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Introduction To Programming In C Language C Programming Best C Programming Language Book For Beginners Khachane
Introduction To Programming In C Language C Programming Best C Programming Language Book For Beginners Khachane
Chapter One Introduction
What is programming?
Programming is a skill that can be acquired by a computer professional that
gives him/her the knowledge of making the computer perform the required
operation or task.
Why do we need to learn computer programming?
Computer programming is critical if one wants to know how to make the
computer perform a task. Most users of a computer only use the available
applications on the computer. These applications are produced by computer
programmers. Thus if someone is interested to make such kind of
applications, he/she needs to learn how to talk to the computer, which is
learning computer programming.
What is programming language?
Programming Language: is a set different category of written symbols that
instruct computer hardware to perform specified operations required by the
designer.
What skills do we need to be a programmer?
For someone to be a programmer, in addition to basic skills in computer,
needs to have the following major skills:
• Programming Language Skill: knowing one or more programming
language to talk to the computer and instruct the machine to perform a task.
• Problem Solving Skill: skills on how to solve real world problem and
represent the solution in understandable format.
• Algorithm Development: skill of coming up with sequence of simple and
human understandable set of instructions showing the step of solving the
problem. Those set of steps should not be dependent on any programming
language or machine.
In every programming Language there are sets of rules that govern the
symbols used in a programming language. These set of rules determine how
the programmer can make the computer hardware to perform a specific
operation. These sets of rules are called syntax.
1.1. Generations of programming language.
Programming languages are categorized into five generations: (1st, 2nd, 3rd,
4th and 5th generation languages)
These programming languages can also be categorized into two broad
categories: low level and high level languages.
o Low level languages are machine specific or dependent. o High level
languages like COBOL, BASIC are machine independent and can run on
variety of computers.
From the five categories of programming languages, first and second
generation languages are low level languages and the rest are high level
programming languages.
The higher the level of a language, the easier it is to understand and use by
programmers.
Languages after the forth generation are refereed to as a very high level
languages.
1.1.1. First Generation (Machine languages, 1940’s):
Difficult to write applications with.
Dependent on machine languages of the specific computer being used.
Machine languages allow the programmer to interact directly with the
hardware, and it can be executed by the computer without the need for a
translator.
Is more powerful in utilizing resources of the computer.
Gives power to the programmer.
They execute very quickly and use memory very efficiently.
1.1.2. Second Generation (Assembly languages, early 1950’s): Uses
symbolic names for operations and storage locations. A system program
called an assembler translates a program written in assembly language to
machine language.
Programs written in assembly language are not portable. i.e., different
computer architectures have their own machine and assembly languages.
They are highly used in system software development.
1.1.3. Third Generation (High level languages, 1950’s to 1970’s): Uses
English like instructions and mathematicians were able to define variables
with statements such as Z = A + B
Such languages are much easier to use than assembly language. Programs
written in high level languages need to be translated into machine language in
order to be executed.
The use of common words (reserved words) within instructions makes them
easier to learn.
All third generation programming languages are procedural languages. In
procedural languages, the programmer is expected to specify what is required
and how to perform it.
1.1.4. Fourth Generation (since late 1970’s):
Have a simple, English like syntax rules; commonly used to access
databases.
Forth generation languages are non-procedural languages.
The non-procedural method is easier to write, but you have less control over
how each task is actually performed.
In non-procedural languages the programmer is not required to write
traditional programming logic. Programmers concentrate on defining the
input and output rather than the program steps required.
o For example, a command, such as LIST, might display all the records in a file on screen, separating
fields with a blank space. In a procedural language, all the logic for inputting each record, testing for
end of file and formatting each column on screen has to be explicitly programmed.
Forth generation languages have a minimum number of syntax rules. This
saves time and free professional programmers for more complex tasks.
Some examples of 4GL are structured query languages (SQL), report
generators, application generators and graphics languages.
1.1.5. Fifth Generation (1990’s):
These are used in artificial intelligence (AI) and expert systems; also used for
accessing databases.
5GLs are “natural” languages whose instruction closely resembles human
speech. E.g. “get me Jone Brown’s sales figure for the 1997 financial year”.
5GLs require very powerful hardware and software because of the
complexity involved in interpreting commands in human language.
1.2. Overview of Computers and Computer Organization.
Regardless of differences in physical appearance, virtually every computer
may be envisioned as being divided into six logical units or sections:
Input Unit: it obtains information from various input devices and places this
information at the disposal of the other units so that the information may be
processed or stored.
Output Unit: it takes information that has been processed by the computer
and places it on various output devices to make the information available for
use outside the computer.
Memory unit: it retains information that has been entered through the input
unit, so the information may be made immediately available for processing
when it is needed. The memory unit also retains processed information until
that information can be placed on output devices by the output unit.
Central Processing Unit (CPU): it is the computer’s coordinator and is
responsible for supervising the operations of the other sections. CPU tells the
input unit when information should be read into memory, tells ALU when
information from the memory should be used in calculation and tells output
unit when to send information from the memory to certain output devices.
Arithmetic and Logic unit: is a part found inside the Central Processing Unit
and is responsible for performing calculations such as addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division. It also performs comparisons. Secondary Storage
device: Programs or data used by other units normally are placed on
secondary storage devices (such as disks) until they are needed, possibly
hours, days, months, or even years later.
1.3. The evolution of Operating Systems.
Early computers were capable of performing only one job at a time. This
form of computer operation is often called single-user batch processing. The
computer runs a single program at a time while processing data in groups or
batches.
As computers became more powerful, it became evident that single-user
batch processing rarely utilizes the computer’s resources.
Therefore, computer developers thought that many jobs or tasks from
different programs or applications could be made to share the resources of the
computer to achieve better utilization. This concept is called
multiprogramming.
Multiprogramming involving the “simultaneous” operation of many jobs on
the computer.
In the 1960’s, many groups, pioneered timesharing operating systems.
Timesharing is a special case of multiprogramming, in which users access the
computers through terminals. Here, the computer does not run the users job
paralleling, but shares the CPU’s time.
1.4. Major Programming Paradigms
The major land marks in the programming world are the different kinds of
features or properties observed in the development of programming
languages. Among these the following are worth mentioning:
Procedural, Structured and Object Oriented Programming Paradigms.
1.4.1. Procedural Programming.
o Procedural programming is a programming paradigm based upon the
concept of procedure call. Procedural programming is often a better choice
than simple sequential programming in many situations which involve
moderate complexity or which require significant ease of maintainability.
o Possible benefits: the ability to re-use the same code (function or
procedure) at different places, an easier way to keep track of program flow
than a collection of “GO TO” or “JUMP” statements.
1.4.2. Structured Programming.
o Process of writing a program in small, independent parts. This makes it
easier to control a program's development and to design and test its individual
component parts.
o Structured programs are built up from units called modules, which
normally correspond to single procedures or functions.
o Can be seen as a subset or sub discipline of procedural programming. It is
most famous for removing or reducing reliance on the GO TO statement.
1.4.3. Object-Oriented Programming.
o The idea behind OOP is that, a computer program is composed of a
collection of individual units, or objects as opposed to traditional view in
which a program is a list of instructions to the computer.
o Object-oriented programming is claimed to give more flexibility, easing
changes to programs. The OOP approach is often simpler to develop and
maintain.
1.5. Problem solving process and software engineering.
1.5.1. Software Engineering.
o Software engineering is the profession that creates and maintains software
applications by applying technologies and practices from computer science,
project management, engineering, application domain and other fields.
o The method used in solving problems in computer science and/or
information systems is called the software development life cycle.
o The software development life cycle has the following components.
preliminary investigation
analysis
design
implementation
testing and maintenance
1.5.2. Problem Solving
o Problem solving is the process of transforming the description of a problem
into the solution by using our knowledge of the problem domain and by
relying on our ability to select and use appropriate problem-solving
strategies, techniques, and tools.
o A problem is an undesirable situation that prevents the organization from
fully achieving its purpose, goals and objectives. Or problem can also be
defined as the gap between the existing and the desired situation where
problem solving will try to fill this gap.
There are two approaches of problem solving:
Top down design: is a systematic approach based on the concept that the
structure of the problem should determine the structure of the solution and
what should be done in lower level. This approach will try to disintegrate a
larger problem into more smaller and manageable problems to narrow the
problem domain.
Bottom up design: is the reverse process where the lowest level component
are built first and the system builds up from the bottom until the whole
process is finally completed.
1.6. Basic Program development tips
The program we design in any programming language need to be: Reliable:
the program should always do what it is expected to do and handle all types
of exception.
Maintainable: the program should be in a way that it could be modified and
upgraded when the need arises.
Portable: It needs to be possible to adapt the software written for one type of
computer to another with minimum modification. Efficient: the program
should be designed to make optimal use of time, space and other resources of
the computer.
1.7. Algorithm designing and modeling the logic (using flow chart). A
digital computer is a useful tool for solving a great variety of problems. A
solution to a problem is called an algorithm; it describes the sequence of
steps to be performed for the problem to be solved. Generally, an algorithm is
a finite set of well-defined instructions for accomplishing some task which,
given an initial state, will terminate in a corresponding recognizable end-
state.
The algorithm should be:
Precise and unambiguous
Simple
Correct
Efficient
1.7.1. Modeling a programs logic using flow chart
Algorithm could be designed using many techniques and tools. One tool of
designing algorithm is by using flowcharts. Flowchart is a graphical way of
expressing the steps needed to solve a problem.
A flow chart is a schematic (diagrammatic description) representation of a
process.
Basic flowcharting symbols are:
Terminal point
Decision
Process
Input/Output
Flow line
Inter-page connector
On-page connector
e.g: to check weather a number is positive or negative.
start
Enter number
Displaynum/2==0? Display odd even
end
1 .8. Compilers and Interpreters.
Any program written in a language other than machine language needs to be
translated to machine language. The set of instructions that do this task are
known as translators.
There are different kinds of translator software, among which compilers and
interpreters are of interest for most programmers.
Compilers: a compiler is a computer program that translates a series of
statements written in source code (a collection of statements in a specific
programming language) into a resulting object code (translated instructions of
the statements in a programming language). A compiler changes or translates
the whole source code into executable machine code (also called object code)
which is output to a file for latter execution. E.g. C++, Pascal, FORTRAN,
etc.
Interpreters: is a computer program that translates a single high level
statement and executes it and then goes to the next high level language line
etc. E.g. QBASIC, Lisp etc.
1 .9. Mechanics of Creating a program (C++)
C++ programs typically go through five phases to be executed: these are edit,
preprocess, compile, link, load:
Edit: this is accomplished with an editor program. The programmer types
C++ statements with the editor and makes corrections if necessary. The
programs source file is then stored on secondary storage device such as a
disk with a “.cpp” file name.
After the program is edited, C++ is principally compiled in three phases:
preprocessing, translation to object code, and linking (the last two phases
are what is generally thought of as the "compilation" process). Preprocess: In
a C++ system, a preprocessor program executes automatically before the
compiler’s translation phase begins. The C++ preprocessor obeys command
called preprocessor directives, which indicate that certain manipulations are
to be performed on the program before compilation. The preprocessor is
invoked by the compiler before the program is converted to machine
language. The C++ preprocessor goes over the program text and carries out
the instructions specified by the preprocessor directives (e.g., #include). The
result is a modified program text which no longer contains any directives.
Compile: Then, the C++ compiler translates the program code. The compiler
may be a true C++ compiler which generates native (assembly or machine)
code. The outcome may be incomplete due to the program referring to library
routines which are not defined as a part of the program. For example, the <<
operator which is actually defined in a separate IO library.
Linking: C++ programs typically contain references to functions and data
defined else where, such as in the standard libraries. The object code
produced by the C++ compiler typically contains “holes” due to these
missing parts. A linker links the object code with the code for the missing
function to produce an executable image (with no missing pieces). Generally,
the linker completes the object code by linking it with the object code of any
library modules that the program may have referred to. The final result is an
executable file
Loading: the loader takes the executable file from disk and transfers it to
memory. Additional components from shared libraries that support the
program are also loaded. Finally, the computer, under the control of its CPU,
executes the program.
In practice all these steps are usually invoked by a single command and the
user will not even see the intermediate files generated.
Addis Ababa University Faculty of Informatics
Worksheet 1
Course Title: Introduction to Programming / Fundamentals of Programming
Course No : Comp 271 / CSCE 232
For each of the problems below, develop a flow chart
1) Receive a number and determine whether it is odd or even.
2) Obtain two numbers from the keyboard, and determine and display which
(if either) is the larger of the two numbers.
3) Receive 3 numbers and display them in ascending order from smallest to
largest
4) Add the numbers from 1 to 100 and display the sum
5) Add the even numbers between 0 and any positive integer number given
by the user.
6) Find the average of two numbers given by the user.
7) Find the average, maximum, minimum, and sum of three numbers given
by the user.
8) Find the area of a circle where the radius is provided by the user.
9) Swap the contents of two variables using a third variable.
10) Swap the content of two variables without using a third variable.
11) Read an integer value from the keyboard and display a message
indicating if this number is odd or even.
12) Read 10 integers from the keyboard in the range 0 - 100, and count how
many of them are larger than 50, and display this result.
13) Take an integer from the user and display the factorial of that number
Chapter Two Basics of C++
2.1. The parts of a C++ Program.
To understand the basic parts of a simple program in C++, lets have a look at
the following code:
#include<iostream.h> #include<conio.h> void main()
{
cout<<”n Hello World!”; getch();
}
Any C++ program file should be saved with file name extension “ .CPP ”
Type the program directly into the editor, and save the file as hello.cpp,
compile it and then run it. It will print the words Hello World! on the
computer screen.
The first character is the #. This character is a signal to the preprocessor.
Each time you start your compiler, the preprocessor runs through the program
and looks for the pound (#) symbols and act on those lines before the
compiler runs.
The include instruction is a preprocessor instruction that directs the compiler
to include a copy of the file specified in the angle brackets in the source code.
If the path of the file is not specified, the preprocessor looks for the file under
c:tcinclude folder or in include folder of the location where the editor is
stored.
The effects of line 1, i.e. include<iostream.h> is to include the file iostream.h
into the program as if the programmer had actually typed it.
When the program starts, main() is called automatically. Every C++ program
has a main() function.
The return value type for main() here is void, which means main function
will not return a value to the caller (which is the operating system).
The main function can be made to return a value to the operating system.
The Left French brace “{“signals the beginning of the main function body
and the corresponding Right French Brace “}” signals the end of the main
function body. Every Left French Brace needs to have a corresponding Right
French Brace.
The lines we find between the braces are statements or said to be the body of
the function.
A statement is a computation step which may produce a value or interact with
input and output streams.
The end of a single statement ends with semicolon (;).
The statement in the above example causes the sting “Hello World!” to be
sent to the “cout” stream which will display it on the computer screen.
2.2. A brief look at cout and cin
Cout is an object used for printing data to the screen.
To print a value to the screen, write the word cout, followed by the insertion
operator also called output redirection operator (<<) and the object to be
printed on the screen.
Syntax: Cout<<Object;
The object at the right hand side can be:
• A literal string: “Hello World”
• A variable: a place holder in memory
Cin is an object used for taking input from the keyboard. To take input from
the keyboard, write the word cin, followed by the input redirection operator
(>>) and the object name to hold the input value.
Syntax: Cin>>Object
Cin will take value from the keyboard and store it in the memory. Thus the
cin statement needs a variable which is a reserved memory place holder.
Both << and >> return their right operand as their result, enabling multiple
input or multiple output operations to be combined into one statement. The
following example will illustrate how multiple input and output can be
performed:
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different content
At the same time it is these characteristics which make dreams a fit subject of
serious study. It was not until the present century that the psychological
importance of the study of insanity was recognized. So recent is the study of
savage mind that the workers who have laid its foundation are yet all living. The
systematic investigation of children only began yesterday. To-day our dreams begin
to seem to us an allied subject of study, inasmuch as they reveal within ourselves a
means of entering sympathetically into ideas and emotional attitudes belonging to
narrow or ill-adjusted states of consciousness which otherwise we are now unable
to experience. And they have this further value, that they show us how many
abnormal phenomena—possession, double consciousness, unconscious memory,
and so forth—which have often led the ignorant and unwary to many strange
conclusions, really have a simple explanation in the healthy normal experience of all
of us during sleep. Here, also, it is true that we ourselves and our beliefs are to
some extent "such stuff as dreams are made of."
The harmonious and equitable evolution of man, says President Dabney, of the
University of Tennessee, "does not mean that every man must be educated
just like his fellow. The harmony is within each individual. That community is
most highly educated in which each individual has attained the maximum of his
possibilities in the direction of his peculiar talents and opportunities."
THE BEST METHODS OF TAXATION.
By the Late Hon. DAVID A. WELLS.
PART I.
This historical survey of tax experience among peoples widely differing in their
economic condition and social relations, and this examination of the scope and
practice of taxation, with especial reference to the tax systems of the United States
as defined and interpreted by judicial authority, prepare the way for a discussion of
the best methods of taxation for a country situated as is the United States. General
as are the theoretical principles underlying taxation, the application of these
principles to existing conditions must be modified to meet the long usage and
inherited prejudice of the people, and the form of production or manner of
distributing wealth. This holds true in the face of appearances so opposed to it as
to defy definition and acceptance. No less promising field for an income tax can be
pictured than British India, and few more promising fields than France. Yet India
has borne such a tax for years, while France will not permit a true tax on income to
be adopted as a part of its revenue system. In the latter country the plea is made
that the upper and middle classes already pay under other forms of taxation more
than their due proportion of the public burdens, and an additional and necessarily
discriminating duty laid upon them will only make this inequality the greater. Class
interest may thus oppose its veto to a change that promises to reduce the burdens
of one class of taxpayers at the expense of another; or may even oppose a change
that offers the chance of collecting a larger revenue with less real difficulty and
sacrifice on the part of the taxed. No opposition can set aside even temporarily the
great rules that clearly define a tax from tribute, a legal and beneficial taking by the
state of a certain part of the public wealth from a demand that involves waste or
mischievous expenditure, for which the state or people derive no advantage
commensurate with the cost, or from which individuals obtain a gain not defensible
in justice, and at the expense of only one part of the community.
