FRANCIS AMASA WALKER. 347 



Colored Race in the United States," he used his freedom from official 

 relations in exposing the mischief done by legislative failure to provide 

 intelligently for an important public service. As a whole, however, the 

 Census of 1870 was the best and the most varied in its scope that had 

 yet been obtained for the United States. It was, after all, a signal proof 

 of what can be done by a competent head, even with imperfect legislation, 

 and established the reputation of the Superintendent as an administrative 

 officer, at the same time that his fresh and vigorous discussion of results 

 secured him high rank among statistical writers. Great interest was 

 excited, moreover, by the remarkable use made of the graphic method 

 in presenting the leading results of this census, in his " Statistical Atlas 

 of the United States" (1874). 



The Act providing for the Census of 1880 was greatly modified, by 

 General Walker's advice, and the working force was for the first time 

 organized upon an intelligent system, by the employment of specially 

 selected enumerators in place of the subordinates of the United States 

 marshals, to whom the law had previously intrusted the collection of 

 returns. Highly qualified experts were also employed for the historical 

 and descriptive treatment of diiferent industries and interests, as de- 

 manded by the monumental character of the centennial census. Various 

 causes delayed the completion of this gigantic undertaking. Those to 

 whom a census is merely a compendious statement of passing facts became 

 impatient at the slow issue of the twenty-two stately quartos, and com- 

 plained that the work was on such a scale as to be obsolescent before its 

 appearance. General Walker, in an article in the Quarterly Journal of 

 Economics for April, 1888, explained some of the special causes of the 

 delay in publication and took upon himself perhaps an undue share of re- 

 sponsibility for the difficulties caused by an original underestimate of the 

 total cost of the census. But notwithstanding: its misfortunes, the Census 

 of 1880 is a great work of enduring value and not excessive cost, — 

 great in its breadth of design, worthy of the nation and of the epoch, 

 and a lasting monument of the power of its Superintendent to conceive 

 and to execute. Following the Census of 1870, it won for him univer- 

 sal recognition as one of the leading statisticians of his time. 



In the article to which reference has just been made, General Walker, 

 in his discussion of future arrangements for the national census, offered 

 as the fruits of his own experience some valuable suggestions, which 

 deserve more attention than they have yet received. It is hardly neces- 

 sary, however, to enter upon them here, except to recall the fact that he 

 advised the organization of the Census Office as a permanent establish- 



