College Rank and Distinction in Life

THERE is a tradition in England — very wholesome for undergraduates — that university honors are a premonition of an eminent career. They are even associated in the popular mind with cabinet office, and men point to Peel. Palmerston, Gladstone, Lowe, Northcote, Harcourt, and many more, to prove that the general impression is well founded. The list includes, indeed, most of the great figures in English public life during the Victorian era who were graduates of Oxford or of Cambridge. Nor are we entirely without similar examples in this country. If we take the alumni of Harvard, and classify as honor men those who stood in first seventh of their class, who received honors at graduation in any special subject, or who won a Bowdoin Prize; then in the honor list of Harvard there figure the President of the United States, the only Harvard men in his Cabinet and in the Supreme Court, the Ambassador to England, and the last Governor of the Commonwealth who graduated from the college. Nor would it be difficult to cite many examples among the successful professional and business men. Yet, the impression is certainly common here that high scholars rarely amount to much afterwards, and that the competitive trial of life does not begin until college days are past. It seems worth while, therefore, to determine by statistics the relation between rank in college and success in after life. Attempts to do this have been made of late, and one of them has recently been published under the title High-Grade Men; In College and Out, by Professor Edwin G. Dexter, in the Popular Science Monthly for March, 1903. In it the author compares the subsequent careers of the members of the Ф B. K. — the society of high scholars — with the careers of other graduates, and he gives figures, taken from twenty-two colleges, to the effect that the proportion of the former who have proved to be high-grade men in the world is nearly three times as large as that of the graduates taken as a whole.¹ He examines, also, two large New England colleges, the percentage of whose living graduates that have achieved success is 2.2, and shows that the percentage among the men who ranked in the first tenth of their class is 5.4; while in the second tenth it is 2.9; in the third tenth, 2.5; in the fourth and fifth, 1.8 ; and in the rest of the class, 1.9. In one of these colleges he considers the first four scholars in each class, and finds that their percentage of success is very much larger still.

As his test of success in life Professor Dexter has relied upon the names that appear in Who ’s Who in America. No doubt, like every other compilation of the kind, this book leaves out many people who ought to be included, and inserts many names that ought to be left out; but in dealing with a large number of cases such personal errors affect the validity of the result very little, unless they are caused by some systematic error, some false standard or criterion in estimating men. Now the editors of this work intended it to be a catalogue of all men of mark in the country, and yet, if used for the purpose of measuring success in life, it is certainly subject to a systematic error. While it attempts to include every man who has achieved a position of great eminence of any kind, it pays far more attention to success in some fields than in others. Its list covers all authors, an undue proportion of college professors, and perhaps for our purpose too many men, also, who hold high public office in the nation or in the state. Hence, as a measure of success in life, it tends to favor those who devote themselves to scholarship or public affairs as compared with men who expend their energies on professional, and especially on mercantile pursuits. It gives particular prominence to scholarship, and as this is an occupation for which high scholars in college are peculiarly fitted, the book cannot be considered a fair test of the relation between college rank and general success in after life. So far as mere fame is concerned, however, the position is somewhat different. The reputation won in the practice of a profession or in business fades more rapidly than that achieved by the pen or hy public service. The writers and statesmen of half a century ago have been forgotten far less than the successful lawyers, doctors, and merchants. Who ’s Who is, therefore, a much better test of distinction than of success in life ; although in any case the results it yields must be looked upon as approximate, not absolute. At present, however, it is the only statistical measure that can be applied, and hence the figures taken from it have no little value, even if we cannot regard them as numerically exact.

Bearing these facts in mind, an effort has been made to discover the relative distinction in after life, as shown by Who’s Who,² of those men who were scholars or athletes at Harvard as compared with other graduates of the college. With that object the records of the classes have been studied from 1861 to 1887 inclusive. The first of these classes was taken as the point of departure, because from that date the rank lists were easily found, and because if we go further back the proportion of members who have died becomes large. On the other hand, the reasons for ending with the class of 1887 were the fact that after that year the practice of ranking the high scholars in numerical order was given up, and the consideration that a very small part of the graduates would have an opportunity to attain distinction within less than fifteen years after leaving college.

