College in Hartford, and the undersigned, then secretary and afterward chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Charities. Among the early members between 1865 and 1872 were Charles F. Adams, Edward Atkinson, Louis Agassiz, James M. Barnard, Dr. Henry Barnard, Francis W. Bird, Francis C. Barlow, George S. Boutell, Phillips Brooks, W. C. Bryant, Charles L. Brace, Charles Butler, Salmon P. Chase, Joseph H. Choate, Edward Cooper, J. Elliot Cabot, Mellen Doane, William Endicott, H. Sidney Everett, William M. Evarts, W. P. Fessenden, James W. Grimes, U. S. Grant, James A. Garfield, John Stanton Gould, E. L. Godkin, Horace Greeley, Joseph Henry, John and William Jay, A. A. Low, Theodore Lyman, William Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, H. C. Lea, Henry Lee of Boston, Robert Treat Paine, John Sherman, A. H. Rice, Charles Sumner, Francis S. Walker, David A. Wells, Emory Washburn, E. C. Wines, Robert C. Winthrop, and many more, names of great importance then, most of whose bearers are now dead. With so many nursing-fathers our Association naturally was the mother of many children. Our first-born was the National Prison Association, founded in 1870 by a few of our early members, Z. R. Brockway, the great prison reformer, Dr. E. C. Wines, the unwearied missionary of penal reform, Emory Washburn, Dr. Howe, and others. In 1874 we initiated at a session in New York City, when George William Curtis was our president, the National Conference of Charities, and the American Health Association. Civil Service Reform, in which Mr. Curtis was long prominent, had been set on foot by our Association between 1865 and 1872, and during the administration of President Grant, one of our early members, it went forward to a degree of success. We revived the National Prison Association in 1882, which had fallen asleep after the death of Dr. Wines in 1879; and soon after, the American Historical Association asked our society to assist at its birth in Saratoga, where for many years our annual meetings were held. Several other important societies have lighted their candles at our small vestal lamp, which was kept alive all these years, although sometimes the flame was low, and the oil hardly filled the bowl-which Dr. Watts says is needful:

To keep the lamp alive

With oil we fill the bowl,

'Tis water makes the willow thrive, etc.

When the water got low, and our willows did not exactly thrive, we neither hung our harps thereon, nor did we weep, remembering the more flourishing days-but we chose a new secretary, and went several years in the strength thereof. Our most energetic secretary-would that we could have retained him longer-was the late Henry Villard, who increased our membership, got out our Handbook of Immigration, and drew to these shores several hundred thousand, not to say millions, of those thriving citizens who now govern us in finance, industry, economics, history, and fiction-especially in

the last named. I believe I succeeded him-nobody could replace himand continued to sit in that seat of the scribes for some twenty years, usually holding also the secretaryship or chairmanship of my own special department-that of social economy, which a few of us, headed by Charles Brace and Mrs. Parkman, of Boston, instituted in 1873, and first showed what we could do at the New Year meeting of 1874. It was out of this department committee, that the Conference of Charities emerged, full grown, like Minerva from the head of Jove, and has been extending her sphere and covering myriads with her shield, now for five-and-thirty years. This work and much more-too numerous in kind even to mention-went on under illustrious presidents-Eliot, Curtis, Gilman, Benjamin Peirce, General Eaton, David Wells, Andrew White, Francis Wayland, Dr. Kingsbury (who still instructs Connecticut and the world in the Hartford Courant), and others whom I need not name. Dr. William T. Harris, who lately died at Providence, after Herculean labors for many years in the twin causes of education and philosophy, declined the office of president, but gave us much of his strenuous aid in other ways. Hardly a subject in our whole encyclopedic round that he was not able to discuss; and the same was true of most of our presidents-not excepting, possibly, the honorary president, whose office, like that of dukes, now so much out of favor, terminates only with life.

Amidst our toils and debates, at which no conclusion was ever reached, that I can remember, there were rare pleasures to be shared-the chief of which, as I now review the past, was to get round a dinner-table, or sit in a group at a Saratoga caravansary, and hear Frank Wayland, Captain Patterson, Eugene Schuyler, and members of the New York Bar, tell stories of peace and war, of jurymen and alibis. All which was a chapter in social science.

