to Congress a bill providing for the tenth census, and it was through an extension of inquiries of far-reaching importance that the census of 1880 became known as the encyclopedic census of the United States.

It attracted the attention of the leading statisticians all over Europe and gave the United States a position in statistical work that it had never held before. It should be remembered that the United States was then the only government collecting industrial statistics of any kind,—that is, the products of agriculture and manufactures, and it is to-day the only State in the world that does this character of work.

We hear of industrial censuses in Europe, but they relate only to occupations, although some attempt has been made to secure statistics similar to those collected here. While the British Parliament rejected time and time again a bill relating to statistics of production, as it was feared that much trouble would ensue, yet last year a law was passed for a decennial census of English manufactures, and the work is now in progress. The United States is therefore the leading country. Its population schedule embraces many more inquiries than that of any other census office, and it expands its work to cover all conceivable valuable data.

The

The first State censuses to command any attention and which can, by any stretch of terms, be considered as scientific, were those of New York and Massachusetts in 1875. The New York census of that year was a most excellent one. census of Massachusetts I do not feel at liberty to speak of extensively, but in bulk, anyhow, it surpassed any of the State's previous publications. A small volume had contained the results of previous censuses. It took three volumes to report the census of 1875; four volumes (and thick ones at that) to report the census of 1885, and seven volumes (large quarto) to get the results of the census of 1895; and I do not know how many volumes it will take to cover the work of the census of 1905,-they are not out yet.

The Association had at its start, as I have said, a very narrow field from which to gather its material. We did not have our

fine registration reports, nothing on agriculture, nothing on insurance, nothing on savings-banks, nothing except the meagre census reports to which I have alluded.

Mr. Felt in his paper to which I have referred, and which was delivered before the Association in 1843, gave a brief account of what was being done at that time in foreign countries. He speaks of the Royal Statistical Society as having been founded in 1834 in pursuance of a recommendation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. But it could not deal with the great questions which belonged to it. It had little or no information on which to base its conclusions. In fact, I have wondered many times how writers back of 1850 at least could bring out their positive deductions, as Adam Smith, for instance, when he wrote his "Wealth of Nations," seems to have had a vast amount of information, but where he got it is difficult to say.

And so it was all along the line. The Royal Society undertook to meet this great want. It appointed committees for the purpose of procuring and collecting information in respect to various strikes and combinations which existed for the purpose of altering the rate of wages. And it had a committee whose sole duty was to perfect the statistics of life, relating to births, deaths, marriages, and population.

Mr. Felt says that "in the United States but little attention has as yet been given to the subject of statistics, that the attempt has never been made to present a complete view of either of the great departments of this interesting and practical science." He refers to the meagre attempts of the Patent Office and to some of the individual States, the reports of the School Commissioners of New York and Massachusetts, and to a few isolated individuals who have labored in the statistical field with great assiduity. They had to fall back largely on information contained in Warden's "Statistical, Political, and Historical Account of the United States," Timothy Pitkin's "Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States," Adam Seybert's "Statistical Annals," William Darby's "Historical, Geographical, and Statistical View of the United States," and

Watterston and Van Zandt's "Tabular Statistical Views." And he goes on to say that "it is in this interesting and comparatively uncultivated field that the American Statistical Association propose to labor with such means as may be placed at their disposal, with the co-operation of kindred societies which may be formed, and with the aid which may be expected from our National and State governments. It is obviously a field of vast extent, and rich in materials for collection and comparison."

And yet we see how meagre the field was; how rich it is to-day in comparison with what it was when our Association was organized.

But the field has been enriched in various lines other than census taking. While the census offers the greatest field for exploitation by associations like our own, there are other fields now that were not contemplated by the organizers of this institution.

Every State publishes annually a great number of statistical works. These comprehend the statistics of the great elements of business and industrial and social life. A student who undertakes to examine any line of State statistical works finds himself involved in a mass of facts and deductions almost impossible to analyze or classify. As the States have grown, their interests have expanded, and these interests have demanded the facts relative to State activities. So we have statistics of insanity, pauperism, insurance, banking, railroads, great manufactures, statistics of everything, in fact, that relate to the activities of the people,-births, deaths, marriages, and now divorce,everything, as I have said, that relates to the activities and social environment of the people.

