Chapter V: Part 5

The writer last year conducted some experiments upon school children which yielded results that appear to confirm the view here set forth. Scripture's steadiness gauge was used in one test. This is designed to investigate stability of control by requiring a person to direct a light rod under guidance of the eye upon a point several feet distant, failure to accomplish this being announced by the ringing of an electric bell. The subject is usually required to make the trial fifteen times at a single test, and the number of successful attempts is taken to be in a way, although not always reliable, an index to his power of co-ordination. But more important than the success or failure in accomplishing the task is the index it affords of the nervous condition of the subject as revealed in the expressions of face and body. Tests were made in the morning, shortly following the opening of school, and again at half past eleven o'clock, or thereabouts, after the pupils had been working over their lessons for about two hours. One boy of eleven years, A. M., is a fair illustration of what might not inappropriately be called an exhaustive type, wherein nervous energy is readily depleted because of incessant waste. In the morning tests he was well controlled and accurate. A record of five tests made at half past eleven all show that after four or five attempts to place the rod upon the point the hand became very unsteady, the lips compressed, the region about the eyes showed unusual constraint, and the hand not being used was tightly clinched. Ten trials were usually sufficient to produce twitchings or _tics_ in the face and body, although nothing of this was ever noticed at other times. This boy invariably made hard work of the task, and all the physical accompaniments indicated excessive motor stimulation following, of course, upon an unduly excited condition of the cerebral cells. At the close of the experiments he generally seemed exhausted, and upon three occasions it was thought best not to permit him to make the entire fifteen trials.

Another pupil, W. R., two years younger, illustrates a different type. In the morning trials he was no better than A. M., but he, too, was subjected to five different tests at half past eleven, with the result that he could in every instance complete the task without any apparent fatigue. There was no constraint apparent in the face or hands, no unusual effort to co-ordinate the muscles of the body, and no twitchings of any kind. Now, it seems probable that in the case of W. R. the brain was able to adjust effort in right degree to the needs of the occasion, while with A. M. there was such prodigality in the expenditure of energy in various irrelevant motor tensions and activities that it not only defeated its purpose, but it was soon largely spent. A. M. showed this tendency to nervous extravagance in all the work of the school. While an unusually bright boy, he yet became fatigued in the performance of duties that W. R. could discharge with no evidence of overstrain; indeed, the latter boy seemed never to reach a point beyond which he could not go with safety if he chose.

Further illustrations of this principle of individual differences in the conservation of nervous energy were afforded by another simple experiment. The apparatus employed consisted of a plate of smoked glass set in a frame so that it could be moved horizontally. Just touching the glass, and adjusted to it by a delicate spring, was a fine metal point which could be maintained at any height by a silk thread to be held in the fingers of the subject to be experimented upon, who stood with closed eyes endeavoring to keep his hand perfectly quiet for one half minute. During the test the glass was moved slowly in the frame, the metal point thus tracing a line which was a faithful index to most of the movements, at any rate, of the subject's hand. Five sets of experiments were made upon a number of pupils in the morning soon after the opening of school, and again just before the noon recess. The accompanying tracings are reproductions of those gained at one of the tests, and are typical examples. The first two were secured from a girl, M. L. R., eleven years of age. The one made at half past eleven, after two and a quarter hours' work in school, shows a significant phenomenon which could be easily witnessed during the experiment. She had become so fatigued that all muscular expressions were unusually constrained. During the short period while the experiment continued one could observe the arm and fingers contracting, which accounts for the upward direction of the tracing. The body swayed almost to the point of falling, the fingers of the hand not employed were clinched, and all the expressions indicated great tension. The second set of tracings, gained from a girl, E. H., twelve years of age, shows evidences of marked fatigue after a few hours' work; but the effect upon the bodily activities is quite in contrast with that of the case just mentioned. Here there was relaxation of the muscles, a general letting go of the whole body, revealed in the tracings taking an abrupt downward direction. The third group of tracings was gained from W. R., whose characteristics have already been adverted to, and who indicated here, as in the other tests, that his morning's duties had had no serious effect upon his nervous energies.

