Show ORIGIN OF THE CENSUS by VALTER K PUTNEY the word census comes from the latin word bensco meaning ato to take account ot of to value and the regular taking of the census came first at the time of the fifth king ol of rome servius Tu illius who created the office of the census taker the object of that first census was to register citizens and their property so BO that the finances of the state might be properly collected although wo we may say that this was the beginning of a systematic census taking it Is true that enumeration of the people Is one of the oldest customs of civilized peoples moses numbered the israelites in the wilderness joshua and david followed follo Ned his example the chinese had a census about two thousand years before the christian era and the japanese about the time of christ athens had one when solon was its ruler and other lands have records centuries old telling of their population during the first years ot of the old roman census taking the people were required to come to that famous place the campus marclus Mart lus and declare their names residences number and names of all children and value of property in the century the scope of the census was enlarge and births deaths and marriages were recorded it was not until the middle of the eighteenth century that definite and regular enumerations were taken the origin of this being in sweden pru prussia asla inaugurated the custom of at taking the triennial census but the united states was the first country to provide by law for census taking under a modern scientific method in 1790 france followed in 1800 and england in 1801 taking the census in the united states was necessary because of our form of government the house of representatives Is composed of members selected according to the number of people in the districts distri cis they represent for this reason it was feces sary that a count be made in order that every state should have the number of representatives to which it was entitled so the constitution required that every ten years under sup supervision of the federal government th this is census should bo be taken the first census contained information secured by asking five questions 1 number ot of white males sixteen years of age or over 2 number of males under sixteen years of age 3 total number ot of females 4 all other free persons 5 slaves there were no printed forms for this thia information each enumerator had to supply himself with paper tule lule it by hand and make the divisions that would enable him to put together the information required each state had a marshal who supervised the enumeration and it was a long hard task to got get tho work done the marshal in massachusetts at his own expense had schedules printed so that the work in that state was accomplished tar far ahead of other notates otates tates he also placed on the schedule for information ot of state author aties the number ot of houses in each town after the state marshals tabulated the returns they tent sent their papers to the national secretary of 0 state in the batters lat office a large clerical force was required to shape things and make a final accounting year by year this work Iner increased cased in volume printed cards were lent cent out to make the work easier additions were made to the questions asked so BO that in a fe few IV years tho the census tabing had become quite a problem various machines have been tried unsuccessfully but with each failure came a cowand new and better mechanical method of assisting in this great work today an electrical machine does the tabulating in washington with the least possible chance for errors and the census includes about everything one could imagine so that statistics concerning the economic conditions of the country can be had at a moments notice supplementary statistics tell us of our schools chool benevolent institutions insanity feeble mindedness the deaf blind and paupers haupers pau pers little did the builders of the nation realize what a great work they had bad initiated when they provided for the census of the country in the constitution |