partly manufactured materials, and the special agent was in most cases forced either to accept estimates of the value of the two classes of materials or to work through a maze of details of separate purchases in order to segregate the one class from the other. It has seemed to us that the value of the information secured did not justify the encouragement of the practice of making estimates, which was bound to extend from the separate classes of materials to the totals. At the present census, therefore, the only distinction which is made with respect to raw materials is that between fuel and other kinds of materials. It seems to us that the fairest measure of the contribution that manufactures make to the wealth of the country, and the fairest comparisons between different states or localities and different industries with respect to their significance in manufacturing, are secured, not by deducting from the gross value of the product the value of partly finished materials, but by deducting the value of all materials. We propose to show this net value of product generally throughout the presentation of the statistics, in addition to the gross value. Changes have been made in the general mining schedule similar to those in the manufactures schedule. The special schedules for leading individual manufacturing and mining industries have also, in most cases, been materially condensed and simplified. METHOD OF PRESENTING STATISTICS It would be inappropriate at the present time to discuss the exceedingly tentative plans which we have in mind with respect to the method of tabulating and publishing the statistics of the census of 1910. In a general way it may be said that it seems desirable that the statistics should be published in a larger number of small volumes instead of a small number of very bulky volumes. It will perhaps be possible to separate the text and analytical tables from the general and detailed tables, and also to a greater extent to publish the material regarding separate subjects in separate volumes. We hope to be able to present an analysis of the statistics of families, which was not done at the census of 1900, and in certain other directions to present and discuss the statistics more fully than was done at that time. THE OUTLOOK FOR AMERICAN STATISTICS WALTER F. WILLCOX This anniversary season, when nine organizations engaged in studying diverse aspects of man's social life are gathered at the metropolis of America for fraternal co-operation and mutual inspiration, naturally invites attention to the field and the outlook of the several societies. Statistics as a subject, however, is larger and more impersonal than the association created to develop it and thus a better theme for our annual reunion. But why American statistics? Because statistics, like history and unlike economics or sociology, invites or demands a national rather than an international or universal treatment. Statistics is connected with and dependent upon the state, not merely by derivation of the word and history of the thing, but also by a rigid necessity. The original statistical inquiries which have been made by private agencies are insignificant in comparison with those which have been organized by government. In this field the aim of private citizens must be almost confined to a further interpretation and utilization of official, returns with due regard to the probable error of the figures. The outlook for statistics, then, depends mainly upon the attitude of government toward the subject. The first branch of statistical work to develop in the modern world was the statistics of deaths. A little later came that of births and of marriages. This branch of statistics, which in English is usually known as vital statistics but in France and other countries is more often termed demography, was established as a national system in England and Wales in 1837, and, although the historical connection has not been traced, there is little doubt. that the establishment of the English registration system in 1837 was an important influence leading to the organization of this society in 1839, twenty-six years before any other of the associations with which we meet today was founded, and to the center ing of its interest from the start upon vital statistics. The origin of our society at the capital of New England is another evidence of the connection I am suggesting, for New England during more than half a century and until recent years has been the main American nursery of vital statistics. Demography is the oldest branch of statistics; it has developed to a comparatively exact and scientific system; its methods have been subjected to long and searching criticism; its results are more unquestionable, if not more important, than those reached in any other branch. Hence it is the natural and appropriate gateway through which to approach the larger field, and the theme may be narrowed for the present to the outlook for American vital statistics. The influence of the frontier as a capital fact, perhaps the capital fact, in our national history is now recognized and accepted. The well-nigh insuperable obstacles to securing registration, even of deaths and much more of births and of marriages, in a population living under frontier conditions, or even in the settlements thinly spread over the face of the country for many hundreds of miles east of the frontier, have prevented the rise of an effective American demand for good systems of registration. This is illustrated by the difficulty in tracing the ancestry of the most distinguished American of the nineteenth century, Abraham Lincoln. His biographers tell us, "There are hundreds of families in the West bearing historic names and probably descended from well-known houses in the older states or in England which, by passing through one or two generations of ancestors who could not read or write, have lost their continuity with the past as effectually as if a deluge had intervened." limitations suggested by this quotation have been even more effective as a bar to the development of public records of deaths, births, or marriages. Canada and South Africa likewise have had little success in transplanting vital statistics from the mother country to the colony, and if the experience of Australia and New Zealand has been different, this must be ascribed in the main to the massing of the population of those colonies in large cities. We may even ask what evidence there is that the regis'Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, I, 1. The tration records for the rural population of Australia and New Zealand are entirely complete and accurate. But the frontier has exerted a more subtle and pervasive influence in checking the development of American statistics. It has been productive of an individualism which asks only to be let alone, which favors a minimum of governmental investigation or regulation, and which is impatient of official interference. Have not this individualism and self-sufficiency been obstacles to the growth of that co-operative action and social control needed for the effective government of a city? If so, our imperfect success thus far in city government may be the obverse of our great success in developing and pushing westward the frontier under the practice of laissez faire. For nearly twenty years the frontier has almost ceased to be a factor in American civilization. It was prophesied that "with the passing of the free lands a vast extension of the social tendency may be expected in America," and the prophecy has come true. The part of this movement with which we are now concerned is its influence upon the progress and the future of American demography. Probably the present generation has seen a more rapid advance in vital statistics than any preceding one. A survey of the progress will establish this assertion beyond question. In 1880 records of deaths based on an effective system were obtained from about one-sixth of the population; in 1909 they were obtained from fully five-ninths. If the extension during the next generation shall be equally rapid, the first half of the twentieth century will see an effective system established in every state. There is ground for being even more sanguine, for believing that the movement, far from being retarded, will accelerate. Each state added to the registration area reinforces the pressure already exerted upon the remainder by the recommendation of Congress, the tactful but persistent urgency of the Census Bureau, and the example of the eighteen states already included. And in fact, the extension of the registration area during the last four years has been greater than during any preceding decade. F. J. Turner, The Frontier in American History. The registration of births is not yet on a satisfactory footing and, until the system of recording deaths had been developed in many cities and states, the federal government delayed to act under the discretionary power given it by Congress and begin a campaign for the registration of births. I understand that the preliminary steps in this direction are now being taken. It might be argued that the main influence at work in developing the registration of deaths has been the stimulus and guidance furnished by the Census Bureau and in support of this view is the seemingly stagnant condition of birth statistics while death. records have been extending. But with that opinion I cannot agree. Birth statistics have not failed to develop; on the contrary a careful examination, such as has never yet been made and as would not be appropriate to this occasion, would certainly show that the births which now escape registration are relatively much fewer than they were in 1880. For example, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Wisconsin, and California, embracing about one-fourth of the population of the country, had no state records of births in 1880 and have them at the present time. No doubt some cities in these states, like New York City, had birth records after a fashion as early as 1880, yet even those have since become far more nearly complete. It was not until 1891 that the annual number of recorded births in this city exceeded the number of deaths. Regarding the statistics of marriages we have fuller and more conclusive evidence. The federal government has made two inquiries into this subject. In 1889 when the first report was published less than one-half of the states had any provision for state registration of marriages and in many of these the records were most unsatisfactory. In many other states marriages were recorded in each county but for only about two-thirds of the counties did any such records exist, either at the county seat or at the state capital. At the present time marriage records exist in more than 97 per cent. of the counties, and three-fifths of those which lack them are in South Carolina, the one state not requiring a marriage license and making no record of a marriage. Apparently the extension of the registration of marriages, a |