Decembee 25, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



911 



must lie open yet awhile at least, but every 

 line of approach, however hypothetical, 

 may well be pursued if controlled by due 

 reservations. 



As remarked at the outset, many of these 

 considerations are applicable to states of 

 the earth which might have arisen at an 

 early day under any of the cosmogonic 

 hypotheses. We have given precedence to 

 one of these hypotheses partly because it 

 seems to merit a fuller exposition in this 

 particular than it has received, and partly 

 because it seems to us to present a physio- 

 graphic setting more favorable for syn- 

 thesis than would probably have arisen 

 under the alternative cosmogonic hy- 

 potheses. 



T. C. Chamberlin, 

 R. T. Chamberlin 



Univebsitt of Chicago 



UNIVERSITY REGISTRATION STATISTICS— I. 

 The registration returns for November 

 1, 1908, of twenty-five of the leading uni- 

 versities of the country will be found tabu- 

 later on page 912. One institution has been 

 added to the list this year, namely, Western 

 Reserve University. A special effort was 

 again made this year to prevail upon the 

 reporting officers to do away altogether 

 with the first item of double registration, 

 but without complete success, and it must, 

 therefore, be borne in mind that an institu- 

 tion with a large double registration in the 

 fall enrollment naturally makes a com- 

 paratively better showing in the schools in 

 which this duplication occurs, than one 

 where this item has been reduced to zero. 

 Furthermore, some difference of opinion 

 evidently still exists concerning the proper 

 classification of students enrolled in exten- 

 sion courses, evening courses, etc., for en- 

 trance upon which standards of admission 

 are, to all intents and purposes, non- 

 existent, and similarly there will be found 

 in the summer session and even in regular 



faculties, for example, in music and agri- 

 culture, students who have not completed 

 a high-school course. Then again, a few 

 institutions demand a baccalaureate degree 

 or its equivalent for admission to one or 

 more of their professional schools, as 

 Harvard does for law, medicine, theology 

 and engineering, Johns Hopkins for medi- 

 cine, and. Columbia for law, whereas at 

 certain other institutions admission to the 

 professional schools rests practically on a 

 high-school graduation basis. Another 

 factor that must not be overlooked is the 

 difference in the number of partial stu- 

 dents in attendance on various institu- 

 tions : Columbia and Chicago, for instance, 

 are apt to have more than Princeton or 

 Stanford, and this circumstance should not 

 be lost sight of in preparing figures in- 

 tended to show the proportion of officers 

 to students. All of these points are men- 

 tioned in order to emphasize once more the 

 fact that the figures herewith presented 

 have, from the very nature of the case, 

 little qualitative significance, inasmuch as 

 such items as standards of admission and 

 advancement, efficiency of instruction, 

 equiphient, and the like, are necessarily 

 ignored in the comparison. The figures 

 have in every instance been furnished by 

 the proper reporting ofiicer, who has, in a 

 number of cases, added interesting in- 

 formation about the development of the 

 institution involved during the year just 

 past. 



Comparing the figures for 1908 with 

 those of the previous year, it will be seen 

 that, in spite of the prevailing economic 

 depression, only two institutions. Harvard 

 and Stanford, show a slight loss in enroll- 

 ment, whereas two years ago five suffered a 

 decrease. Taking the total attendance into 

 consideration, i. e., including the summer 

 session, the gTcatest gains in terms of stu- 

 dent units have been made by Chicago, Co- 

 lumbia, Wisconsin, Indiana, Pennsylvania, 



