Class Size and School Progress

It is generally accepted that there are limits to the efficient educative contact between pupil and teacher. The number of pupils per teacher as set by the educational theorist varies from one to thirty or forty. In practice, classes of from fifteen to thirty are the rule in private schools where expense is not an all-important determining element. In public school systems where the budget must be pruned with care, regular classes range in size from forty to fifty, with by far the largest number of classes nearing fifty and with a few classes well above that figure. Do classes of this size permit of maximum efficiency in educational work? If not, how small should classes be in order to meet efficiency requirements? And, we must add, would the increased efficiency of smaller classes warrant the additional expenditure which their establishment would necessitate?