Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/65

 Rh the census which might more profitably be pursued independently of it and at other times (e.g. statistics of manufactures, of transportation, etc.). I do not propose to consider all these things in extenso or in the order indicated. But it may be interesting to the student who proposes to make use of the American census to indicate briefly yet systematically its scope and method, with some critical comment. The final reports have not yet appeared, but we have a sufficient number of the preliminary bulletins to illustrate methods.

The first and most important thing to be observed is that the census of the United States is in reality a large number of censuses or statistical investigations undertaken at the same time but according to different methods and to a large extent by different sets of officers. There are not less than three classes of inquiries, the last two covering each a large number of separate investigations. The first class consists of the ordinary enumeration of the people taken by the regular enumerators appointed for that purpose, and on one schedule, including the usual statistics of age, sex, conjugal condition, etc., together with certain questions intended to furnish the basis for further special investigations. This is the census proper. The second class comprises certain investigations which are intrusted to the ordinary enumerator, who fills out a special schedule whenever the occasion demands. Such are the statistics of farms, of mortality, of surviving soldiers and sailors, and of the defective and delinquent classes. The third class comprises certain investigations which are taken entirely out of the hands of the ordinary enumerator and placed in those of special agents, who either by correspondence or by personal visit gain the desired infomation. Many of these last investigations are begun and well under way before the actual enumeration of the people. I shall now proceed to indicate what portions of the census fall under each of these three classes and the methods pursued in each case.

(1). The General Census.—For the purposes of the Eleventh Census the United States was divided into 175 districts, for each of which a supervisor was appointed, with power to appoint enumerators (there were about 44,000 in all), but so that the subdivision assigned to each enumerator should not exceed four thousand inhabitants according to estimates based on the Tenth Census. Each enumerator was furnished with a portfolio 11 by 15 inches in size, and in this was contained a large number of population schedules or 'General Schedule Number One,' as they were called. These are family schedules, and the enumerator