Yale and Harvard.

In the issue of The Nation for Feb. 18th, was published a letter from Mr. Edward D. Page, a graduate of Yale, under the title, "Two Decades of Yale and Harvard - A Retrospect." It is a comparison of the history of Yale and Harvard for the last fifteen years. It would be difficult to give a clearer statement of the facts and figures than Mr. Page has done here. We copy as follows:-

"Let us compare the catalogues of both universities for 1873 with those of the present day. At that time the policy of both new administrations was beginning to influence the whole body of college students, among whom the seniors became freshmen almost with the inauguration of their new rulers. The whole number of students in the colleges - excluding the strictly professional schools - was and is as follows:

1873. 1885. Increase.

Yale, 818 856 4.6 per cent.

Harvard, 803 1,162 44.7 per cent.

It therefore appears that the rate of increase at Harvard during the past twelve years has been no less than ten times the rate at Yale. This significant fact will lead us to examine the figures more in detail. The diagram below shows the fluctuations in the whole number of undergraduate academical students for the twenty years, 1866 to 1885:

The nearly horizontal line in the lower part of this diagram shows that the increase at Yale is from 500 to 563, or 12 1-2 per cent., while the dotted line of Harvard's progress indicates an increase from 419 to 1,068. or 155 per cent. In other words, the mere gain at Harvard amounts to a greater number of students than Yale has ever had in its Academical Department! If for ten years longer these ratios of increase should remain unchanged, in 1895 Harvard College would be teaching over 1,700 students, while only about one-third of that number would seek the system of our fathers at Yale. Computed at the current rates charged for instruction at the respective colleges, Harvard will derive a revenue of $256,350 from these 1,708 students, while Yale will get but $83,580 from her 597, or an annual loss to her exchequer of nearly $175,000.

The curiosity which leads the Yale man to study the statistics of the freshman classes of the last twenty years is equally sad in its results, foreboding fewer students in future rather than more:

FLUCTUATIONS IN THE NUMBERS OF THE FRESHMAN CLASSES, 1865 - 1886.

As before, the dotted lines represent Harvard's progress, while the white line measures Yale's standstill or decline. The latter's freshman class of this year is only 134, or 22 less than entered in 1865; while 258 entered this year at Cambridge, or 133 more than twenty years ago. It is impossible to mistake the import of these figures; more students are evidently being attracted to the Massachusetts university than to the Connecticut college.

Harvard, again, is not without honor in its own country. In twelve years the undergraduate attendance from Massachusetts has increased 27 per cent., or from 475 to 606. Yale, too, shows a small increase - less than 9 per cent. - in the Connecticut contingent. It used to be the old cry that Harvard was a local institution, while Yale was cosmopolitan. In 1873 no less than 62 1-2 per cent. of the students that flocked to Yale, came from the West, the South, and the Middle States. Today the proportion is about the same. But Harvard has in the same period increased its proportion of foreigners to New Englanders from 28 to 40 per cent. of the whole number. Of this class there were 215 in 1873, 422 in 1885 - an increase of 96 per cent. At Yale the numbers have also increased, from 471 to 504, which is only 7 per cent. So we see that Harvard is getting every year a larger percentage of the best class of students - those who come from long distances in search of culture; and this in spite of Yale's immense influence in partibus alienorum, due to the fact that she has educated the great bulk of Eastern-bred men in the West and in Middle States. Wherever one travels in the West he finds ten Yale men to one Harvard man. In New York the proportion must be two to one, and only a few years since it was much greater. Yet the metropolis, which in 1873 sent 52 men to all classes in Yale College, and only 45 to Harvard, sends 79 in 1885 to the latter, and but 45 to the former. The Yale men are sending their boys to Harvard!

The resident graduates of a college are an index to the enthusiasm which its work inspires. In 1873 there were 60 of these at Yale; now there are but 42. Harvard in 1873 had 55 post-graduates; in 1885 the number had increased to 72. During this period the pecuniary allurements of post-graduate study had increased at New Haven over 300 per cent.; at Cambridge they had less than doubled.

Great parade has been made of the increase in the teaching staff of Yale College. In 1873 there was 80, now there are 114 instructors - an increase of 42 1-2 per cent. At Harvard they have increased from 100 to 184, which nearly doubles Yale's percentage. Yale claims to have erected in fifteen years buildings costing $700,000. Harvard, between 1869 and 1881, used $2,307,305 for the same purpose. It is customary for Yale apologists to put forward many excuses for the college, which allege lack, not only of funds, but of any spirit among alumni that comes, forward to ease the pecuniary path of their alma mater. But the graduates have never been asked to give: they are more often treated as interlopers in college affairs than persons whose support or backing is desirable. Yale men who will take the trouble to read Mr. Henry C. Kingsley's contribution to the November number of the New Englander and Yale Review, can easily learn the disposition of the "powers that be" toward the body of the alumni."

Mr. Page closes by saying that what Yale needs most, is a new sort of President. "He must be a man of commanding executive ability, proficient in pedagogy, a sound economist, unhampered by the details of professional drudgery."