Demographics

“ Add the United States of America, which reckon, exclusive of slaves, 20,000,000 of people, on a territory of 3,000,000 square miles, and in which the foreign element, however considerable, is rapidly assimilated, and you have a population of English descent and language, of 60,000,000, and governing a population of 245,000,000 souls.
The British census proper reckons twenty-seven and a half millions in the home countries. What makes this census important is the quality of the units that compose it. They are free forcible men, in a country where life is safe, and has reached the greatest value. ”

“ Are you aware of the fact, that in fifteen years, which is but as yesterday when it is past, two and a half millions of your countrymen have found a home in the United States,—that a population equal nearly, if not quite, to the population of this great city—itself equal to no mean kingdom—has emigrated from these shores? In the United States there has been, as you know, an open door for every man,—and millions have entered into it, and have found rest. ”

“ Demography, which is to be discriminated from statistics as a method. The latter renders service to all social sciences in so far as their phenomena may be represented quantitatively. Demography, or the science of population, has a concrete content and infers conclusions. ”

“ In making a survey or taking a census of a community there are included at least statistics as to age, sex, number and size of families, degree of kinship, race parentage, and occupations. Records of age, sex, and size of family show the tendencies of a community as to growth or race suicide; kinship and race parentage indicate whether population is homogeneous; and occupations indicate the place that agriculture holds in a particular section of country. ”

“ The study of statistics leads us to a study of social causes and forces, and when we see that in the year 1790 three per cent of our population lived in cities, and in the year 1900 thirty-three per cent lived in cities of 8000 population and over, we are aroused to the importance of making a serious inquiry into the reasons for this growth of cities and the effects of city life on the future of democracy and the welfare of the nation. ”

“ The smaller the population, the higher the excellence indicated by a given number of great men; but, also, the smaller the population, the less is the wonder that it should have died out or been swallowed up in the whirlpools of political, religious, and social convulsions. A similar remark applies in regard to the period during which this race flourished. When did they begin and when did they cease to be superior to other people? Till the statement is more precise we do not even know what are the phenomena to be explained ”

“ CHAPTER VIII THE GROWTH OF POPULATION Mass is a factor in the survival of a social group. Other things being equal, that society will stand the best chance of surviving which has the largest population. Moreover, the larger the mass of a given group the greater can be the industrial and cultural division of labor in that group. Hence, other things being equal, a large population favors the growth not only of a higher type of industry, but also of a higher type of culture or civilization in a given society. ”

“ I freely concede the desirability of the results, which you have so glowingly pictured. Nevertheless, I cannot quite agree with you, about the existence of a law, through which the tide of wealth and population will again flow towards the country. I am inclined to think, that facts and figures are against such a result. The statistics of the census of 1890, indicate that about one-third of the population, and over seventy-five per cent of the wealth of the nation, were then located in the cities. ”

“ In the twenty-one years that remain of the present century, if our population keep on increasing at the rate which it has maintained since the institution of the government, with the exception of the decade which included the civil war, there will be an addition to our present population of something like forty-five millions, an addition of some seven millions more than the total population of the United States as shown by the census of 1870, and nearly half as much again as the present population of Great Britain. ”

“ 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 fact is, I have noticed as we came along half your population dresses in all the colours of the rainbow—'fancy suitings' our tailors could call it at home—and this half of the census are undoubtedly men and women. ”

“ This is the natural consequence of recency of settlement and rapid increase. The census of these States shows how great a proportion of the whole population occupies the classes between infancy and manhood. ”

“ Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we shall find we have millions more to manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations. ... But the population of this country, the great and growing population, though a very important consideration, will lose much of its weight, if not combined with other circumstances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers of the people. ”

“ The population embraces some fifteen thousand persons, emigrants, or their children, from the United States, with a large native population, held in subjection and already won toward civilization, amounting to more than two hundred thousand. ”

“ The amount of the population of the United States, determined by the returns of the census, is a source of the most pleasing reflections, whether it be viewed in relation to our national safety and respectability, or as a proof of that felicity in the situation of our country, which favors so unexampled a rapidity in its growth. ”

“ These are patronized by the native-born population as well as by many of those who come to us from foreign lands. The result is that, of the first great class which we shall treat, there are comparatively few in relation to the whole population. ”

“ I am indebted to a worthy and sensible friend, and a friend also of the poor, for the following estimate of what I shall term 'pig population,' and set it in array against the increasing demands of the home population, which goes on at the rate of not quite 11/2 per cent, per annum—nay, little more than 11/4 by the last ten years' census. ”

