discharge his duties
unless he knows the address of every debtor. The police bureau cannot
protect society unless it knows the character and haunts of offenders.
A health officer cannot execute the law for the protection of society's
health unless he knows the haunts and habits of diseases. For this he
must look to vital statistics.

But the greatest service of vital statistics is the educational
influence. Health administration cannot rise far above the hygienic
standards of those who provide the means for administering sanitary
law. The taxpaying public must believe in the economy, utility, and
necessity of efficient health administration. Power and funds come
from town councils and state legislatures. To convince and move these
keepers of the purse, trustworthy vital statistics are indispensable.
Information will be used for the benefit of all as soon as it is
possessed by all.

Fortunately the gathering of vital statistics is not beyond the power
of the kind of health officer that is found in small cities and in
rural communities. If years of study of mathematics and of the
statistical method were required, we should despair of obtaining light
within a century. But the facts we want are, for the most part, common,
everyday facts, easily recognizable even by laymen; for example,
births, deaths, age at death, causes of death, cases of transmissible
diseases, conditions found upon examination of children applying for
work certificates, etc. Where expert skill is required, as at state and
national headquarters, it can be found. Every layman can train himself
to use skillfully the seven ingredients of the statistical method which
it is his duty to employ, and to know when to pay for expert analysis
and advice. We can all learn to base judgment of health needs upon the
seven pillars,--desire to know, unit of inquiry, count, comparison,
percentages, classification, and summary.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Dr. Arthur Newsholme's _Vital Statistics_ should be in public
libraries and on the shelves of health officers, public-spirited
physicians, and school superintendents.

CHAPTER XIV

IS YOUR SCHOOL MANUFACTURING PHYSICAL DEFECTS?

Last year a conference on the physical welfare of school children was
told by a woman principal: "Of course we need physicians to examine our
children and to teach the parents, but many of us principals believe
that our school curriculum and our school environment manufacture more
physical