762 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 674 



eral circulation of the atmosphere in Australia 

 and around the south pole. D. T. Maring, 

 " The New Jamaican Weather Service," refers 

 to the reorganization of the Jamaica weather 

 service under Maxwell Hall. 



E. DeC. Ward 

 Habvaed Univeesitt 



CONFERENCE OF STATE UNIVERSITY 

 PRESIDENTS IN THE MIDDLE WEST 



One of the greatest movements in educa- 

 tion in the nineteenth century was the 

 establishment of state universities. The 

 development of these institutions promises , 

 to be most significant in the twentieth cen- 

 tury. President Harper's sentiment, ex- 

 pressed shortly before his death, that no 

 matter how liberally the private institution 

 might be endowed, the heritage of the fu- 

 ture, at least in the west, was to the state 

 university, received confirmation from sta- 

 tistics made up in connection with the con- 

 ference of the presidents of fifteen state 

 universities in the middle west, held at the 

 University of Iowa, in Iowa City, October 

 31 to November 2. 



The institutions in the group are the 

 following: Ohio State, Indiana, Purdue, 

 Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, 

 Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Da- 

 kota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and Okla- 

 homa—the heads of public school systems 

 having an aggregate school attendance of 

 4,573,631. All but Illinois and Missouri 

 were represented by their presidents at the 

 Iowa City conference, which was the fourth 

 triennial meeting of this group of presi- 

 dents. The total attendance at the fifteen 

 state universities in 1906-7 was 34,770, or 

 some 6,000 more than the number of stu- 

 dents in attendance at fifteen representa- 

 tive eastern universities and colleges.^ 



^The eastern institutions taken for comparison 

 were Harvard, Yale, Oilumbia, Princeton, Cornell, 

 Pennsylvania, Wesleyan, Brown, Dartmouth, Am- 

 herst, Williams, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley 

 and Vassar. The institutions were selected not 



StiU more striking is the result of a com- 

 parison with the attendance of the same 

 institutions ten years ago. The attendance 

 at the fifteen state universities in 1896-7 

 was 16,414. The increase in a decade has 

 been 112 per cent. The attendance at the 

 fifteen eastern universities and colleges in 

 1896-7 was 18,331, while in 1906-7 it was 

 28,531, giving an increase of but 56 per 

 cent., or just half the percentage of in- 

 crease shown by the state universities. 

 Looking at the figures in another way, in 

 1896-7 the representative eastern schools 

 were 2,000 ahead of the group of state 

 universities in attendance, while in 1906-7 

 they were 6,000 behind. 



Thinking that the difference shown might 

 be sectional— the Mississippi Valley against 

 the east— instead of a difference in favor 

 of the state institutions, a further com- 

 parison was made between the attendance 

 at the state rmiversities and that at the 

 same number of representative private in- 

 stitutions in the states of the middle west- 

 and it was found that these private institu- 

 tions showed an increase of 58 per cent, in 

 attendance during the past decade as 

 against 56 per cent, in the eastern institu- 

 tions, and 112 per cent, in the state uni- 

 versities. 



The preceding conferences were held at 

 the University of Wisconsin in 1897, at the 

 University of Illinois in 1900, and at the 

 University of Missouri in 1903. Upon 



only as representative but as combining universi- 

 ties, colleges and women's colleges, because a few 

 of the state universities are as yet substantially 

 in the college state and because all are coeduca- 

 tional. 



= The institutions taken for this comparison 

 were Northwestern University, Drake University, 

 Oberlin College, Washington University, Ripon 

 College, Hillsdale College, De Pauw University,. 

 Hamline University, Colorado College, Washburn 

 College, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Western 

 Reserve University, Fargo College, Dakota Wes- 

 leyan University and Yankton College. 



