REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. . 589 3). 
INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL INSTITUTE. 
Great progress has been made in statistics in the past forty years, 
in the topical extension of statistical inquiry, in the machinery of 
collection, in accuracy of enumeration, in comprehensive co-ordina- 
tion, rational deduction, and general utilization of the results of 
statistical research. The atoms of statistics, the original data, are 
of little value if separate, but they are-potent in statesmanship, polit- 
ical economy, and every branch of human effort and industry, if 
aggregated and correlated in comprehensive and symmetrical pro-. 
portions. In these day of international commingling, by commerce, 
immigration, and travel, demand for statistics more comprehensive 
than national statements have arisen, and international comparisons 
have therefore become an urgent necessity of progress in govern- 
ment, industry, and the arts. te 
This want became so urgent that in 1853 there was organized at 
Brussels, largely through the instramentality of M. Quetelet, the In- 
ternational Congress of Statistics. The second session was held at 
. Paris in 1855; successive sessions were held at Vienna in 1857, Lon- 
don in 1860, Berlin in 1863, Florence in 1867, The Hague in 1869, 
St. Petersburg in 1872, and Buda-Pesth in 1876. They were largely 
attended ; there were 153 members at Brussels and 751 at Florence, 
the tendency being to constant enlargement, and the average of the. 
nine sessions being 486. A largeamount of work was done, methods 
of investigation were improved, the world was made the field of 
statistical inquiry, valuable international statements were prepared, 
some of especial value to agriculture, in reference to superficial and 
productive areas of states, number and size of farm holdings, areas 
in various crops, and quantity of farm products. There were good 
reasons for its existence, and a fair show of good fruits of its life, 
and yet it has been dead for a decade. It died of plethora, of too 
-much blood, some of it bad blood. It was an unwieldly body, so 
large that the highest statistical experience was overborne by force 
and pressure of inexperience. It was too loosely organized, its gates 
too easily passed, and hence its counsels were divided and the value 
of its results impaired. The sessions, each in succession held ina 
new iocation, were controlled by a local majority, rendering. im- 
possible a settled and persistent policy of action. 
With this experience, valuable for its failures no less than for its 
successes, &@ new organization was effected in 1885, at the fiftieth or 
jubilee anniversary of the London Statistical Society, called the In- 
ternational Statistical Institute, a permanent institution, with mem- 
bership limited to official and scientific statisticians of recognized 
ability and experience. Its sessions are to be biennial, for more in- 
timate association and discussion of means of promoting interna- 
tional agreement in statistical methods and statements, while the 
main work in this line of progressis to be done ad interim by indi- 
viduals in harmony with he spirit of the Institute’s official work. 
The first meeting was called at Rome in i886, but on account of 
the presence of cholera there in the summer months it was postponed 
from September to April of the present year. The session was opened 
on the 12th of April, under the presidency of Sir Rawson W. Raw- 
son, of London, who was assisted by Vice-Presidents Prof. Emile 
Levasseur, member of the Institute of France, and Prof. F. X. von 
Neumann-Spallart, of the Vienna University. The secretary was M. 
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