The total number of men who graduated from Harvard College during the twenty-seven years, 1861-87, was four thousand and eleven, of whom three hundred and one, or one in thirteen and three tenths, are named in Who ’s Who. The chance, therefore, that the average graduate will attain the distinction that this implies is one in thirteen and three tenths. Or — since a number of the graduates have died — it would be more accurate to say that this fraction represents the average chance that he will be living and possessed of such dignity some thirty years after graduation. Inasmuch, however, as there is no reason to suppose that the mortality of high and low scholars, athletes and others, is markedly different, the deaths may be neglected for purposes of comparison, and it will be convenient to speak of the chance of distinction in terms of the ratio of the total number of graduates to those in Who ’s Who at the present day.

If now we turn to the high scholars, and take the men who graduated in the first seventh of their classes during the same period, we find that they number five hundred and seventy-three, of whom eighty-two are in Who’s Who; so that their chance of distinction is a trifle better than one in seven, or nearly twice as great as that of the average graduate. Moreover, if, instead of comparing them with the whole body of graduates, we compare them only with the men in the remaining six sevenths of the class, we find that the chance of the latter is one in fifteen and seven tenths, or decidedly less than half as great as that of the men in the first seventh of the class.

One would naturally suppose that the chance of the very highest scholars would be better still, and so in fact it is. Out of the twenty-seven first scholars there are seven, or more than one in four, in Who ’s Who ; out of the second scholars, three; of the third scholars, five; and of the fourth scholars, six. These numbers are, of course, so small that accident plays a large part in the result; but, speaking roughly, it may be said that the chance of distinction for any one of the first four scholars is about one in five, as against one in seven for the men in the first seventh of the class, and about one in sixteen for the rest of the class.

In considering the causes of the greater chance of distinction among the high scholars, many elements must be taken into account. The large proportion of men with university honors among the prominent English statesmen is due, in no small degree, to the fact that their honors opened to them while young the doors of the House of Commons, and an early start has always been an enormous advantage in a parliamentary career. Lord Palmerston quotes his tutor as saying to him, at about the time he came of age, that having done exceedingly well in his examinations he ought to expect shortly a seat in Parliament; and, in fact, he obtained one before long. It is impossible to compute how many Lord Palmerstons the State Department has lost by our failure to imitate this salutary tradition. In America, and certainly at Harvard, college rank is no help to a man in starting either in public life, in a profession, or in business. Rank is, no doubt, a help toward an academic post, and thus assists indirectly to the literary eminence which is most noticed in Who ’s Who ; but this alone is clearly not enough to account for the difference in subsequent distinction between the high scholars and their classmates. To some extent, at least, the college career of the high scholars works as a principle of selection, or as a preparation, of the fittest. The high scholar wins distinction in after life mainly because he is naturally better fitted, or because his training makes him more fit, to win it. Both of these things are probably true. The taking of rank is a test of natural qualities, and tends also to develop those qualities. It is, in fact, impossible to distinguish between the two; nor is it necessary for our purpose to do so, seeing that their results are the same.

Let us suppose — to make the matter plain — that to bring distinction four things must be combined. Let us say industry, intelligence, adaptability, and opportunity, and that the average chance that any one of them falls to a man’s lot is one half. Then the chance that all four will be combined is one in sixteen. This would be the chance of distinction for the average man. But if we know that a man possesses one of them, the chance of his having the other three is one in eight, and this would be that man’s chance of distinction. If he possess two the chance of his having the other two, and therefore his chance of distinction, is one in four. Now, let us suppose that the fact of ranking in the first seventh of the class shows that a man possesses, or has acquired, industry. In that case his chance of distinction would be one in eight, or twice as great as that of the average member of the class. If in the same way we suppose that the first scholar in the class must possess both industry and intelligence, his chance would be one in four, or four times as large as the average chance of his classmates. Of course the problem is by no means so simple as our suppositions would make it appear. The possible combinations of qualities and accidents that will bring distinction are indefinitely variable and complex. Nor are these qualities independent of one another, for the presence of one quality affects the probability of the existence of another; so that even if we knew the average chance of the presence of each separate element, it would be well-nigh impossible to calculate the chance of a successful combination. Still, the principle is true, although we cannot apply it by means of vulgar fractions, and the known presence of one or more important qualities increases a man’s chance above the average — and the more he possesses the better his chance.

