John Howard as statist / by William A. Guy.

  • William Augustus Guy
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: John Howard as statist / by William A. Guy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    From the Journal ok thk. Statistical Society ok London, March, 1873. I .JOHN HOWARD AS STATIST. By William A. Guv, M.B., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., PROFESSOR OF HYGIENE, KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON ; CONSULTING PHYSICIAN TO KING’S COLLEGE HOSPITAL; AND ONE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY. [Read before the Statistical Society, 21st January, 1873.] I have sought and obtained permission from the Council to address you at this, the first meeting of the year 1873, on a subject which is unquestionably well timed ; and, if I am not greatly mistaken, will not prove wanting in interest, or in practical utility. I say that my subject is well timed, because just a century ago (in the year 1773) John Howard, of Cardington near Bedford, was appointed High Sherilf of his county; and so obtained an opportunity of which he made such good use that not only did he build up for himself that which he cared less than nothing about, an im- perishable reputation, but, what was far more to the purpose with him, he purged the English nation of a foul reproach, and freed its civil and military populations alike from an ever present, ever recurring peril. Nay, I may add with truth and without exag- geration, that he became unconsciously the founder of a new epoch both in statistics and in humanity. This I think will clearly appear before I have brought this communication to a close. The thesis I wish to maintain this evening is, that the John Howard, whom most men know only as the first of philanthropists, was also one of the foremost statists of his time; and I wish also to show incidentally that he who was always ready to depreciate himself, led others to take a low and eminently unjust view of the intellectual side of his character, and to see in one of the most intelligent, adroit, and original minded of men, a “ dull and even “ dreary ” man, as it pleased Thomas Carlyle to call him. In select- ing these epithets as applicable to one whom he also styled “ the “ modest, noble Howard,” Mr. Carlyle was perhaps led into error by looking only at the patient and toilsome way in which Howard collected facts, but overlooking alike the then novelty and originality