It should be said in passing that the principle of healthful mental growth and activity seems to require that in education of any sort cerebral cells should be freely exercised up to the point of fatigue, but never beyond; for after this there is not only no progress, but what has been gained by previous training may even be lost. And, what is more serious, the undue depletion of the nerve cell renders its recovery extremely slow, and investigation has shown that school children when overtaxed return to their studies day after day in a fatigued condition, their energies not being fully restored until the long vacation brings the needed rest.[33] Those who train athletes realize that the fatigue limit must not be passed if possible, and this law is recognized as well in the training of racing horses,[34] One who has observed his experience in learning to ride the bicycle must have discovered that practice pursued when in a condition of exhaustion operates rather to retard than to promote facility. So in matters of the mind activity carried to excess, which point is further removed in some cases than in others, results in retardation of growth, even though no more serious consequences ensue.

[Footnote 33: Educational Review, _op. cit._]

[Footnote 34: Bryan, Addresses and Proceedings of the National
Educational Association, 1897.]

II.

As might be readily inferred, even if we were lacking experimental evidence, fatigue interferes with the normal activities alike of body and mind. One of the earliest and most conspicuous effects may be observed by any one in the people about him--a decrease in the rapidity of physical action. The child depleted of nervous energy, for whatever reason, will usually be slower than his fellows in performing the various activities of home or school. If observed during gymnastic exercises it may be noticed that his execution of the various commands is delayed; in responding to signals he is behind his comrades whose nervous capital is not so largely spent. And what is here said of the child is, of course, equally true in principle of the adult; the effect of fatigue in his case will be revealed in less lively, vivacious, and vigorous conduct in the affairs of business or of society. Mosso,[35] Burgerstein,[36] Scripture,[37] Bryan,[38] and others have been able to confirm by scientific experiment what people have thus long been conscious of in a way--that cerebral fatigue renders one slower, more lethargic in his activities. It seems clear, to hazard an explanation, that when nerve cells become depleted up to the point of fatigue Nature designs that they should be released from service in order that repair may take place. This rhythm of action and repose seems to be common to all forms of life. The phenomenon of sleep is an expression of this principle, and is characterized by almost entire absence of activity.

[Footnote 35: Pedagogical Seminary, vol. ii, pp. 20 _et seq._]

[Footnote 36: Ibid., _op. cit._]

[Footnote 37: The New Psychology, pp. 128-132.]

[Footnote 38: The Development of Voluntary Motor Ability, p. 76.]

Again, fatigue disturbs the power of accurate and sustained bodily co-ordinations, particularly of the peripheral muscles, or those engaged in the control of the more delicate movements of the body, as of the fingers. Every one must have had the experience that consequent upon a period of exacting labor (physical or mental), or worry, the hand becomes unsteady, as revealed in writing or other fine work, the voice is not so perfectly controlled as at other times, and perhaps involuntary twitchings or _tics_ make their appearance in the face or elsewhere. Ordinarily people regard these phenomena as evidences simply of "nervousness," but, as commonly used, this term does not take account of the neural conditions responsible for these abnormal manifestations. Warner[39] points out that nerve cells in a state of fatigue become impulsive or spasmodic in their action; there is not such perfect balance as usually exists between them when in a normal, rested condition, and this results in lessened power of inhibition. Scripture[40] and others have shown by experiments in the laboratory that fatigue renders co-ordination less sustained and accurate. If, now, one observes a group of people, young or old, in which some or all have passed the fatigue limit, he can see the cause of many of those occurrences which give the teacher in the school, for example, continual trouble. The children will doubtless be moving incessantly in their seats, books and pencils may be dropping upon the floor, and various signals are responded to slowly and in a disorderly manner. The restlessness is probably due for the most part to the effort of the pupils to relieve the tension of muscles induced by overstrain, while inability to accurately co-ordinate the muscles employed in holding pencils and books causes objects to slip out of the pupils' hands upon the floor. One has but to observe his own experience, and he will soon realize that when nervously exhausted he is not so certain of retaining securely small objects which he handles. This accounts for what is sometimes regarded as carelessness in school children as well as in adults, exhibited in slovenly writing, in breaking dishes, and in similar occurrences. Any task demanding delicate and sustained adjustment of the finer muscles on the part of one fatigued will be liable to be performed in a careless manner, as we are apt to feel. Often more than not the term carelessness probably denotes impaired neural conditions, as well as consequent mental dispersion, if one may so speak, leading to inaccurate and intermittent mental and physical adjustments to duties in hand.

[Footnote 39: Mental Faculty, pp. 76, 77.]

