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nation; those going beyond being progressive nations so far as concerns population.

Professor Davidson points out that, for the purpose of a correct standard, the community selected, by customs and by traditions and in every other possible way, should be little apt to assimilate surrounding or immigrating peoples, or to amalgamate or lose its identity in that of the peoples among whom its lot is cast, that "in short, the circumstances of the community must be reasonably such that we can clearly trace the growth and be certain that no branch of the race has escaped observation and that the increase of no other race or community has gone to augment the results."

This is no easy task, because while in the early periods the populations of Europe were less migratory than they are now, the statistics of the period before the present century are not at all accurate. The attempt to procure an accurate statement far enough back to make a good starting point is frustrated, in the case of European populations by inaccuracy, while the attempt to establish a standard by means of the United States and other new countries is rendered impossible by reason of the abnormal accretions caused by immigration.

Professor Davidson thinks, that there is one race which presents all the conditions necessary for accurate observation. That is the French Canadian race

There is much to be said in favor of his contention

As is pointed out in the Statistical Year Book for 1895, few countries have had their population counted so many times and during so long a series of years as Canada, the first official Census having been taken in 1665, a little more than half a century after Champlain laid the foundations of Quebec.