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The progress made during school life is not uniform, but occurs at special ages, differing in the
sexes. Amongst boys there was no improvement in the years 5 to 6, but a marked improvement
shows itself at the age of 7, the average rising from 931.8 to 960.4, or 28.6 points. This rise in
the average is due not only to the improvement in low mark boys, but to all round progress, and at
this age for the first time children appear (16%) having marks above 990. At eight years a further
great advance is made, the average rises to 983.6, that is 23.2 points, due to all round progress;
44 per cent, now obtain over 990, and 12 per cent. get 1,000 marks. After 8 only slight progress
is made, in fact almost the only change in the last six years is an elimination of the lowly
marked boys, that occurs between the ages of 9 and 10. Of boys aged 8-9, 10 per cent. are
below 960 marks, whilst there are none below this in the group 10-13. Amongst girls there is already
a decided improvement from 5 to 6, the average rising from 948.5 to 966'2, or 17.7 points due to
all round improvement. At 7 the average rises from 966.2 to 974.6, due to the continued
improvement of girls with high marks, but no improvement is made with girls with low marks, that
is below 960. No further improvement takes place until the 10th year group is reached, and then
the improvement is greater than at any other age among girls. The average is 198 higher than the
9 year-olds, but there are no cases in the group below 960 marks contrasted with 253 per cent.
in the previous years, and there are 72 per cent. in the above 990 group contrasted with 32 per
cent. In the last four years only slight changes take place, the most important being an increase
in the high marked girls at 12.

In marking the separate sounds, boys fail most often with Th(730.3). The initial Th, 714.1,
is the worst, Final Th gets 746'6. Ng, 829.6, is the next worst, and this almost entirely due to
final, ng, 675.5. Various sibilants all run practically the same, 983-989, whilst P, M, W, L, Y were
in all cases correctly given. The same holds generally for the girls except that the final " ng " takes
an extremely low position, 459, and that they pronounce the Th sounds much better than boys, particularly
at the beginning of a word.
It is obvious that the work of which this is only a beginning will become of great interest
when extended to children with marked defects, and of very high value indeed if the mental factors
of speech can be investigated, as has already been exemplified by the word blind and word deaf
children, but probably the following up of this enquiry will require finer methods than are applicable
in an ordinary school visit.