An unfortunate error was made in this column recently when speaking of some statistics about the numbers in this year's freshman class. Comparing the number of men drawn by the classes now in college from the west in their freshman years it was said that the number of western men in '95 is 50, while the number in '94 was 38, in '93 it was 34, and in '92 was 60. Of course this last number was a mistake; the number of western men in '92 when the class entered college was 39, and this is what it was intended to say. Our attention has just been called to the slip, and we hasten to correct it.

The editorial in which this error occurred has been made the subject of comment by the paper of the University of Michigan, which takes this occasion to ridicule our pretensions to any strength in the West. Adding the figures given by the CRIMSON this paper makes a total of western men in the freshman classes at Harvard for the past four years of 182, and goes on: "This is the total for all the West, or about four-fifths of the United States. Now look on this: At the University of Michigan last year there were 223 students from the Eastern States, or a territory of about one-fifth of the United States."

It might be remarked at this point that this one-fifth of the territory of the United States, made up of the New England States, and New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, furnishes a great deal more than half of the students in college today. But leaving this aside and attending to the figures alone. The 223 mentioned above represents the number of men in all departments of the University of Michigan; but the 182 represents only the western men in the four college classes here; and not all of them, for in the junior and senior years a great many graduates of western colleges join the classes. Some accurate figures taken from the catalogues of the two universities will be interesting. In the department of Literature, Science and Art at the University of Michigan, which includes all the students who are registered at Harvard in the college, scientific school and graduate departments, there were last year just 16 men from the New England States; and from these States together with New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey there were 60 men. In the parallel departments at Harvard there were last year from the strictly Western States 247 men; from these states and New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey there were 513 men. It is unnecessary to carry the comparison farther; and it cannot fairly be done, for the departments of the two universities are so different. The work of the School of Pharmacy of the University of Michigan, for instance, is more than covered by the work of chemical courses offered in the college here. The figures given, however, are sufficient to show that Harvard draws a substantial percentage of her students from the Western States.

It is interesting to note here that it was also the U. of M. Daily which figured that Harvard with 2613 students is not as large as the University of Michigan with 2527, because the latter institution expects to add 274 more men to her numbers before the end of the year. It may be that the loose system of registration at Michigan, which permits students to register "in large numbers until the second semester begins in February," will bring about this large addition. We should think it might. Just at present, however, Harvard leads. And if the number of students in the Summer Schools, which is not included in the total of 2613, as stated in the Daily and elsewhere, be added to that total, the number of students who have worked at Harvard this year will be over twenty-nine hundred. This will not be suppressed by any university.