The Sauk Centre herald., 1940-02-08
Census Takers
Are Taught How
Bureau Prepares Students
To Handle Big Job of
Making 1910 Count.

WASHINGTON.-The census bu.
reau is teaching class Of IT'S men
and women in the proper method Of
asking a question and getting the
right answer. OF these 103 will be
given jobs as area managers for the
big census Of 1910.
The school was started because
the census bureau, whose business
is gathering statistics, decided sta
tistic is hardly statistic at all if
1t lacks precision.
In past censuses, enumerators
have free-lanced bit, officials said.
in classifying borderline answers.
For instance, the president Of a
small manufacturing company
spends As per cent of his time on
administrative duties, SIS per cent on
sales work. Is he an administrator
or sales official? The right an
swer, they decided, is "sales off,
cial," because that job takes up the
major part Of his time. But that
wasn't always the answer the bureau
received in prior years.
Almost every one Of the 172 sched-
ules Of questions to be asked in the
1910 census has some Of these bor-
derline queries in it. The statisti-
clans feared equivocal reports Of
$4,000 enumerators asking these
questions Of more than 120, 900, 900
people. They decided to get method
lest there be madness.
Jobs to Last Nine Months.
So for 60 days IT'S persons have
been going to school in what was
once department store warehouse.
The class looked like a meeting Of
moderately prosperous proprietors
Of small businesses. Their jobs, in
most cases, will last about nine
months and they will be paid about
$500 a month.
The job of area manager is a
new one with the 1910 census. Here
tofore directors of the $50 census
districts have sent their reports di-
rectly to Washington. Only from
someone in the census bureau or a
field representative, who might or
might not be present when he was
needed, could they get advice on
handling the many problems that
arose. Next year all this will be
handled by the area managers.
Thus, while it was the borderline
question that suggested the job, the
person who gets it will be RESPONSE
BILE for great deal more than just
coaching the enumerators.
The area. in most instances, will
be approximately half a state, con-
tanning from five to eight census
districts. The districts are divided
into the 1880 enumeration dis
tricts, which contain an average of
about 1,5O0 persons.
Drilled in Details.
The candidates for area managers
have been drilled, not only in census
methods, but on details from public
relations to geography.
Their instructors have been CEN
sus bureau officials plus an occa-
sional lecturer from outside. The II
schedules for the business (distribu-
tion) census have been explained in
detail, as we'll as the 148 sched-
ules for manufacturers, the nine re-
gionalized schedules on farms plus
the supplement on plantations, and
the single schedules on population,
housing, mines and quarries, and on
irrigation and drainage.
The students sat at semi-circular
rows Of desks in a barnlike class
room, equipped with loudspeaker
system. After each lecture, the stu
dents were given written and oral
tests, in which they solved hypo-
thetical puzzlers.
Although the census-takers will
have legal authority to demand &C.
curate replies to all questions, per-
sonal or otherwise, the group was
warned Of the bureaus impulse to
fire any enumerator who wasn't
equal to getting the information
without recourse to that authority.
Get the answers, says the bureau,
and get the right ones. but don't
hold your foot in the door or make
threats-be courteous, be clever, be
persuasive.