Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/447

 NOTES AND ABSTRA CTS 43 I

liquidated by the operation of sinking funds, the tramway service will be a large source of profit for the relief of the taxpayer. Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, Southampton, and a host of smaller cities all make money out of their roads and have surpluses which are available for the reduction of taxes. Only one town is said to show a deficit in operating. Bradstreefs, September 20, 1902.

The Need of Accurate and Uniform Social Statistics. We can give a better account of the progress of the people of New Zealand and of some parts of India than of those of New Jersey and other states of the Union. There have been no well-directed efforts to bring about the necessary reform in the compilation and publication of sta- tistics of the dependent, defective, and delinquent classes. Just in proportion as the facts of pauperism and crime, as the facts of health and well-being or ill-being, an honestly made public, a community will be governed honestly or otherwise. Wherever you find communities unwilling to give publicity to the facts in the case, you, as a rule, find a community which is badly governed, where public-health matters are neglected, where jails and almshouses are in bad condition, and where, of the annual revenue, but a portion is honestly expended for public needs. I believe that Massachusetts owes its commanding position as a well-governed state, and that the city of Boston owes its position as a well-governed municipality, to the fact that from almost time immemorial, commencing with the annual reports of town officers at town meetings, a precise account of the state of public affairs has been required of public officers in charge of public trusts.

Accurate statistics as to the extent of pauperism and crime could be collected through the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Without statistics, accurate and adequate, we do not know whether we are moving forward or backward. The book of Round - tree on Poverty is an illustration of what could be done if only there were a convic- tion of the social value of statistics. F. L. HOFFMAN, in New Jersey Conference of Charities and Corrections, 1902.

Child Study in Chicago Schools. Mr. Smedley has published Child-Study Report No. 3, the result of investigations during 1900-1901. Some very careful work was done to determine the height and size of desks best suited to the pupils of different grades and the proportion of adjustable desks required to accommodate the extreme cases.

In the laboratory pupils from over sixty schools have been examined with instru- ments of precision. Many parents and teachers have brought children to learn the nature and extent of sensory defects. Very bright children have been brought, to determine whether the phenomenal progress is at the expense of their physical well- being. Children who had failed to make progress in certain studies were presented to determine what the physical or mental cause of their special deficiencies might be. Children with very defective sight were examined and decision made as to whether the ordinary school or the department of the blind was best suited for them. Similar work was done with those with defective hearing, and dull, nervous, and frail children have been given advice and help.

Boys in the John Worthy (reform) School were examined to test the conclusions of the previous year, and those conclusions were confirmed by the measurements of 247 new subjects. These boys are inferior in all the principal measurements taken, and this inferiority increases with age.

After describing many tests and giving tables of observations, the report concludes with pedagogic suggestions, based on the results of the study. Report of the Depart- ment of Child-Study, by F. W. SMEDLEY, Director.

H.

A Plan for the Study of Man. Governments spend vast sums of money in charity to defectives, in education of normal persons, and in punishing criminals. This costly effort would be more economically directed if we knew more of the nature of human beings. Dr. MacDonald discusses a proposal to establish laboratories under federal patronage for the investigation of the criminal, pauper, and defective classes. The materials for such study may be found in school children, the inmates of reform schools, in prisons, shops, and wherever sufficient numbers may be examined to give a