Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/169

Rh higher average age of graduation than in the earlier decades, we still find no change of any significance. At the very best, or worst, the change in fifty years past has been only three months. While now, if we may use for the sake of further illustration the available data of the colleges for the decade beginning 1900, we find on an average three months less than that of 1850-59. The colleges included here are those seven which furnished for the decade 1890-99 over 81 per cent, of all graduates, and include all the colleges except New York University, Adelbert College, Middlebury College and Syracuse University.

It will be noted that all the largest colleges are included, and that of those omitted two are above and two below the average in the decade 1890-99.

We may now turn from the consideration of the tables to an examination of the plates. Plate I. shows the percentage of students actually graduating at each age—16 years to 31 years—in which last category are bunched for convenience all graduates of the age of 31 years or over—for the two decades 1850-59 and 1890-99, respectively. The upright line on the base in the twenty-second year marks the actual