88 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



Our inquiry does not assume to be a medical 

 inquiry, or even one based upon the records of deaths. 

 It is rather an inquiry into the social, industrial and 

 economic conditions surrounding the children born in 

 a given town within a given year, and is an effort to 

 trace every child so born either through that year or 

 as much of that year as he survives. 



It was necessary, in conducting an inquiry thus 

 based upon the birth records, to choose localities 

 within the registration area. In the United States, 

 as will be pointed out later, the registration of births 

 is neither uniform nor universal at the present time. 

 Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was selected because its 

 size, situation in a registration state, and general 

 industrial characteristics made it a suitable beginning. 



The schedule follows the child through the 

 first year of life in his family surroundings, and in 

 addition embraces a survey of the reproductive 

 history of the mother. It is necessarily intricate 

 and perhaps annoying to the person who must 

 answer the questions. 



The inquiry was launched with some anxiety as to 

 how the agents would be received. The field agents 

 were, of course, necessarily women. The law states 

 that lt No official or agent, or representative of said 

 Bureau shall, over the objection of the head of the 

 family, enter any house used exclusively as a family 

 residence/' The instructions to the agents were, 

 in addition to this, that they should enter no home 

 without the goodwill of the woman at the head 

 of the family, and for two reasons first, because 

 the humbler the home, the greater its need that 

 the Government should recognize its dignity ; and 

 because, further, without the goodwill of the woman 

 at the head of it, no schedule could be prepared 

 which would be worth writing down. It was doubt- 

 less an aid in securing the co-operation of the 

 mothers that the schedule was arranged so that the 



