GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF DARTMOUTH STUDENTS
EDITORIAL NOTE. The following interesting study is particularly valuable for comparative purposes with a similar study made and published by Professor Warren M. Persons in the Dartmouth Bi-Monthly for April. 1907. It is recognized that the median point here discovered makes no allowance for the variation in mileage distances to the north and south or east and west of the median point in the homes of the individual students. It may be possible at a later time to make such an investigation which would probably show a center of population to the west of that found by the method used here. The latter was used in this case, however, to make possible a comparison with the results of Professor Persons' investigation of 1907.
Dartmouth's claim to the title of a national college is substantiated by the results of a study of the territory drawn upon for students. New England no longer furnishes the bulk of the College; the average Dartmouth undergraduate today is from New York State. The Hudson River divides the student body into equal parts. Only 47% of the undergraduates claim New England as their home, as compared with 89% twenty-five years ago.
The median point of residence of the College today was found to be five miles south of Hudson, N.Y., just about four miles east of the Hudson River. This point lies 16 miles west of the Massachusetts border, and is about nine miles north of the Massachusetts-Connecticut state line. This shows that the increased representation of the states to the south has not yet wholly offset the delegations from Massachusetts and northern New England.
1923 is the only class now in college which has its center in New-England. It was ascertained that the average senior lives five miles southwest of Northampton, Mass. One might be tempted to inquire whether there were any hidden significance in this fact.
The average junior is a New Yorker, living about a mile northeast of Hudson, very near the center for the College. This shows conclusively that even before the selective process with its preferred areas in the south and west was put into operation, the College was drawing very considerably from those regions.
The center for the sophomore class lies about a mile west of the Hudson, six miles southwest of the city of Catskill, and directly north of New York City.
Surprisingly enough, the center for 1926, the first class to enter under the new selective system, lies no further west than that of 1925, owing to the great number of men from New York City. The median point is, however, six miles south, being situated in Saugerties, N.Y. This is within two miles of the Massachusetts-Connecticut state line.
This constant trend westward and southward shows very strikingly how the College has been enlarging the region from which it draws to include the entire country. It may be safely predicted that with the graduation of 1923, the last class which was preponderantly from New England, the center of the College will be shifted permanently west of the Hudson, and with the further operation of the selective system, will go far west of New York City.
The amazing change in the territory from which the students come is best shown by noting the centers which were found for the period before 1906.* In that year the class in statistics found the points for the College as follows:
1860, 6 miles west of Concord, N.H. 1870, 18 miles n.w. of Concord. 1894, Contoocook, N.H. 1896, west of Nashua, N.H. 1897, Rindge, N.H. 1898, Jaffrey, N.H. 1899, Hollis Depot, N.H. 1900, 10 miles n.e. of Fitchburg, Mass. 1901, Athol, Mass. 1902, Winchendon Springs, Mass. 1903, Chelmsford, Mass. 1904, Newell, Mass. 1905, Littleton, Mass. 1906, Concord, Mass. 1923, 5 miles south of Hudson, N.Y.
Class of 1923, 5 miles s.w. of Northampton, Mass.
Class of 1924, 1 mile n.e. of Hudson, N.Y.
Class of 1925, 6 miles s.w. of Catskill, N.Y.
Class of 1926, Saugerties, N.Y.
The method used in determining the center of distribution of the college students was as follows: A meridian was found which divided the men in halves so that as many lived east of this line as west of it; a similar east and west line was found, and the intersection of these two lines was considered the center, since equal numbers of men live north and south, and east and west of this point. In finding the north-south line, for instance, it was necessary to tabulate all the towns from which students came, and then to arrange them according to geographical position from east to west, and then count off to the middle and median man. The town he came from gave the line required. This work was done by freshman heelers for The Dartmouth, who put in approximately 100 hours tabulating the towns.
The gradual increase in the number of men coming from outside New England is shown by the following table, giving the total number of students, the number and percentage from the outside:
Year 1897 1907 1912 1917 1920 1923 Total 468 1129 1242 1501 1738 2075 Outside N.E. 66 250 443 617 812 1099 Per Cent 14 22 36 41 47 53
The states sending the largest number of students to Dartmouth have changed in their position considerably.
The most marked shifts between 1897-1923 were those of New Hampshire from first to third in spite of being a preferred area in the selective process; New York, fifth to second; and the New England states of Vermont and Maine from third and fourth respectively, to ninth and eleventh.
*See article in the Dartmouth Bi-Monthly for April, 1907.
