Scores on mental ability and academic skills for 1958 and 1978 of representative sample of grade 4 and 7 classes in Saskatchewan were compared. The selected students were administered appropriate levels of the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Tests, and the Canadian Tests of Basic skills in vocabulary, reading, language skills (spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and usage), and mathematics skills (concepts and problem solving). Results indicated that the mental ability of children has substantially improved, and that in academic skills the performance in 1978 is at least equivalent to that in 1958. Factor analyses of the grade 4 and 7 intercorrelation matrices produced in each case only one principal factor which suggests that the underlying ability necessary for the various academic and ability tasks is similar. The kind of score analysis necessary for determining the status of basic skills should not be the total score analysis, but a skill profile analysis. For a meaningful skill profile comparison to emerge, it is necessary that the learning criteria of the skills for the two points in time are known precisely. This was not the case in this study. (Author/RL)