But it may be suggested that while all this is true, while it is admitted that the high scholars possess industry, and that it is an element of chance in their favor, they have no monopoly of it. There are many men in the class who possess it, and other valuable qualities besides, but who do not feel impelled to display them in the form of a struggle for marks. Their gifts may be exercised on other objects in which they are interested, or may not be called forth at all until college days are over and men are aroused by contact with the problems of the outer world. The conclusion deduced is that rank as an indication of future achievement amounts to little or nothing. Herein lies a fallacy. It is the fallacy which gives rise to the common belief that because a first scholar is rarely the most distinguished man in his class, and is commonly not distinguished at all, therefore he has no better chance of distinction than any one else. It is the old fallacy of the favorite and the field. The favorite may have a better chance than any one of the other horses, and yet the odds may be that some horse will beat him. If, as most people unconsciously do, we compare the chances of the first scholar on one side, and all the rest of the class on the other, the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the latter. But if we were to compare the chances of the first scholar and those of any other one man, let us say the fiftieth scholar, it would be easy to show that the chances of the first scholar were very much the better; and, in fact, the impression left on the mind after such a comparison would probably be that the particular man selected — the fiftieth — attained distinction with singular rarity. To revert to the numerical example. If the chance of distinction of the first scholar is one in four, and that of the average student is one in sixteen, then, if the class contains one hundred and sixty men, their collective chances are forty times as great as that of the first scholar; and yet his chance is four times as great as that of the average student, or of any single student drawn by lot.

Another common fallacy arises from comparing the test of rank with other tests, such as the opinion of a man’s comrades. It is often said that this last is the better test, and the inference is often unconsciously drawn that the former is of no value. The error here is obvious. Rank may prove the presence in one man of certain requisite qualities, and hence an unusual chance of distinction, and yet the presence of the same or other qualities may be known by different means to exist in an even higher degree in some other man, whose chance is therefore better still; but this in no way affects the fact that both are in better case than the average man.

So far our statistics have been drawn only from the general rank list, but very valuable results may be obtained from the honors won in special fields of college work. The Bowdoin Prize for an English essay is an old institution at Harvard, and while far less work is needed to win it than to attain a high general average of marks for the whole college course, it requires a serious effort for a time and abilities of a high order. During the years under consideration, — that is, from 1861 to 1887, — one hundred and thirty-three men won this prize, of whom twenty-nine, or one in four and six tenths, are to be found in Who ’s Who. Their chance is, therefore, nearly as good as that of the first scholar in the class.

Still more interesting are the results to be derived from a study of the honors given at graduation for excellence in special subjects, such as classics, philosophy, history, etc. These were established first in 1869, and during the nineteen years from that time through 1887 they were obtained by three hundred and seventy-five men, of whom seventy-one, or one in five and three tenths, are in Who ’s Who. Some of these men, for supposed peculiar merit, were given highest honors; and of the eighty-one students who attained to that grade, no less than twenty-nine, or more than one in three, are in Who ’s Who. In order to compare these results with those already found by a study of the general rank list it is necessary to revise our figures by taking them for the same nineteen years ; because the graduates of those years, being more recent, have naturally reached a somewhat smaller share of distinction than the classes that have been longer out of college, although the difference is not, in fact, great. The proportion of men in Who’s Who from the different categories of graduates in the classes from 1869 to 1887, inclusive, is as follows: —

From this table it will be seen that scholarly attainment of every kind in college tends to be followed by distinction in after life, though not to an equal degree. The proportion of names in Who ’s Who is decidedly larger among the men who took honors in special subjects than among men, to about the same number, taken in the order of rank on the general scale. It is one in five for the former, but it is only one in seven for the first seventh of the class. In fact, the proportion among the men with special honors is nearly equal to that of the first four scholars, although the former are five times as numerous. For the students who graduate with highest honors the chance of distinction is extraordinary. It is better than one in three, being about the same as that of the first scholars for these nineteen years, and much above that of any other men. We are irresistibly led to the conclusion that the work done for honors in a special subject is a better preparation, or a better test of ability, than that which confers rank on the general scale. It is probably safer to regard it as a better test of ability, and the reasons why it should be so are evident to any one familiar with the methods of instruction and examination. Mere talent for acquisition, quickness, and memory count somewhat less, while thoroughness, power of reasoning, and originality count for more.

