In the belief that the real test of adequacy of any school program is determined by what youth do after they leave school, a follow-up study was made of the graduates and drop-outs from the high schools in Colleton County, South Carolina, during the five year period 1934-39. Very few, if any, follow-up contacts had been made by the schools to find out what the graduates and drop-outs were doing; the extent to which the school helped them in what they were doing; or how the school could at present serve these young people. "Presumably the State supports public education not so much to teach formal subjects of the school curriculum as to enable boys and girls to take an effective part in the life that lies ahead of them beyond the school."1 If one of the chief functions of the secondary school is to help pupils make out-of-school adjustments to vocational, citizenship, and leisure-time activities, it would seem that one of the ways to measure the success of the school would be to make a follow-up study of youth after they leave school.