After so many centuries of experiment, in which hardly a possible source of state
revenue has escaped attention, some knowledge of the great principles of taxation
might have been evolved. Unfortunately, the experience of one nation is not
accepted as containing lessons applicable to the needs or conditions of another,
and one generation rarely appeals to history save to defend its own experiments.
Ignorance, half knowledge, which is quite as dangerous, and interest guide or
influence legislation, and those who predict failure or danger are regarded as
theorists, and denounced as unpractical. Nowhere is the tendency to move
independent of enlightened knowledge more evident than in the United States. At
every appearance of the tax question, State and national legislatures are
overwhelmed with measures that have been tried in the past, and after a thorough
test condemned beyond any hope of defense.
Yet history shows the gradual disappearance of certain forms of taxation which
enjoyed great popularity for a time, and accomplished the end of their creation in a
crude and often cruel manner. Looking over long periods of time, it is seen that
some advances have been made, rather from a change in the economic condition
of the people than from a true appreciation of the principles in question. The
development of popular liberty has been an essential factor, and the alterations in
tax methods require a close analysis of the causes leading to the rise and
dominance of political and constitutional principle. While it is true that a popular
uprising against fiscal exactions usually marked the limit of endurance of an
oppressive system, it is also true that the same uprisings marked the completion of
one stage of political development, and the readiness or even the need of entering
upon a new stage. In one sense the progress of a people toward civilization in its
highest meaning may be illustrated by its fiscal machinery and methods of
obtaining its revenue from the people. It will be of interest to glance at some of
these passing phases which have generally come down to a late day, and are still to
be found in activity in some of the most advanced states of Europe.
The practice of farming out the revenues of a state or any part of it has become
nearly obsolete, and where it does exist is the mark of a fiscal machinery as yet not
fully developed. The opportunities and temptation which the contract system
offered for oppressing the taxpayers were apparent long before the state was in a
position to assert its ability to make its own collections. In France the fermiers
généraux were a political factor, standing between the king and his people,
regarded as necessary to the former and as oppressors of the latter. Their
unpopularity, in part justified by their conduct, was a not unimportant item in the
arraignment of royalty by the people. Wherever introduced, the farming of taxes
proved in the long run as unwise politically as it was unprofitable financially; and
the only reasonable defense for adopting it was the want of strength in the state to
command its own revenue—a want as likely to arise from the dishonesty of its
agents as from a political weakness. In early times the most universal manner of
supplying the treasury of the state, the farming of taxes has become so rare as to
be classed as a curiosity. Italy still employs this machinery to collect her taxes on
tobacco, and Spain from necessity has mortgaged her taxes to the bank, with the
task of collecting them.
Of the same general character are the state lotteries, of which some few and quite
important instances may still be found in action. Of the immorality of these
instruments there can be little doubt, and there is quite as unanimous an opinion as
to their inefficiency as fiscal instruments. Yet it is only within very recent years that
state lotteries have been discarded even in the most advanced countries. The
machinery of lotteries has often been modified, but, no matter how altered in
details, they all have appealed to the love of games of chance. Adam Smith
asserted that the "absurd presumption" of men in their own good fortune is even
more universal than the overweening conceit which the greater part of men have in
their own abilities.[6] Yet another assertion of the same writer is as true: "The
world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery, or one in which the
whole gain compensated the whole loss." Where the state undertakes it, there is a
profit generally assured to the state, but that profit is by no means certain, and can
not make good the demoralization introduced among the people. State lotteries are
still a part of the revenue system in Italy and Austria (proper), where the receipts
are important, but show a decided tendency to diminish; Hungary and Denmark,
where they are of little moment; and in Spain, where they are retained because of
the general incapacity of the administration to reach other and more profitable
sources of revenue. The experience of the State of Louisiana in connection with a
State lottery is too recent to require examination. It is not probable that once
abandoned such an instrument for obtaining money from the people will be
revived, save as a last resort.
The state monopoly in the manufacture and sale of an article for fiscal purposes
holds a place in European countries of high importance, and is met elsewhere
under conditions not so favorable to its maintenance. As an example of the latter
may be cited the colonial policy of the Dutch in their possessions in the East. After
the termination of the trading companies, the Government undertook the entire
control of the colonies, and sought to make them a source of revenue. The natives
were to be taxed, but, having little of their own to be taxed, and practicing no
occupation that could of its own volition become a profitable source of revenue, the
state undertook to organize industry, and, by creating an opportunity for employing
the labor of the natives, to receive the profits of production for its own uses. The
native chiefs were made "masters of industry" and collectors of the revenue; and a
certain part of the labor of the natives, one day in every five, was decreed to the
state. In order to derive a profit, this labor must be bestowed in cultivating some
product as find a market in international trade. Hence arose the importance of the
sugar, coffee, tobacco, and spice crops of these Dutch islands, and for many years
a handsome profit to the treasury was obtained from the management and sales of
product. With the great fall in prices of sugar and coffee throughout the world, and
the narrowing of the market for cane sugar, the Government obtained a less
income each year, and has found it of advantage to relax the conditions
surrounding cultivation, and to throw the management of the plantations more and
more into private hands. To such an extent has this transition been effected that
the state can no longer be considered as controlling a monopoly in product or
sales, and is content with a revenue from other sources, one that does not even
cover the expenses incurred in the colonial system. This experiment differs widely
from those industries undertaken with the aid or encouragement of the state to be
found in India. It was not with a fiscal object that they were established, and not
infrequently the state sacrifices revenue by releasing them from tax burdens they
would ordinarily endure. As one of the few remaining instances of the direct
participation of a state in the production of products intended for foreign markets,
yet undertaken and maintained for fiscal reasons, the history of the Dutch colonies
in the East is instructive.
In Prussia the working of certain mines is in the hands of the state, and was
originally looked upon as an important contribution to the income of the state. As in
the Dutch experience, the changes in production throughout the world have greatly
reduced the returns and made the income variable; yet there is little disposition to
dispose of these possessions. "The danger of mineral supplies being worked in a
reckless and extravagant manner without regard to the welfare of future
generations, and the dread of combinations by the producers of such commodities
as tin, copper, and salt, with the aim of raising prices, have both tended to hinder
the alienation of state mines."[7]
The more common form of state monopoly is that which occupies a middle
position, established for reasons of public safety or utility as well as of revenue. The
salt monopoly enforced in Prussia was only abolished in 1867, and is still
maintained in every canton of Switzerland. The strongest plea in its defense has
been the guarantee by the state of the purity of the article sold, and this phase of
the question has superseded the revenue aspect. Few articles of prime necessity,
like salt, are subject to monopolies imposed by the state, and by a process of
elimination it is only articles of luxury or voluntary consumption that are regarded
as fit objects of monopoly for the benefit of the state.
A tax imposed upon an article at a certain stage of its production or manufacture
may enforce the expediency or necessity of a state monopoly. Where the
supervision of the state agents must be so close as to interfere with the conduct of
the industry, the state intervenes and itself controls the manufacture and sale.
Tobacco has long been subject to this fiscal régime, and, proving so productive of
revenue, there is little to be said against a monopoly by the state of its
manufacture and sale.
In Italy the tobacco monopoly is conceded to a company, but its return of net
revenue to the state is nearly as large as the revenue derived from the taxes on
real property (about thirty-eight million dollars a year). Prussia imposes a charge on
the home-grown tobacco by a tax on the land devoted to its culture, but the return
is very small, and Bismarck wished to introduce a true tobacco monopoly, modeled
on that of France. But the conditions were opposed to his scheme, for the use of
tobacco is general throughout the empire, and a proposition to increase its price by
taxation or modify its free manufacture and distribution excited a widespread
opposition. France maintains a full monopoly, and finds it too profitable to be lightly
set aside unless some equally profitable source of revenue is discovered to make
good the loss its abolition would involve.
While historical support is given to the maintenance of a monopoly as in France, it
is not probable that the system will find imitators in other states, however tempting
the returns obtained might seem. Great Britain has by her insular position solved
the problem in another way. By interdicting the domestic cultivation of tobacco, all
that is consumed must be imported, and a customs duty offers a ready instrument
for making the plant, in whatever form it enters, contribute its dues to the
exchequer. In Russia, as in the United States, where tobacco is a domestic product,
the tax is imposed upon its manufacture, and this method requires supervision but
no monopoly of the state.
The tobacco régime is defended almost entirely on fiscal grounds, and as a
monopoly, an extreme measure, has proved its value as an instrument of taxation.
Other reasons, of a moral character, are urged to induce the state to monopolize
the manufacture and sale of distilled spirits. Both France and Germany have
considered this question, and, in spite of confident predictions of a large profit,
have decided not to undertake it. Russia, on the other hand, has taken it up quite
as much on social as on revenue grounds, and is gradually securing a monopoly of
the trade in spirits. The initial cost of the undertaking is large, and, as the system
has not yet been perfected, it is too early to give a judgment on its availability as a
financial instrument.
The transit dues, once commonly used by different countries, have been generally
abandoned, and in China must they be sought for in their original forms of
vexatious and unprofitable force. They arose from a desire to derive some benefit
from a commerce permitted grudgingly, and rarely attaining any high results. The
same end was sought by duties on exports, much employed when the country was
supposed to be drained of its wealth by what was sent out of it. The conditions
necessary for a successful duty on exports are not often found, and only in a few
countries are they now existent. In Italy, South America, and Asia, exports of
certain natural products are taxed, and, as in the case of Brazil, yield a notable
revenue. In view of the rapid advancement of production in new countries and of
inventions in the old, whereby many natural monopolies have been destroyed and
competition made more general, such duties prove to be more obstructive to trade
than productive of revenue, and are rapidly being abandoned. In spite of a formal
prohibition of export duties in the Constitution of the United States, they are
sometimes suggested in all seriousness.
In thus clearing the path of what may be called dead or dying methods of recent
tax systems, the advantages enjoyed by the United States in their freedom from
such survivals become more evident. The practice of farming taxes never gained a
foothold in any part of the country. Lotteries have been occasional, and with two
exceptions have been conducted on a limited scale—that of Louisiana is well
known; an earlier instance is less known. During the Revolution one of the means
resorted to by the Continental Congress for income was a lottery, but the attempt
proved disastrous to all concerned, and was finally abandoned even more
thoroughly than was the continental currency. State monopolies of production and
sale of any commodity have never met with favor, and stand condemned in the
desire for individual initiative. As sources of revenue, the public lands, state control
of the post office, and of such municipal undertakings as the water and, in a very
few cases, the gas supply, has been employed, and in place of profit the mere cost
of management is sought. More than any country of continental Europe, the United
States has depended upon taxes, pure and simple, unsupported or modified by
state domains, state mines, state manufactures, or state monopolies. Even Great
Britain in her local taxation is bound and hampered by precedent, and pursues a
system that is notoriously confused, costly, and vexatious. Long usage and the
erection of independent and conflicting authorities on principles other than fiscal
have imposed upon the local agents the duty of assessing and collecting county
and borough taxes which are as indefensible in theory as they are difficult in
practice.
From this weight of tradition and precedent the United States has been almost
entirely free, and it was possible to construct out of small beginnings systems of
Federal and State taxation at least reasonable and consistent, producing an
increasing revenue with the rapid development of wealth and the larger number of
taxable objects; and so elastic as to adapt themselves to such changes as are
inevitable in any progressive movement of commerce or industry. That no such
system has resulted after a century of national life, and an even longer term of
local (colonial and State) activities, these papers have tended to show. That the
time is at hand when the problem of a thorough reform of both State and Federal
taxation must be met, current facts prove beyond any doubt. If I have aided in a
proper comprehension of these problems, and, by collecting certain experiences in
taxation among other peoples and in different stages of civilization, contributed
toward a proper solution, the end of this work will have been attained. It is not
possible to introduce a complete change of policy at once; it is not only feasible but
necessary to indicate the direction this change should take, and the ends to be
secured in making them. And first as to Federal taxation:
In a democracy like that of the United States, the continuance of a mixed system of
direct and indirect taxes is a foregone conclusion. Not that there is an absence of
change or modification in the details of this double system, or in the application or
distribution of a particular impost or duty. To deny such modification is to deny any
movement in the body politic, or any progress in the industrial and commercial
economy of the people. There is a steady and continuous movement in every
direction, and the mere effort to escape taxation results in a new adjustment of
related facts. This development has, partly through necessity and partly through a
rising consciousness of what a tax implies, been tending from indirect to direct
taxes. Ever restive under a rigid supervision by the state of private concerns, there
has been a wholesome opposition to inquisitorial taxes. But this opposition has
been carried too far, and is due more to the ignorant and at times brutal disregard
by the agents selected for enforcing the law than to an appreciation of the injustice
of the tax. Whether in customs or excise, the same blunders of management have
been committed, and created a spirit in the people that is injurious to their best
interests. On the one hand, private enterprises have been unduly favored by the
removal of foreign competition, a favor that is now disappearing through the
remarkable development of domestic competition. Thus taxes have been
extensively used for other purposes than to obtain revenue, and for private ends.
On the other hand, there has been created the feeling that taxation is a proper
instrument for effecting a more equal distribution of wealth among the people, and
readily becomes an instrument of oppression.
The almost absolute dependence of the Federal Government upon the customs
duties for revenue through a great part of its existence was a striking fact. The
simplicity of collection and the comparatively moderate scale of duties, although
considered high at the time of imposition, gave this branch of the possible sources
of revenue a magnified importance. The development of the country was slow, and
at times greatly hampered by the tariff policy; but until about 1857 no other source
of income was needed to meet the expenditures of the Government in a time of
peace.
In recent years this has all changed, and not for the better. The immense
development in manufactures and financial ability accomplished since 1860 has
made a tariff for protection an anachronism. The political features of customs
legislation have been pushed so far as almost to overshadow the fiscal qualities.
The wave of protectionism that followed the abrogation of the commercial treaties
of Europe about 1880 has resulted in tariffs framed with the desire to injure the
commerce of other states rather than to meet the needs of a treasury. In the
United States this policy has been carried beyond that of Europe, and the tariff now
in existence is more protective than any hitherto enforced, short of absolute
prohibition of imports.
In more respects than one the tariff law of 1897 was an extreme application of the
protective policy. Each year the United States has demonstrated its ability not only
to meet the industrial competition of the world on an equal footing, but to engage
with it aggressively and with complete success. It is not necessary to give the
figures of exports of manufactures to establish this fact; it is now beyond question.
To frame a measure of extreme protection was, therefore, to overlook the most
striking phase of the industrial situation existing in the United States. With an
ability to manufacture cheaply and on a grand scale, and with a capacity to supply
the demands of a market larger than any home market, there was no foreign
competition to encounter, and the higher rates of duties meant nothing, either for
protection or for revenue. In carrying further into action a tariff framed more for
protection than for revenue, a twofold error was committed. The provisions were so
complicated as to make the application difficult, and in applying these provisions
inquisitorial and vexatious regulations were necessary to assure even a reasonable
fulfillment of the requirements. In former tariff laws a general description carried a
large class of articles, and a uniform duty, usually ad valorem, was collected. But
under the demand for a more scientific tariff, these general classes were broken up
into a number of enumerated articles, each one carrying a specific or mixed duty,
and an omnium or basket clause at the end to catch any article that could not be
included in any enumeration. This desire to fix specific rates upon each imported
commodity has been applied more generally in the law of 1897 than in any
previous tariff act. An examination of the imports of manufactures of textile fibers
will illustrate this increase of complexity without any increase of revenue. Indeed,
these classifications and rates, being suggested by interested parties, have for their
object a reduction of imports, and as a rule a reduction in revenue from them
follows.
The second objection to the increasing complexity of the tariff laws is to be found
in the petty annoyances imposed upon importers and others in enforcing the not
always consistent provisions of the law. These vexations are made all the more
telling by the fact that the administration of the law is apt to be in the hands of
those who are openly hostile to foreign importations, and therefore regard the
importer in an unfriendly spirit. The power given to the customs agents is
enormous, and it is not remarkable that it is abused. The demand for samples, the
appraisement of articles, the classification of new or compound commodities, all
offer room for controversy, which is not always decided by an appeal to the courts
of justice. In special instances, where a section of the law has been framed in
behalf of a special interest, the attempt to enforce it becomes petty tyranny of the
most intolerable kind.
In operation the law soon exhibited its failure as a revenue measure. Although
duties were generally increased, the more important articles taxed yielded a smaller
revenue than under lower rates. The aggregate collections under the bill did not
meet the expectations of its sponsors, and for two reasons: first, because the
higher duties discouraged imports; and secondly, the demand for imported articles
was steadily decreasing under the expanding ability of home manufactures to meet
the needs of the market. No measure short of a direct encouragement to
importations can change this situation, or prevent the further shrinkage in the use
of foreign manufactures. It follows that the tariff, unless radically altered, can no
longer be depended on for a return sufficient to defray one half of the rapidly
increasing expenditures of the national Government. By refusing to impose
moderate duties on articles of general consumption, revenue is sacrificed; by
insisting upon imposing protective duties where little revenue can be had, the tariff
is converted into a political weapon. Its dangerous qualities are strengthened by
turning these duties against the products of certain countries, a policy specially fit
to invite reprisals.
Even the framers of this latest tariff entertained the belief that some provision
should be made for breaking its full effect. The familiar scheme for reciprocity
treaties, under which moderate concessions in some of the duties could be made,
was retained; but France was the only power that could have an object in seriously
entertaining the proposition to enter into a negotiation. No real reduction in duties
could be given to Germany or any other country, and it has become a recognized
fact that Germany does not hesitate to seize an opportunity to exclude the products
of the United States, and on the same grounds as support the high duties in the
American tariff. The system of drawbacks has ceased to be of much moment in our
customs policy, and in the export interest in canned goods finds its chief exercise.
Nor does a privilege to manufacture in bond affect more than one article of
importance—ores of lead containing silver. No matter how it is regarded, the tariff
of 1897 was not framed for revenue, and in experience has not proved sufficiently
productive to meet its share of the expenditures of Government. The animus of its
sponsors in attaining the immediate political object sacrificed the more important
and permanent object of revenue.
