SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 The immigration into this country during a 

 year is so enormous, that we are apt to overlook 

 the fact that similar movements of population 

 may be taking place elsewhere. To be sure, im- 

 migration elsewhere is very small as compared 

 with that here, but it has attracted sufficient 

 notice in England of late to call parliament's at- 

 tention to it. Investigation proves, however, that 

 any alarm which may have been caused is un- 

 necessary. Comparison of the census of 1881 with 

 that of 1871 shows that the immigration of for- 

 eigners into the United Kingdom during that 

 decade cannot have been very large. According 

 to tables which have been prepared, the increase 

 of foreigners resident in the United Kingdom be- 

 tween 1871 and 1881 was from 113,979 to 135,640, 

 or 21,661 in all, equal to just over 2,000 per 

 annum. Having regard to the figures of emi- 

 gration and immigration dealt with in the board 

 of trade tables, this is of course a small move- 

 ment. The whole foreign population resident in 

 the United Kingdom in 1881 was in fact less 

 than the net emigration of British and Irish per- 

 sons from the United Kingdom in a single year. 

 The German empire contributed 35,141 in 1871, 

 and 40,371 in 1881 ; France, 19,618 in 1871 against 

 16,194 in 1881 ; Russia, 9,974 against 15,271 ; and 

 the United States, 9,467 against 20,014. Thus 

 Germans constituted in 1881 about one-third of 

 the foreign population resident in the United 

 Kingdom ; but the increase in the period was no 

 greater than the increase among Russians, and 

 less than the increase among natives of the United 

 States, whose numbers doubled in the ten years. 

 It seems probable that the increase of foreigners 

 since 1881 has been somewhat more rapid than 

 during the decade preceding, but it has not yet 

 become so great as to be at all alarming. 



No PAPER THAT WAS PRESENTED at the recent 

 successful session of the Historical and Economic 

 associations at Boston was more important than 

 that by Col. Carroll D. Wright on ' The study of 

 statistics in colleges.' What he said about the 



No.228 — 1887. 



necessity for the scientific study of statistics and 

 their application should be specially emphasized. 

 Colonel Wright, himself a most successful statis- 

 tician, avowed that during the fourteen years that 

 he had devoted to practical statistics there had 

 not been a single day when he had not felt the 

 need of statistical training, not only for himself, 

 but for those associated with him. He continued, 

 " The problems which the statistician musfe solve, 

 if they are solved at all, are pressing upon the 

 world. Many chapters of political economy must 

 be rewritten ; for the study of political economy 

 is now brought under the historical and compara- 

 tive method, and statistical science constitutes the 

 greatest auxiliary of such a method. There is so 

 much that is false that creeps into the popular 

 mind, which can only be rectified through the 

 most trustworthy statistical knowledge, that the 

 removal of apprehension alone by it creates a 

 necessity sufficient to command the attention of 

 college authorities. The great questions of the 

 day, the labor-question, temperance, tariff reform, 

 all great topics, demand the auxiliary aid of scien- 

 tific statistics, and a thorough training is essen- 

 tial for their proper use." Two instances were 

 cited by Colonel Wright to show the way in which 

 crude theories are sometimes upset by carefully 

 gathered statistics : "It has been asserted that 

 there is an alarming amount of illiteracy in Massa- 

 chusetts. Statistical inquiry shows that by far 

 the greater number of these illiterates are of for- 

 eign birth ; so that the fault is not with the pub- 

 lic-school system, but the evil is due to a tempo- 

 rary cause, namely, immigration. Again : it has 

 been freely asserted that in the United States, 

 women of native bii'th do not have as many 

 children as women of foreign birth, and that 

 thereby the real American population is steadily 

 losing ground. The census of Massachusetts will 

 show, that although American women do have a 

 less number of children, on the average, yet a 

 larger number survive, so that the alarm is need- 

 less. Common observation would never have 

 shown these things, or would not have shown 

 them accurately." 



We fancy that the average reader of census- 

 tables has little conception of the many difficul- 



