Universities, Research and Brain Waste 9 



The indications are that Great Britain will, in the near future, realize 

 more largely on her latent intellectual resources than she has done in 

 the past. To compete with Germany in technically trained men, how- 

 ever, she will have to increase the flow of students from the secondary 

 schools to the universities and higher technical institutions by every 

 means at her command. Mr. Fisher's education bill will help greatly 

 to that end when it comes completely into force 7 years hence. Under 

 its provisions a pupil who has reached 14 years of age will have the 

 alternative of continuing his studies on full time for 2 years longer or of 

 studying part time until he reaches 18. This will bring him to within 

 sight of entrance to the university. The indications as to who should 

 take a university course ought to stand out fairly definitely by this time 

 and the scholarships referred to above will, no doubt, make their appeal 

 to the ambitious student. 



In a recent number of Nature,* Professor R. A. Gregory has given 

 some figures with regard to the relative attendance at Universities in 

 England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the United States and Germany, 

 from which a little analysis will draw rather interesting conclusions. 

 The number of university students per ten thousand population is 

 approximately 14 in Germany, 10 in the United States, 5 in England, 17 

 in Scotland, 7 in Ireland, 6 in Wales. In giving the figure for the United 

 States, Professor Gregory has based it on the 72 universities on the 

 accepted list of the Carnegie Foundation. In Canada, as a whole, the 

 figure would be about 15 and in Ontario it would bulk somewhere in the 

 neighbourhood of 25. Here no account has been taken of the difiference 

 in standards for entrance to the universities in different countries or 

 of the difference of age at which the student is prepared to enter. In 

 Germany the average age at which the student leaves the gymnasium is 

 between 20 and 21. In Great Britain the usual age of entrance to a 

 university is between 17 and 18, except in the case of Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge where it is between 19 and 20. With us the normal age of matri- 

 culation is 18 and it is about the same in the United States. Taking 

 these facts into account it will be seen that most of that which passes as 

 university work in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States would 

 be of gymnasial standard in Germany. If we would compare the num- 

 ber of students in the several countries, on the basis of the university 

 standard in Germany, we would probably not be doing injustice to any 

 of the other countries concerned by giving for every 10,000 of population 

 the figures 14 in Germany, 3 in the United States, 3 in England, 6 in 

 Scotland, 3 in Ireland, 2 in Wales, 5 in Canada, 8 in Ontario. 



*August 15, 1918. 