Were the true object of customs duties—revenue—to be kept in view in tariff
legislation, it would be a simple matter to devise a measure that would be
satisfactory and highly productive of revenue. In the fifteen hundred or more
articles enumerated in the tariff schedules, more than fourteen hundred are
nonproductive, or yield so small a return as to have in the aggregate no appreciable
effect on the total receipts. The number left after so large an exclusion can be still
further reduced without reducing the revenue one tenth; and it is from a small
number of articles, hardly twenty-five, that the great part of the customs revenue is
obtained. By reducing the rates of duties on these to a point of highest revenue
efficiency, at which the import is not interfered with and yet not encouraged, a
higher return could be had than from the existing complicated, overloaded, and
political compilation of duties, usually imposed for any reason other than what they
will bring into the treasury.
When, therefore, the best methods of Federal taxation are broached, the reform of
the tariff stands first in importance. It is necessary to bring it more into line with
the industrial conditions of to-day, which call for foreign markets rather than a
domestic or closed market; and for a liberal commercial policy in place of one that
regards the products of other countries, whether imported in the crude or
manufactured forms, as constituting a menace to American labor and American
interests. It calls for a systematic and intelligent revision, which shall throw out
such duties as are no longer of service even for protection, and to reduce those
that are hostile to the products of other countries and bear in themselves the seeds
of reprisals in the future. Now that the United States is going into the great markets
with its manufactures, and obtaining a foothold against all competitors, the
invitation to retaliation holds a danger far greater to its own interests than any that
can be inflicted on other peoples. The greater the advances made the more readily
will recourse be had to reprisals and hostile legislation; and in support of every act
appeal may be had to examples set by the United States.[8]
MENTAL DEFECTIVES AND THE SOCIAL
WELFARE.
By MARTIN W. BARR, M. D.,
chief physician, pennsylvania training school for feeble-minded children, elwyn, pa.
Periods of extraordinary efflorescence or fruitage are followed by exhaustion and
sterility not infrequently demanding the free use of the pruning knife; and, just as
we remark how frequent is idiocy the offspring of genius, so do we find the same
seeming paradox, of mental defect in rank and increasing growth the product of
this most wonderful nineteenth century.
True, science has contributed to numbers by revealing as mental defectives the
many "misunderstood," "the backward," "the feebly gifted," as well as by showing
what was once esteemed moral perversion to be moral imbecility; but a truth to
which science also attests is, that unstable nerve centers uniting and reacting
through successive generations, producing various forms of neuroses, evidenced in
insanity, moral and mental imbecility, idiocy and epilepsy, do show the influence of
a highly nervous age.
Our last census reports, although necessarily uncertain and unreliable, yet show
ninety thousand mental defectives, not including the insane. Unrecognized and
unacknowledged cases swell the number easily to one hundred thousand within our
present borders—how many we are going to annex remains to be seen; but this is
an enemy that attacks not our frontiers but our hearthstones. We have reached
that point when we must conquer it, lest it should conquer us, and the means to
this end may be summed up in three words—separation, asexualization, and
permanent sequestration. "Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliances are
relieved, or not at all," and we must recognize that heroic measures now are as
essential to the welfare of the unfortunate as to society, which will then naturally
adjust itself to new conditions. Viewing the separation and massing of these
irresponsibles—innocent victims of ignorance, debauchery, or selfish lust—men will
come to realize that a greater crime than taking is the giving of such life; and so a
greater reverence for the sacredness of marriage, a deeper sense of the great
responsibilities of parenthood, will do more to avert this evil than the most
stringent marriage laws. That the present demands some restraint upon the
ignorant and the indifferent there can be no doubt, and laws preventing the
marriage of defectives and of their immediate descendants would go far to stem
the tide of harmful heredity.
But what to do with those now in our midst is the vital question! They must be
provided for in a way that shall insure safety to society, economy to the State, and
protection and happiness to the individual. The answer found in the experience of
half a century is, briefly, asylums for the helpless—training schools and colonies for
those capable of becoming helpful. These in very name and nature being widely
separate, just as separate as titles and names indicate, should be their working
systems. Work among the feeble-minded, a philanthropic movement directed first
toward the idiot, soon found a limit in dealing with a subject not trainable and but
slightly if at all improvable. Thence, diverging and broadening as idiocy became
better understood and imbecility in various phases became recognized, it found its
true province in strengthening and encouraging feeble intellects, arousing and
stimulating indolent and weak wills, and in training and directing into healthful
channels the abnormal energy of those destitute of the moral sense. How wide the
divergence can readily be seen, as also how entirely incompatible with union must
be work further apart in reality than is the training of an imbecile and a normal
child.
Excitable Idiot.
Practically unimprovable.
Apathetic Idiot.
Practically unimprovable.
Idio-Imbecile.
But slight hope of improvement.
For the idiot, who not only can not be trained, but who in many cases is
unimprovable even in the simplest matters of self-help, nothing is needed but that
care and attention found in every well-regulated nursery of delicate children, the
sine qua non being regular hours, simple nourishing food, frequent baths, and
tender mothering. As many are paralyzed, blind, lame, or epileptic, it is desirable
that the dormitories, well ventilated, be on the same floor with the living rooms and
of easy access to bathrooms and playgrounds. Covered and carefully guarded
porches should afford the much-needed fresh air and outdoor life in all weathers.
These, with cheerful, sunny playrooms, provided with simple toys and furnished
with bright decorations varying with the season, will contribute the maximum of
pleasure for this life of perpetual infancy. Low vitality, general poverty of the whole
physical make-up, the prevalence of phthisis and epilepsy and kindred diseases
require the daily inspection of a physician, while the comfort and well-being of the
whole, both workers and children, are insured by a capable and sympathetic house
mother.
The character of attendants is of the first importance, as these are they who live
with the children; it should combine that firmness, tenderness, and balance that
constitute an even temperament, capable of recognizing and meeting an occasion
without loss of self-control. The duties involve not only the care of the idiots, but
the training and direction of idio-imbeciles as aids, and this dealing with natures
often wholly animal, requires a certain refinement and dignity of character—at least
an entire absence of coarseness—while a knowledge of the simpler manual arts,
and if possible of drawing and music, will do much to soften and brighten these
darkened natures. As these qualities are valuable as well as rare, the remuneration
should be in proportion; certainly sufficient to induce permanency and to
compensate for such isolation. A life of constant wear and tear demands also
regular periods of rest, and the corps therefore should be sufficiently large to give
relief hours daily as well as vacations.
The idio-imbecile, but one remove from his weaker brother, to whose wants he may
be trained to minister, finds here his fitting place, and the domestic service of these
asylums may be largely drawn from this class and also from that of the low-grade
imbecile. Working as an aid, never alone, always under direction, he finds in a
monotonous round of the simplest daily avocations his life happiness, his only
safety from lapsing into idiocy, and therefore his true home.
The relief to the home, the actual benefit to the State in this housing and care of
the idiot and idio-imbecile can never be fully estimated. It is reckoned, however, in
a general way that for every idiot sequestrated the energies of two if not four
normal persons are returned to society.
Imbecility, mental or moral, congenital or accidental, is either an inherent defect or
an irrecoverable loss, an incurable disease for which hospitals can do nothing, nor
can reformatories form again that which never has been formed. Could language
be made clear enough to enable the public mind to grasp this fact, the work of
training schools, the only hope of the imbecile, would then be simplified, and
people might be willing to accept what they can give, in the only way in which it
can be given, to be of any permanent value. As it is, the few charlatans who
profess to train and in a few years send out an imbecile ready to take a high-school
or college course not only deceive those from whom they may gather a few
thousands, but their representations, coupled with that of a sensational press,
effectually impede the progress of a work which must eventually find its true place
in the system of public education.
Influenced by these misrepresentations, parents come with profound idiots and
high hopes of a course of training (here is one of the misfortunes of an idiot asylum
within a training school), and simply refuse to accept a negative to their
expectations. Again—to waifs and strays, high-grade imbeciles, developing after
years of labored training proficiency in music, drawing, or some one of the
industrial arts, friends will suddenly crop up and, dazzled by what seems
phenomenal genius, seek to withdraw them just as they become useful to the
community. Little do they know of the weak will, indolent nature, and utter lack of
"go," that forbid competition with normal labor and must forever be subject to the
will of another; still less of the weak physical build that is kept intact only by
watchful care, and which would succumb to any undue hardship. So much for the
difficulties that beset the work. Now as to the work itself.
As this must vary according to the status of the individual, a careful study and a
correct diagnosis are of primary importance in order that the work may be fitted to
the child, not the child to the work. The plan pursued is as follows: A thorough
examination—physical, mental, and moral—is first made by the chief physician in
connection with papers properly filled out giving personal and family history. He is
then sent to the hospital for a fortnight to insure immunity from disease. There,
while perfectly free and unrestrained among his fellows, he is under constant
observation of the nurses; these observations, carefully noted, are returned to the
chief physician, who turns both over to the principal of schools, designating the
grade in which he is to enter for probation. Here under different environment he is
again tested for some weeks and finally placed.
High-grade
Imbecile.
High-grade Imbecile.
Very improvable—can read, write, draw,
etc.
Low-grade Imbecile.
Only slightly
improvable.
It is hard for the uninitiated to understand that the grade, be it high, middle, or
low, is not associated with promotion and advancement as in schools for normal
children. On the contrary, it signifies the quality and status of the individual, his
limitations, his possibilities, and consequently determines almost unfailingly the
training for his life work; not by any hard-and-fast lines, but by a general mapping
out of means which experience has proved will best insure his development,
because best suited to his needs. Every latitude is allowed and, as the comfort of
both the teacher and the entire class depends upon each going to his own place,
there is easy and natural transference according to the necessity indicated by either
progress or retrogression; but the varied occupations in each grade give ample
scope for indulgence of individual proclivity in the means of development, and it is
found that the original diagnosis, based upon experience, rarely errs.
The motto of the schools—"We learn by doing; the working hand makes strong the
working brain"—shows manual training to be the basis of the scheme of
development, varied for each grade to suit the intelligence. Thus classified, various
occupations are arranged and presented with the double intent of securing all-
round development, and of giving at the same time opportunity for choice
according to individual bent, the child being gradually permitted to devote himself
more exclusively to that in which he shows a tendency to excel, and to gain a
certain automatic ease in what shall prove the initial of a life employment. A
knowledge of writing and of numbers is acquired incidentally as a necessary part of
these occupations in daily practice, and arithmetic, taught with objects, is chiefly
counting, separating into fractional parts, and practical measurements. Books are
used rather as a convenient means of attracting and holding attention while
inducing habits of consecutive thinking than for a knowledge of facts to be
memorized. Those who can learn to read gain naturally a means of self-
entertainment, of self-instruction, hence a certain amount of culture, so long as
protected in an institution from indiscriminate and pernicious literature.
The low-grade imbecile, but a slight degree removed from the idio-imbecile, is, like
him, totally incapable of grasping artificial signs or symbols. He can therefore never
learn to read or write; figures have no meaning for him, nor numbers, beyond the
very simplest counting acquired in the daily repetition of some simple task such as
knitting, netting, braiding rope, straw, or knotting twine. The excitation of interest
in these, which will also give hand and arm power, the arousing of the sluggish,
indolent will, through the stimulus of pleasurable emotions, the physical
development by means of the various drills and the moral influence of refined,
orderly surroundings—these, together with some practical work of house, garden,
or farm, which forms part of the daily routine, are all that school life can do for him.
Moral Imbecile
of High Grade.
Moral Imbecile
of Middle Grade.
Moral Imbecile,
Low Grade.
From this preparation he passes to the industrial department, where he receives
training in that occupation which the school has indicated for him, becoming in his
limited way a useful and contented member of a community which should be his
life home. As both of these types develop either extreme docility or perversity—the
one quiet, gentle, obedient, following any suggestion even of a comrade's stronger
will; the other obstinate, indolent, often brutal and cruel—the necessity for constant
guardianship is therefore self-evident.
When we consider that the training of a high-grade imbecile takes four times the
period commonly allotted to a normal child, some idea of the vital energy expended
on the training of the lower grades may be found in the following example:
I find in our museum of educational work a little ball which I am inclined to regard
the most valuable thing in the whole collection. The boy who made it was a low-
grade imbecile. His hand against every man, he fancied every man's against him.
Always under strict custodial care, that he might harm neither himself nor others,
he would vent his spleen in tearing his clothing. His teacher, a woman of rare
patience and devotedness, sat beside him one day, tearing strips of old linen and
laying them in order. "See, Willie, let us make some pretty strips and lay them so."
His wonder grew apace at seeing her doing what he had been reproved for doing;
at once he responded, and a new bond of sympathy was established between
them. She was playing his game—the only one, poor little lad, that he was capable
of—and he joined in.
"Now, we will draw out the pretty threads and lay them in rows." For weeks the boy
found quiet pastime in this occupation, and the violent nature grew quieter in
proportion. One day the teacher said, "Let us tie these threads together and make
a long string." It took him months and months to learn to tie those knots, but
meanwhile his attendants were having breathing space. "Now we will wind this into
a pretty ball, and I will cover all you make for the boys to play with"; and a new
occupation was added to his meager list.
The next link in this chain of development was a lesson in knitting. Again, through
months of patient teaching, it was at last accomplished, and the boy to the day of
his death found his life happiness in knitting caps for the children, in place of
tearing both them and their clothing. You see the teacher was wise enough to
utilize the natural activities of the child and divert evil propensities into healthful
channels. Had she brought knitting and bright yarn or anything foreign to him first,
it would in truth have been fitting new cloth to old garments and the rent would
have been widened: his obstinacy would have been aroused, and he would have
continued to tear to the end of the chapter.
High-grade Imbeciles (Feebly Gifted) at Sloyd Work.
The imbecile of middle grade receives that fuller presentation of work suited to
fuller capacity. Some time is devoted to the three "Rs," as it is found that attention
may be aroused and concentrated in the phonetic drills, more especially if
associated with pictures, and the drawing of the objects named free-hand; thus
eye, ear, and hand are encouraged to work simultaneously. Those who accomplish
finally the reading of short simple stories not only enjoy evenings in the library, but
may be enabled to glean suggestions for the various handicrafts for which they are
being trained. This effort at quick observation and original thinking is further carried
forward in the ambidextrous movements of free-hand drawing, designing, and
sketching from life—finding ready and practical application in the daily use of tools.
The value of the rule and the try-square is tested in the manufacture of the various
useful articles in both paper and wood included under the head of sloyd, and "a
boy can not learn to take a straight shaving off a plank," says Ruskin, "or to drive a
fine curve without faltering, or to lay a brick level in the mortar, without learning a
multitude of other matters which life of man could never teach him."
Equally useful to the girl in the workroom as to the boy in the shop is this training
of a ready eye, this quick intuition of balance and proportion, this practice of
obedience of hand and arm to brain, until it becomes automatic. To both, therefore,
the value of such preparation will be incalculable. It is noticeable that boys of this
grade turn out as good workers in the ordinary crafts of shoemaking, carpentering,
and house painting as those of higher grade who, although capable of grasping
more intelligently the details of work, yet do not bring to it that energy and
perseverance of one who finds in it "this one thing I do." With the imbecile of high
grade, able to accomplish studies equal to about the first intermediate of the public
schools, there is a diffusion of interest; the intelligence broadens rather than
deepens during the school period in natural response to environment. With greater
grasp of numerical values and of letters he attains proficiency impossible to the
lower grades in drawing, in music, in printing, and in cabinet work. Other industries
will probably be provided for him as the demand increases, for it must be
remembered that this is a class whose needs have been the last to be recognized in
a work begun, as I have before said, for the idiot. Regarded as queer, unlike other
children—unable to keep up—he has, after an unsuccessful trial at school, been
kept at home, in some cases an aid, in others a tyrant, to those relatives charged
with his care.
Changed conditions of both family and school, fortunately for him, combine to
render this no longer possible, as absence of proper training is always certain to
result in deterioration. The pressure upon the primary schools in the struggle for
higher education leaves no time to contend with dull, backward children. In the
family the care-takers grow fewer in proportion as the home-makers become
home-winners, and so these feeble ones are a burden instead of an aid in the
ordinary household offices.
The next hope is a training school where, with false hopes fostered by ignorance
and sensationalism, they are entered, and after a few years, a time all too short for
any lasting benefit, a sentimentality equally stupid withdraws them from that
guardianship absolutely essential, with just that little knowledge which will render
them more dangerous to society, because less recognizable—an evil element
perpetuating an evil growth. Under both conditions these unfortunates have
suffered from that lack of constant care and supervision which should be theirs
from the cradle to the grave.
The separation of backward children in the schools and the placing of them in
special classes for special training is the first step in the right direction. Here, after
sufficient time for observation and diagnosing by teacher and physician, the
defectives so adjudged will naturally drift to the training schools for the feeble-
minded; these, if relieved of the odium as well as the care of their helpless
population, will then be encouraged to arrange for this brighter class of defectives
industries which will provide not only for development and happiness, but will
largely aid in maintenance. The recognition of the necessity for this weeding out of
the schools, having place first on the Continent, next in England, and later in our
own country, marks an era in the national as well as in the special schools. Both will
be benefited largely, and formal expression of this, found in the addition to our
National Educational Association of a department representing the training of all
classes of defectives, is one of the most encouraging signs of the times.
Middle-grade Imbeciles.
The same experience which dictates the separation of the idiot from the imbecile,
the backward from the normal child, urges also that a permanent sequestration
would tend alike to the safety and happiness of the normal and abnormal classes.
The experiment made of preparing and sending out into the world these
irresponsibles has proved, to say the least, not encouraging, and the advisability of
their permanent detention has become self-evident.
The heads of training schools here are a unit in urging that provision be made for
those who have reached the limit of school progress. That experience has reached
a similar conclusion in England is testified in the munificent gift lately made to the
Royal Albert Asylum, and by the opinion of its superintendent, Dr. T. Telford-Smith,
thus clearly expressed:
"It is yearly more noticeable that the public mind is coming gradually but surely to
recognize the threefold value of the work of such institutions as the Royal Albert
Asylum. The educational and the custodial aspects early aroused the sympathies of
the charitable; but the preventive aspect is another which must force itself upon all
who thoughtfully consider the subject. The far-reaching and inexorable law of
heredity is written large for those who study the imbecile."
The following paragraph, from a daily paper, shows that, in America at least, public
opinion and the acts of the legislature have become ripe for action:
"The State of Connecticut is about to try a curious experiment in social legislation,
having passed a law forbidding any man or woman, imbecile or feeble-minded, to
marry under forty-five years of age, the penalty being imprisonment for not less
than three years; and persons aiding and abetting are also liable. The hope of the
legislature is to keep down dégenerate families."
