which can no longer be spared from the mortgaged resources of North America. They are the Mecca of immigrants looking for new lands and new opportunities, under new conditions. The world wants to know about them; but, most of all, they need to know about themselves. The time has come when a general movement, looking to a simultaneous census, along uniform lines, in all the South American republics, should find voice and impulse; and the present Congress should supply them.

The most generally accepted dates for a decennial census are those that begin or end decades. The tenth year of the decade has been accepted in the United States and in several European countries, as well as in Brazil. England and most of her colonies accept the first year of the decade. Other countries, including the Argentine Republic and Chile, take the midway year of the decade. No date other than one of these three should ever be fixed for a national census. The ideal census situation would have every census in the world as of the same year. More and more, censuses are being availed of for international comparisons. Their ultimate function is to reveal conditions in each country, in exact comparison with the similar conditions in every other. It is through this agency that progress in every civilized state will ultimately be measured. A uniform date for the world's censuses would be of incalculable service to the science of sociology,—a science which could not effectively accomplish its great mission without the aid of the census. This is an ideal situation, of which we may dream, but which can never be realized. The nations which have been measuring their advance by given periods from given dates will never disjoint their records to conform to this ideal world standard.

But there are cogent reasons why the census of all the South American states should be taken as of the same date. They are consanguineous states; they are moving shoulder to shoulder towards the same destiny; they can learn more from each other, in certain directions, than from any one else. It is not too late, if an earnest effort is made, to agree upon a uniform date for every South American census.

There are also reasons, cogent again, why it will be of the utmost advantage if the South American states can accept the census date of the United States, which is also the date accepted by the republic of Mexico, lying midway between us, and advancing with splendid energy along the same pathways.

Even more important is it, however, that the censuses of all nations, and particularly of all American nations, shall be taken upon schedules so substantially alike in their interrogatories as to permit of exact comparison of data. Half the value of a census is wantonly wasted unless it is so planned that there can be read out of it not only the facts that concern the nation taking it, but the meaning of those facts when interpreted by the experience of others. Theoretically, this is so easily done that you would suppose it would be universally done. As a matter of fact, the science of census taking is still so young that international uniformity in schedules does not yet exist. The International Statistical Institute has rendered much admirable service in the co-ordination of census inquiries, but it has fallen short of its opportunities in this the greatest field of its endeavor.

A uniform schedule for every South American census is only less important than that there shall be a periodical census in every South American state. It can be insured, if the proper stress is laid upon its importance, in any movement that may be undertaken along the lines urged in this paper.

In suggesting the population schedule of the United States census as the best available model for a census of all the South American states, I have in mind primarily the fact that our experiences, in the evolution of citizenhood, have been and are likely to continue to be increasingly similar. The population of the northern portion of the hemisphere is an amalgam, composed of elements drawn from many nationalities, diverse in the characteristics which mark off one race from another. These racial characteristics have been blended and combined in the strenuous mixture of our national life, so that there has been created a new race, unknown elsewhere, and already recognized as essentially North American. This marvellously

interesting commingling of peoples and intermixture of traits is steadily progressing in the states. The evolution of the new North American is always in gestation: the ultimate type, as he is to leave his impress upon history, is still to appear.

The United States census schedule is so framed as to record the various component parts which go to make up this new race, and to measure, so far as it is possible to do so, the proportion of each of the elements in the composite, and in accordance with the contribution of each decade to that composite.

Note now the similar conditions which are developing in the South American republics. Your states, like the United States, are too vast in fertile area to be peopled from within. You must draw, and increasingly, as we are doing, from all the countries whose overflowing populations are seeking what you have to offer in inexhaustible abundance. While the Spanish type will remain the basis of the South American race of the future, as the Anglo-Saxon remains the foundation of the citizenship of the United States, it will be modified, as with us; and out of the censuses which record the successive steps of this modification the future historian will extract the true explanation of the new civilization you are now preparing to contribute towards the world advancement.

This is the chief of many reasons why the United States schedule is best adapted to the South American states. It is a schedule a century old in its evolution. It has been tested under all conditions of human existence. It has been modified cautiously, as experience has pointed the way to more exact and definite results. It will stand, substantially without change, at the Thirteenth Census in 1910. It is adapted to the purposes and the situation of kindred peoples, who trace their origin to similar conditions, who grapple with like difficulties, who are advancing with strides more rapid than the European nations can comprehend, towards a common destiny.

Uniformity and co-operation in the census methods of the republics of the American continent is not only feasible at every point and in every particular, but it is most important in its bearing upon the future relations of all the republics concerned,

as well as to their mutual knowledge and understanding of each
other. Each republic will gain from this co-operation with
every other, and the weakest will gain the most in proportion.

The United States, with a longer experience than any other
nation in decennial census taking, tenders its good wishes and
its cordial assistance to each and every South and Central
American republic which may feel the need of its co-operation
in this great field. Every facility which the permanent Census
Office has acquired will be placed at the service of any state
which may seek it, and every chapter in our century of experi-
ence which may help to minimize the inexperience of others
will be spread open and explained.

General Francis A. Walker, who was the superintendent of the Tenth and the Eleventh Censuses of the United States, and who was the greatest census taker the world has yet produced, once remarked that "the people of the United States are well able to pay for the very best census they can get"; and the people have proved each decade that he was right. If I may be permitted to paraphrase his remark, I will conclude by saying that the people of no South American country can afford not to pay for the very best census they can get, periodically taken, at least once every ten years, covering as many lines of national activity as possible, and taken in accordance with a uniform plan.

POPULATION OF THE WORLD.

USING LATEST ESTIMATES, AND, WHERE NO ESTIMATES ARE AVAILABLE, THE LATEST CENSUS RETURNS.

1 A census of Mexico was taken in 1810 by Dr. Fernando Navarro y Noriega, at which population