the 12th grade which offer neither physics nor chemistry?

This study shows that public high schools offer not only general science, biology, chemistry, and physics, but also advanced general science, and other elective advanced science courses. In the sample, approximately 6 percent of the schools having the 12th grade offered advanced general science and 14.5 percent offered other elective advanced science courses.

About half of the schools in the study offered advanced general science as a 12th grade course only and the other half offered it as a multigiade Of the schools offering other sciences, 30 percent made these courses available in the 12th grade and 56.8 percent made them multigrade offerings.

TABLE 2.-Number and percentage of schools, by geographic region, having the 12th grade but offering neither chemistry nor physics, and number and percentage of pupils affected: Fall 1956

1 For identification of States comprising each region, see table 24, p. 331.

Percent of 12th grade pupils in schools offering neither physics nor chemistry: Fall 1954 and Fall 1956

Enrollments in Science Courses

Table 3 shows the percentage of pupils in the last 4 years of public high schools who have been enrolled in certain science courses from 1890 to 1956. These percentages are based on the total high school enrollment. General science and biology, the newer courses in the usual high school sequence, have shown an almost steady growth in percentage enrollment since their inception in the first 2 decades of the present century. On the other hand, of the two older sciences, chemistry has remained about constant percentagewise, while physics has declined steadily from 22.8 percent in 1890 to 4.6 percent in 1954 and 4.4 percent in 1956.

In terms of the total high school population, general science enrolls more pupils than any other science. General science is most commonly offered and required as a 9th grade subject. It appears as a multigrade offering in only about 8 percent of the schools. Some of these schools, usually the smaller ones, alternate general science with biology in the 9th and 10th grades in much the same manner that physics and chemistry are sometimes alternated in the later grades.

TABLE 3.-Percentage of pupils in the last 4 years of public high schools in certain science courses: 1890 to 1956-57

1 Biennial Survey of Education in the United States, 1948-50, chapter 5, Offerings and Enrollments in High School Subjects, 1948-49, p. 107, table 7. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1951.

2 Brown, Kenneth E. Offerings and Enrollments in Science and Mathematics in Public High Schools, Pamphlet No. 118, p. 11, table 5. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1956.

3 Estimates based on this study.

Since biology replaced botany and zoology in the high school sequence, it has shown a steady increase in the percentage of public high school pupils which it enrolls. This increase has been at the expense of enrollments in zoology, botany, and physiology. In 1910 the percent of pupils in the last 4 years of high school who were taking biology was 1.1, and by 1954 had increased to 19.6. The present study reveals a further growth in the past 2 years to 20.5 percent. Biology, most commonly offered as a 10th grade course, appears as a multigrade offering in only about 8.9 percent of the schools.

In 1900, 7.7 percent of the public high school population was enrolled in chemistry. Since that time, the enrollment in this subject has, for the most part, remained nearly constant at about 7.5 percent of the total high school enrollment. Care needs to be exercised in the use of this statistic since on first glance it would appear that chemistry as a science in the public high school has made little or no progress in terms of enrollment since the turn of the century. In fact, misleading conclusions of this sort have been drawn.

Close scrutiny of these data reveals that, while the percentage of high school students enrolled in chemistry has remained quite constant over more than a half century, the actual enrollment has increased nearly 13-fold or from 40,084 in 1900 to an estimated 519,900 on the basis of this study.

Chemistry appears to be offered as a multigrade subject more frequently than as an 11th grade offering.

The steady decline in the percentage of public high school pupils taking physics, which has been in effect since 1900, is further revealed by the present study. The 1954 study of enrollments revealed that the percentage enrollment had dropped to 4.6 percent and this study shows a decline to 4.4 percent.

This steady decline in percentage enrollment over the past half-century and more should be interpreted with caution and a full understanding of the facts. It in no way should be interpreted, as has been the case with previous statistics, to indicate a decline in enrollment in the subject. In 1900, for example, 19 percent of the pupils enrolled in the last 4 years of public high school were enrolled in physics. The actual number reported was 98,846. At that time physics was a 10th grade subject and usually required of all. In 1954, the percent had dropped to 4.6 but the number of pupils enrolled had increased to 302,800. The 1956 study shows a further decline to 4.4 percent of the total high school population and yet in the

Percent of 11th grade pupils in chemistry: Fall 1954 and Fall 1956

Percent of 12th grade pupils in physics: Fall 1954 and Fall 1956

period from 1954 to 1956, the number enrolled, it is estimated, has increased to about 309,600. During the 56-year period from 1900, the percentage enrollment has decreased from 19 to 4.4 but the actual numbers enrolled have more than tripled.

The number of 12th grade pupils enrolled in 1956 was 18.8 percent of the total enrollments in the last 4 years of the high school. The 4.4 percent therefore indicates that the number enrolled in physics at that time was equal to about one-fourth of the pupils in the 12th grade-the grade in which physics is usually offered.

Advanced general science enrolls approximately 1.2 percent of the total high school population or 6.1 percent of all the pupils enrolled in the 12th grade. The data do not seem to indicate that this course is widely accepted. By region, the course appears to have its heaviest enrollment in the Middle Atlantic, East North Central, and West North Central areas.

Enrollment in sciences other than those specified above and offered as a part of the curriculum in the public high schools attract about 2.7 percent of the total high school population, grades 9 through 12. An estimate for the Nation as a whole, based on the sample used in this study, is 188,000