That this experiment is wise and justifiable who can doubt?
Low-grade Imbeciles.
No. 1, obstinate, perverse,
indolent;
No. 2, gentle and obedient.
To glance at another and sadder, but not less real, side of the same question, can
any one doubt but that the adolescent and adult female imbecile needs lifelong
care and protection? Surely the noble gift to the asylum by Sir Thomas Storey of a
home for forty such cases is a wise, far-seeing, and statesmanlike act.
It is greatly to be hoped that this noble example may be speedily emulated on both
sides of the sea, and that each State may shortly possess, in addition to its training
school, its own colony farm with all the industries of a village, drawing its workers
from the well-directed energies of a carefully guarded community. Cottages, each
with its house mother, would insure that sense of home, and that affectionate and
sympathetic oversight so essential to this society composed of those who are
always children, while measures, which science has already pointed out and
experience proved as advisable, might, if protected by wise legislation, permit less
vigilance on the part of care-takers and consequent happiness because of greater
freedom to its members.
It is a happy coincidence that Massachusetts, the pioneer State in the work among
the feeble-minded, should in its fifty-first year celebrate the beginning of its second
half century by the inauguration of this most eventful step in the onward progress
of the work. The training school at Waltham has lately purchased sixteen hundred
and sixty acres of land for the establishment of a colony which is to have natural
and healthful growth from the fostering care of the parent institution.
As these colonies increase, drawing from society a pernicious element and
transforming it under watchful care into healthful growth, may not in time the
national Government, finding these homes of prevention a more excellent way than
prison houses of cure for ill, be induced to provide a national colony for this race
more to be commiserated because of a childhood more hopeless than that of the
two others in our midst on whom so much has been expended?
THE WHEAT PROBLEM AGAIN.
By EDWARD ATKINSON.
In a recent article in the North American Review, Mr. John Hyde, the statistician of
the United States Department of Agriculture, a gentleman of very high authority
and repute, presents this problem in such terms as to throw a doubt upon the
validity of any forecast of the potential increase in the product of wheat, or, in fact,
of any crop in this country. Without referring to myself by name, he yet makes it
very plain that he does not attach any value to my recent forecast of wheat
production printed in the Popular Science Monthly for December, 1898.
On the other hand, he rightly says that since Tyndall's address to the British
Association for the Advancement of Science in 1874 no treatise presented to that
association has excited so general an interest or provoked so much unfavorable
criticism as Sir William Crookes's recent utterances on the subject of the
approaching scarcity in the supply of wheat.
Mr. Hyde disclaims any intention to give his own views, but yet no one can read his
treatise without noting a substantial agreement with Sir William Crookes, perhaps
almost unconsciously to himself. In his closing paragraph he says: "To discuss the
extent to which under conceivable conditions the United States may,
notwithstanding the somewhat dubious outlook, still continue to contribute to the
food supply of other nations, would be little more than speculation."
The Italics are my own.
I venture to point out that the use of the word "speculation" is an example of many
instances. Like a dog, one may give a word a bad name, yet it may be a good dog
and a very good word when rightly used. In the true and very innocent meaning of
the word "speculation" we find exactly what the public has a right to expect and
even to demand from the Department of Agriculture. In Webster's Dictionary I find
that, when used in such a connection as this problem of the potential of this
country in farm productions, the word "speculation" stands for "a mental view of
anything in its various aspects and relations; contemplation; intellectual
examination."
If any "mental view" has yet been taken in the Department of Agriculture of the
proportion of the land of this country which may be termed "arable," I have yet to
find the record. If any "contemplation" has been devoted to the proportions of this
arable land which may be devoted to different crops in each section, I have been
remiss in not securing the reports. If any "mental view" has been taken of the
relative area now devoted to each principal crop, and that which may be so
devoted hereafter in order to meet the prospective demand upon the land, either
for the supply of our own population or of other nations, where is the record? If
there is no such "speculation" now of record, is it not time that a true agricultural
survey corresponding to our geologic and geodetic surveys should be entered
upon? I have reason to believe that such surveys have been made by many
European states in which all the arable land in some kingdoms is classified, listed,
and so recorded that any one wishing to know the best place for any special
product can get the information by reference to the proper department of the
Government.
I have had occasion to make several studies of this kind. In order to inform myself
on the potential of the South in the production of cotton, I undertook a study of the
physical geography and climatology of the cotton States and of other cotton-
producing countries nearly forty years ago. The results of this research were first
given in Cheap Cotton by Free Labor, published in 1861. In that pamphlet and in
many treatises following, finally in an address in Atlanta, in 1880, a true forecast or
"speculation" or "intellectual examination" will be found of the production of the
cotton fiber, the potential of the future and of the cotton-seed-oil industry, then
almost unheard of in this country. In 1880 I also entered upon my first
"speculation" (not in the market) on the lines of a "contemplation" or forecast of
the effect of agricultural machinery applied to our wheat land, coupled with the
prospective reduction in the cost of carrying wheat to England, upon the condition
of the American farmer and the British landlord. That forecast of prosperity to our
farmers in the supply of bread at low cost to our kin beyond the sea has been
justified at every point and in every detail. I therefore ventured to review Sir
William Crookes's address, and I am well assured that what Mr. Hyde now calls a
"somewhat dubious outlook" is subject to no doubt whatever as to our ability to
continue our full supply for domestic consumption and export for the next century.
Let me now repeat again what I have often said: statistics are good servants, but
very bad masters. I long since ceased to put any great reliance upon averages of
crops, wages, or products covering wide areas and varying conditions, unless I
could find out, first, the personal equation of the man who compiled them; second,
ascertain what he knew himself about the subject of which his statistics or figures
were the symbols; and, third, unless I could verify these great averages from one
or more typical areas of farm land, or from one or more representative factories or
workshops, of the conditions of which I could myself obtain personal information.
General statistics and averages of farm products and earnings I regard with more
suspicion than almost any others because of the immense variation in conditions.
I have sometimes almost come to the conclusion that so many of the figures of the
United States census are mere statistical rubbish as to throw a doubt on nearly all
the schedules. Yet without accurate statistics on many points, many of them yet to
be secured, the conduct of our national affairs must become as uncertain as would
be the conduct of any great business corporation without a true ledger account and
a trial balance. Hence the necessity for a permanent census bureau and for a
careful "speculation" or "intellectual" and intelligent examination and
"contemplation" or study of the facts about our land by which our future welfare
must be governed.
A good beginning has been made by the authorities of many States, yet more by
the body of well-trained men in charge of the Agricultural Experiment Station, in
whose support too much can not be said. To them I appealed when trying to get an
adequate conception of our potential in wheat.
When we think of the blunders which have been made in very recent years, we
may well have some suspicion that we may still be very ignorant on many points
about our own country. Who really knows very much about the great middle
section of the South, what is called the "Land of the Sky," comprising the upland
plateaus and mountain sections of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, eastern Tennessee, and Kentucky? Within this area, as large as France
and twice as large as Great Britain, will be found timber and minerals equal to both
the countries named, and a potential in agriculture equal to either, as yet very
sparsely populated.
Yet under a craze for centrifugal expansion we are now in danger of trying to
develop tropical islands far away, already somewhat densely peopled, where white
men can not work and live, to our detriment, danger, and loss, while we fail to see
that if we expand centripetally by the occupation and use of the most healthy and
productive section of our own country, we may add immensely to our prosperity,
our wealth, to our profit without cost and without militarism. This sparsely settled
Land of the Sky is greater in area and far greater in its potential than the Philippine
Islands, Cuba, and Porto Rico combined. Verily, it seems as if common sense were
a latent and sluggish force, often endangered by the noisy and blatant influence of
the venal politician and the greed of the unscrupulous advocates of vassal colonies
who now attempt to pervert the power of government to their own purposes of
private gain.
Witness the blunders of the past:
We nearly gave away Oregon because it was held not to be worth retaining.
When the northern boundary of Wisconsin was being determined, it was put as far
north as it was then supposed profitable farming could ever extend, excluding
Minnesota, now one of our greatest sources of wheat.
The Great American Desert in my own school atlas covered a large part of the most
fertile land now under cultivation.
What blunders are we now making for lack of "speculation" or "intellectual
examination" as to the future of American farming and farm lands?
On one point to which Mr. Hyde refers I must cry peccavi. He rebukes the editor of
the Popular Science Monthly for admitting an article in which a potential of
400,000,000 bushels of wheat is attributed to the State of Idaho. The total
depravity of the type-writing machine caused the mechanism to spell Montana in
the letters I-d-a-h-o. What I imputed to Idaho is true of Montana, if the Chief of the
Agricultural Experiment Stations of Montana is a competent witness, if all its arable
land were devoted to wheat. It will be observed that I mentioned Idaho incidentally
(meaning Montana), taking no cognizance of the estimate given, because it was at
present of no practical importance.
I have expressed my distrust of great averages in respect to agriculture and farm
products.
In illustration of this fallacy, the figures presented by Mr. Hyde will now be dealt
with. It is held that in 1930, which is the year when Sir William Crookes predicts
starvation among the bread-eating people of the world for lack of wheat (as if good
bread could only be made from wheat), the population of this country may be
computed at 130,000,000. The requirements of that year for our own consumption
Mr. Hyde estimates at 700,000,000 bushels of wheat, 1,250,000,000 bushels of
oats, 3,450,000,000 bushels of corn (maize), and 100,000,000 tons of hay; and,
although other products are not named by him, we may assume a corresponding
increase.
Subsequently Mr. Hyde gives the present delusive average yields per acre of the
whole country, and then throws a doubt on the future progress of agricultural
science, saying, "Whatever agricultural science may be able to do in the next thirty
years, up to the present time it has only succeeded in arresting that decline in the
rate of production with which we have been continually threatened." Without
dealing at present with this want of and true consideration of or "speculation" upon
the progress made in the last decade under the lead of the experiment stations and
other beginnings in remedying the wasteful and squalid methods that have been so
conspicuous in pioneer farming, let us take Mr. Hyde's averages and see what
demand upon land the requirements of 1930 will make, even at the present meager
average product per acre.
Mr. Hyde apparently computes this prospective product as one that will be required
for the domestic consumption of 130,000,000 people by ratio to our present
product. He ignores the fact that our present product suffices for 75,000,000, with
an excess of live stock, provisions, and dairy products exported nearly equal in
value to all the grain exported, and in excess of the exports of wheat. If we can
increase proportionally in one class of products, why not in another? Whichever
pays best will be produced and exported.
1897 and 1930 compared.—Data of 1897.
Products. Average per acre. Area required.
Maize 1,902,967,933 bushels. 23.8 bushels.125,150 square miles.
Wheat 530,149,168 " 13.4 " 61,660 " "
Oats 698,767,809 " 27.2 " 40,200 " "
Hay 60,664,770 tons. 1.43 " 66,290 " "
——————————
Total in square miles 293,300 square miles.
All other farm crops carry the total to less than 400,000 square miles now under
the plow, probably not exceeding 360,000.
Prospective demand of 1930, at the same meager average product per acre,
without progress in agricultural science:
Crop called for. Per acre. Area required.
Maize 3,450,000,000 bushels.23.8 bushels. 226,600 square miles.
Wheat 700,000,000 " 13.4 " 81,600 " "
Oats 1,250,000,000 " 27.2 " 70,800 " "
Hay 100,000,000 tons. 1.43 " 109,400 " "
———————————
Total in square miles 488,400 square miles.
Assuming all land under the plow in 1930 in the ratio as above, the area of all now
in all crops 400,000 square miles—an excessive estimate—that year (1930) will call
for 667,000 square miles of arable land in actual cultivation.
I have been accustomed to consider one half our national domain, exclusive of
Alaska, good arable land in the absence of any "speculation" on that point in the
records of the Department of Agriculture; but from the returns given by the chiefs
of the experiment stations and secretaries of agriculture of the States hereafter
cited, that estimate may be increased probably to two thirds, or 2,000,000 square
miles of arable land out of a total of 3,000,000 square miles, omitting Alaska.
Assuming that we possess 2,000,000 square miles of arable land, capable at least
of producing the present meager average product cited above, the conditions of
1930 will be graphically presented on the following diagram:
Prospective Use of Land in the Year 1930 on Present Crop Average.
(Arable land assumed to be 2,000,000 square miles in the outer lines of the
diagram)
Oats,
70,800
Wheat,
81,600
Hay,
109,400
Miscellaneous.
Roots, cotton,
Maize,
Indian corn,
Wheat
for
sq. miles. sq.miles. sq. miles. tobacco, etc.,
168,600 sq. m.
Excessive.
226,600
sq. miles.
export,
143,000
sq. miles.
Arable land unassigned 1,200,000 square miles.
Deduct for cities, towns, parks, and reserves of all kinds 200,000 " "
—————
Reserve for future use 1,000,000 " "
Forest, mountain, arid, etc., not counted, about 1,000,000 square miles,
not included in these lines or squares.
No reduction on area cultivated on prospective improvement in the present
methods of farming, although it may be assumed that the prospective increase
of crop per acre will exert great influence.
If the facts should be in 1930 consistent with Mr. Hyde's "speculation" it would
therefore appear that our ability to meet the domestic demand of 1930 with
proportionate export of cattle, provisions, and dairy products, and to set apart a
little patch of land for the export of 1,226,000,000 bushels of wheat raised at the
rate of only 13.4 bushels per acre from 143,000 square miles of land will be met by
the cultivation of not exceeding 700,000 square miles out of 2,000,000 available.
I should not venture to question the conclusions emanating from the Department of
Agriculture, or the deductions of so eminent a scientist as Sir William Crookes, had
I not taken the usual precaution of a business man in studying a business question.
I went to the men who know the subject as well as the figures on which statistics
are to be compiled.
Being supplied by the Popular Science Monthly with one hundred proofs of the first
nine and a half pages of the December article in which the terms of the problem
are stated, I sent those proofs to the chiefs of the experiment stations and to the
secretaries of agriculture in all the States from which any considerable product of
wheat is now or may be hereafter derived; also to many makers of wheat
harvesters; to the secretaries of Chambers of Commerce, and to several economic
students in the wheat-growing States. This preliminary study was accompanied by
the following circular of inquiry:
Boston, Mass., October 5, 1898.
To the Chiefs of the Agricultural Experiment Stations and others in Authority:
Calling your attention to the inclosed advance sheets of an article which will by
and by appear in the Popular Science Monthly, I beg to put to you certain
questions.
If the matter interests you, will you kindly fill up the blanks below and let me
have your replies within the present month of October, to the end that I may
compile them and give a digest of the results? I shall state in the article that I
am indebted to you and others for the information submitted.
Area of the State of....................... square miles.
1. What proportion of this area do you believe to be arable land of fair quality,
including pasture that might be put under the plow?
Answer ................... square miles.
2. What proportion is now in forest or mountain sections which may not be
available for agriculture for a long period?
Answer ................... square miles.
3. What has been done or may be done by irrigation?
....................................................................
....................................................................
....................................................................
4. What proportion of the arable land above measured should you consider
suitable to the production of wheat under general conditions such as are given
in the text, say, a stable price of one dollar per bushel in London?
Answer ................... square miles.
5. To what extent, in your judgment, is wheat becoming the cash or surplus
crop of a varied system of agriculture as distinct from the methods which
prevail in the opening of new lands of cropping with wheat for a term of years?
....................................................................
....................................................................
....................................................................
What further remarks can you add which will enable me to elucidate this case,
to complete the article and to convey a true impression of the facts to English
readers?
....................................................................
....................................................................
....................................................................
Your assistance in this matter will be gratefully received.
Respectfully submitted,
Edward Atkinson.
To this circular I received twenty-four detailed replies, containing statistics mostly
very complete; also many suggestive letters, in every case giving full support to the
general views which I had submitted in the proof sheets. It has been impossible for
me to give individual credit within the limits of a magazine article to the gentlemen
who have so fully supplied the data. Space will only permit me to submit a digest of
the more important facts in a table derived from these replies:
Name.
from returns made to my inquiry. From United
States report
in wheat,
1897.
Area of State. Arable.
Suitable to
wheat
Minnesota 84,287 66,000 50,000 7,189
South Dakota 76,000 42,500 40,000 4,187
North Dakota 74,312 50,000 50,000 4,300
Illinois 56,000 54,000 20,000 2,292
Missouri 68,000 64,000 64,000 2,448
Wisconsin 56,000 35,000 35,000 961
—————— ————— ————— —————
414,599 311,500 259,000 21,372
======================================
Texas 269,694 200,000 100,000 700
California 158,360 54,000 30,000 5,062
Montana 145,310 30,000 25,000 109
Idaho 87,000 30,000 15,000 192
—————— ————— ————— —————
660,364 314,000 170,000 6,063
======================================
Total 1,074,963 625,500 429,000 27,435
I do not give the data of the Eastern and Southern States, and I have selected only
the most complete data of the other States, choosing the more conservative where
two returns have been made from one State.
The foregoing States produced a little over one third of the wheat crop of 1897.
They comprise a little over one third the area of the land of the United States,
excluding Alaska.
The list covers States like Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, now very fully
occupied relatively to Texas, Montana, and Idaho, as yet but sparsely settled.
Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, and Washington
combined far exceed the above list in wheat production; but, as I have no complete
data from these States, I can only say that the national or census statistics, as far
as they go, develop corresponding conditions to those above given. The very small
product of Texas and Montana, even of Idaho, as compared with the claimed
potential, will attract notice, and perhaps excite incredulity. But let it be
remembered that in 1880 the Territory of Dakota yielded less than 3,000,000
bushels of wheat, while in 1898 the two States of North and South Dakota,
formerly in one Territory, claim to have produced 100,000,000 bushels. Perhaps it
will then be admitted that the potential of Montana, and even of Idaho, may be
attained in some measure corresponding to the reports from those States; but as
yet their product is a negligible quantity, as that of Dakota was only twenty years
since.[9]
Again, let it be remembered that Texas will produce a cotton crop, marketed in
1898-'99, above the average of the five ante-war crops of the whole country, and
nearly equal to the largest crop ever grown in the United States before the war.
Texas could not only produce the present entire cotton crop of the United States
but of the world, on but a small part of her land which is well suited to cotton.