The federal government, in addition to the work of its census, sends out every year numerous volumes containing the most valuable statistical information on the finances of the country, immigration, shipping, the carrying trade, commerce, Indians, and patents, and many other lines of important statistical information.

In 1869 there was instituted here in Massachusetts a new

era of statistical work. This came through the establishment by the legislature of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor. After a few years of work other States established similar offices, often with different designations, but, as a rule, under a law providing substantially what the law of Massachusetts provided for the Bureau of Statistics of Labor. There is now a chain of these bureaus extending from one end of the country to the other, numbering, I believe, 34 offices, while in 1884 the federal government established a similar office which was organized in 1885.

As near as I can calculate, the reports of this chain of bureaus number something like seven hundred volumes, and they constitute a vast storehouse of social and industrial information, some of the volumes not very good, but most of them of an excellent character. They here and there show the lack of a power of analysis and classification, but on the whole, with one or two exceptions, they are honest reports. And I think, too, there has been but one spirit pervading the heads of this great chain of offices. That spirit has dominated the work everywhere, and even when the head of such an office has been appointed for purely political reasons the incumbent has soon realized the sacredness of his office and he has learned that to tell a statistical lie is the most harmful thing a man can do. He becomes inspired with the idea that he must tell the truth. In this connection I cannot deprive myself the pleasure of relating an experience of mine. I took charge of the Massachusetts Bureau in June, 1873, and on doing so I sought the advice of General Francis A. Walker, adopting for my guide the sentiments contained in his reply, and I believe I can do a service by quoting it in full:

Dear Sirs, I have given much thought to the letter in which you do me the honor to ask me my views as to the work of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics; but, as the result, I find but little to say beyond expressing my hearty sympathy with the purposes of your office and my wishes for its success. I feel the strongest confidence that the Commonwealth is prepared for your work, and that the work can be done to the satisfaction of all citizens; and that your office has only to

prove itself alike superior to partisan dictation and to the seductions of theory in order to command the cordial support of the press and of the body of citizens. If any mistake is more likely than others to be committed in such a critical position, it is to undertake to recognize both parties as parties, and to award so much in due turn to each. This course almost inevitably leads to jealousy and dissatisfaction. If an office is strong enough simply to consider the body of citizens and to refuse to recognize or entertain consideration of parties, success is already in the main assured. Public confidence once given, the choice of agencies, the selection of inquiries to be propounded, are easy and plain. The country is hungry for information; everything of a statistical character or even of a statistical appearance is taken up with an eagerness that is almost pathetic; the community have not yet learned to be half sceptical and critical enough in respect to such statements. All this is favorable to such laudable efforts as you are engaged in, for the difficulty of collecting statistics in a new country requires much indulgence; and I have strong hopes that you will so distinctly and decisively disconnect the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics from politics, from dependence on organizations, whether of workingmen or of employers, and from the support of economical theories, individual views, or class interests-as to command the moral support of the whole body of citizens and to receive the co-operation of all men of all occupations and of all degrees, without reference, however, either to their degrees or their occupations.

The time had arrived when the public was, as General Walker states, hungry for statistical information and adopted it pathetically. I think it was this attitude of the public that enabled this great chain of bureaus to meet with success. The rigid and religious observance of his precepts enabled the Massachusetts Bureau to set an example followed, as I have said, by thirtyfour States and the federal government, and now it has been followed by every civilized country in the world. I do not think of any government that has not established a bureau founded on the lines of the original Massachusetts office.

And yet it was something different from hunger for statistical information that caused the Massachusetts office to be established. In the legislature of that year-1869-there were petitions for the incorporation of the Knights of St. Crispin. The petitioners were given leave to withdraw.

There had been for three or four years recommendations by