LAURENCE M. GOULD 



interpreted to show that the liberal arts colleges have played a 

 more important role quantitatively than the facts show. 



I believe The Younger American Scholar, a later study by 

 Knapp and Greenbaum, covering the years of 1946-51, por- 

 trays the role of the liberal arts college in better perspective. 

 Here is given the undergraduate origins of young American 

 scholars who have won academic distinction in graduate school 

 between 1946-51. The criteria for future scholarly promise 

 were winning of: fellowship, scholarship, or prize of graduate 

 level in open competition or attainment of Ph.D. The area of 

 scholarly achievement was divided into three broad fields: 

 science, social science, and humanities. 



The index was computed by dividing the number of male 

 scientists by the estimated total number of male graduates. Of 

 the fifty leading institutions, thirty-two were liberal arts col- 

 leges, and of the twenty institutions having highest male 

 indices in science, ten were liberal arts colleges. The twenty 

 institutions in order of excellence were: California Institute 

 of Technology, Swarthmore, Chicago, Reed, MIT, Augustana, 

 Oberlin, Johns Hopkins, Antioch, Cooper Union, Carleton, 

 Purdue, Cornell, Brooklyn, Wooster, Princeton, Berea, De- 

 Pauw, Harvard, and Beloit. The top, Caltech, had an index 

 of 38.2, Beloit one of 9.8. 



Eight institutions appear on all three lists ^science, social 

 science, and humanities), namely, Swarthmore, Reed, Chicago, 

 Harvard, Oberlin, Antioch, Carleton, and Princeton. Obvi- 

 ously, the academic climate which stimulates the production of 

 scientists is likewise hospitable to intellectual achievement in 

 other fields. 



In collecting material for this paper, I naturally picked 

 the minds of my own immediate colleagues as well as those of 

 individuals I have known in other liberal arts colleges. I asked 

 the following questions by way of getting reactions: 



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