164 Kansas Academy of Science. 



THE LONGEVITY OF YALE GRADUATES, 



As Shown by the Publication of Living Graduates of Yale University, 1912. 



By J. T. LOVEWELL. 



A DIRECTORY of living graduates has been issued in the last 

 year from Yale University, and from it may be gleaned some 

 facts which are of interest as showing the duration of life among 

 college graduates. 



The history of Yale goes back far enough to show the extinction 

 of early classes, and we tind up to the class of 1839 all are gone; 

 and this class is represented by a single member. Dr. David F. At- 

 water, of Springfield, Mass., who at present has the distinction of 

 being the oldest living Yale graduate. His class graduated 95, 

 seventy-four years ago. The classes of '41 and '42 have each a sin- 

 gle member remaining, and the class of '40 has only two, but com- 

 ing to later dates the number increases. 



In this paper only graduates in the arts course are considered. 

 It is an interesting fact that those enrolled as graduates of Yale 

 College (bachelors of arts) number 16,812, and of these there are 

 living 8647, and deceased 8165, thus dividing the living and the 

 dead graduates of Yale into two very nearly equal numbers. 



So far the greater number is on the side of the living, but as 

 the years go on these figures are bound to shift, and most of the 

 graduates of Yale, as of all other people, will have gone to join the 

 "great majority." This condition would have been reached sooner 

 in Yale only owing to the fact that the later classes of Yale far 

 outnumber the earlier. Thus the class of '39 enrolled only 95 

 members, while the average enrollment of the last five classes is 

 over 316. 



In the accompanying table is shown opposite the date of classes, 

 beginning with 1839, the total enrollment, the number living, and 

 the percentage of the latter to the former. By making these per- 

 centages the ordinates to a curve whose abscissas mark the years 

 of graduation, we have a sort of curve which shows at a glance how 

 the expectation of life diminishes as the years roll on, and we reach 

 the ground in about seventy-five years at the farthest. At this 

 limit the graduates have attained a longevity of more than ninety 

 years. 



