The figures published in another column relative to state representation at Harvard and Yale, and the conclusions drawn from these figures will doubtless be a very great surprise to many of the students and to the public in general. It has been undeniably true in past years that, while Yale has had fewer students than Harvard, her students have yet represented more states and a larger proportion than at Harvard have come from sections of the country distant from the university. A careful study of the figures, which are taken from the Yale Banner and the Harvard Catalogue, proves beyond question that this year the conditions are exactly reversed. Dividing the country, as we have done for convenience, into four sections, the figures show that in every section Harvard leads Yale in the number of students and that in the West and South where Yale has always been supposed to be very strong, Harvard has caught up to and passed her. In other words, though both Harvard and Yale have grown, Harvard has grown more rapidly and more broadly than Yale.

The figures do not show a startling increase and their significance does not lie in the fact that they point to a sudden revulsion of feeling in favor of Harvard. They simply indicate the beginning of what will probably be a steady wideninging of the field from which Harvard will draw her students. To discover this just at this time is particularly gratifying for it shows that the skeptics and conservatives all over the country who have looked with grave concern on Harvard's elective system and noncompulsory attendance at chapel are beginning to see that these are steps in advance. Moreover, it shows that Harvard's defeats in certain branches of athletics have not done her the injury that many people feared they might. We do not publish these facts with any undue elation at the discovery; we simply believe them surprising and significant and well worth the consideration of Harvard men, graduate and undergraduate, as indicating a state of growing prosperity in the University.