1

BUREAU OF EDUCATION.

The Bureau of Education was established under authority of the Act of Congress approved March 2, 1867. This Act authorized the Bureau "to collect statistics and facts showing the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories, and to diffuse such information respecting the organization and management of schools and school-systems, and methods of teaching, as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school-systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country."

The Bureau of Education biennially collects and disseminates statistics regarding public and private educational institutions in the United States. The period covered is the scholastic year ending in June of each even year. The statistics are published in a volume entitled Biennial Survey of Education. In advance of the regular publication of this volume separate chapters are issued in bulletin form. Under the present procedure the information required for the report is collected through the departments of education of the several States. General information regarding public schools of elementary or secondary grade-including numbers of teachers and pupils, attendance, buildings used, and financial data-is secured by each State department of education and reported to the Bureau of education in consolidated form for all the schools of the State. The Bureau of Education tabulates these reports and presents the results for the whole country in a chapter entitled State School Systems.

Detailed statistics for various important types of schools are also presented in the Biennial Survey of Education. Thus the Bureau gathers special data concerning city schools, in all cities of over 2,500 population; also, separately, data regarding public high schools, private high schools and academies, private commercial and business schools, public school kindergartens, other kindergartens, schools for the blind, schools for the deaf, schools for the feeble-minded, training schools for nurses, teachers' colleges and normal schools, universities, and colleges, and schools of theology, law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine. Blank schedules for institutions of each class are furnished the State departments of education, which send to each institution copies of the appropriate schedule, to be filled out and returned in duplicate to the State office. The State office retains one copy for its own use and forwards the other to the Bureau of Education. It is from these reports, made out by the several institutions, that the Bureau of Education obtains the statistics for all the chapters of its biennial survey other than the chapter entitled State School Systems previously mentioned. Prior to 1920 these schedules were obtained by the Bureau directly from the

educational institutions. Prior to 1917 the statistics were collected annually and published in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Education.

The various classes of educational institutions are treated in separate chapters of the biennial report. For each class the statistics are presented in considerable detail, showing the number of teachers, male and female; the enrollment of students by sex, grade, and courses of study and in some cases by age and color; the length of the school term, and the daily attendance; the buildings and equipment; and revenues and expenditures. The report shows separately the school statistics of each city of over 2,500 population. It also shows the statistics separately for each university and college in the United States. The same is true of the reports relating to normal schools, commercial and business schools, schools for the blind, schools for the deaf, schools for the feeble-minded, and the professional schools of law, medicine, theology, etc.

Special statistical investigations are undertaken from time to time, especially in connection with various educational surveys conducted by the Bureau. A survey of the schools of Alabama, for instance, was made in 1919 and a survey of the schools of Tennessee in 1917. A survey of the schools in the mountain counties of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama was made in 1916. The results of the Alabama survey were published as Bureau of Education Bulletin No. 41, 1919; but the results of the other surveys have not yet been published, nor of a statistical study of libraries in the United States, begun in 1914 and finished in 1919.

PATENT OFFICE.

As early as 1790 letters patent were granted to citizens on useful inventions and discoveries. The permanent Patent Office, however, dates from the Act of July 4, 1836, which authorized the Office of Commissioner of Patents in the Department of State. This Office was transferred to the Department of the Interior by the Act of March 3, 1849, creating that Department.

The Patent Office engages in no statistical activities other than those pertaining to its own administrative work. The statistical statements compiled by this Office and published in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents show the number of patents issued, with the ratio of population to each patent granted, by States; the number of applications received, caveats filed, patents issued, and the amount of receipts and expenditures for each year since 1837; the number of letters patent, including designs and reissues, issued

since 1836; the number of certificates of registration of trade-marks, labels, and prints issued since 1870; the total number of patents issued by the United States Government up to the last day of the year covered by the report; the number of patents issued by foreign countries up to the last day of the year next preceding that covered by the report; and the number of applications for patents pending on the last day of the year covered by the report, by years in which applications were filed.

BUREAU OF PENSIONS.

Under the Act approved March 2, 1833, a Commissioner of Pensions was authorized, to "execute, under the Secretary of War, such duties in relation to the various pension laws as may be prescribed by the President of the United States." In 1840 the Commissioner of Pensions was placed under the joint direction of the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy. The Office was transferred to the Department of the Interior by the Act creating that Department, approved March 3, 1849.

The Bureau of Pensions engages in no statistical work other than that incident to the administration of the various pension laws. The statistics compiled by this Bureau are published in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Pensions and relate only to the work of the Bureau in the payment of pensions. They show comparatively, and by classes and pension rates, the number of persons on the pension rolls, and the reduction in the rolls from deaths and other causes during the fiscal year. The total pension expenditures are also shown in comparative tables.

OTHER SERVICES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.

The remaining services of the Department of the Interior, viz, the Board of Indian Commissioners, the Alaskan Engineering Commission, and the War Minerals Relief Commission are not engaged in the collection and dissemination of statistical data.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

BUREAU OF CROP ESTIMATES.1

The collection of statistics of agriculture in the United States was begun as early as 1839, in which year, by the Act of March 3, the Commissioner of Patents was given an appropriation of $1,000 for the purpose of "the collection of agricultural statistics and for other agricultural purposes." Annual appropriations for this purpose were continued under the Commissioner of Patents until the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1862, when this statistical function was transferred to the Division of Statistics of that Department. In 1903, by the agricultural appropriation act of that year, the division became the Bureau of Statistics, and by the appropriation Act of June 30, 1914, the name was again changed, to Bureau of Crop Estimates. The present activities of the Bureau were prescribed by the last named Act, under which they consist of "collecting, compiling, abstracting, analyzing, summarizing, and interpreting data relating to agricultural industries; [and] making and publishing periodically crop and live-stock estimates, including acreage, yield, and value of farm products."

The work of the Bureau of Crop Estimates comprises chiefly (a) the estimating and reporting of domestic crops, and (b) the compilation of general statistics of agriculture, both domestic and foreign.

Crop Reporting and Estimating.

The estimates of the Bureau relate to both crops and live stock. For crops they cover acreage, growing conditions, stocks on farms, yield per acre, total production, and value. For live stock they cover numbers, condition, and value, as well as losses from disease and exposure. The data for these estimates or forecasts are derived from correspondence and field investigations. A complete list of the items reported upon, showing the scope of the information contained in the report for each crop, by months, is shown in the following table.

1 See note on page 24.