Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/613

Rh lose caste among his fellows as he does at this day. The pressure of college opinion is against dissipation. It is absolutely necessary for the athletes to abstain from it. Being taught the evil effects of excesses upon their strong men, the university is not slow to see that intemperance is a wrong and an evil for all men.

As a contribution to this part of the discussion, the accompanying diagrams are offered, as bearing on the subject of disorders. The first diagram gives, for each year of the twenty college years from 1862-'63 to 1881-'82, the percentage of the number of men expelled and suspended from the Academical department of Yale College to the membership of that department. The numbers were taken from the Faculty records, and include expulsions for all cases of disorder; all dismissals and suspensions for disorders by day or by night; for drunkenness and for marks and irregularity. Each case counts as a unit without regard to the severity of the penalty. Had more weight been allowed to one case than another, it is not likely that the results would have been materially changed, as the severe punishments of expulsion and dismissal are infrequent. No account is taken of dismissals for scholarship, the writer for, the present confining his investigations to the effects of athletics on college order. The percentages are arranged in vertical columns, one for each college year, the year being written under the column. Each square represents one fifth of one per cent (0·002). Thus, in 1862-'63, the cases of discipline were four and one tenth per cent of the total membership for that year. In the next year the cases of discipline were one and seven tenths per cent, etc. The average for the twenty years will be found to be about three per cent. For the first decade the average was a little more than three and six tenths per cent, and for the last decade a little less than two and four tenths per cent. Though a race between crews of Harvard and Yale was rowed as early as 1852, yet it was not until the summer of 1864 that the Harvard-Yale boat-race began to be the regular event which it has since continued to be. The first permission to play ball out of town was granted to the Yale Club in June, 1869, and the first permission to the Foot-ball Team was given in November, 1878. These permissions are indicated on the diagrams.

In the second diagram the expulsions, dismissals and suspensions for hazing, rushes, and attempted interference by members of one class with the liberty or property of members of another, are given by numbers. Each square represents one case of discipline. These cases, though already counted in forming Diagram No. 1, are represented in No. 2 by themselves, in order to make evident the fact that this particularly troublesome class of disorders is diminishing. The writer has already stated the reasons of his belief that the diminution of them is due in great measure to the influence of athletics.

In the opinion of the writer, the diagrams show that, whatever may be the public impression, the real facts, as evidenced by the Faculty