Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1875.djvu/20

670, mid show their historical development, classification, management, and circulation.

The Commissioner alludes to the embarrassment encountered by the promoters of education in those States wherein slavery has been more recently abolished, and recommends the adoption of appropriate relief measures by the General Government. In view of the rapidly increasing work of the Office, and of the general importance of such work, the Commissioner asks that such an increase to the clerical force of his Bureau be made as will enable it to accomplish more satisfactorily the purposes for which it was established and is conducted. Its labors have also been materially increased by its connection with the approaching Centennial Exhibition, involving the necessary correspondence with educators for the purpose of harmonizing all diverse projects and plans for a proper showing of educational methods, appliances, and results, and the preparation of such limited, but correct and authoritative, reports on the various school systems, classes of institutions, and phases of education, as will be of permanent value.

CENSUS.

The work of the Census Office during the past fiscal year has consisted principally of correspondence relating to the publication of the census of 1870, the projected State censuses of 1875, the International Statistical Congress to be held in Hungary in 1876, conducted by the Superintendent at his home; and the labor attending the verification of statistical statements by means of the census-rolls, the consultation of manuscript returns for specific or technical information not embodied in the quarto volumes, and the adjustment of unpaid accounts of marshals and assistant marshals at the census of 1860, performed by the custodian of the census-records of this Department.

During the year the statistical atlas of the United States, compiled under the act of March 3,1873, has been completed and issued from the press, and all accounts relating thereto have been closed. The appropriation for the purpose was found sufficient to finish the work without any deficiency, notwithstanding that the plan of publication was greatly enlarged after the estimates of expenditure were framed. The Superintendent states that the atlas has received unexpected favor at home and abroad, and that at the International Geographical Congress held in Paris during the past summer a gold medal of tho first class was awarded to it.

The Superintendent is of opinion that some disappointment will be felt by those interested in tho progress of statistics in the United States at the comparatively small results to be derived from the anticipated State censuses of 1875. He reports that censuses, more or less complete and formal, have been taken during the present year under State laws and by State agencies only in the following-named States: Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New