Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/441

Rh the supposition that not one has died in all these years. Even upon this generous supposition we find that of the possibly living first-place men, 11.4 per cent, have gained that renown which we have taken as an indication of high grade in life: 12.8 per cent, of those of second college place and 8.6 per cent, for the next two places of honor. If, however, we apply the figures for the mortality tables of life insurance to the honor men of the last seventy college classes, we find that in all probability but forty-one of them have survived the three-score and ten years of baccalaureate life, and that our percentages are 19, 22 and 15 respectively. These, when compared with the 2.3 per cent, which represents the success of the alumni of the institution as a whole, should, it seems to me, go some way toward refuting the widely accepted belief that the college salutatorian and valedictorian are doomed to obliquity. The statistical evidences that the high-grade college man maintains his status in after life, which are here presented, though open to all the criticisms of the statistical method, are nevertheless in accord with our general belief of what should be. If the college course is a true preparation for life, it is but natural to expect that he who best fulfils the requirements of the former is best fitted for the latter. Were this not so, we must pronounce the preparation a failure. But the educational career is more than a mere preparation for life; it is a sample of it, cut in such a way as to show as much as possible of the figure. The elementary school course, cut small as it is, can give but little of the design of the whole piece, yet it does suggest at least its general color tone. In the secondary school one may hope to discover some few of the tracings, to gain some general idea of the figure as a whole. But in the college course, taking one as it does to the period of manhood, we may expect a sample of sufficient breadth to disclose the bolder shades and the more general designs of the whole pattern. If it does not, the trouble is with the cutting, and we should cut it differently. Seemingly the work with the educational scissors is well done, and it is a matter of no surprise that the man who matches the sample best cut matches the whole piece.