"domestic and personal service," and "officials of mining and quarrying companies," under "trade and transportation;" these have been transferred in 1900 to the the "manufacturing and mechanical group."

In writing of the scheme of classification in the eleventh census Mr. Gannett expressed the following judgment :

There is probably no subject connected with the census concerning which there seems to be less clearness of purpose or plan than the classification of occupations. What the purpose of the statistics of occupations is, or the character of the information which such statistics are designed to present, is not made clear by any existing classification.

His judgment holds good, generally speaking of the twelfth census statistics of occupations, as will become apparent from a cursory examination of specific groups..

Those engaged in agricultural pursuits number 10,381,765, or approximately one-third the total population employed in gainful pursuits. If we ask what principle of classification has been adopted with reference to this important industrial group, it will appear that the census office has, willingly or wilfully, done all of those things which it has declared it purposed not to do. It has classified "agricultural laborers"-the first and, with one exception, the largest group in the whole category of "occupations"—into three groups: (1) “farm and plantation laborers," (2) "farm laborers (members of family)," and (3) "garden and nursery laborers." Here then is classification according to place in which labor is performed; while the second subgroup is differentiated by relationship, and the whole group "agricultural laborers" is divided out from the group of "farmers, planters, and overseers" on the double principle of proprietorship and managing authority. The groups of "florists, nurserymen, and vinegrowers," "fruit growers,' fruit growers," "turpentine farmers and laborers," and "milk farmers," are based upon "articles made or worked upon." No one of these principles is consistently applied throughout the group. This being true, one is led to ask whether, since consistency is abandoned once for all, it might not be advisable to recognize certain natural lines of cleavage in our agricultural population. We have given a group of "tur

pentine farmers and laborers," another of "apiarists," another of "fruit growers." Are there not other groups of greater significance than these, even such as the cotton growers, tobacco planters, and grain farmers?

The principle of classification adopted for the second group, those engaged in professional service, numbering 1,258,739, appears to have been more clearly defined. The more satisfactory character of the grouping here is due, no doubt, to the fact that the professions themselves are more definitely differentiated than are occupations in general. Actors, architects, artists, clergymen, journalists, authors, lawyers, physicians, and teachers form well-defined professional groups. The question may, perhaps, be raised whether the class of engineers (civil mechanical, electrical, and mining) and surveyors belongs here or under manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. A mining engineer might, perhaps, better be related to that industrial group which includes officials, foremen, and overseers of mines as well as the miners themselves, if we are to preserve the industrial grouping at all. The "inventor" occupies a rather anomalous position in the class of "architects, designers, and draughtsmen." We look in vain for any group of artists proper, including sculptors, painters, musicians, architects, actors, and authors. Nor can such a group be constructed out of the data given. We have given a class of actors, and of architects, but musicians are grouped with teachers of music not in colleges, and "artists" with teachers of art (except by the process of elimination it is impossible to determine what sort of artists are included in this group); while the class of authors is hopelessly lost among "literary and scientific persons," which excludes journalists, and includes with "authors and scientists," a class of "librarians and assistants." and of "chemists, assayers, and metallurgists." We should certainly expect to find a literary group somewhat differently composed, including journalists, authors and other writers, and excluding librarians and metallurgists.

Those engaged in "domestic and personal service" constitute a large class, numbering 5,580,657, made up of the odds and ends of occupations which do not easily fall into any other

class. The largest single group here is "laborers (not specified)" 2,629,262. This group of general laborers appeared in the eleventh census, and statisticians have indulged the hope that in the present census these laborers could be properly "specified" and distributed. An effort has been made to do this, but it has been attended with little success. Four small subgroups of "elevator tenders," "laborers (coal yard)," "longshoremen," and "stevedores," constituting altogether about fifty thousand, have been separated out, leaving more than two and a half million "general laborers," whose occupations are not given. The rate of increase in this group has been over 32 per cent., while population has increased but 20.7 per cent., and the relative increase of the group would appear to be due to greater carelessness on the part of enumerators in 1900, as compared with those of 1890. No. community of interest, it may be observed, underlies the occupations included under the general head of "domestic and personal service." The barber, the bartender, and boarding-house keeper, to take the three services first in the list, are typical groups. They have nothing in common. Nor is the service of the bartender any more personal than that of the milliner, for example, classed as manufacturing and mechanical, or the grocer classed under trade and transportation. The laundry business, classed as domestic and personal service, is certainly as properly an industry as a bleachery and dye works establishment. Trained nurses would seem to be as professional in the service they render as are engineers, librarians, and theatrical managers. On the whole, a better heading for this general group would be "all or any other service."

Under "trade and transportation," numbering 4,778,233, are designated miscellaneous occupations more or less remotely associated with the economic services of distribution and transport. It is difficult to explain on rational grounds the association of these two services. The character of this group may be inferred from the following list of designations (not exhaustive): agents (insurance and real estate), bankers, boatmen and sailors, bookkeepers, clerks, commercial travelers, draymen, foremen, hostlers, hucksters, merchants, officials in banks and companies,

steam and street railway employees, telegraph and telephone linemen and operators. Of many of these groups, as for example the group of copyists, of stenographers, and telephone and telegraph operators, it is true that they are as likely to be associated with manufacturing or professional services as with the service of trade or transportation.

What has been said with reference to the other groups applies equally to the fifth and last, those engaged in "manufacturing and mechanical pursuits." Here the principle of classification by "occupation," is practically abandoned, and the principle of classification "according to the article made or worked upon generally adopted. The subdivisions in this group are indicated as follows: building trades; chemicals and allied products; clay, glass, and stone products; fishing and mining; food and kindred products; iron and steel and their products; leather and its finished products; liquors and beverages; lumber and its manufactures; metals and metal products other than iron and steel; paper and printing; textiles; and miscellaneous industries. No attempt is here made to bring together into one group those similarly occupied, as, for example, factory operatives, or those skilled in some craft or trade, for comparison with unskilled manual labor. Take for example, the group of occupations under "paper and printing." Here are five general designations: (1) bookbinders, (2) box-makers (paper), (3) engravers, (4) paperand pulp-mill operatives, (5) printers, lithographers, and pressmen. Here is a typical violation of first principles in the linking of an occupation, printing, with an industry, the paper business, and the confusion which follows is a natural consequence. Any scheme of classification which places engravers in a group of five designations, one of which is paper-box makers, and another paper- and pulp-mill operatives, is obviously faulty, a reductio ad absurdum of our general scheme.

It would be a convenience to find occupations grouped rationally in the census, but this is a matter rather of popular interest than of scientific consequence. The statistician expects in any event to reclassify his data for special purposes, to make up his own general groups as he may have occasion to do. No one

scheme is adequate for his purposes. What is of prime consequence to him is that the analysis shall be carried far enough to give him what may be called prime industrial groups-that is to say, groups which are in every instance sufficiently homogeneous to be dealt with as units for constructive purposes. These prime industrial factors may be arranged alphabetically or in accordance with any other scheme. The statistician is fairly indifferent whether, for example, the manual laborers are given in one group or are distributed among a number of industries, provided the grouping in each industry is of such a character as will enable him to separate out unerringly the manual laborers from the skilled workmen. This is not done in the occupation statistics of the twelfth census. The Census Bureau has had one excuse for adopting the present scheme of classification; it is practically the scheme employed in the tenth and eleventh censuses, and by its perpetuation in the twelfth census the continuity of data is preserved to a certain extent; but it is decidedly unfortunate and humiliating that it should become permanently foisted upon the work of that office.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

JOHN CUMMINGS.