IN I92I the United States Public Health Service initiated a survey of absenteeism caused by sickness among the white pupils of the Hagerstown, Md., schools. The results of this investigation, which continued without interruption until I925, have been described by Collins (3, 4, 5, 6). During the school year 1935-1936 a similar survey utilizing the same technique for collecting the data was again undertaken by the United States Public Health Service but the resulting information remained inedited. Beginning with September, 1939, and as part of a program of studies concerned with various phases of the health of children and of morbidity and mortality in familial aggregates (i), the survey of the causes of absences of school children was resumed with the assistance of a National Youth Administration project.2 The principal data regarding the causes of absence for the school year 1939-I940 are now at hand and in this paper they will be compared with results published by Collins for the period December, 1921, to May, I925, and with results of the survey made in the school year I935-I936. During the years between I92I and I940 the mortality of children has declined. In addition, medical supervision of the health of school children has increased in this and other communities and, in general, medical care of children is now more readily