When these facts are considered, perhaps the potential of that great State in wheat
and other grain, in cattle and in sheep, as well as in cotton, may begin to be
comprehended.
The writer is well aware that this treatment of a great problem is very incomplete,
but it is the best that the leisure hours of a very busy business life would permit. If
it discloses the general ignorance of our resources, the total inadequacy of many of
our official statistics, the lack of any real agricultural survey, and the necessity for a
reorganization and concentration of the scientific departments of the Government
as well as of a permanent census bureau, it will have served a useful purpose.
If it also serves to call attention to the meager average crops and the poor quality
of our agriculture as a whole down to a very recent period, it may suggest even to
those to whose minds the statistics of the past convey but gloomy and "doubtful
views" of the future, that the true progress in scientific agriculture could only begin
when substantially all the fertile land in the possession of the Government had
either been given away or otherwise distributed. So long as "sod crops" and the
single-crop system yielded adequate returns to unskilled farmers, no true science of
agriculture could be expected, any more than a large product of wool can be hoped
for in States where it has been wittily said that "every poor man keeps one cur dog,
and every d—d poor man keeps two or more."
Finally, if I shall have drawn attention to the very effective work which is being
done in the agricultural experiment stations by men of first-rate ability, I shall have
drawn attention to a great fact. This work has already led to a complete revolution
from the old practice of maltreating land, and to the renovation of soils that had
been partially exhausted. Governor Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, long since
condemned the old methods of Southern agriculture by telling his hearers, "The
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  • 6. Chapter One Introduction What is programming? Programming is a skill that can be acquired by a computer professional that gives him/her the knowledge of making the computer perform the required operation or task. Why do we need to learn computer programming? Computer programming is critical if one wants to know how to make the computer perform a task. Most users of a computer only use the available applications on the computer. These applications are produced by computer programmers. Thus if someone is interested to make such kind of applications, he/she needs to learn how to talk to the computer, which is learning computer programming. What is programming language? Programming Language: is a set different category of written symbols that instruct computer hardware to perform specified operations required by the designer. What skills do we need to be a programmer? For someone to be a programmer, in addition to basic skills in computer, needs to have the following major skills: • Programming Language Skill: knowing one or more programming language to talk to the computer and instruct the machine to perform a task. • Problem Solving Skill: skills on how to solve real world problem and represent the solution in understandable format. • Algorithm Development: skill of coming up with sequence of simple and human understandable set of instructions showing the step of solving the problem. Those set of steps should not be dependent on any programming language or machine. In every programming Language there are sets of rules that govern the symbols used in a programming language. These set of rules determine how the programmer can make the computer hardware to perform a specific operation. These sets of rules are called syntax.
  • 7. 1.1. Generations of programming language. Programming languages are categorized into five generations: (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th generation languages) These programming languages can also be categorized into two broad categories: low level and high level languages. o Low level languages are machine specific or dependent. o High level languages like COBOL, BASIC are machine independent and can run on variety of computers. From the five categories of programming languages, first and second generation languages are low level languages and the rest are high level programming languages. The higher the level of a language, the easier it is to understand and use by programmers. Languages after the forth generation are refereed to as a very high level languages. 1.1.1. First Generation (Machine languages, 1940’s): Difficult to write applications with. Dependent on machine languages of the specific computer being used. Machine languages allow the programmer to interact directly with the hardware, and it can be executed by the computer without the need for a translator. Is more powerful in utilizing resources of the computer. Gives power to the programmer. They execute very quickly and use memory very efficiently. 1.1.2. Second Generation (Assembly languages, early 1950’s): Uses symbolic names for operations and storage locations. A system program called an assembler translates a program written in assembly language to machine language. Programs written in assembly language are not portable. i.e., different computer architectures have their own machine and assembly languages. They are highly used in system software development. 1.1.3. Third Generation (High level languages, 1950’s to 1970’s): Uses English like instructions and mathematicians were able to define variables
  • 8. with statements such as Z = A + B Such languages are much easier to use than assembly language. Programs written in high level languages need to be translated into machine language in order to be executed. The use of common words (reserved words) within instructions makes them easier to learn. All third generation programming languages are procedural languages. In procedural languages, the programmer is expected to specify what is required and how to perform it. 1.1.4. Fourth Generation (since late 1970’s): Have a simple, English like syntax rules; commonly used to access databases. Forth generation languages are non-procedural languages. The non-procedural method is easier to write, but you have less control over how each task is actually performed. In non-procedural languages the programmer is not required to write traditional programming logic. Programmers concentrate on defining the input and output rather than the program steps required. o For example, a command, such as LIST, might display all the records in a file on screen, separating fields with a blank space. In a procedural language, all the logic for inputting each record, testing for end of file and formatting each column on screen has to be explicitly programmed. Forth generation languages have a minimum number of syntax rules. This saves time and free professional programmers for more complex tasks. Some examples of 4GL are structured query languages (SQL), report generators, application generators and graphics languages. 1.1.5. Fifth Generation (1990’s): These are used in artificial intelligence (AI) and expert systems; also used for accessing databases. 5GLs are “natural” languages whose instruction closely resembles human speech. E.g. “get me Jone Brown’s sales figure for the 1997 financial year”. 5GLs require very powerful hardware and software because of the complexity involved in interpreting commands in human language. 1.2. Overview of Computers and Computer Organization. Regardless of differences in physical appearance, virtually every computer
  • 9. may be envisioned as being divided into six logical units or sections: Input Unit: it obtains information from various input devices and places this information at the disposal of the other units so that the information may be processed or stored. Output Unit: it takes information that has been processed by the computer and places it on various output devices to make the information available for use outside the computer. Memory unit: it retains information that has been entered through the input unit, so the information may be made immediately available for processing when it is needed. The memory unit also retains processed information until that information can be placed on output devices by the output unit. Central Processing Unit (CPU): it is the computer’s coordinator and is responsible for supervising the operations of the other sections. CPU tells the input unit when information should be read into memory, tells ALU when information from the memory should be used in calculation and tells output unit when to send information from the memory to certain output devices. Arithmetic and Logic unit: is a part found inside the Central Processing Unit and is responsible for performing calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It also performs comparisons. Secondary Storage device: Programs or data used by other units normally are placed on secondary storage devices (such as disks) until they are needed, possibly hours, days, months, or even years later. 1.3. The evolution of Operating Systems. Early computers were capable of performing only one job at a time. This form of computer operation is often called single-user batch processing. The computer runs a single program at a time while processing data in groups or batches. As computers became more powerful, it became evident that single-user batch processing rarely utilizes the computer’s resources. Therefore, computer developers thought that many jobs or tasks from different programs or applications could be made to share the resources of the computer to achieve better utilization. This concept is called multiprogramming. Multiprogramming involving the “simultaneous” operation of many jobs on the computer. In the 1960’s, many groups, pioneered timesharing operating systems.
  • 10. Timesharing is a special case of multiprogramming, in which users access the computers through terminals. Here, the computer does not run the users job paralleling, but shares the CPU’s time. 1.4. Major Programming Paradigms The major land marks in the programming world are the different kinds of features or properties observed in the development of programming languages. Among these the following are worth mentioning: Procedural, Structured and Object Oriented Programming Paradigms. 1.4.1. Procedural Programming. o Procedural programming is a programming paradigm based upon the concept of procedure call. Procedural programming is often a better choice than simple sequential programming in many situations which involve moderate complexity or which require significant ease of maintainability. o Possible benefits: the ability to re-use the same code (function or procedure) at different places, an easier way to keep track of program flow than a collection of “GO TO” or “JUMP” statements. 1.4.2. Structured Programming. o Process of writing a program in small, independent parts. This makes it easier to control a program's development and to design and test its individual component parts. o Structured programs are built up from units called modules, which normally correspond to single procedures or functions. o Can be seen as a subset or sub discipline of procedural programming. It is most famous for removing or reducing reliance on the GO TO statement. 1.4.3. Object-Oriented Programming. o The idea behind OOP is that, a computer program is composed of a collection of individual units, or objects as opposed to traditional view in which a program is a list of instructions to the computer. o Object-oriented programming is claimed to give more flexibility, easing changes to programs. The OOP approach is often simpler to develop and
  • 11. maintain. 1.5. Problem solving process and software engineering. 1.5.1. Software Engineering. o Software engineering is the profession that creates and maintains software applications by applying technologies and practices from computer science, project management, engineering, application domain and other fields. o The method used in solving problems in computer science and/or information systems is called the software development life cycle. o The software development life cycle has the following components. preliminary investigation analysis design implementation testing and maintenance 1.5.2. Problem Solving o Problem solving is the process of transforming the description of a problem into the solution by using our knowledge of the problem domain and by relying on our ability to select and use appropriate problem-solving strategies, techniques, and tools. o A problem is an undesirable situation that prevents the organization from fully achieving its purpose, goals and objectives. Or problem can also be defined as the gap between the existing and the desired situation where problem solving will try to fill this gap.
  • 12. There are two approaches of problem solving: Top down design: is a systematic approach based on the concept that the structure of the problem should determine the structure of the solution and what should be done in lower level. This approach will try to disintegrate a larger problem into more smaller and manageable problems to narrow the problem domain. Bottom up design: is the reverse process where the lowest level component are built first and the system builds up from the bottom until the whole process is finally completed. 1.6. Basic Program development tips The program we design in any programming language need to be: Reliable: the program should always do what it is expected to do and handle all types of exception. Maintainable: the program should be in a way that it could be modified and upgraded when the need arises. Portable: It needs to be possible to adapt the software written for one type of computer to another with minimum modification. Efficient: the program should be designed to make optimal use of time, space and other resources of the computer. 1.7. Algorithm designing and modeling the logic (using flow chart). A digital computer is a useful tool for solving a great variety of problems. A solution to a problem is called an algorithm; it describes the sequence of steps to be performed for the problem to be solved. Generally, an algorithm is a finite set of well-defined instructions for accomplishing some task which, given an initial state, will terminate in a corresponding recognizable end- state. The algorithm should be: Precise and unambiguous Simple
  • 13. Correct Efficient 1.7.1. Modeling a programs logic using flow chart Algorithm could be designed using many techniques and tools. One tool of designing algorithm is by using flowcharts. Flowchart is a graphical way of expressing the steps needed to solve a problem. A flow chart is a schematic (diagrammatic description) representation of a process. Basic flowcharting symbols are: Terminal point Decision Process Input/Output Flow line Inter-page connector On-page connector e.g: to check weather a number is positive or negative. start Enter number Displaynum/2==0? Display odd even end 1 .8. Compilers and Interpreters. Any program written in a language other than machine language needs to be translated to machine language. The set of instructions that do this task are known as translators. There are different kinds of translator software, among which compilers and interpreters are of interest for most programmers. Compilers: a compiler is a computer program that translates a series of statements written in source code (a collection of statements in a specific programming language) into a resulting object code (translated instructions of
  • 14. the statements in a programming language). A compiler changes or translates the whole source code into executable machine code (also called object code) which is output to a file for latter execution. E.g. C++, Pascal, FORTRAN, etc. Interpreters: is a computer program that translates a single high level statement and executes it and then goes to the next high level language line etc. E.g. QBASIC, Lisp etc. 1 .9. Mechanics of Creating a program (C++) C++ programs typically go through five phases to be executed: these are edit, preprocess, compile, link, load: Edit: this is accomplished with an editor program. The programmer types C++ statements with the editor and makes corrections if necessary. The programs source file is then stored on secondary storage device such as a disk with a “.cpp” file name. After the program is edited, C++ is principally compiled in three phases: preprocessing, translation to object code, and linking (the last two phases are what is generally thought of as the "compilation" process). Preprocess: In a C++ system, a preprocessor program executes automatically before the compiler’s translation phase begins. The C++ preprocessor obeys command called preprocessor directives, which indicate that certain manipulations are to be performed on the program before compilation. The preprocessor is invoked by the compiler before the program is converted to machine language. The C++ preprocessor goes over the program text and carries out the instructions specified by the preprocessor directives (e.g., #include). The result is a modified program text which no longer contains any directives. Compile: Then, the C++ compiler translates the program code. The compiler may be a true C++ compiler which generates native (assembly or machine) code. The outcome may be incomplete due to the program referring to library routines which are not defined as a part of the program. For example, the << operator which is actually defined in a separate IO library. Linking: C++ programs typically contain references to functions and data defined else where, such as in the standard libraries. The object code produced by the C++ compiler typically contains “holes” due to these missing parts. A linker links the object code with the code for the missing function to produce an executable image (with no missing pieces). Generally, the linker completes the object code by linking it with the object code of any
  • 15. library modules that the program may have referred to. The final result is an executable file Loading: the loader takes the executable file from disk and transfers it to memory. Additional components from shared libraries that support the program are also loaded. Finally, the computer, under the control of its CPU, executes the program. In practice all these steps are usually invoked by a single command and the user will not even see the intermediate files generated. Addis Ababa University Faculty of Informatics Worksheet 1 Course Title: Introduction to Programming / Fundamentals of Programming Course No : Comp 271 / CSCE 232 For each of the problems below, develop a flow chart 1) Receive a number and determine whether it is odd or even. 2) Obtain two numbers from the keyboard, and determine and display which (if either) is the larger of the two numbers. 3) Receive 3 numbers and display them in ascending order from smallest to largest 4) Add the numbers from 1 to 100 and display the sum 5) Add the even numbers between 0 and any positive integer number given by the user. 6) Find the average of two numbers given by the user. 7) Find the average, maximum, minimum, and sum of three numbers given by the user.
  • 16. 8) Find the area of a circle where the radius is provided by the user. 9) Swap the contents of two variables using a third variable. 10) Swap the content of two variables without using a third variable. 11) Read an integer value from the keyboard and display a message indicating if this number is odd or even. 12) Read 10 integers from the keyboard in the range 0 - 100, and count how many of them are larger than 50, and display this result. 13) Take an integer from the user and display the factorial of that number Chapter Two Basics of C++ 2.1. The parts of a C++ Program. To understand the basic parts of a simple program in C++, lets have a look at the following code: #include<iostream.h> #include<conio.h> void main() { cout<<”n Hello World!”; getch(); } Any C++ program file should be saved with file name extension “ .CPP ” Type the program directly into the editor, and save the file as hello.cpp, compile it and then run it. It will print the words Hello World! on the computer screen. The first character is the #. This character is a signal to the preprocessor. Each time you start your compiler, the preprocessor runs through the program and looks for the pound (#) symbols and act on those lines before the compiler runs. The include instruction is a preprocessor instruction that directs the compiler to include a copy of the file specified in the angle brackets in the source code. If the path of the file is not specified, the preprocessor looks for the file under c:tcinclude folder or in include folder of the location where the editor is stored. The effects of line 1, i.e. include<iostream.h> is to include the file iostream.h into the program as if the programmer had actually typed it. When the program starts, main() is called automatically. Every C++ program
  • 17. has a main() function. The return value type for main() here is void, which means main function will not return a value to the caller (which is the operating system). The main function can be made to return a value to the operating system. The Left French brace “{“signals the beginning of the main function body and the corresponding Right French Brace “}” signals the end of the main function body. Every Left French Brace needs to have a corresponding Right French Brace. The lines we find between the braces are statements or said to be the body of the function. A statement is a computation step which may produce a value or interact with input and output streams. The end of a single statement ends with semicolon (;). The statement in the above example causes the sting “Hello World!” to be sent to the “cout” stream which will display it on the computer screen. 2.2. A brief look at cout and cin Cout is an object used for printing data to the screen. To print a value to the screen, write the word cout, followed by the insertion operator also called output redirection operator (<<) and the object to be printed on the screen. Syntax: Cout<<Object; The object at the right hand side can be: • A literal string: “Hello World” • A variable: a place holder in memory Cin is an object used for taking input from the keyboard. To take input from the keyboard, write the word cin, followed by the input redirection operator (>>) and the object name to hold the input value. Syntax: Cin>>Object Cin will take value from the keyboard and store it in the memory. Thus the cin statement needs a variable which is a reserved memory place holder. Both << and >> return their right operand as their result, enabling multiple input or multiple output operations to be combined into one statement. The following example will illustrate how multiple input and output can be performed:
  • 18. Other documents randomly have different content
  • 19. At the same time it is these characteristics which make dreams a fit subject of serious study. It was not until the present century that the psychological importance of the study of insanity was recognized. So recent is the study of savage mind that the workers who have laid its foundation are yet all living. The systematic investigation of children only began yesterday. To-day our dreams begin to seem to us an allied subject of study, inasmuch as they reveal within ourselves a means of entering sympathetically into ideas and emotional attitudes belonging to narrow or ill-adjusted states of consciousness which otherwise we are now unable to experience. And they have this further value, that they show us how many abnormal phenomena—possession, double consciousness, unconscious memory, and so forth—which have often led the ignorant and unwary to many strange conclusions, really have a simple explanation in the healthy normal experience of all of us during sleep. Here, also, it is true that we ourselves and our beliefs are to some extent "such stuff as dreams are made of." The harmonious and equitable evolution of man, says President Dabney, of the University of Tennessee, "does not mean that every man must be educated just like his fellow. The harmony is within each individual. That community is most highly educated in which each individual has attained the maximum of his possibilities in the direction of his peculiar talents and opportunities."