[Footnote 40: The New Psychology, pp. 236-248.]

Cowles[41] observes that the first prominent and serious mental concomitant of nervous depletion is revealed in the inability to direct the attention continuously upon any given subject; and James has said that when one is fatigued the mind wanders in various directions, snatching at everything which promises relief from the object of immediate attention. Experiments in the laboratory upon the keenness of sense discrimination of data appealing to sight, hearing, touch, and the other senses, show that there is lessened ability in conditions of fatigue;[42] and this is accounted for probably by the waning power of attention. The mind can be held to one thing, excluding irrelevant matters. This phenomenon is further illustrated in the following simple experiment: The pupils in a large graded school in Buffalo, N. Y., were required upon three successive days, at half past nine o'clock and again at half past eleven in the morning, to trisect a line three inches long. The results, calculated for one hundred and fifty children, show that on the average they were several millimetres nearer correct in the morning trisections than in those just before the midday recess.[43] It seems that this test measured the degree of attention which pupils were able to exert at different hours during the day, and it confirmed what must in a way be known to every one--that a day's work in school reduces the energy of attention. Doubtless every instructor has remarked how much more difficult it is at half past eleven than at ten to hold the thoughts of students to the subject in hand, and if recitations in intricate studies occur late in the forenoon, progress will be slower and more errors will be made, simply because pupils are unable to attend so critically.

[Footnote 41: _Op. cit._, p. 47.]

[Footnote 42: See Educational Review, _op. cit._; Galton, Journal
of the Anthropological Institute, 1888, pp. 153 _et seq._]

[Footnote 43: Since this article was written extensive
investigations on school-room fatigue have been made in the
schools of Madison, Wis., under the writer's direction, and the
general principles here mentioned have been corroborated.]

The significance of this latter effect of fatigue must be apparent when it is realized that attention is at the basis of all the intellectual processes. If one can not attend vitally, he can not perceive readily or accurately; he will be unable to recall fully or speedily what has formerly been thoroughly mastered; and, most serious of all, he can not so well compare objects or ideas to discover their relationships--that is, he is not so ready or accurate in reason. In fatigue, then, one really becomes stupid. Suppose a fatigued pupil in school working over his spelling lesson, for instance; he will be liable to make errors both in copying from the board and in reproducing what he already knows. In recitations in history, memory will be halting; what has apparently been made secure some time before now seems to be out of reach. In those studies requiring reflection, as arithmetic, grammar, geography, and the like, the reasoner will be unable to hold his thoughts continuously to the matters under consideration, and so will be unable to detect relationships between them readily and accurately. When one considers, in view of what is here set forth, that many persons, adults as well as students, are for one cause or another in a constant state of fatigue, he can see the explanation of the stupid type of individual, in some instances at any rate.

The effects upon the emotional activities, while not so easily detected by experimentation, may yet be readily observed in one's own experiences and in the conduct of persons in his environment. Cowles,[44] Beard,[45] and others assure us as physicians that neurasthenia gives rise to irritability, gloominess, despondency, and sets free a brood of fears and other kindred more or less abnormal feelings. Wey,[46] in his studies upon the physical condition of young criminals, has found that in the majority of instances there appears to be some neural defect or deficiency, mostly of the nature of depletion, which he believes contributes to alienate the moral feelings of the individual. There is little doubt that viciousness has a physiological basis. It is probable that in such a case the highest cerebral regions, through which are transmitted the spiritual activities last developed in the race, becoming incapacitated first by fatigue, are rendered incapable of inhibiting impulses from the lower regions, which manifest themselves in an antisocial way.

[Footnote 44: _Op. cit._, pp. 47 _et seq._]

[Footnote 45: _Op. cit._, pp. 36-117.]

[Footnote 46: Papers in Penology, 1891, pp. 57-69; _cf._ Collin,
also in same, pp. 27, 28; Wright, American Journal of Neurology
and Psychiatry, vols. ii and iii, pp. 135 _et seq._]

III.

