December 8, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



731 



preciable falling off in the percentage of 

 western students in attendance on eastern 

 institutions, and this statement is borne out 

 at Yale, for example, this year, the univer- 

 sity reporting gains in the west and north- 

 west, and the same increase holds true for 

 Columbia, In the case of the latter insti- 

 tution, the erection of dormitories is no 

 doubt partly responsible for this growth 

 in the number of students hailing from the 

 middle and far west. Unquestionably the 

 low tuition fees at the western state insti- 

 tutions are responsible in large measure 

 for the consistent gains made by most of 

 these institutions in the matter of attend- 

 ance. 



The statistics given on page 730 are, with 

 minor exceptions, approximately as of ISTo- 

 vember 1, 1905, and relate to the registra- 

 tion at twenty-one of the leading universi- 

 ties throughout the country. I wish again 

 to point out that the higher institutions 

 here repr£sented are not the twenty-one 

 largest nor the twenty-one leading univer- 

 sities of the country. The figures have in 

 every case been secured from the proper 

 officials of the university concerned. At 

 the majority of the institutions the final 

 enrolment at the close of the year will no 

 doubt be in excess of the figures given in 

 the table, but changes of this nature made 

 in the course of the academic year are as a 

 rule not of sufficient magnitude to influ- 

 ence the general result. A number of 

 newspapers have published comparative 

 tables this fall" which have been thoroughly 

 misleading, inasmuch as they were based 

 upon returns that were altogether too early. 

 To mention just one illustration, an article 

 in the Boston Transcript for October 14, 

 1905, enumerated the American universi- 

 ties having the largest student enrolment 

 (exclusive of the summer session registra- 

 tion) in the following order: Michigan, 

 Harvard, Minnesota, Columbia, Pennsyl- 



vania, California, Yale, Cornell, etc. ; 

 whereas the later figures show that it should 

 have been Harvard, Michigan, Columbia, 

 Minnesota, Cornell, Illinois, Pennsylvania, 

 Yale, etc. 



According to the figures of 1904, the 

 twenty-one universities included in the 

 comparison ranked as follows: Harvard, 

 Columbia, Chicago, Michigan, Minnesota, 

 Cornell, California, Wisconsin, Illinois, 

 Pennsylvania, Yale, Northwestern, Ne- 

 braska, Syracuse, Ohio State, Missouri, 

 Leland Stanford, Princeton, Indiana, 

 Johns Hopkins and Virginia. Comparing 

 this with the 1905 order, we notice that 

 there has been no change in the relative 

 positions of the six universities having the 

 largest total enrolment, that is, counting in 

 the summer session registration. Illinois, 

 however, has passed California, although 

 the registration at the two universities is 

 practically identical. The fact that Yale 

 has passed the University of Pennsylvania 

 is due to the establishment of a summer 

 session at the former institution, but there 

 is very little difference in the enrolment of 

 the two universities. The Wisconsin fig- 

 ures for this year do not include the dairy 

 students and short-course students in agri- 

 culture, which were included in previous 

 years ; this does not, however, affect the 

 relative standing of the institution as to 

 numbers. Northwestern occupies its old 

 position and Syracuse has passed Nebraska. 

 Ohio State, Missouri and Leland Stanford 

 occupy the same relative positions as last 

 year, while Indiana has passed Princeton, 

 although the difference in enrolment of the 

 two institutions is quite small. Omitting 

 the summer session registration, the order 

 would be as follows: Harvard, Michigan, 

 Columbia, Minnesota, Cornell, Illinois, 

 Pennsylvania, Yale, California, North- 

 western, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Chicago, 

 Nebraska, Ohio State, Missouri, Leland 