“ The goal, then, might be said to be: a population adjusted in respect to its numbers to the resources of the country, and that number of the very best quality possible. Great diversity of people is required in modern society, but of each desirable kind the best obtainable representatives are to be desired. ”

“ The census is unique. It reaches every population group, from America's long-time residents to its most recent immigrants, and every age group from newborns to centenarians. The census touches every social class and every racial and ethnic group. The census is truly a democratic process in which we all can participate. ”

“ An observing demographer in the first half of the last century thus expressed himself, 'Population does not so much increase because more are born as because fewer die.' Yet the population of nearly every country has increased wonderfully during the past century, and in view of the new conditions of its expansion what a fine commentary upon the advance of modern civilization and the practical efficiency of government this tremendous fact has been! ”

“ Till we know something of the distribution within the country of the various races which formed viiits population, their relative growth and decay, their social organisation, and the extent to which its peculiar features were preserved, and influenced and coloured the future condition of the entire population formed by the amalgamation of its various elements, we know little of its real history. ”

“ According to the last census, the population of the United States is reported at fifty millions, in round numbers. The report is very exact in giving the age, sex, and place of birth of each individual, native and foreign, and much other information valuable to the student of ethnology and the migration of peoples. ”

“ HAS the intricate racial composition of the population of Europe, which we have been at so much pains to analyze, any significance for the student of social problems? Is there any reason why those who would rightly interpret sociological phenomena should first thoroughly acquaint themselves with the nature of the human stuff of which populations are compounded? ”

“ Perhaps in no other part of the United States, where indeed humanity is frequently to be seen in many curious and unusual phases, is there a population so marked in its general character, and at the same time divided into such distinct classes, as in the above-named city. ”

“ The nation which was peopled by nine millions of men in 1820 now numbers eighty millions—an immense demographic power; in the space of ten years, from 1890 to 1900, this population increased by one-fifth. ”

“ Great population as constituting importance [136] in a city is comparatively a modern notion. In other ages towns became famous on account of their superior civic organization, their more advantageous situation, or the greater activity, intellectual, political, or commercial, of their citizens. ”

“ More impressive to the student of race problems becomes the inquiry when we realize that while one-fifth of our entire population lives in the thirty-eight cities of over 100,000 population, two-fifths of our foreign-born population, one-third of our native offspring of foreign parents, and only one-tenth of our [Pg 161] people of native parentage live in such cities. ”

“ Thus, in the study of the social population, statistical methods are employed not only to give the total number of inhabitants dwelling within a given territory and the degree of density of population per square mile, but also to show to what extent population increases by births in excess of deaths, to what extent by immigration in excess of emigration, and to what extent the composition of the population is rendered complex by the intermingling of many nationalities. ”

“ I give the various countries from which our population is drawn, with the numbers from each country, and the number of native born and foreign born, which, aggregated, constitute our entire population. ”

“ Whether it is well to rejoice that the population of our planet has grown so fast during the last century, even as the inhabitants of a city rejoice when a decennial census reveals a rapid growth in their city, is a question which may be deemed a branch of the larger one whether life is worth living. ”

“ In a word, through the census a picture is drawn of the economic condition of all the households of the community. The number of those who can read, or who are learning to read, is also given in the census. Certainly the material collected appears to be of such a character as to furnish fundamental facts for the formation of a judgment as to the economic condition of the population. ”

“ Civilization and taxation appear to be inseparable.
III. Having detailed the steps taken in procuring the census, it only remains to subjoin a few remarks, which I beg leave to add, on the general features of the statistics and the results of their agriculture upon their condition and prospects.
The printed queries being prepared exclusively for a population in a high state of prosperity and progress, embrace many items for which there was no occasion, among pseudo hunters, herdsmen, or incipient agriculturists. ”

“ All sorts of dogmatic standards have been set up by which to measure the degree of a people’s civilisation. The development of demography and 286social statistics in civilised countries during the past century should, it has seemed, render such comparison easy. Yet the more carefully we look into the nature of these standards the more dubious they become. ”

“ Population, again, and bodily health and vigour, are things which are nowhere treated in such an unintelligent, misleading, exaggerated way as in England. Both are really machinery; yet how many people all around us do we see rest in them and fail to look beyond them! ”

“ The families are large and healthy. If the Government estimate of the number of houses is correct, the population, taking a fair average, is from twelve to thirteen millions, females being in the minority. ”

“ We discover that relation by considering the difference between population and populousness. The population may be considerable, and yet a country may not be populous, comparatively with its extent. Such is our case. Whatever may be the actual census of the United States, yet a superabundance of uncultivated land, will long prevent them from being populous. To determine correctly how nature legislates in such a case, we must be governed by the character she has given to man. ”