Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/646

 632 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

seems to us that the fairest measure of the contribution that manufactures make to the wealth of the country, and the fairest comparison 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 sim- ilar 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 cen- sus of 19 10. In a general way it may be said that it seems desir- able 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 sta- tistics of families, which was not done at the census of 1900, and in certain other directions to present and discuss the statis- tics more fully than was done at that time.