HIGH-GRADE MEN: IN COLLEGE AND OUT. 433 



the graduates as a whole (e) greater than for their high grade men 

 (d), and these colleges had so few alumni mentioned in 'Who's Who' 

 as to give their figures but little weight in a statistical study of this 

 nature. 



The names in the two books furnishing our data, considered in still 

 another relation, tend to corroborate the conclusion already arrived at. 

 In column / of the table is shown the percentage of graduates which 

 each college, so far as I have been able to secure the figures, elects to 

 Phi Beta Kappa. It will be seen that there is no common custom and 

 that the variation is considerable. Each represents, however, the pro- 

 portion of high-grade men, according to our criterion, among its living 

 alumni, and, consequently, the proportion we might expect to find 

 among its representatives in 'Who's Who,' if high grade in college has 

 nothing to do with one's expectancy of place in that book. The aver- 

 age percentage of such for all the colleges considered, as shown at the 

 foot of the column, is 15.7.* The next column, however (g), shows the 

 percentages of such men who have actually received such honorable 

 mention, and in the two we have the basis for another comparison: 

 that between representation based upon the numerical expectancy of 

 the high-grade college men (an average of 15.7 for all the colleges) and 

 upon their actual achievement (39.3 per cent.). The comparison is 

 certainly an encouraging one to the high-grade men, showing as it does 

 that they have surpassed their mathematically computed expectancy by 

 more than 150 per cent. 



I have been able, through the courtesy of officers connected with 

 two of the larger New England colleges, to supplement this study of 

 Phi Beta Kappa graduates by one based upon the exact standing in 

 class, of each one of their alumni mentioned in 'Who's Who.' This 

 enables us to determine not only the percentage of high-grade men 

 receiving mention, but also the distribution of the rest through the 

 lower grades of the class. I had hoped to make this study cover a larger 

 number of institutions, but have been unable to secure the data. The 

 figures for the two are as follows : 



Total number of living alumni 13,705 



Total number mentioned in ' Who's Who ' 303 



Percentage mentioned in ' Who's Who ' 2.2 



Percentage mentioned, of those who graduated in first tenth 



of class 5.4 



Percentage mentioned, of those who graduated in second 



tenth of class 2.9 



Percentage mentioned, of those who graduated in third 



tenth of class 2.5 



Percentage mentioned, of those who graduated in fourth 



tenth of class 1.8 



* Percentages in the column ' weighted ' in terms of living graduates. 

 vol. lxii. 28. 