  • 20. THE BEST METHODS OF TAXATION. By the Late Hon. DAVID A. WELLS. PART I. This historical survey of tax experience among peoples widely differing in their economic condition and social relations, and this examination of the scope and practice of taxation, with especial reference to the tax systems of the United States as defined and interpreted by judicial authority, prepare the way for a discussion of the best methods of taxation for a country situated as is the United States. General as are the theoretical principles underlying taxation, the application of these principles to existing conditions must be modified to meet the long usage and inherited prejudice of the people, and the form of production or manner of distributing wealth. This holds true in the face of appearances so opposed to it as to defy definition and acceptance. No less promising field for an income tax can be pictured than British India, and few more promising fields than France. Yet India has borne such a tax for years, while France will not permit a true tax on income to be adopted as a part of its revenue system. In the latter country the plea is made that the upper and middle classes already pay under other forms of taxation more than their due proportion of the public burdens, and an additional and necessarily discriminating duty laid upon them will only make this inequality the greater. Class interest may thus oppose its veto to a change that promises to reduce the burdens of one class of taxpayers at the expense of another; or may even oppose a change that offers the chance of collecting a larger revenue with less real difficulty and sacrifice on the part of the taxed. No opposition can set aside even temporarily the great rules that clearly define a tax from tribute, a legal and beneficial taking by the state of a certain part of the public wealth from a demand that involves waste or mischievous expenditure, for which the state or people derive no advantage commensurate with the cost, or from which individuals obtain a gain not defensible in justice, and at the expense of only one part of the community. After so many centuries of experiment, in which hardly a possible source of state revenue has escaped attention, some knowledge of the great principles of taxation might have been evolved. Unfortunately, the experience of one nation is not accepted as containing lessons applicable to the needs or conditions of another, and one generation rarely appeals to history save to defend its own experiments. Ignorance, half knowledge, which is quite as dangerous, and interest guide or influence legislation, and those who predict failure or danger are regarded as theorists, and denounced as unpractical. Nowhere is the tendency to move
  • 21. independent of enlightened knowledge more evident than in the United States. At every appearance of the tax question, State and national legislatures are overwhelmed with measures that have been tried in the past, and after a thorough test condemned beyond any hope of defense. Yet history shows the gradual disappearance of certain forms of taxation which enjoyed great popularity for a time, and accomplished the end of their creation in a crude and often cruel manner. Looking over long periods of time, it is seen that some advances have been made, rather from a change in the economic condition of the people than from a true appreciation of the principles in question. The development of popular liberty has been an essential factor, and the alterations in tax methods require a close analysis of the causes leading to the rise and dominance of political and constitutional principle. While it is true that a popular uprising against fiscal exactions usually marked the limit of endurance of an oppressive system, it is also true that the same uprisings marked the completion of one stage of political development, and the readiness or even the need of entering upon a new stage. In one sense the progress of a people toward civilization in its highest meaning may be illustrated by its fiscal machinery and methods of obtaining its revenue from the people. It will be of interest to glance at some of these passing phases which have generally come down to a late day, and are still to be found in activity in some of the most advanced states of Europe. The practice of farming out the revenues of a state or any part of it has become nearly obsolete, and where it does exist is the mark of a fiscal machinery as yet not fully developed. The opportunities and temptation which the contract system offered for oppressing the taxpayers were apparent long before the state was in a position to assert its ability to make its own collections. In France the fermiers généraux were a political factor, standing between the king and his people, regarded as necessary to the former and as oppressors of the latter. Their unpopularity, in part justified by their conduct, was a not unimportant item in the arraignment of royalty by the people. Wherever introduced, the farming of taxes proved in the long run as unwise politically as it was unprofitable financially; and the only reasonable defense for adopting it was the want of strength in the state to command its own revenue—a want as likely to arise from the dishonesty of its agents as from a political weakness. In early times the most universal manner of supplying the treasury of the state, the farming of taxes has become so rare as to be classed as a curiosity. Italy still employs this machinery to collect her taxes on tobacco, and Spain from necessity has mortgaged her taxes to the bank, with the task of collecting them. Of the same general character are the state lotteries, of which some few and quite important instances may still be found in action. Of the immorality of these instruments there can be little doubt, and there is quite as unanimous an opinion as to their inefficiency as fiscal instruments. Yet it is only within very recent years that
  • 22. state lotteries have been discarded even in the most advanced countries. The machinery of lotteries has often been modified, but, no matter how altered in details, they all have appealed to the love of games of chance. Adam Smith asserted that the "absurd presumption" of men in their own good fortune is even more universal than the overweening conceit which the greater part of men have in their own abilities.[6] Yet another assertion of the same writer is as true: "The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery, or one in which the whole gain compensated the whole loss." Where the state undertakes it, there is a profit generally assured to the state, but that profit is by no means certain, and can not make good the demoralization introduced among the people. State lotteries are still a part of the revenue system in Italy and Austria (proper), where the receipts are important, but show a decided tendency to diminish; Hungary and Denmark, where they are of little moment; and in Spain, where they are retained because of the general incapacity of the administration to reach other and more profitable sources of revenue. The experience of the State of Louisiana in connection with a State lottery is too recent to require examination. It is not probable that once abandoned such an instrument for obtaining money from the people will be revived, save as a last resort. The state monopoly in the manufacture and sale of an article for fiscal purposes holds a place in European countries of high importance, and is met elsewhere under conditions not so favorable to its maintenance. As an example of the latter may be cited the colonial policy of the Dutch in their possessions in the East. After the termination of the trading companies, the Government undertook the entire control of the colonies, and sought to make them a source of revenue. The natives were to be taxed, but, having little of their own to be taxed, and practicing no occupation that could of its own volition become a profitable source of revenue, the state undertook to organize industry, and, by creating an opportunity for employing the labor of the natives, to receive the profits of production for its own uses. The native chiefs were made "masters of industry" and collectors of the revenue; and a certain part of the labor of the natives, one day in every five, was decreed to the state. In order to derive a profit, this labor must be bestowed in cultivating some product as find a market in international trade. Hence arose the importance of the sugar, coffee, tobacco, and spice crops of these Dutch islands, and for many years a handsome profit to the treasury was obtained from the management and sales of product. With the great fall in prices of sugar and coffee throughout the world, and the narrowing of the market for cane sugar, the Government obtained a less income each year, and has found it of advantage to relax the conditions surrounding cultivation, and to throw the management of the plantations more and more into private hands. To such an extent has this transition been effected that the state can no longer be considered as controlling a monopoly in product or sales, and is content with a revenue from other sources, one that does not even cover the expenses incurred in the colonial system. This experiment differs widely
  • 23. from those industries undertaken with the aid or encouragement of the state to be found in India. It was not with a fiscal object that they were established, and not infrequently the state sacrifices revenue by releasing them from tax burdens they would ordinarily endure. As one of the few remaining instances of the direct participation of a state in the production of products intended for foreign markets, yet undertaken and maintained for fiscal reasons, the history of the Dutch colonies in the East is instructive. In Prussia the working of certain mines is in the hands of the state, and was originally looked upon as an important contribution to the income of the state. As in the Dutch experience, the changes in production throughout the world have greatly reduced the returns and made the income variable; yet there is little disposition to dispose of these possessions. "The danger of mineral supplies being worked in a reckless and extravagant manner without regard to the welfare of future generations, and the dread of combinations by the producers of such commodities as tin, copper, and salt, with the aim of raising prices, have both tended to hinder the alienation of state mines."[7] The more common form of state monopoly is that which occupies a middle position, established for reasons of public safety or utility as well as of revenue. The salt monopoly enforced in Prussia was only abolished in 1867, and is still maintained in every canton of Switzerland. The strongest plea in its defense has been the guarantee by the state of the purity of the article sold, and this phase of the question has superseded the revenue aspect. Few articles of prime necessity, like salt, are subject to monopolies imposed by the state, and by a process of elimination it is only articles of luxury or voluntary consumption that are regarded as fit objects of monopoly for the benefit of the state. A tax imposed upon an article at a certain stage of its production or manufacture may enforce the expediency or necessity of a state monopoly. Where the supervision of the state agents must be so close as to interfere with the conduct of the industry, the state intervenes and itself controls the manufacture and sale. Tobacco has long been subject to this fiscal régime, and, proving so productive of revenue, there is little to be said against a monopoly by the state of its manufacture and sale. In Italy the tobacco monopoly is conceded to a company, but its return of net revenue to the state is nearly as large as the revenue derived from the taxes on real property (about thirty-eight million dollars a year). Prussia imposes a charge on the home-grown tobacco by a tax on the land devoted to its culture, but the return is very small, and Bismarck wished to introduce a true tobacco monopoly, modeled on that of France. But the conditions were opposed to his scheme, for the use of tobacco is general throughout the empire, and a proposition to increase its price by taxation or modify its free manufacture and distribution excited a widespread
  • 24. opposition. France maintains a full monopoly, and finds it too profitable to be lightly set aside unless some equally profitable source of revenue is discovered to make good the loss its abolition would involve. While historical support is given to the maintenance of a monopoly as in France, it is not probable that the system will find imitators in other states, however tempting the returns obtained might seem. Great Britain has by her insular position solved the problem in another way. By interdicting the domestic cultivation of tobacco, all that is consumed must be imported, and a customs duty offers a ready instrument for making the plant, in whatever form it enters, contribute its dues to the exchequer. In Russia, as in the United States, where tobacco is a domestic product, the tax is imposed upon its manufacture, and this method requires supervision but no monopoly of the state. The tobacco régime is defended almost entirely on fiscal grounds, and as a monopoly, an extreme measure, has proved its value as an instrument of taxation. Other reasons, of a moral character, are urged to induce the state to monopolize the manufacture and sale of distilled spirits. Both France and Germany have considered this question, and, in spite of confident predictions of a large profit, have decided not to undertake it. Russia, on the other hand, has taken it up quite as much on social as on revenue grounds, and is gradually securing a monopoly of the trade in spirits. The initial cost of the undertaking is large, and, as the system has not yet been perfected, it is too early to give a judgment on its availability as a financial instrument. The transit dues, once commonly used by different countries, have been generally abandoned, and in China must they be sought for in their original forms of vexatious and unprofitable force. They arose from a desire to derive some benefit from a commerce permitted grudgingly, and rarely attaining any high results. The same end was sought by duties on exports, much employed when the country was supposed to be drained of its wealth by what was sent out of it. The conditions necessary for a successful duty on exports are not often found, and only in a few countries are they now existent. In Italy, South America, and Asia, exports of certain natural products are taxed, and, as in the case of Brazil, yield a notable revenue. In view of the rapid advancement of production in new countries and of inventions in the old, whereby many natural monopolies have been destroyed and competition made more general, such duties prove to be more obstructive to trade than productive of revenue, and are rapidly being abandoned. In spite of a formal prohibition of export duties in the Constitution of the United States, they are sometimes suggested in all seriousness. In thus clearing the path of what may be called dead or dying methods of recent tax systems, the advantages enjoyed by the United States in their freedom from such survivals become more evident. The practice of farming taxes never gained a foothold in any part of the country. Lotteries have been occasional, and with two
  • 25. exceptions have been conducted on a limited scale—that of Louisiana is well known; an earlier instance is less known. During the Revolution one of the means resorted to by the Continental Congress for income was a lottery, but the attempt proved disastrous to all concerned, and was finally abandoned even more thoroughly than was the continental currency. State monopolies of production and sale of any commodity have never met with favor, and stand condemned in the desire for individual initiative. As sources of revenue, the public lands, state control of the post office, and of such municipal undertakings as the water and, in a very few cases, the gas supply, has been employed, and in place of profit the mere cost of management is sought. More than any country of continental Europe, the United States has depended upon taxes, pure and simple, unsupported or modified by state domains, state mines, state manufactures, or state monopolies. Even Great Britain in her local taxation is bound and hampered by precedent, and pursues a system that is notoriously confused, costly, and vexatious. Long usage and the erection of independent and conflicting authorities on principles other than fiscal have imposed upon the local agents the duty of assessing and collecting county and borough taxes which are as indefensible in theory as they are difficult in practice. From this weight of tradition and precedent the United States has been almost entirely free, and it was possible to construct out of small beginnings systems of Federal and State taxation at least reasonable and consistent, producing an increasing revenue with the rapid development of wealth and the larger number of taxable objects; and so elastic as to adapt themselves to such changes as are inevitable in any progressive movement of commerce or industry. That no such system has resulted after a century of national life, and an even longer term of local (colonial and State) activities, these papers have tended to show. That the time is at hand when the problem of a thorough reform of both State and Federal taxation must be met, current facts prove beyond any doubt. If I have aided in a proper comprehension of these problems, and, by collecting certain experiences in taxation among other peoples and in different stages of civilization, contributed toward a proper solution, the end of this work will have been attained. It is not possible to introduce a complete change of policy at once; it is not only feasible but necessary to indicate the direction this change should take, and the ends to be secured in making them. And first as to Federal taxation: In a democracy like that of the United States, the continuance of a mixed system of direct and indirect taxes is a foregone conclusion. Not that there is an absence of change or modification in the details of this double system, or in the application or distribution of a particular impost or duty. To deny such modification is to deny any movement in the body politic, or any progress in the industrial and commercial economy of the people. There is a steady and continuous movement in every direction, and the mere effort to escape taxation results in a new adjustment of related facts. This development has, partly through necessity and partly through a
  • 26. rising consciousness of what a tax implies, been tending from indirect to direct taxes. Ever restive under a rigid supervision by the state of private concerns, there has been a wholesome opposition to inquisitorial taxes. But this opposition has been carried too far, and is due more to the ignorant and at times brutal disregard by the agents selected for enforcing the law than to an appreciation of the injustice of the tax. Whether in customs or excise, the same blunders of management have been committed, and created a spirit in the people that is injurious to their best interests. On the one hand, private enterprises have been unduly favored by the removal of foreign competition, a favor that is now disappearing through the remarkable development of domestic competition. Thus taxes have been extensively used for other purposes than to obtain revenue, and for private ends. On the other hand, there has been created the feeling that taxation is a proper instrument for effecting a more equal distribution of wealth among the people, and readily becomes an instrument of oppression. The almost absolute dependence of the Federal Government upon the customs duties for revenue through a great part of its existence was a striking fact. The simplicity of collection and the comparatively moderate scale of duties, although considered high at the time of imposition, gave this branch of the possible sources of revenue a magnified importance. The development of the country was slow, and at times greatly hampered by the tariff policy; but until about 1857 no other source of income was needed to meet the expenditures of the Government in a time of peace. In recent years this has all changed, and not for the better. The immense development in manufactures and financial ability accomplished since 1860 has made a tariff for protection an anachronism. The political features of customs legislation have been pushed so far as almost to overshadow the fiscal qualities. The wave of protectionism that followed the abrogation of the commercial treaties of Europe about 1880 has resulted in tariffs framed with the desire to injure the commerce of other states rather than to meet the needs of a treasury. In the United States this policy has been carried beyond that of Europe, and the tariff now in existence is more protective than any hitherto enforced, short of absolute prohibition of imports. In more respects than one the tariff law of 1897 was an extreme application of the protective policy. Each year the United States has demonstrated its ability not only to meet the industrial competition of the world on an equal footing, but to engage with it aggressively and with complete success. It is not necessary to give the figures of exports of manufactures to establish this fact; it is now beyond question. To frame a measure of extreme protection was, therefore, to overlook the most striking phase of the industrial situation existing in the United States. With an ability to manufacture cheaply and on a grand scale, and with a capacity to supply the demands of a market larger than any home market, there was no foreign
  • 27. competition to encounter, and the higher rates of duties meant nothing, either for protection or for revenue. In carrying further into action a tariff framed more for protection than for revenue, a twofold error was committed. The provisions were so complicated as to make the application difficult, and in applying these provisions inquisitorial and vexatious regulations were necessary to assure even a reasonable fulfillment of the requirements. In former tariff laws a general description carried a large class of articles, and a uniform duty, usually ad valorem, was collected. But under the demand for a more scientific tariff, these general classes were broken up into a number of enumerated articles, each one carrying a specific or mixed duty, and an omnium or basket clause at the end to catch any article that could not be included in any enumeration. This desire to fix specific rates upon each imported commodity has been applied more generally in the law of 1897 than in any previous tariff act. An examination of the imports of manufactures of textile fibers will illustrate this increase of complexity without any increase of revenue. Indeed, these classifications and rates, being suggested by interested parties, have for their object a reduction of imports, and as a rule a reduction in revenue from them follows. The second objection to the increasing complexity of the tariff laws is to be found in the petty annoyances imposed upon importers and others in enforcing the not always consistent provisions of the law. These vexations are made all the more telling by the fact that the administration of the law is apt to be in the hands of those who are openly hostile to foreign importations, and therefore regard the importer in an unfriendly spirit. The power given to the customs agents is enormous, and it is not remarkable that it is abused. The demand for samples, the appraisement of articles, the classification of new or compound commodities, all offer room for controversy, which is not always decided by an appeal to the courts of justice. In special instances, where a section of the law has been framed in behalf of a special interest, the attempt to enforce it becomes petty tyranny of the most intolerable kind. In operation the law soon exhibited its failure as a revenue measure. Although duties were generally increased, the more important articles taxed yielded a smaller revenue than under lower rates. The aggregate collections under the bill did not meet the expectations of its sponsors, and for two reasons: first, because the higher duties discouraged imports; and secondly, the demand for imported articles was steadily decreasing under the expanding ability of home manufactures to meet the needs of the market. No measure short of a direct encouragement to importations can change this situation, or prevent the further shrinkage in the use of foreign manufactures. It follows that the tariff, unless radically altered, can no longer be depended on for a return sufficient to defray one half of the rapidly increasing expenditures of the national Government. By refusing to impose moderate duties on articles of general consumption, revenue is sacrificed; by insisting upon imposing protective duties where little revenue can be had, the tariff
  • 28. is converted into a political weapon. Its dangerous qualities are strengthened by turning these duties against the products of certain countries, a policy specially fit to invite reprisals. Even the framers of this latest tariff entertained the belief that some provision should be made for breaking its full effect. The familiar scheme for reciprocity treaties, under which moderate concessions in some of the duties could be made, was retained; but France was the only power that could have an object in seriously entertaining the proposition to enter into a negotiation. No real reduction in duties could be given to Germany or any other country, and it has become a recognized fact that Germany does not hesitate to seize an opportunity to exclude the products of the United States, and on the same grounds as support the high duties in the American tariff. The system of drawbacks has ceased to be of much moment in our customs policy, and in the export interest in canned goods finds its chief exercise. Nor does a privilege to manufacture in bond affect more than one article of importance—ores of lead containing silver. No matter how it is regarded, the tariff of 1897 was not framed for revenue, and in experience has not proved sufficiently productive to meet its share of the expenditures of Government. The animus of its sponsors in attaining the immediate political object sacrificed the more important and permanent object of revenue. Were the true object of customs duties—revenue—to be kept in view in tariff legislation, it would be a simple matter to devise a measure that would be satisfactory and highly productive of revenue. In the fifteen hundred or more articles enumerated in the tariff schedules, more than fourteen hundred are nonproductive, or yield so small a return as to have in the aggregate no appreciable effect on the total receipts. The number left after so large an exclusion can be still further reduced without reducing the revenue one tenth; and it is from a small number of articles, hardly twenty-five, that the great part of the customs revenue is obtained. By reducing the rates of duties on these to a point of highest revenue efficiency, at which the import is not interfered with and yet not encouraged, a higher return could be had than from the existing complicated, overloaded, and political compilation of duties, usually imposed for any reason other than what they will bring into the treasury. When, therefore, the best methods of Federal taxation are broached, the reform of the tariff stands first in importance. It is necessary to bring it more into line with the industrial conditions of to-day, which call for foreign markets rather than a domestic or closed market; and for a liberal commercial policy in place of one that regards the products of other countries, whether imported in the crude or manufactured forms, as constituting a menace to American labor and American interests. It calls for a systematic and intelligent revision, which shall throw out such duties as are no longer of service even for protection, and to reduce those that are hostile to the products of other countries and bear in themselves the seeds
  • 29. of reprisals in the future. Now that the United States is going into the great markets with its manufactures, and obtaining a foothold against all competitors, the invitation to retaliation holds a danger far greater to its own interests than any that can be inflicted on other peoples. The greater the advances made the more readily will recourse be had to reprisals and hostile legislation; and in support of every act appeal may be had to examples set by the United States.[8]
  • 30. MENTAL DEFECTIVES AND THE SOCIAL WELFARE. By MARTIN W. BARR, M. D., chief physician, pennsylvania training school for feeble-minded children, elwyn, pa. Periods of extraordinary efflorescence or fruitage are followed by exhaustion and sterility not infrequently demanding the free use of the pruning knife; and, just as we remark how frequent is idiocy the offspring of genius, so do we find the same seeming paradox, of mental defect in rank and increasing growth the product of this most wonderful nineteenth century. True, science has contributed to numbers by revealing as mental defectives the many "misunderstood," "the backward," "the feebly gifted," as well as by showing what was once esteemed moral perversion to be moral imbecility; but a truth to which science also attests is, that unstable nerve centers uniting and reacting through successive generations, producing various forms of neuroses, evidenced in insanity, moral and mental imbecility, idiocy and epilepsy, do show the influence of a highly nervous age. Our last census reports, although necessarily uncertain and unreliable, yet show ninety thousand mental defectives, not including the insane. Unrecognized and unacknowledged cases swell the number easily to one hundred thousand within our present borders—how many we are going to annex remains to be seen; but this is an enemy that attacks not our frontiers but our hearthstones. We have reached that point when we must conquer it, lest it should conquer us, and the means to this end may be summed up in three words—separation, asexualization, and permanent sequestration. "Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliances are relieved, or not at all," and we must recognize that heroic measures now are as essential to the welfare of the unfortunate as to society, which will then naturally adjust itself to new conditions. Viewing the separation and massing of these irresponsibles—innocent victims of ignorance, debauchery, or selfish lust—men will come to realize that a greater crime than taking is the giving of such life; and so a greater reverence for the sacredness of marriage, a deeper sense of the great responsibilities of parenthood, will do more to avert this evil than the most stringent marriage laws. That the present demands some restraint upon the ignorant and the indifferent there can be no doubt, and laws preventing the marriage of defectives and of their immediate descendants would go far to stem the tide of harmful heredity.
