28 CORRADO GINI 



to verify by strict methods the results over an adequate number of obser- 

 vations. Statistics enables us, moreover, to carry our enquiry into fields 

 where laboratory experimentation would be impossible or inadequate. 

 This explains the keen interest the Central Institute of Statistics, which 

 has acquired so much importance of late \ears in Italy, has always taken 

 in Eugenic problems. Not only has that Institute desired to be officially 

 represented at this Congress, but it has also wished to make a worthy con- 

 tribution to the annexed exhibition by sending a series of large colored 

 diagrams showing density of population, birth-rate, and death-rate of the 

 several Italian Communes, and two collections of graphs showing the vari- 

 ations in the Italian death-rate during the past forty years, and the com- 

 position of large Italian families, as well as many aspects of the marriage and 

 death rates of their members. 



Were you to ask me what the program of Eugenics should be in the 

 immediate future, I would repeat the opinion I expressed last year at the 

 opening of the International Congress for Population Studies. "Facts, 

 facts, facts." It seems to me that this should be the motto of Eugenists. 



No less than natural and economic phenomena, scientific research pro- 

 ceeds with a rhythm in which periods of theoretic elaboration alternate 

 with periods of fact collecting. In the field of Eugenics it seems to me that 

 in the past too much time has been spent in building up theories and in 

 multiplying programs, and too little attention has been paid to broadening 

 and consolidating the foundations on which the edifice was rising with a 

 disproportionate excess of superstructures. 



Those who share my views on this matter will be encouraged by seeing 

 at the head of this Congress Dr. Davenport, who has devoted so much of 

 his activity in the field of Eugenics to the collection of facts. 



On behalf of the Italian Government and of the scientific bodies I 

 represent, I take pleasure in extending to him and to the organising Com- 

 mittee of the Congress our cordial wishes for the success of our meeting. 



