Seventy-five per cent of
accuracy will not do in the transactions of the bank. The accounts must
balance to the penny. The figures are right or else they are wrong. There
is no middle ground. In the school the boy solves three problems but fails
with the fourth. None the less he wins the goal of promotion. Not so at
the bank. He is denied admission because of his failure with the fourth
problem. Seventy-five will not do in joining the spans of the great bridge
across the river. We must have absolute accuracy if we would avoid a wreck
with its attendant horrors. The druggist must not fall below one hundred
per cent in compounding the prescription unless he would face a charge of
criminal negligence. The wireless operator must transcribe the message
with absolute accuracy or dire consequences may ensue. The railway crew
must read the order without a mistake if they would save life and property
from disaster.
But, in the school, the teachers rejoice and congratulate one another when
their pupils achieve a grade of seventy-five. It matters nothing,
apparently, that this grade of seventy-five is a fictitious thing with no
basis in logic or reason, in short a mere habit that has no justification
save in tradition, and that, in very truth, it is a concession to
inaccuracy and ignorance. When we promote the boy for solving three out of
four problems we virtually say to him that the fourth problem is
negligible and he may as well forget all about it.
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