O'SUEA — A8PECTS OF MENTAL ECONOMY. 71 



tion in the organism. Xo effort was made to ascertain how much 

 food was eaten, for the reason principally that such a request 

 could not be complied with; and this information was not partic- 

 ularly desired anyway since there was no intention of enquiring 

 in minute detail into local practices because of the vast 

 amount of labor it would entail without being of great value. 

 What was wanted was a general -rar^ment of the articles of 

 food which form tin- substance of students' dietaries; and it was 

 thought to be sufficiently definite for the purposes of the study 

 to assume that the amount and quality of the articles consumed 

 would be such as have been commonly found to be the case else- 

 where. Regarding the subject of cooking, it was not hoped that 

 exact data could be obtained, since it would be difficult for stu- 

 dents to determine this with absolute accuracy. It was thought, 

 however, that some reliable impression could be gained, especial- 

 ly of the cooking of starchy foods and of the especial manner of 

 preparing meats. The results have realized all that was antici 

 pated, although in some instances the answers were for the most 

 part useless except as they could be interpreted from other papers 

 that were written by >tudents living under similar conditions, — 

 obtaining their food at the same table, for example, and dwelling 

 in the same house. In the interpretation of data the writer 

 makes use of his own observations gained while visiting several 

 hoarding clubs and restaurants. His experience, it may be 

 added here, has substantially corroborated the results obtained 

 from the questionnaire. 



The data furnished in response to questions relating to ex- 

 ercise, habits of eating with respect to hours and irregulari- 

 ties, the size, heating, and ventilation of living rooms, the ar- 

 rangement of the daily program, the employment of writing 

 materials and the like, are more complete and definite and are 

 reasonably satisfactory. The information respecting health, 

 however, is probably only in a relative way of value, since stu- 

 dents are not able to observe sueh matters with scientific accu- 

 racy; and they, in common with other people, are not good 

 judges of their own status in this regard anyway, since they 

 have no standard for measurement except their own expe- 



