Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/652

 638 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

budgets, federal, state, and municipal, may be mentioned merely as examples of other directions in which the call for better sta- tistics is now imperative. To develop that argument this after- noon would require too much time. Allow me, then, if you please, to assume that such a growth has occurred, is likely to continue, and deserves encouragement and support.

How, then, may it be expedited? If American statistics are to progress more rapidly in the future than they have in the past, there is urgent need for a larger number of men qualified by nature and training for a statistical career. Many of those now engaged in it have obtained all their knowledge in the office. Some have been drafted in from other occupations; others have risen through the successive grades of the service; few knew anything of statistics before their appointment to a statistical position.

The work of a statistician is not yet established in this country as a profession and hardly as a career. Evidence of this may be drawn from the position of Superintendent or Director of the Census, no doubt our most conspicuous statistical office. Since 1850 there have been eight superintendents or directors, the aver- age length of whose service has been four and one-half years. I have compared the careers of the seven persons most conspicu- ously identified with recent census work in England, France, Germany, Prussia, Italy, Austria, and Russia. The average dura- tion of their official life and their work in statistics was twenty- six years, nearly six times that in this country. The most notable exception to the rule that the official lifetime of an American statistician is very short is in the career of our late honored president, Carroll D. Wright, who was in the harness at Boston or Washington for thirty-two years. Vires adquirit eundo. May there be many such instances in the years before us!

How should statisticians be trained? Some say the office is the only good training school ; others demand a preliminary course of study at an educational institution. No doubt each method can produce good men, but the best results in most cases are secured by a combination of the two sorts of training.

There are parts of statistics which can be taught in a univer-