Statistics of Population?A Criticism
NEWS AND COMMENT. Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census Washington, D. C., January 23, 1913 To the Editor of The Psychological Clinic:
In regard to the errors in the New York statistics1 alleged to have been derived from the Census,?after considerable difficulty I think I have gotten to the root of the matter.
What I could not explain very satisfactorily to my own mind was the statement that in 1900 there were so few persons of mixed parentage and in 1910 more than half a million. The fact is that two different definitions of parentage are used. In 1910 the compiler of the table has accredited to any given country, as for instance Ireland, only those persons both of whose parents were born in Ireland. In 1900 he has accredited to Ireland 1. Persons with both parents born in Ireland. 2. Persons with one parent born in Ireland. 3. Persons with Irish mothers, but with a father of some other foreign nationality.
The two figures are therefore not comparable, and the conclusions which he draws as to the tremendous loss in population of Irish parentage are altogether unjustified. There was some loss between 1900 and 1910, but according to the available figures for 1910 it was somewhere about 30,000 persons instead of 165,000 as stated in the table. I have run down the persons of Irish parentage so far as the material is accessible for the two censuses, and it is given in the following table: 1 See “Age and Progress in a New York City School” by William E. Grady in TnE Pstchological Clinic, Vol. vi., no. 8, January 15, 1913. Irish Parentage.
1910 1900 1. Both parents born in Ireland 562,466 595,267 2. One parent born in Ireland the other in the United States 113,954 97,556 Total land 2 676,420 692,823 3. Mother Irish, father of other foreign nationality 32,688 Total 1, 2 and 3 725,511
My figures for 1900 and for 1910 are not exactly identical with those of the table. The 1910 figures given in the printed table were probably derived from some preliminary figures. Why the figures for 1900 should not correspond I do not know, but there is a difference of only about 2000 in the result. I have verified the figures which I took from the population volume of 1900.
These figures for Ireland show that a properly constructed table would probably show less change than the figures printed in the Clinic, but I presume that they would not in any very high degree alter the main results of the table. I think it is rather unfortunate that errors of this kind should creep into the Clinic. With kind regards, Yours very truly, (Signed) Roland P. Falkner. Volunteer Co-operation with Public Schools.
It is hard for the average citizen to realize that in expenditures alone the public schools represent one-third of the transactions of the municipality; that of every dollar of taxes he pays, one-third goes to the building of school houses and the payment of teachers’ salaries. Besides this, the human element in the schools is worth more than all the waterworks, gas plants or streets that the municipality could buy. Our own children are the raw material which we pour into our great educational factories, and our employees and co-workers are the product. On the character and efficiency of this product depends the real welfare of any city.
It is a popular fallacy that Americans are interested in education, that the voters are concerned about the public schools and give time and money for their betterment. When a crisis faces the school system, citizens join in enthusiastic support of a faction or more often in destructive criticism, but usually the business man takes the schools very much for granted and seldom is aroused to a real interest in education.
“School boards serve without pay. ‘Good men,’ for the most part, are put upon them. Why not leave it there?”
But individuals here and there are learning that good men without modern methods or careful scrutiny or progressive ideas may produce poor results in a school system as easily as in a bank.
The need is evident for a volunteer organization, with funds sufficient to secure the services of experts who shall definitely study, day by day, the problems of the school in order that the Board of Education may have thorough appreciation as well as intelligent criticism. It is only thus that democracy can show its power through the schools.
Such a volunteer organization serves as a clearing-house of information, as a research bureau for facts, and as a mouthpiece for organized public opinion. It will work through and with the constituted authorities in constructive efforts and not through random comment. The Public Education Association of Philadelphia for a full generation has sought to serve this puropse. James S. Hiatt, Secretary.
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