  • 31. But what to do with those now in our midst is the vital question! They must be provided for in a way that shall insure safety to society, economy to the State, and protection and happiness to the individual. The answer found in the experience of half a century is, briefly, asylums for the helpless—training schools and colonies for those capable of becoming helpful. These in very name and nature being widely separate, just as separate as titles and names indicate, should be their working systems. Work among the feeble-minded, a philanthropic movement directed first toward the idiot, soon found a limit in dealing with a subject not trainable and but slightly if at all improvable. Thence, diverging and broadening as idiocy became better understood and imbecility in various phases became recognized, it found its true province in strengthening and encouraging feeble intellects, arousing and stimulating indolent and weak wills, and in training and directing into healthful channels the abnormal energy of those destitute of the moral sense. How wide the divergence can readily be seen, as also how entirely incompatible with union must be work further apart in reality than is the training of an imbecile and a normal child. Excitable Idiot. Practically unimprovable. Apathetic Idiot. Practically unimprovable. Idio-Imbecile. But slight hope of improvement. For the idiot, who not only can not be trained, but who in many cases is unimprovable even in the simplest matters of self-help, nothing is needed but that care and attention found in every well-regulated nursery of delicate children, the sine qua non being regular hours, simple nourishing food, frequent baths, and tender mothering. As many are paralyzed, blind, lame, or epileptic, it is desirable that the dormitories, well ventilated, be on the same floor with the living rooms and of easy access to bathrooms and playgrounds. Covered and carefully guarded porches should afford the much-needed fresh air and outdoor life in all weathers.
  • 32. These, with cheerful, sunny playrooms, provided with simple toys and furnished with bright decorations varying with the season, will contribute the maximum of pleasure for this life of perpetual infancy. Low vitality, general poverty of the whole physical make-up, the prevalence of phthisis and epilepsy and kindred diseases require the daily inspection of a physician, while the comfort and well-being of the whole, both workers and children, are insured by a capable and sympathetic house mother. The character of attendants is of the first importance, as these are they who live with the children; it should combine that firmness, tenderness, and balance that constitute an even temperament, capable of recognizing and meeting an occasion without loss of self-control. The duties involve not only the care of the idiots, but the training and direction of idio-imbeciles as aids, and this dealing with natures often wholly animal, requires a certain refinement and dignity of character—at least an entire absence of coarseness—while a knowledge of the simpler manual arts, and if possible of drawing and music, will do much to soften and brighten these darkened natures. As these qualities are valuable as well as rare, the remuneration should be in proportion; certainly sufficient to induce permanency and to compensate for such isolation. A life of constant wear and tear demands also regular periods of rest, and the corps therefore should be sufficiently large to give relief hours daily as well as vacations. The idio-imbecile, but one remove from his weaker brother, to whose wants he may be trained to minister, finds here his fitting place, and the domestic service of these asylums may be largely drawn from this class and also from that of the low-grade imbecile. Working as an aid, never alone, always under direction, he finds in a monotonous round of the simplest daily avocations his life happiness, his only safety from lapsing into idiocy, and therefore his true home. The relief to the home, the actual benefit to the State in this housing and care of the idiot and idio-imbecile can never be fully estimated. It is reckoned, however, in a general way that for every idiot sequestrated the energies of two if not four normal persons are returned to society. Imbecility, mental or moral, congenital or accidental, is either an inherent defect or an irrecoverable loss, an incurable disease for which hospitals can do nothing, nor can reformatories form again that which never has been formed. Could language be made clear enough to enable the public mind to grasp this fact, the work of training schools, the only hope of the imbecile, would then be simplified, and people might be willing to accept what they can give, in the only way in which it can be given, to be of any permanent value. As it is, the few charlatans who profess to train and in a few years send out an imbecile ready to take a high-school or college course not only deceive those from whom they may gather a few thousands, but their representations, coupled with that of a sensational press,
  • 33. effectually impede the progress of a work which must eventually find its true place in the system of public education. Influenced by these misrepresentations, parents come with profound idiots and high hopes of a course of training (here is one of the misfortunes of an idiot asylum within a training school), and simply refuse to accept a negative to their expectations. Again—to waifs and strays, high-grade imbeciles, developing after years of labored training proficiency in music, drawing, or some one of the industrial arts, friends will suddenly crop up and, dazzled by what seems phenomenal genius, seek to withdraw them just as they become useful to the community. Little do they know of the weak will, indolent nature, and utter lack of "go," that forbid competition with normal labor and must forever be subject to the will of another; still less of the weak physical build that is kept intact only by watchful care, and which would succumb to any undue hardship. So much for the difficulties that beset the work. Now as to the work itself. As this must vary according to the status of the individual, a careful study and a correct diagnosis are of primary importance in order that the work may be fitted to the child, not the child to the work. The plan pursued is as follows: A thorough examination—physical, mental, and moral—is first made by the chief physician in connection with papers properly filled out giving personal and family history. He is then sent to the hospital for a fortnight to insure immunity from disease. There, while perfectly free and unrestrained among his fellows, he is under constant observation of the nurses; these observations, carefully noted, are returned to the chief physician, who turns both over to the principal of schools, designating the grade in which he is to enter for probation. Here under different environment he is again tested for some weeks and finally placed.
  • 34. High-grade Imbecile. High-grade Imbecile. Very improvable—can read, write, draw, etc. Low-grade Imbecile. Only slightly improvable. It is hard for the uninitiated to understand that the grade, be it high, middle, or low, is not associated with promotion and advancement as in schools for normal children. On the contrary, it signifies the quality and status of the individual, his limitations, his possibilities, and consequently determines almost unfailingly the training for his life work; not by any hard-and-fast lines, but by a general mapping out of means which experience has proved will best insure his development, because best suited to his needs. Every latitude is allowed and, as the comfort of both the teacher and the entire class depends upon each going to his own place, there is easy and natural transference according to the necessity indicated by either progress or retrogression; but the varied occupations in each grade give ample scope for indulgence of individual proclivity in the means of development, and it is found that the original diagnosis, based upon experience, rarely errs. The motto of the schools—"We learn by doing; the working hand makes strong the working brain"—shows manual training to be the basis of the scheme of development, varied for each grade to suit the intelligence. Thus classified, various occupations are arranged and presented with the double intent of securing all- round development, and of giving at the same time opportunity for choice according to individual bent, the child being gradually permitted to devote himself more exclusively to that in which he shows a tendency to excel, and to gain a certain automatic ease in what shall prove the initial of a life employment. A knowledge of writing and of numbers is acquired incidentally as a necessary part of these occupations in daily practice, and arithmetic, taught with objects, is chiefly counting, separating into fractional parts, and practical measurements. Books are used rather as a convenient means of attracting and holding attention while inducing habits of consecutive thinking than for a knowledge of facts to be memorized. Those who can learn to read gain naturally a means of self- entertainment, of self-instruction, hence a certain amount of culture, so long as protected in an institution from indiscriminate and pernicious literature. The low-grade imbecile, but a slight degree removed from the idio-imbecile, is, like him, totally incapable of grasping artificial signs or symbols. He can therefore never learn to read or write; figures have no meaning for him, nor numbers, beyond the very simplest counting acquired in the daily repetition of some simple task such as knitting, netting, braiding rope, straw, or knotting twine. The excitation of interest in these, which will also give hand and arm power, the arousing of the sluggish, indolent will, through the stimulus of pleasurable emotions, the physical development by means of the various drills and the moral influence of refined, orderly surroundings—these, together with some practical work of house, garden, or farm, which forms part of the daily routine, are all that school life can do for him.
  • 35. Moral Imbecile of High Grade. Moral Imbecile of Middle Grade. Moral Imbecile, Low Grade. From this preparation he passes to the industrial department, where he receives training in that occupation which the school has indicated for him, becoming in his limited way a useful and contented member of a community which should be his life home. As both of these types develop either extreme docility or perversity—the one quiet, gentle, obedient, following any suggestion even of a comrade's stronger will; the other obstinate, indolent, often brutal and cruel—the necessity for constant guardianship is therefore self-evident. When we consider that the training of a high-grade imbecile takes four times the period commonly allotted to a normal child, some idea of the vital energy expended on the training of the lower grades may be found in the following example: I find in our museum of educational work a little ball which I am inclined to regard the most valuable thing in the whole collection. The boy who made it was a low- grade imbecile. His hand against every man, he fancied every man's against him. Always under strict custodial care, that he might harm neither himself nor others, he would vent his spleen in tearing his clothing. His teacher, a woman of rare patience and devotedness, sat beside him one day, tearing strips of old linen and laying them in order. "See, Willie, let us make some pretty strips and lay them so." His wonder grew apace at seeing her doing what he had been reproved for doing; at once he responded, and a new bond of sympathy was established between them. She was playing his game—the only one, poor little lad, that he was capable of—and he joined in.
  • 36. "Now, we will draw out the pretty threads and lay them in rows." For weeks the boy found quiet pastime in this occupation, and the violent nature grew quieter in proportion. One day the teacher said, "Let us tie these threads together and make a long string." It took him months and months to learn to tie those knots, but meanwhile his attendants were having breathing space. "Now we will wind this into a pretty ball, and I will cover all you make for the boys to play with"; and a new occupation was added to his meager list. The next link in this chain of development was a lesson in knitting. Again, through months of patient teaching, it was at last accomplished, and the boy to the day of his death found his life happiness in knitting caps for the children, in place of tearing both them and their clothing. You see the teacher was wise enough to utilize the natural activities of the child and divert evil propensities into healthful channels. Had she brought knitting and bright yarn or anything foreign to him first, it would in truth have been fitting new cloth to old garments and the rent would have been widened: his obstinacy would have been aroused, and he would have continued to tear to the end of the chapter. High-grade Imbeciles (Feebly Gifted) at Sloyd Work. The imbecile of middle grade receives that fuller presentation of work suited to fuller capacity. Some time is devoted to the three "Rs," as it is found that attention may be aroused and concentrated in the phonetic drills, more especially if associated with pictures, and the drawing of the objects named free-hand; thus eye, ear, and hand are encouraged to work simultaneously. Those who accomplish
  • 37. finally the reading of short simple stories not only enjoy evenings in the library, but may be enabled to glean suggestions for the various handicrafts for which they are being trained. This effort at quick observation and original thinking is further carried forward in the ambidextrous movements of free-hand drawing, designing, and sketching from life—finding ready and practical application in the daily use of tools. The value of the rule and the try-square is tested in the manufacture of the various useful articles in both paper and wood included under the head of sloyd, and "a boy can not learn to take a straight shaving off a plank," says Ruskin, "or to drive a fine curve without faltering, or to lay a brick level in the mortar, without learning a multitude of other matters which life of man could never teach him." Equally useful to the girl in the workroom as to the boy in the shop is this training of a ready eye, this quick intuition of balance and proportion, this practice of obedience of hand and arm to brain, until it becomes automatic. To both, therefore, the value of such preparation will be incalculable. It is noticeable that boys of this grade turn out as good workers in the ordinary crafts of shoemaking, carpentering, and house painting as those of higher grade who, although capable of grasping more intelligently the details of work, yet do not bring to it that energy and perseverance of one who finds in it "this one thing I do." With the imbecile of high grade, able to accomplish studies equal to about the first intermediate of the public schools, there is a diffusion of interest; the intelligence broadens rather than deepens during the school period in natural response to environment. With greater grasp of numerical values and of letters he attains proficiency impossible to the lower grades in drawing, in music, in printing, and in cabinet work. Other industries will probably be provided for him as the demand increases, for it must be remembered that this is a class whose needs have been the last to be recognized in a work begun, as I have before said, for the idiot. Regarded as queer, unlike other children—unable to keep up—he has, after an unsuccessful trial at school, been kept at home, in some cases an aid, in others a tyrant, to those relatives charged with his care. Changed conditions of both family and school, fortunately for him, combine to render this no longer possible, as absence of proper training is always certain to result in deterioration. The pressure upon the primary schools in the struggle for higher education leaves no time to contend with dull, backward children. In the family the care-takers grow fewer in proportion as the home-makers become home-winners, and so these feeble ones are a burden instead of an aid in the ordinary household offices. The next hope is a training school where, with false hopes fostered by ignorance and sensationalism, they are entered, and after a few years, a time all too short for any lasting benefit, a sentimentality equally stupid withdraws them from that guardianship absolutely essential, with just that little knowledge which will render them more dangerous to society, because less recognizable—an evil element
  • 38. perpetuating an evil growth. Under both conditions these unfortunates have suffered from that lack of constant care and supervision which should be theirs from the cradle to the grave. The separation of backward children in the schools and the placing of them in special classes for special training is the first step in the right direction. Here, after sufficient time for observation and diagnosing by teacher and physician, the defectives so adjudged will naturally drift to the training schools for the feeble- minded; these, if relieved of the odium as well as the care of their helpless population, will then be encouraged to arrange for this brighter class of defectives industries which will provide not only for development and happiness, but will largely aid in maintenance. The recognition of the necessity for this weeding out of the schools, having place first on the Continent, next in England, and later in our own country, marks an era in the national as well as in the special schools. Both will be benefited largely, and formal expression of this, found in the addition to our National Educational Association of a department representing the training of all classes of defectives, is one of the most encouraging signs of the times. Middle-grade Imbeciles. The same experience which dictates the separation of the idiot from the imbecile, the backward from the normal child, urges also that a permanent sequestration would tend alike to the safety and happiness of the normal and abnormal classes. The experiment made of preparing and sending out into the world these
  • 39. irresponsibles has proved, to say the least, not encouraging, and the advisability of their permanent detention has become self-evident. The heads of training schools here are a unit in urging that provision be made for those who have reached the limit of school progress. That experience has reached a similar conclusion in England is testified in the munificent gift lately made to the Royal Albert Asylum, and by the opinion of its superintendent, Dr. T. Telford-Smith, thus clearly expressed: "It is yearly more noticeable that the public mind is coming gradually but surely to recognize the threefold value of the work of such institutions as the Royal Albert Asylum. The educational and the custodial aspects early aroused the sympathies of the charitable; but the preventive aspect is another which must force itself upon all who thoughtfully consider the subject. The far-reaching and inexorable law of heredity is written large for those who study the imbecile." The following paragraph, from a daily paper, shows that, in America at least, public opinion and the acts of the legislature have become ripe for action: "The State of Connecticut is about to try a curious experiment in social legislation, having passed a law forbidding any man or woman, imbecile or feeble-minded, to marry under forty-five years of age, the penalty being imprisonment for not less than three years; and persons aiding and abetting are also liable. The hope of the legislature is to keep down dégenerate families." That this experiment is wise and justifiable who can doubt?