The same remark applies to the Bowdoin Prize, for, taking the whole period from 1861 to 1887, this gives a chance of subsequent distinction almost equal to that of the first scholar, and better than that of any other class of men save the winners of highest honors.

One would naturally suppose that the question of pecuniary aid might have an important bearing upon the relation of rank in college to distinction in life. At Harvard, where undergraduate scholarship has met, unfortunately, with scant recognition among one’s fellows or in the outer world, the ordinary man has little inducement to study for marks; but the scholarships are allotted mainly by rank, and hence the student in need of aid must work hard in his courses in order to obtain it. Under such conditions one might expect to find that the men of means who took high rank were gifted with a peculiar energy and love of work that would give them an advantage over other high scholars who studied because they were obliged to do so. But this does not appear to be the case. Of the men in the first seventh of the class, about three fifths held money scholarships during the years from 1861 to 1887, and the proportion of them in Who’s Who is almost the same as that of the other two fifths who had no such inducement to work. Either the struggle on the part of the scholarship men to get to college and remain there works as a selection of the really vigorous, or the discipline involved develops a strength of character that stands them in good stead throughout their life.

But, after all, the scholar is not the only type of man of mark in college whose subsequent career is worth following. The athlete is a far more prominent figure. What is the relation between his fame in college and his distinction in after life ? In undertaking to examine the question the writer believed, and expected to find, that any success in college, intellectual or physical, would be an indication of natural vigor, and therefore increase to some extent the chance of distinction in any subsequent career; but this proves to he true only in part. In the case of the three great athletic bodies, the crew, the baseball nine, and the football eleven, we have no data to work with so accurate as those which the college rank lists furnish in regard to scholars, because until very recent times their records of membership were not carefully made and preserved. Still, it is believed that the lists compiled by Mr. Thompson, of the Harvard Union, are so nearly correct that any errors are not likely to affect the general result.

Take first the crews. We find that during the twenty-seven years from 1861 to 1887 they comprised eighty-two different men, of whom six, or one in thirteen and two thirds, are in Who ’s Who. This, it will be observed, is very nearly the same as the proportion for the total graduates of the college during the same period, and it has remained fairly constant throughout. The members of the crew would appear, therefore, to have about the same chance of the kind of distinction implied in Who ’s Who as the average members of the class. That is, intellectually speaking, they are neither better nor worse than their classmates. When we come to the captains of the crew, we should expect to find men chosen on account of superior force or intelligence. We should, therefore, expect them to win a greater share of distinction in the world than the average of their classmates; and this proves to be the fact. Of the seventeen captains of the crew during the twenty-seven years in question, three, or one in five and two thirds, are to be found in Who ’s Who. The numbers dealt with are, of course, so small that accident plays a very large part, — a part large enough to make the results untrustworthy as a basis for any theory. Still, so far as they go, they would indicate that the chance of the kind of distinction implied by Who ’s Who is as great for the captains of the crew as for the high scholars in the class, and the men who take special honors, and greater than for the average of the men who rank in the first seventh of the class. So far, our results are not very different from those we might have been led to expect; but when we turn to the other teams we reach quite different conclusions.

Baseball began with the class of 1866, and from tiie twenty-two classes down to and including 1887 there were drawn one hundred and two members of the nine, of whom seven, or one in fourteen and a half, are included in Who ’s Who. At first sight this seems to show that, intellectually speaking, the members of the nine have been fair average specimens of the class; but when we examine the matter a little more closely we find that a great change has taken place. Six out of the seven baseball men whose names appear in Who ’s Who belong to the three classes of 1867, 1868, and 1869. During the eighteen years that followed there were seventy-two players on the nine, of whom only one is in Who’s Who. The contrast is very surprising until we examine more carefully the names of the men who played upon the nine in the early days. In the four classes from 1866 to 1869, there were thirty members of the nine, of whom six, as we have said, or one in five, are in Who ’s Who; but these were days in which scholars played upon the nine. In fact, one member of the nine in each of five consecutive classes in those days was in the first seventh of his class; and of the thirty men already mentioned, three were in the first seventh of their class, while two more took special honors; and thus it happens that of the six men in Who ’s Who in the first four years, four are men who distinguished themselves by scholarship in college. Since that time the scholars have ceased to play ball, or the nine have ceased to study; for, of the one hundred and eleven men recorded as members of the nine from 1872 through 1898, there was only one man who took honors in any subject, no man who won a Bowdoin Prize, and through 1887 (when the rank list was given up) only one man in the first seventh of his class.

