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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 652 



tliought necessary as a foundation therefor, 

 they aim to-day at diif using learning- di- 

 rectly or indirectly through all strata of 

 society, helping to bring light to any one 

 who wants it. This is especially true of 

 the western universities, which are truly 

 institutions founded by and for the whole 

 community, and which enjoy a marvelous 

 popularity. The opening of a wider door 

 to the influence of the university makes it 

 all the more important that that influence 

 should be exerted in the best possible way, 

 and hence that so far as possible it should 

 not be a local institution, but one which 

 brings together young men from all parts 

 of the country. Looked at from the point 

 of view of the public welfare rather than 

 that of the individual student alone, this is 

 so much one of the chief objects of our 

 colleges that should a general custom arise 

 for every man to attend exclusively the uni- 

 versity in his own neighborhood, it would 

 be a great misfortune to education in 

 America. One may, therefore, question 

 whether the part of the sums which the 

 General Education Board is proposing to 

 spend in fostering local institutions all over 

 the country could not be more wisely spent 

 in assisting young people to go to the 

 greater seats of learning. The strongest 

 among them would find larger opportuni- 

 ties of pursuing their studies, and they 

 would all go back with a wider outlook, a 

 better intellectual horizon, than they could 

 get at a small college nearer home. 



It may be interesting in this connection 

 to note the geographical distribution of 

 students in some typical American univer- 

 sities. It is difficult to give the figures with 

 perfect precision. In the first place be- 

 cause, as found in the publications of the 

 university itself, they sometimes include 

 the siunmer school, for example, and some- 

 times do not; and there are inaccuracies 

 arising from duplicate registration which 

 are not easy to eliminate. Nor is it always 



perfectly clear what ought properly to be 

 included in comparing the work of the 

 different universities. That the students 

 of a summer school stand on a different 

 footing from those who take the regular 

 course is evident. As a matter of fact, 

 they usually come in the main from no 

 great distance ; and hence it would be mani- 

 festly misleading in the case of a university 

 whose permanent students were very widely 

 distributed to reduce that degree of distri- 

 bution by including the figures for the sum- 

 mer school. The same thing is true of the 

 short-term agricultural courses given by 

 many of the western institutions. In com- 

 paring different universities, therefore, an 

 attempt has been made to leave out courses 

 of this sort, as well as merely evening 

 schools, while including all the branches of 

 the university where the period of study 

 covers the regular term. But as I have 

 already said, it is difficult to get figures 

 exactly, and those cited here must be looked 

 upon as merely approximate. 



Most of the largest American universities 

 have at least one student from almost every 

 state and territory in the "Union; but the 

 proportion in which they come from the 

 different parts of the country varies a good 

 deal. Taking Yale, Princeton and Har- 

 vard as types of the older institutions, 

 which are large and have flourishing under- 

 graduate departments, we find that the 

 proportion of the students who come from 

 a single state runs from 25 per cent, to 50 

 per cent., 25 per cent, being the case of 

 Princeton, which, situated in New Jersey, 

 has naturally less students from any one 

 state than Harvard in the populous com- 

 monwealth of Massachusetts. In fact, 

 Princeton draws her largest number of re- 

 cruits from Pennsylvania. Now, these 

 figures mean that in those three universi- 

 ties from one half to three quarters of the 

 students come from states other than the 

 one that supplies the largest contingent. 



