594 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 798 



"National" Colleges. — The number of colleges, 

 including the departments of arts and sciences of 

 universities, which receive at least two students 

 from at least twenty-five states, is fifteen. Of 

 these, five are colleges for women only, five for 

 men only, and five are coeducational. While these 

 are designated as " nationf.l," a large proportion 

 of their students come from a local territory, the 

 proportion from within fifty miles ranging from 

 twenty-three per cent, to fifty-five per cent. 



Southern Colleges. — There are five southern 

 colleges which enroll at least two students from 

 each of ten southern states. 



State Universities.— 'Ra.tuTsdlj enough, most 

 state universities serve principally the respective 

 states in which they are located. There are three 

 conspicuous exceptions; namely, the University of 

 Michigan, with forty-one per cent, of its students 

 coming from beyond state lines; the University of 

 Virginia, receiving forty per cent, of its students 

 from outside states, and the University of Wis- 

 consin, enrolling nineteen per cent, of its students 

 from beyond state boundaries. 



The state universities, as a rule, serve widely 

 their respective states; for example, the Univer- 

 sity of Indiana draws two or more students from 

 ninety of the ninety-two counties of the state; 

 the University of Illinois, from seventy-three of 

 the one hundred and two counties of the state; 

 the University of North Carolina, from sixty- 

 seven of the ninety-seven counties of the state. 



Collegeg and States.— A survey of institutions, 

 state by state, discloses the fact that only a few 

 colleges in each commonwealth secure students in 

 any considerable numbers from all parts of the 

 state; for example, in the follovsdng eleven states 

 the number of colleges which have two or more 

 students from one half of the counties of their 

 respective states are : Virginia, none ; North Caro- 

 lina, three; Georgia, none; South Carolina, three; 

 Florida, none; Tennessee, none; Pennsylvania, 

 one; Ohio, two; Indiana, two; Illinois, three; 

 California, two. Of these fifteen colleges, six are 

 state institutions. 



The New England Colleges. — The colleges of 

 New England diifer from those found where the 

 states are large. Nearly all receive students from 

 all counties of the states in which they are re- 

 spectively located, but when the field surveyed 

 is narrowed to a radius of fifty miles many of the 

 colleges are as local as any found in the United 

 States; for example, fifty per cent, of the students 

 of Bowdoin College are from within fifty miles; 

 Harvard College, fifty-two per cent.; Bates Col- 



lege, fifty-six per cent.; Brown University, sixty- 

 two per cent.; University of Vermont, sixty-five 

 per cent.; Boston University, eighty-one per cent. 

 Yale receives thirty-two per cent, of her students 

 from New England and twenty-seven per cent, 

 from New York State, making fifty-nine per cent, 

 from New England and New York State. Dart- 

 mouth receives sixty-seven per cent, from New 

 England. Other New England colleges are even 

 more local. 



General Conclusions. — From studies similar to 

 those indicated above, general conclusions are 

 drawn as follows: 



1. A few colleges, numbering less than twenty, 

 may be properly designated as " national," but 

 even those so-called " national " colleges receive 

 but a small proportion of their students from 

 distant parts of the country. 



2. A few southern colleges, numbering not more 

 than five, serve in a large way the southern states, 

 but these, likewise, are largely local. 



3. The state universities, with two or three 

 exceptions, are local within the state; but while 

 drawing few students from without, they secure 

 students from large portions of the state in which 

 they are respectively located. 



4. A very few of the private institutions are 

 found which draw two or more students from one 

 half of the counties of the state in which they are 

 located. Several states have no such colleges. 



5. All other institutions are emphatically local. 

 When these colleges are located in a city or town 

 of considerable size, one fourth to one third of 

 the students are from the town or city and from 

 fifty to eighty per cent, are from the immediate 

 vicinity.' 



Professor George D. Strayer, associate professor 

 of education in Columbia University, presented 

 the following data collected by a special inquiry 

 of the bureau of education, from 93 colleges con- 

 cerning the student body in American colleges. 



In comparing the size of freshman, sophomore, 

 junior and senior classes it is found that the 

 median per cent, of the freshman class found in 

 the sophomore class is 71 for men, 65 for women. 



The junior class shows 55 per cent, of the fresh- 

 man class as a median for men and 44 per cent, as a 

 median for women. On the same basis the median 

 for the senior class for men is 46 per cent, and 

 for women 42 per cent. The median age for 

 graduation for men is 23 years and one month. 



' The estimates are based upon the enrollment 

 of students in the four classes of the department 

 of arts and sciences. 



