Of the
test they employed nothing need be said here except that it was a
large questionnaire. For the sake of the illustration, assume that the
questions were a fair test of mental equipment for English city life.
Theoretically, then, those questions should have been put to every
member of the working class. But it is not so easy to know who are the
working class. However, assume again that the census knows how to
classify them. Then there were roughly 104,000 men and 107,000 women
who ought to have been questioned. They possessed the answers which
would justify or refute the casual phrase about the "ignorant workers"
or the "intelligent workers." But nobody could think of questioning
the whole two hundred thousand.
So the social workers consulted an eminent statistician, Professor
Bowley. He advised them that not less than 408 men and 408 women would
prove to be a fair sample. According to mathematical calculation this
number would not show a greater deviation from the average than 1 in
22. [Footnote: _Op. cit._, p. 65.] They had, therefore, to
question at least 816 people before they could pretend to talk about
the average workingman. But which 816 people should they approach? "We
might have gathered particulars concerning workers to whom one or
another of us had a pre-inquiry access; we might have worked through
philanthropic gentlemen and ladies who were in contact with certain
sections of workers at a club, a mission, an infirmary, a place of
worship, a settlement.
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