Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/197

The lack of adequate accurate statistics and records regarding the Indians and the work done in their behalf has constituted a real handicap to every member of the staff of this survey of Indian affairs. Throughout the report will be found repeatedly statements to the effect either that essential data are not available or that the data available are inaccurate or of doubtful reliability.

No effort will be made at this point to catalogue all these deficiencies and to discuss them in detail, but a valuable purpose may be served by mentioning briefly some of the outstanding major ones, as indicative of the reasons for the recommendations contained in this section for the development of the statistical work of the Office of Indian Affairs.

Population Statistics. A basic requirement for the effective administration of the Indian Service is a reasonably accurate and detailed census of population. Such a census would measure the extent of the problems the Service has to face and would furnish the basis for determining the degree of success or failure in many of its important activities. In the absence of such a census, for example, there is no base for determining such essential indices of social and economic conditions as the general death rate, the infant mortality rate, the rate of mortality from certain preventable diseases, notably tuberculosis, and the general birth rate. Unless reliable figures are available regarding the number of children of school age, with a fairly minute classification by year of age, no accurate determination can be made of the success of the educational work of the Service in the first and fundamental step of getting children of school age into school.

No one who has visited the Indian country will minimize the difficulties inherent in the taking of such a census at intervals sufficiently frequent to make it an efficient tool of administration, yet it is so absolutely basic both for the field officers of the Service