Perhaps the reason for such a change may be found in the very improvement of the game. A higher amount of skill is required than of old, and this means more training and more time expended. So that while it was possible in the early years for men like James Barr Ames, Francis Rawle, and Francis Greenwood Peabody to be proficient both with bats and books, this has become well-nigh an impossibility to-day.

The case of the baseball captains is even more surprising. Their names are not given for the first few years; but from 1874, when the list begins, down to the present day, there does not appear in Who ’s Who the name of a single captain of the nine.

The record of the football team tells much the same story, except that it opens after the days were passed when men combined scholarship with athletics. Mr. Thompson’s football records start with the class of 1874; and from that time through 1887 there were ninety-three members of the eleven, of whom three, or one out of thirty-one, are found in Who ’s Who ; while of the seven captains, not one appears in that work. Of late years the result has been more promising, for of the fifty-five men who have been upon the team from 1888 to 1898, two are in Who ’s Who, and one of these was a captain. As in baseball after the early years, so among the football men the record of scholarship at college has not been brilliant. In all the years from 1874 to 1898 there were, out of the one hundred and fortyeight men upon the team, only two men who took special honors, two who took a Bowdoin Prize, and two who were in the first seventh of the class. In one case, however, all three kinds of honors were attained by the same man. So that out of the one hundred and fortyeight. men, four attained some distinction in scholarship. Curiously enough, no one of the four appears in Who’s Who.

These statistics would tend to show that while the chance of the kind of distinction recorded in Who ’s Who is about the same for the crew as for the average of the class, and is much greater for the captains of the crew, it is for the football and baseball men far less than for the average graduate. Such a result cannot be attributed entirely to the fact that high scholars no longer play upon the nine or upon the eleven, for this is equally true of the crew. In fact, from 1861 to 1898 no member of the crew won a Bowdoin Prize, or stood in the first seventh of his class, and only one took final honors in any subject; but the oarsmen proved in other ways that they possessed in as great a degree as the average of the class the qualities that make for distinction. Why should not this be true of the baseball and football men also?

To contrast the proportion of college athletes and high scholars found in Who’s Who might well be thought unfair on the ground that the criterion of eminence used in that book tends to favor scholarship as compared with success in the professions or in business, and tends, therefore, to give a distinct advantage to men who were scholars in college. This might explain, in part at least, why the high scholars should appear in Who ’s Who in greater numbers than the athletes; but it does not explain why the athletes should appear in it less than the average graduate. There is no obvious reason why the athletes should not distinguish themselves in later life, whether through scholarship or otherwise, as frequently as the other members of the class who are not scholars. If they do not do so it would seem that a principle of selection must be at work in the case of the nine and the eleven which eliminates men of intellectual abilities and tastes. The time that one must devote to such sports is greater than in the case of the crew, and this apparently discourages men who have other interests.

That the members of the teams should attain in after life a smaller share of distinction than the average of their classmates, by whatever criterion it is measured, was a surprise to the writer, and is certainly a matter for regret. It is one of many indications that athletics have become too much an end in themselves, distinct from the current of college life; that the pursuit has become so absorbing, the amount of practice required so great, as to entail a sacrifice of other things in order to play on the team. This is due partly to the professional character of all American sports, which tend peculiarly to the development of a very high degree of technical skill, and partly to a distribution of the college year which throws work and play into the same periods. Division of labor, and specialization of occupation, is an important element in the progress of the world, but men can carry it too far in the training of their brains and bodies in college.

A. Lawrence Lowell.