Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/560

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554
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

3. Students in arts and law exceed those in the other colleges in amusement, physical exercise and sleep. Students in agriculture exceed those in other colleges in the number devoting time to self-support, and in the amount of time thus spent.

4. Both in the university at large and within the College of Arts and Sciences, men give more time to university work than do women, whose time is the lowest of any group. Furthermore, women devote less time than men to amusement, physical exercise, sleep and self-support, but more time to meals and over an hour a day more to the miscellaneous activities recorded as unclassified.

5. Taking the university at large, the average student devotes just nine hours daily to university work, which are distributed as follows: lectures and recitations, 2.17; laboratories, 1.70; shop and field work, 0.94; outside study, 4.19. The average student sleeps 7.90 hours, devotes 2.23 hours to amusement, 1.72 to physical exercise, 1.40 to meals, 0.39 to self-support, and 1.36 hours to unclassified activities. Of these amounts, that given to university work is less than that recommended by President Schurman, precisely that recommended by President Eliot, and more than that recommended by Dean Burton; that given to sleep closely approximates the eight hours generally cited; while that given to amusement is longer, and that given to physical exercise and to meals, particularly the latter, is shorter than that recommended by any of the educators quoted.

6. Some 14 per cent, of the students give some time to occupations that assist them financially.

In conclusion, the writer suggests that similar investigations, undertaken with the modifications and precautions which this study has shown to be advisable, would afford an interesting basis for the comparison of student activities in various institutions of learning.[1]


  1. Since this article was prepared for publication, a similar study has been reported from Harvard University, but it has not been possible to incorporate a comparison of results here. According to newspaper comments, the average time given to university work was much less than that found at Cornell.