Vital statistics presume efficient health administration. An inefficient health officer will not take the initiative in gathering health statistics. If some one else compels him to collect vital statistics, or furnishes him with statistics, they are as a lantern to a blind man. Unless some one also compels him to make use of them, unless we remove the causes of transmissible or infectious diseases and check an epidemic when we first hear of it, the collection of information is of little social value. "Statistics" is of the same derivation as "states" and "statesmen." Statistics have always been distinguished from mere facts, in that statistics are instruments in the hands of the statesman. Wherever the term "statistics" is applied to social facts it suggests action, social control of future contingencies, mastery of the facts whose action they chronicle. The object of gathering social facts for analysis is not to furnish material for future historians. They are to be used in shaping future history. They are facts collected with a view to improving social vitality, to raising the standard of life, and to eliminating permanently those forces known to be destructive to health. Unless they are to be used this way, they are of interest only to the historical grub. No city or state can afford to erect a statistical office to serve as a curiosity shop. Unless something is to be done to prevent the recurrence of preventable diseases annually experienced by your community or your school, it is not reasonable to ask the public printer to make tables which indicate the great cost of this preventable sickness. A tax collector cannot discharge his duties unless he knows the address of every debtor. The police bureau cannot protect society unless it knows the character and haunts of offenders. A health officer cannot execute the law for the protection of society's health unless he knows the haunts and habits of diseases. For this he must look to vital statistics. But the greatest service of vital statistics is the educational influence. Health administration cannot rise far above the hygienic standards of those who provide the means for administering sanitary law. The taxpaying public must believe in the economy, utility, and necessity of efficient health administration. Power and funds come from town councils and state legislatures. To convince and move these keepers of the purse, trustworthy vital statistics are indispensable. Information will be used for the benefit of all as soon as it is possessed by all.