CHANGES IN CENSUS METHODS FOR THE

CENSUS OF 1910

E. DANA DURAND
Director of the Census

It would be quite impossible within any reasonable limits of time to give a general description of the methods which will be employed in taking the coming census. So far as those methods are the same as have hitherto been employed, a description of them would be of little interest to the members of this association, most of whom are already thoroughly familiar with past censuses. This paper is, therefore, confined substantially to the differences between the methods which are being or are to be employed in the present census, and those of past censuses.

We believe, of course, that the changes which are to be made will prove advantageous; but one can hold this opinion without in any way disparaging the work of prior censuses. In part the changes proposed are necessary adaptations to actual changes in conditions of our national life. Many of the changes, moreover, are based on recommendations of former Census Directors or of other men whose experience at prior censuses has taught them where the defects lay.

Those changes in census methods which may have a bearing upon the scientific value of the statistics may be grouped under three main heads; namely, those which relate (1) to methods of selecting those employees who collect the statistics; (2) to the scope of the inquiries and the forms of schedules; and (3) to methods of analysis and interpretation. Only as to the first two are plans sufficiently developed to permit any statement of value.

EXAMINATION OF CANIDATES FOR APPOINTMENT

The value of census work depends primarily upon the intelligence, industry, and integrity of those who collect the statistics in the field. It is, at best, exceedingly difficult to secure competent persons to do the census field-work, because of the very limited duration of the employment which can be offered.

One innovation at the present census looking toward the selection of more competent field employees was an open competitive examination for the special agents who collect the statistics of manufactures, mines, and quarries. This examination was of a practical character, consisting in part of evidence regarding the candidate's education and experience, and in part of the fillingout, from the description of a hypothetical manufacturing concern, of a schedule corresponding to that which the special agents will actually use in the field. In this connection it may be noted that we expect at the present census to specialize to some extent the work of the manufactures agents, confining one set to one class of establishments and another set to another. This, however, can be done within reasonable limits of expense only in a few large industrial centers. There will also be a more or less complete segregation of the work on mines and quarries from that on manufactures. Even this limited degree of specialization will, it is believed, serve to increase the efficiency of the field-work on these subjects.

In the second place, we are undertaking at the present census to exercise somewhat greater care in the examination of candidates for the position of enumerator of population and agriculture than was exercised in 1900. In that year every candidate for the position of enumerator was required to take a written test, consisting of the filling-out of a sample population schedule from a description of a number of typical families and individuals. The form of the test was satisfactory, and substantially the same will be used at the present census, with the addition of a test on the agricultural schedule in rural districts. In 1900, however, no precaution, other than the candidate's own statement, was taken to prevent him from securing assistance in preparing his test paper. The blanks were sent to the candidates at their homes, and they could fill them out at their leisure without any supervision. At the present census we propose to assemble the candidates at numerous convenient places throughout the country and require them to prepare the test paper in the presence of examiners.

This examination, although open to everyone, is not strictly

competitive. There are many important qualifications for an enumerator which cannot be tested in this way, and which the supervisors must not only be permitted, but must be directed, to take into account in selecting those whom they recommend to the Director for appointment. Doubtless some of the supervisors will take advantage of the discretion which is allowed them, to prefer one candidate over another for political or personal reasons. The supervisors, however, will be required actually to grade the papers of all the candidates, and will be furnished a guide by which they can do so rapidly and accurately. Moreover, they will be required, at the time they make their recommendations, to transmit the papers of all the candidates to the Census Bureau, which will review the rating of the papers of those recommended, and of such others as the Bureau may see fit to examine. It is believed that the result of these requirements will be that most supervisors will pay due regard to the relative excellence of the test papers in making their selections.

GENERAL CHANGES IN SCOPE OF ENUMERATORS' WORK The experience of the past has clearly demonstrated the danger of burdening the enumerators and field agents with too much detail, and of requiring from them the exercise of too high a degree of judgment. We have, therefore, aimed, so far as the constantly increasing complexities of American economic and social life would permit, to reduce the number of schedules and to simplify the schedules and the instructions. On the other hand, it has been found necessary in a few respects to add to the schedules with a view to bringing out certain fundamental facts or distinctions which have hitherto been ignored, or which have only in recent years become of importance.

The work of the enumerators has been simplified by the action of Congress itself in relieving them of the schedule of vital statistics, which was used in 1900. The census work regarding vital statistics is now confined, as everyone knows that it should be, to collecting and publishing the results of the registration systems of individual states and cities. It will be recalled that at the census of 1890 the enumerators were required to cover many