all other civilized
countries, and in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1875, of leaving the
blank schedules in advance at each house and manufactory, to be filled
up carefully and thoughtfully, and to be called for on a given day,
should also be adopted. The result of the first attempt in Massachusetts
was that 37 per cent. of the schedules was found ready for delivery to
the enumerator, and for the remaining 63 per cent. the labor was greatly
diminished by the readiness of the people to answer all inquiries
intelligently. The number who at first failed or refused to comply was
only one hundred, and of manufacturers less than twenty; and these all
subsequently made the necessary returns. The total answers of all kinds
received at the census office was 13,000,000, at a cost to the State of
one dollar for each hundred answers.

Under such a law, enacted by the present Congress, and by such methods,
the census report of 1880 would become a document to which every good
citizen could point with pride and congratulation. We should no longer
be mortified with such errors and shortcomings as are so frankly
commented on in the census report of 1870. We should have not merely a
correct enumeration of the population, with all the important facts
connected with their domestic and social condition, but also such a
return of the occupations, manufacturing industries, education and
commercial operations, and all the elements which go to make up the
material well-being of the races on this portion of the continent, as
would mark a new departure in our national life. The absurd inanities
which characterize so much of the report of the superintendent of the
census of 1860, and the _doctrinaire_ theories injected into the report
of 1850, ought never again to find expression in any public document
bearing the official sanction of the United States.

The census report of 1860, as compared with that of 1870, is as the
Serbonian bog to a well-appointed lawn. For the first time since its
inception the taking of the census was in 1870 placed in thoroughly
competent hands. By inherited ability, as well as by previous training,
General Walker possesses in an eminent degree the qualities essential to
the fitting and successful execution of such a task. At every step he
shows the skill and readiness of a master workman; and it will be
fortunate for the country if he shall be selected as superintendent of
the tenth census under a law of his own de