Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/92

82 of the population, gradually becoming more and more skillful. The expense during the whole ten years would be somewhat larger than is now involved, but the results would be of such infinitely greater value that the increased expense would not be a matter for a moment's consideration. My suggestion, then, for future census work would be, first, a permanent Census Office, involving an efficient field force, under the most liberal provisions as to supervision, and an organization of an office force so adjusted that it could be made elastic and yet preserve the functions required to secure accuracy and completeness; second, an adjustment of compensations for field work that would secure complete and accurate returns in all the departments of census work.

It may be argued that there would be nothing for a permanent Census Office to do a great part of the time. In answer to this it can be said, that if the regular work of the census should leave the force in comparative idleness, it might be employed in tabulating some of the results of previous censuses which it was found necessary to abandon; for instance, in 1880, although the facts were secured by the regular enumeration, no tabulation was made of the single, married, widowed, and divorced. The questions now agitating the public mind relative to marriage and divorce are only half discussed, because the facts for the whole country can not be ascertained. This is only one feature. A tabulation of the facts relative to conjugal condition, as indicated, for the year 1880 would be vastly more valuable, even now, than it would have been in 1880. And so of other features. By picking up such abandoned results, a reasonable force in the Census Office could be constantly and profitably employed, with increasing skill, so that when the results of new enumerations came into the Census Office, a trained force sufficiently large to influence the whole body of new appointees would be in readiness.

If, in addition to the changes suggested, the several States could be induced to co-operate with the Federal Government, a great advantage would be gained. The States might undertake the collection of the statistics of population, manufactures, and agriculture on as extended a basis as individually they might choose, but guaranteeing to furnish the Federal Government with certain clearly defined and uniformly collected data, for which the Federal Government should provide reasonable compensation. Under some such adjustment the statistical work of the United States Government and of the individual States could be brought to a very high state of perfection, with the burden of expense so divided and adjusted that it would not be considered as a stumbling-block in the way of progress.

One of the most encouraging movements of the present day is that of the trade and business organizations of the country to