  • 40. Low-grade Imbeciles. No. 1, obstinate, perverse, indolent; No. 2, gentle and obedient. To glance at another and sadder, but not less real, side of the same question, can any one doubt but that the adolescent and adult female imbecile needs lifelong care and protection? Surely the noble gift to the asylum by Sir Thomas Storey of a home for forty such cases is a wise, far-seeing, and statesmanlike act. It is greatly to be hoped that this noble example may be speedily emulated on both sides of the sea, and that each State may shortly possess, in addition to its training school, its own colony farm with all the industries of a village, drawing its workers from the well-directed energies of a carefully guarded community. Cottages, each with its house mother, would insure that sense of home, and that affectionate and sympathetic oversight so essential to this society composed of those who are always children, while measures, which science has already pointed out and experience proved as advisable, might, if protected by wise legislation, permit less
  • 41. vigilance on the part of care-takers and consequent happiness because of greater freedom to its members. It is a happy coincidence that Massachusetts, the pioneer State in the work among the feeble-minded, should in its fifty-first year celebrate the beginning of its second half century by the inauguration of this most eventful step in the onward progress of the work. The training school at Waltham has lately purchased sixteen hundred and sixty acres of land for the establishment of a colony which is to have natural and healthful growth from the fostering care of the parent institution. As these colonies increase, drawing from society a pernicious element and transforming it under watchful care into healthful growth, may not in time the national Government, finding these homes of prevention a more excellent way than prison houses of cure for ill, be induced to provide a national colony for this race more to be commiserated because of a childhood more hopeless than that of the two others in our midst on whom so much has been expended?
  • 42. THE WHEAT PROBLEM AGAIN. By EDWARD ATKINSON. In a recent article in the North American Review, Mr. John Hyde, the statistician of the United States Department of Agriculture, a gentleman of very high authority and repute, presents this problem in such terms as to throw a doubt upon the validity of any forecast of the potential increase in the product of wheat, or, in fact, of any crop in this country. Without referring to myself by name, he yet makes it very plain that he does not attach any value to my recent forecast of wheat production printed in the Popular Science Monthly for December, 1898. On the other hand, he rightly says that since Tyndall's address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1874 no treatise presented to that association has excited so general an interest or provoked so much unfavorable criticism as Sir William Crookes's recent utterances on the subject of the approaching scarcity in the supply of wheat. Mr. Hyde disclaims any intention to give his own views, but yet no one can read his treatise without noting a substantial agreement with Sir William Crookes, perhaps almost unconsciously to himself. In his closing paragraph he says: "To discuss the extent to which under conceivable conditions the United States may, notwithstanding the somewhat dubious outlook, still continue to contribute to the food supply of other nations, would be little more than speculation." The Italics are my own. I venture to point out that the use of the word "speculation" is an example of many instances. Like a dog, one may give a word a bad name, yet it may be a good dog and a very good word when rightly used. In the true and very innocent meaning of the word "speculation" we find exactly what the public has a right to expect and even to demand from the Department of Agriculture. In Webster's Dictionary I find that, when used in such a connection as this problem of the potential of this country in farm productions, the word "speculation" stands for "a mental view of anything in its various aspects and relations; contemplation; intellectual examination." If any "mental view" has yet been taken in the Department of Agriculture of the proportion of the land of this country which may be termed "arable," I have yet to find the record. If any "contemplation" has been devoted to the proportions of this arable land which may be devoted to different crops in each section, I have been remiss in not securing the reports. If any "mental view" has been taken of the
  • 43. relative area now devoted to each principal crop, and that which may be so devoted hereafter in order to meet the prospective demand upon the land, either for the supply of our own population or of other nations, where is the record? If there is no such "speculation" now of record, is it not time that a true agricultural survey corresponding to our geologic and geodetic surveys should be entered upon? I have reason to believe that such surveys have been made by many European states in which all the arable land in some kingdoms is classified, listed, and so recorded that any one wishing to know the best place for any special product can get the information by reference to the proper department of the Government. I have had occasion to make several studies of this kind. In order to inform myself on the potential of the South in the production of cotton, I undertook a study of the physical geography and climatology of the cotton States and of other cotton- producing countries nearly forty years ago. The results of this research were first given in Cheap Cotton by Free Labor, published in 1861. In that pamphlet and in many treatises following, finally in an address in Atlanta, in 1880, a true forecast or "speculation" or "intellectual examination" will be found of the production of the cotton fiber, the potential of the future and of the cotton-seed-oil industry, then almost unheard of in this country. In 1880 I also entered upon my first "speculation" (not in the market) on the lines of a "contemplation" or forecast of the effect of agricultural machinery applied to our wheat land, coupled with the prospective reduction in the cost of carrying wheat to England, upon the condition of the American farmer and the British landlord. That forecast of prosperity to our farmers in the supply of bread at low cost to our kin beyond the sea has been justified at every point and in every detail. I therefore ventured to review Sir William Crookes's address, and I am well assured that what Mr. Hyde now calls a "somewhat dubious outlook" is subject to no doubt whatever as to our ability to continue our full supply for domestic consumption and export for the next century. Let me now repeat again what I have often said: statistics are good servants, but very bad masters. I long since ceased to put any great reliance upon averages of crops, wages, or products covering wide areas and varying conditions, unless I could find out, first, the personal equation of the man who compiled them; second, ascertain what he knew himself about the subject of which his statistics or figures were the symbols; and, third, unless I could verify these great averages from one or more typical areas of farm land, or from one or more representative factories or workshops, of the conditions of which I could myself obtain personal information. General statistics and averages of farm products and earnings I regard with more suspicion than almost any others because of the immense variation in conditions. I have sometimes almost come to the conclusion that so many of the figures of the United States census are mere statistical rubbish as to throw a doubt on nearly all the schedules. Yet without accurate statistics on many points, many of them yet to
  • 44. be secured, the conduct of our national affairs must become as uncertain as would be the conduct of any great business corporation without a true ledger account and a trial balance. Hence the necessity for a permanent census bureau and for a careful "speculation" or "intellectual" and intelligent examination and "contemplation" or study of the facts about our land by which our future welfare must be governed. A good beginning has been made by the authorities of many States, yet more by the body of well-trained men in charge of the Agricultural Experiment Station, in whose support too much can not be said. To them I appealed when trying to get an adequate conception of our potential in wheat. When we think of the blunders which have been made in very recent years, we may well have some suspicion that we may still be very ignorant on many points about our own country. Who really knows very much about the great middle section of the South, what is called the "Land of the Sky," comprising the upland plateaus and mountain sections of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, eastern Tennessee, and Kentucky? Within this area, as large as France and twice as large as Great Britain, will be found timber and minerals equal to both the countries named, and a potential in agriculture equal to either, as yet very sparsely populated. Yet under a craze for centrifugal expansion we are now in danger of trying to develop tropical islands far away, already somewhat densely peopled, where white men can not work and live, to our detriment, danger, and loss, while we fail to see that if we expand centripetally by the occupation and use of the most healthy and productive section of our own country, we may add immensely to our prosperity, our wealth, to our profit without cost and without militarism. This sparsely settled Land of the Sky is greater in area and far greater in its potential than the Philippine Islands, Cuba, and Porto Rico combined. Verily, it seems as if common sense were a latent and sluggish force, often endangered by the noisy and blatant influence of the venal politician and the greed of the unscrupulous advocates of vassal colonies who now attempt to pervert the power of government to their own purposes of private gain. Witness the blunders of the past: We nearly gave away Oregon because it was held not to be worth retaining. When the northern boundary of Wisconsin was being determined, it was put as far north as it was then supposed profitable farming could ever extend, excluding Minnesota, now one of our greatest sources of wheat. The Great American Desert in my own school atlas covered a large part of the most fertile land now under cultivation.
  • 45. What blunders are we now making for lack of "speculation" or "intellectual examination" as to the future of American farming and farm lands? On one point to which Mr. Hyde refers I must cry peccavi. He rebukes the editor of the Popular Science Monthly for admitting an article in which a potential of 400,000,000 bushels of wheat is attributed to the State of Idaho. The total depravity of the type-writing machine caused the mechanism to spell Montana in the letters I-d-a-h-o. What I imputed to Idaho is true of Montana, if the Chief of the Agricultural Experiment Stations of Montana is a competent witness, if all its arable land were devoted to wheat. It will be observed that I mentioned Idaho incidentally (meaning Montana), taking no cognizance of the estimate given, because it was at present of no practical importance. I have expressed my distrust of great averages in respect to agriculture and farm products. In illustration of this fallacy, the figures presented by Mr. Hyde will now be dealt with. It is held that in 1930, which is the year when Sir William Crookes predicts starvation among the bread-eating people of the world for lack of wheat (as if good bread could only be made from wheat), the population of this country may be computed at 130,000,000. The requirements of that year for our own consumption Mr. Hyde estimates at 700,000,000 bushels of wheat, 1,250,000,000 bushels of oats, 3,450,000,000 bushels of corn (maize), and 100,000,000 tons of hay; and, although other products are not named by him, we may assume a corresponding increase. Subsequently Mr. Hyde gives the present delusive average yields per acre of the whole country, and then throws a doubt on the future progress of agricultural science, saying, "Whatever agricultural science may be able to do in the next thirty years, up to the present time it has only succeeded in arresting that decline in the rate of production with which we have been continually threatened." Without dealing at present with this want of and true consideration of or "speculation" upon the progress made in the last decade under the lead of the experiment stations and other beginnings in remedying the wasteful and squalid methods that have been so conspicuous in pioneer farming, let us take Mr. Hyde's averages and see what demand upon land the requirements of 1930 will make, even at the present meager average product per acre. Mr. Hyde apparently computes this prospective product as one that will be required for the domestic consumption of 130,000,000 people by ratio to our present product. He ignores the fact that our present product suffices for 75,000,000, with an excess of live stock, provisions, and dairy products exported nearly equal in value to all the grain exported, and in excess of the exports of wheat. If we can increase proportionally in one class of products, why not in another? Whichever pays best will be produced and exported.
  • 46. 1897 and 1930 compared.—Data of 1897. Products. Average per acre. Area required. Maize 1,902,967,933 bushels. 23.8 bushels.125,150 square miles. Wheat 530,149,168 " 13.4 " 61,660 " " Oats 698,767,809 " 27.2 " 40,200 " " Hay 60,664,770 tons. 1.43 " 66,290 " " —————————— Total in square miles 293,300 square miles. All other farm crops carry the total to less than 400,000 square miles now under the plow, probably not exceeding 360,000. Prospective demand of 1930, at the same meager average product per acre, without progress in agricultural science: Crop called for. Per acre. Area required. Maize 3,450,000,000 bushels.23.8 bushels. 226,600 square miles. Wheat 700,000,000 " 13.4 " 81,600 " " Oats 1,250,000,000 " 27.2 " 70,800 " " Hay 100,000,000 tons. 1.43 " 109,400 " " ——————————— Total in square miles 488,400 square miles. Assuming all land under the plow in 1930 in the ratio as above, the area of all now in all crops 400,000 square miles—an excessive estimate—that year (1930) will call for 667,000 square miles of arable land in actual cultivation. I have been accustomed to consider one half our national domain, exclusive of Alaska, good arable land in the absence of any "speculation" on that point in the records of the Department of Agriculture; but from the returns given by the chiefs of the experiment stations and secretaries of agriculture of the States hereafter cited, that estimate may be increased probably to two thirds, or 2,000,000 square miles of arable land out of a total of 3,000,000 square miles, omitting Alaska. Assuming that we possess 2,000,000 square miles of arable land, capable at least of producing the present meager average product cited above, the conditions of 1930 will be graphically presented on the following diagram: Prospective Use of Land in the Year 1930 on Present Crop Average. (Arable land assumed to be 2,000,000 square miles in the outer lines of the diagram) Oats, 70,800 Wheat, 81,600 Hay, 109,400 Miscellaneous. Roots, cotton, Maize, Indian corn, Wheat for
  • 47. sq. miles. sq.miles. sq. miles. tobacco, etc., 168,600 sq. m. Excessive. 226,600 sq. miles. export, 143,000 sq. miles. Arable land unassigned 1,200,000 square miles. Deduct for cities, towns, parks, and reserves of all kinds 200,000 " " ————— Reserve for future use 1,000,000 " " Forest, mountain, arid, etc., not counted, about 1,000,000 square miles, not included in these lines or squares. No reduction on area cultivated on prospective improvement in the present methods of farming, although it may be assumed that the prospective increase of crop per acre will exert great influence. If the facts should be in 1930 consistent with Mr. Hyde's "speculation" it would therefore appear that our ability to meet the domestic demand of 1930 with proportionate export of cattle, provisions, and dairy products, and to set apart a little patch of land for the export of 1,226,000,000 bushels of wheat raised at the rate of only 13.4 bushels per acre from 143,000 square miles of land will be met by the cultivation of not exceeding 700,000 square miles out of 2,000,000 available. I should not venture to question the conclusions emanating from the Department of Agriculture, or the deductions of so eminent a scientist as Sir William Crookes, had I not taken the usual precaution of a business man in studying a business question. I went to the men who know the subject as well as the figures on which statistics are to be compiled. Being supplied by the Popular Science Monthly with one hundred proofs of the first nine and a half pages of the December article in which the terms of the problem are stated, I sent those proofs to the chiefs of the experiment stations and to the secretaries of agriculture in all the States from which any considerable product of wheat is now or may be hereafter derived; also to many makers of wheat harvesters; to the secretaries of Chambers of Commerce, and to several economic students in the wheat-growing States. This preliminary study was accompanied by the following circular of inquiry: Boston, Mass., October 5, 1898. To the Chiefs of the Agricultural Experiment Stations and others in Authority: Calling your attention to the inclosed advance sheets of an article which will by and by appear in the Popular Science Monthly, I beg to put to you certain questions.
  • 48. If the matter interests you, will you kindly fill up the blanks below and let me have your replies within the present month of October, to the end that I may compile them and give a digest of the results? I shall state in the article that I am indebted to you and others for the information submitted. Area of the State of....................... square miles. 1. What proportion of this area do you believe to be arable land of fair quality, including pasture that might be put under the plow? Answer ................... square miles. 2. What proportion is now in forest or mountain sections which may not be available for agriculture for a long period? Answer ................... square miles. 3. What has been done or may be done by irrigation? .................................................................... .................................................................... .................................................................... 4. What proportion of the arable land above measured should you consider suitable to the production of wheat under general conditions such as are given in the text, say, a stable price of one dollar per bushel in London? Answer ................... square miles. 5. To what extent, in your judgment, is wheat becoming the cash or surplus crop of a varied system of agriculture as distinct from the methods which prevail in the opening of new lands of cropping with wheat for a term of years? .................................................................... .................................................................... .................................................................... What further remarks can you add which will enable me to elucidate this case, to complete the article and to convey a true impression of the facts to English readers? .................................................................... .................................................................... .................................................................... Your assistance in this matter will be gratefully received. Respectfully submitted, Edward Atkinson.
  • 49. To this circular I received twenty-four detailed replies, containing statistics mostly very complete; also many suggestive letters, in every case giving full support to the general views which I had submitted in the proof sheets. It has been impossible for me to give individual credit within the limits of a magazine article to the gentlemen who have so fully supplied the data. Space will only permit me to submit a digest of the more important facts in a table derived from these replies: Name. from returns made to my inquiry. From United States report in wheat, 1897. Area of State. Arable. Suitable to wheat Minnesota 84,287 66,000 50,000 7,189 South Dakota 76,000 42,500 40,000 4,187 North Dakota 74,312 50,000 50,000 4,300 Illinois 56,000 54,000 20,000 2,292 Missouri 68,000 64,000 64,000 2,448 Wisconsin 56,000 35,000 35,000 961 —————— ————— ————— ————— 414,599 311,500 259,000 21,372 ====================================== Texas 269,694 200,000 100,000 700 California 158,360 54,000 30,000 5,062 Montana 145,310 30,000 25,000 109 Idaho 87,000 30,000 15,000 192 —————— ————— ————— ————— 660,364 314,000 170,000 6,063 ====================================== Total 1,074,963 625,500 429,000 27,435 I do not give the data of the Eastern and Southern States, and I have selected only the most complete data of the other States, choosing the more conservative where two returns have been made from one State. The foregoing States produced a little over one third of the wheat crop of 1897. They comprise a little over one third the area of the land of the United States, excluding Alaska. The list covers States like Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, now very fully occupied relatively to Texas, Montana, and Idaho, as yet but sparsely settled. Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, and Washington combined far exceed the above list in wheat production; but, as I have no complete data from these States, I can only say that the national or census statistics, as far
  • 50. as they go, develop corresponding conditions to those above given. The very small product of Texas and Montana, even of Idaho, as compared with the claimed potential, will attract notice, and perhaps excite incredulity. But let it be remembered that in 1880 the Territory of Dakota yielded less than 3,000,000 bushels of wheat, while in 1898 the two States of North and South Dakota, formerly in one Territory, claim to have produced 100,000,000 bushels. Perhaps it will then be admitted that the potential of Montana, and even of Idaho, may be attained in some measure corresponding to the reports from those States; but as yet their product is a negligible quantity, as that of Dakota was only twenty years since.[9] Again, let it be remembered that Texas will produce a cotton crop, marketed in 1898-'99, above the average of the five ante-war crops of the whole country, and nearly equal to the largest crop ever grown in the United States before the war. Texas could not only produce the present entire cotton crop of the United States but of the world, on but a small part of her land which is well suited to cotton. When these facts are considered, perhaps the potential of that great State in wheat and other grain, in cattle and in sheep, as well as in cotton, may begin to be comprehended. The writer is well aware that this treatment of a great problem is very incomplete, but it is the best that the leisure hours of a very busy business life would permit. If it discloses the general ignorance of our resources, the total inadequacy of many of our official statistics, the lack of any real agricultural survey, and the necessity for a reorganization and concentration of the scientific departments of the Government as well as of a permanent census bureau, it will have served a useful purpose. If it also serves to call attention to the meager average crops and the poor quality of our agriculture as a whole down to a very recent period, it may suggest even to those to whose minds the statistics of the past convey but gloomy and "doubtful views" of the future, that the true progress in scientific agriculture could only begin when substantially all the fertile land in the possession of the Government had either been given away or otherwise distributed. So long as "sod crops" and the single-crop system yielded adequate returns to unskilled farmers, no true science of agriculture could be expected, any more than a large product of wool can be hoped for in States where it has been wittily said that "every poor man keeps one cur dog, and every d—d poor man keeps two or more." Finally, if I shall have drawn attention to the very effective work which is being done in the agricultural experiment stations by men of first-rate ability, I shall have drawn attention to a great fact. This work has already led to a complete revolution from the old practice of maltreating land, and to the renovation of soils that had been partially exhausted. Governor Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, long since condemned the old methods of Southern agriculture by telling his hearers, "The
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