Week Chosen.—It is, of course, difficult to select a week for purposes like the present which shall be entirely typical and free from circumstances which tend to produce distortion in one direction or another. The week December 7-12 was sufficiently removed from the influence of the usual written tests, examinations and generally unsettled conditions of the week just preceding the Christmas recess, and might be regarded as a typical winter week, save that the unusually good skating increased the time of many students for physical exercise. Probably, however, the average for physical exercise is no greater than that expended during warmer weather when tennis, rowing, baseball, walking and other forms of sport and recreation combine to entice the student from his work, so that physical exercise may be considered, after all, as not far from normal in amount.
On the other hand, the amount of field work in civil engineering and agriculture is necessarily somewhat low during any winter week. A few students in chemistry reported university work slightly less than normal owing to a change from qualitative to quantitative analysis, while a few other students in various courses reported an excess of university work due to preparation for tests or preliminary examinations in one or two studies. But such disturbances are slight and tend to counterbalance one another.
Omission of Sunday.—The investigation may possibly be considered incomplete because it embraces but six days of the week.[1] Two reasons contributed to this. In the first place our object was merely to obtain the average daily time distribution of college students, and the daily routine of college work is maintained during the six week days only. Secondly, if Sunday were to be included, additional categories would have been necessary, and a separate tabulation of the week-day totals and of the Sunday items—all of which would entail labor quite out of proportion to the results achieved.
Moreover, it is not difficult to see, in the light of remarks appended by numerous students, that Sunday would have an influence significant for us in one respect alone, viz., the time credited to outside study. It is unfortunate that no attempt was made to obtain quantitative estimate of this time. We might, perhaps, add some two hours to the weekly average for outside study (and university work).[2]
- ↑ We are, for instance, in receipt of a lengthy letter from a student condemning the investigation on that score.
- ↑ But it is, of course, impossible to make any quantitative allowance for this increment in computing the average day from our returns, save by obtaining a full record for Sunday and averaging for seven days, which was inadvisable for the reasons already cited. We can feel, at any rate, that this increment more than removes the discount for lack of representation from the unstudious.
others to fill out and return bona-fide statements of their negligence in these matters.
