Methods of social study / by Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

  • Sidney Webb
Date:
1932
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Methods of social study / by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    86/284 (page 74)
    are facts about which there is the maximum of universality and the minimum of ambiguity. When questions as to religion, occupation, or mental or physical defects are added, the success of the census questionnaire at once becomes doubtful; and it depends on the stage of popular education, and the definiteness of social structure as well as skill in drafting, together with the amount of personal assistance that can be given to the answerer, whether the answers to such enquiries are worth their cost and trouble. As an example of a successful private questionnaire, another of our investigations may be mentioned. When one of us was a member of the Poor Law Commission it became evident that, in some workhouses at least, the mortality among the infants born in them was excessive. It was important to ascertain how far this was common. Acting under skilled advice, we drafted a questionnaire not re¬ ferring in any way to the rate of mortality. What was asked of each workhouse master was a list of the names of all the babies born in his workhouse during a precisely defined year, with the date of birth; if dead, the date of death; and if removed from the workhouse within the year, the date of removal. To prevent any suspicion of the real object of the enquiry the question was also asked whether each baby was legitimate or illegitimate. The actual particulars thus obtained revealed, neither to ‘the workhouse master nor, even when aggregated, to ourselves, whether the infantile death-rate in any workhouse was greater or less than that among the /