454 



SCIENCE 



[N. 8. Vol. XXXIX. ISTo. 1004 



That useful and unuseful debris occurs 

 normally in the body needs not, we take 

 it, be defended, for the continual breaking 

 down of some cellular elements of short 

 life, the red blood corpuscles, for example, 

 eet free substances whose physical dimen- 

 sions enable them to be engulfed by many 

 of the cells which we have described (occur- 

 rence of blood pigment in liver, spleen, 

 lymph glands and bone marrow) but that 

 this reaction needs by no means be consid- 

 ered as one adapted for the engulfment of 

 bodies of this class is proven conclusively 

 by a number of observations made very re- 

 cently by Ciaecio and others which go to 

 show that fatty acids and lipoid substances 

 are stored by the same cells. We are con- 

 cerned then with cells of great physiologi- 

 cal importance to the organism, cells whose 

 action in this capacity, we believe, seems 

 proven to be conditioned by physical and 

 not chemical forces of response. 



Herbert M. Evans, 

 Werner Schulemann 



COMFABATIVE BEGISTBATION STATIS- 

 TICS^ 

 One of the greatest diiSculties encountered 

 in the compilation of comparative university 

 statistics is found in the apparent impossi- 

 bility of securing uniformity. This difficulty 

 is owing in large measure to two factors, one 

 quantitative and the other qualitative. An 

 illustration of the former is furnished by the 

 fact that the student attending six weeks of 

 summer session is recognized as a full unit, 

 just as much as the student of an engineering 

 school who annually puts in thirty-six hours 

 a week for two half-years and several weeks in 

 camp; and similarly a person engaged in 

 secondary teaching who registers for a single 

 late-afternoon or Saturday morning course 

 counts as a full unit just as well as a candi- 

 date for the doctorate who spends his entire 

 1 Paper presented at the annual meeting of the 

 American Association of Collegiate Registrars, 

 Eichmond, Va., 1914. 



time at the university. Again, there are the 

 students in so-called short courses, in agricul- 

 ture, for example, who receive as much recog- 

 nition as those who spend the entire year at 

 the university. As a matter of fact, the most 

 satisfactory solution along this line would be 

 found in adopting a student-hour unit, but 

 this, from the very nature of the case, would 

 be an extremely complicated procedure. A 

 simpler solution is reached by separating the 

 summer session and short course students from 

 those attending the entire year, and similarly 

 by separating the full time from the partial 

 time students. A difficulty would arise in con- 

 nection with the point at which the line be- 

 tween these two groups is to be drawn, but 

 this could readily be adjusted by agreement 

 between the institutions involved. In this 

 connection it might also be pointed out that 

 owing to the fact that many secondary schools 

 graduate classes in January as well as in June, 

 several colleges and universities are admitting 

 new students in February; they spend only 

 half a year at the institution, but are counted 

 as full units. On the other hand, the number 

 of regular students enrolling for work in the 

 summer session in order to reduce their time 

 of residence or to make up conditions is con- 

 stantly on the increase. 



So far as the qualitative distinction is con- 

 cerned, it must be borne in mind that the size 

 of a university gives no more indication of its 

 efficiency than the population of a country 

 does of its degree of civilization, or the size 

 of a city does of the morals and social welfare 

 of its inhabitants. Comparative registration 

 statistics, as they have been published by the 

 writer from time to time in Science and else- 

 where, have therefore little qualitative signif- 

 icance, inasmuch as such items as standards 

 of admission and advancement, efficiency of 

 instruction, equipment, and the like, are neces- 

 sarily ignored in the comparison. So far as 

 we are concerned in the present instance, 

 standards of admission constitute perhaps the 

 most significant item. No student should, in 

 my opinion, be counted in the enrollment of a 

 university, who has not offered graduation 

 from a secondary school for admission. For- 



