Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/744

 724 the several manufacturing establishments and manufactories within their several districts, territories, and divisions"; but no schedule was incorporated into the law, the whole matter being left to the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury as to construction. No very valuable results were obtained under this provision; yet the experiment was repeated in 1820, under the law of March 14th of that year, which made it the duty of the "several marshals and their assistants, at the time for taking the said census, to take, under the direction of the Secretary of State, and according to such instructions as he shall give, and such forms as he shall prescribe, an account of the several manufacturing establishments and their manufactures, within their several districts, territories, and divisions." These attempts to enlarge the census so as to include statistics of manufactures were so barren of valuable results that in taking the census of 1830 the attempt was wholly abandoned. The manufacturers' schedule was, however, introduced again in 1840; but still the effort was of little account, and it was not until the census taken under the broader law of 1850 that any valuable results were reached. So the census grew, from the simple enumeration of the people in 1790, under the very brief schedule which has been given, not only through various additions to the population schedule, but by the introduction of inquiries relating to production, until nearly all the material conditions surrounding the people, their industries, their wealth, their taxation, their carrying trade, fisheries, schools, health—nearly everything, in fact, that the social scientist wishes to know concerning the people and their conditions—are embodied in the census. With the changes in the scope of the census there have been changes in the methods of enumeration. Until 1880 the United States marshals for the several districts were authorized, under the first census law, approved May 1, 1790, to make the enumeration, the marshals having power to appoint as many assistants within their respective districts as should appear necessary. The enumeration was to commence on the first Monday in August, 1790, and it was provided by law that it should close within nine calendar months thereafter. The marshals were required to file the returns with the clerks of their respective district courts for careful preservation, and to forward the aggregate amount of each description of persons within their respective districts to the President of the United States. Each assistant marshal was required, previous to making his return to the marshal, to cause a correct copy of the schedule, signed by himself, to be set up at two of the most public places within his division, there to remain for public inspection. The use of United States marshals in taking the censuses was continued until the tenth census, that of 1880, although an effort was