174 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Accepting 22.5 as the age of graduating,* graduates of 1895, 7^/^ 

 years out of college would have attained the age of 30 and must have 

 married between the ages of 22.5 and 30, so that they are comparable 

 to native males of the age group of 20 to 29, with a marriage rate of 

 27.7 per cent. The Harvard class of '95 shows a somewhat lower 

 rate, 26 per cent., but the Princeton class of the same year a very much 

 higher one — 13 per cent. The Princeton class of 1891, ten years 

 only out of college, has 75.4 per cent, of its members married, more 

 than any Harvard class as far back as '72 shows after its twenty-fifth 

 anniversary. 



These figures, though small and bearing on only a few of the many 

 colleges, certainly indicate that the male college graduate in this 

 country is not more given to solitary life than the native male of all 

 classes throughout the state and that the supposition of Eubin and 

 Westergaard for Denmark, that the marriage frequency of the profes- 

 sional class is only two thirds that of the average does not hold good 

 for the American alumnus, and probably not for the professional 

 classes of the United States. It shows that a larger per cent, of college 

 graduates marry, and those of some colleges marry in such numbers 

 that it would appear that they marry as early as does the average 

 native male, because the percentage in the earlier years is the same 

 for average males and graduates. 



The marriage rate of Harvard graduates alone differs from that 

 recorded for all alumni investigated, from Princeton, Yale, Brown 

 and Bowdoin, so that the alumnus of this institution can not well serve 

 as an exponent of the highly educated part of our population, or 

 even of the average college graduate, differing distinctly from this 

 group and less than that of the native male of the same age 

 throughout Massachusetts with a marriage rate of 79 per cent. (I 

 recall that for purpose of comparison with the 25 year graduates, I 

 have taken the age group 40 to 49 of the native population, which 

 presents the highest marriage rate, 79.02 per cent.)f 



* 22.5 years is the average age of graduating for the Princeton classes 

 1901-02, 22.6 for Yale classes 1882-92, 22.8 for Yale 1892-02; for a crude 

 average 22.5 will answer. For Harvard the age of entering is 19 with a prob- 

 able 22.9 for graduating, an approximation necessitated by the non-existence 

 of authoritative data. 



t My figures are based on a study of 4,408 alumni from leading eastern 

 colleges:- 848 graduates 7^ years out of college, 545 10 and 11 years out 

 and 3,015 25 years out, and I have been careful to record rates for all older 

 classes, i. e., graduated more than 25 years ago, as given at the time of 

 the twenty-fifth anniversary, for purposes of comparison on a just basis. This 

 explains some trifling discrepancies which may be observed between my figures 

 and others recently published. To me it seemed the only correct procedure. 

 The Harvard classes '78, '79 and '80 are reported on a 23, 21 and 20 years' 

 basis respectively, making but a slight difference, as may be seen by a study 

 of Princeton '91. 



