Word: methods
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Dates: during 1900-1909
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...wages question is perhaps the most important branch of political economy and its subjective treatment is attained by the use of statistics. But it is essential that the user of statistics should understand the proper method for constructing them, and the attendant difficulties. There are four great sources of error which are to be avoided in securing statistics. First, observation is not trustworthy; there must be reliable figures and they should cover a considerable space of time. Second, the distinction must be kept in mind between "average" and "arithmetical mean." Third, in dealing with percentages the basic numbers must...
...difficulties of obtaining correct data are almost insurmountable. In the first place all figures must be obtained by personal inspection, for a manufacturer answering a letter of inquiry would be sure to fall into one or more of the fatal errors enumerated above. The proper method of constructing a schedule is to show the wages paid to each employee through a period of years, but here the statistician is confronted with serious problems. The number of people employed is always difficult to find; and even when that is done he may be unable to compute the duration of the labor...
...instance, weavers are paid from 60 cents to $1.49 a day, there being perhaps fifty rates between the two extremes. Calculations can be made here only on the basis of average. The United States Census deals only with the statistics of wages relating to manufacturing but even here the method used is faulty and is a makeshift for the correct system, which is impossible of consumtion. The problems of collecting railroad wage statistics are also perplexing on account of the great variety in the grades of labor employed. The railroad managers in giving out their figures have been accustomed...
...head of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, is now chief of the Department of Labor at Washington, and has an international reputation as a statistician and as a writer on social subjects. His lectures, which will continue through this week, will consider not only questions of method and scope in statistics, but also the history of wages as indicated by statistics, especially during the last fifty years. They will thus bear on the great social questions of the welfare of the mass of the community, and will be of interest to all students of economics...
...Murdoch gave also a short description of the methods of transportation on sledges and then finished with a description of a peculiar method of trapping wolves. The Eskimos take a piece of whalebone about a foot long, sharpen it at both ends, and bend it into the shape of a letter Z. This bone is then imbedded in a piece of blubber and frozen there so that it retains its Z shape. When a wolf sees one of these balls of blubber he swallows the mass whole. The heat of his stomach melts the blubber and the whalebone, thus...