Wise & Healthy

It takes a wide & patient survey, such as the American Student Health Association reported last week, to upset a general misconception--namely that smart college students are not as healthy as their husky confreres. They are, and more so, in the life run.

The Health Association, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (Dean Frank W. Nicolson of Wesleyan University, secretary) and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (Louis I. Dublin, statistician) collated the vital history of 40,000 graduates of eight colleges from 1870 to 1905, of 5,000 athletes of ten colleges and 6,500 honor students of six colleges from graduation until June, 1925.

Graduates of small colleges, the analysts found, live longer than graduates of big colleges. College men & women live longer on the average than the non-collegiate population. If 100 is taken as the national standard, the college graduate death rate is 91-2.

The popularly unexpected revelation is that the academic honor men's mortality death rate was 77-3, whereas the athletes' rate was 91-5.

Many an interpretation might be made from these figures. Probably the broadest is that the colleges are now requiring, stimulating or expecting their students to take physical exercise and build up healthy constitutions. Another factor is the tendency of athletes to overtrain, overstrain. "Athletic heart" is a frequent result, particularly among runners. Still another factor is the intelligence of present-day honor men. They are no longer bookworms, grinds, recluses. They are expected to. and do, take active part in collegiate activities, extracurricular and even extramural. Their alert intelligence guides them through a temperate life regime.