It follows from what has gone before that cerebral fatigue is a most important matter to be reckoned with in all the affairs of life, but especially in education, where the foundations for nervous vigor or weakness are being permanently established, and where relatively little can be accomplished in either intellectual or moral training unless the physical instrument of mind be kept in good repair. It needs no argument to beget the conviction that we should if possible ascertain what circumstances produce fatigue most frequently in the schoolroom, so that they may be ameliorated and their injurious consequences thus avoided. What, then, are the most important causes? It is well to appreciate at the outset that every individual has a certain amount of nervous capital which, when expended, leaves him a bankrupt, and it is of supreme import to him that something should always be kept on the credit side of his account. If we would deal most wisely with a pupil, then, whose activities we are able to direct, we should know just what demands we could make upon his energies without fatiguing him. But we can not hope at the present time and under present conditions to discover with accuracy the fatigue point of each individual, and even if we were able to do so, we would doubtless find it next to impossible to observe it at all times in our teaching, especially in our large graded schools. But we can at any rate adjust our requirements with some degree of accuracy to the average capacity of the whole.

Regarding the number of hours of mental application per day which may be safely expected of a pupil in school, investigations have tended to show that there is a danger of requiring too many. When pupils return to school morning after morning without having recovered from the previous day's labors, it is evident that too heavy draughts are being made upon their nervous capital. It may be said in reply that many factors conspire to produce this depleted condition, as insufficient sleep, inadequate nutrition, and outside duties; but the answer is that under such unfavorable circumstances less work may be demanded. As the curriculum is planned in many places, alike in graded and ungraded schools, the pupil is expected to be employed in the school for five or six hours a day no matter what may be his age, and to this work should be added studies at home for the older students. Now, as Kraeplin[47] has justly observed, Nature ordains that a young child should not give six hours' daily concentrated attention in the schoolroom, but, rather, she has taken pains to implant deeply within him a profound instinct to preserve his mental health by refusing to attend to hard work for such a long period. Consequently, in such an educational _régime_, the mind of the pupil continually wanders from the duties in hand. The most serious aspect of this is apparent, that when attention is constantly demanded and not given, or when a pupil is pretending or attempting to keep his thoughts turned in a given direction, yet allows them to drift aimlessly because he is practically unable to control them, he is acquiring an unfortunate habit of mental dissipation. It seems certain that healthful and efficient mental activity requires that a child apply himself in a maximum degree for a relatively short period, the duration differing with the age of the individual and the balance of nervous energy to his credit; and then he should relax, attention being released for a time.

[Footnote 47: A Measure of Mental Capacity, Popular Science
Monthly, vol. xlix, p. 758.]

Experiments conducted by Burgerstein[48] and at Leland Stanford Junior University[49] emphasize a particular phase of this principle--that too long continued mental application without relaxation induces fatigue more readily than when there are comparatively short periods of effort, followed by intermissions of rest. Thus when pupils (and the younger they are the more is this true) have a given amount of work to do requiring their attention say for an hour and a half they will accomplish most with least waste of energy by breaking up this long stretch into several parts, interspersing a few minutes of free play. With adults application may profitably continue for longer periods, but even here the rhythm of concentration and relaxation must be observed in order that effort may have the most fruitful issue. There would assuredly be less dullness, carelessness, and disorder in our schools, high and low, and in our homes, if this law were observed in the arrangement of the activities of daily life. The writer knows of a normal school where the work begins at half past eight in the morning and continues until one o'clock, with a pause of only ten minutes in the middle of the session. During the passage of classes from room to room at the close of recitations, monitors are placed in the halls to prevent any exhibition of freedom in communicating with one another or in the movements of the body. Here there is little if any relief to the attention, since pupils are under practically the same constraint as when reciting in Latin, Greek, or geometry. This enthronement of discipline, which we all seem natively to think necessary that we may prevent the reversionary tendencies of youth, is sure to breed in some measure the very maladies--stupidity and disorder--which various agencies in society are striving to cure by all sorts of formulæ.

[Footnote 48: _Op. cit._]

[Footnote 49: Pedagogical Seminary, vol. iii, pp. 213 _et seq._]

In the normal, well-organized adult brain the various areas are closely knit together by association pathways or fibers,[50] which renders it possible to employ in particular direction the energies generated over large regions. But this development comes relatively late and is not fully completed under about thirty-three years of age, it is now believed. It is in a measure, then, impossible for the young child to utilize the energies produced in one part of the brain in activities involving remote sections. One who observes little children in their spontaneous activities can not fail to note evidences in plenty in illustration of this principle. It should be apparent, then, why a school programme so arranged that a lesson in writing is followed by one in written language, this by written number, and this in turn by written spelling, or possibly by a written reproduction of a lesson in Nature or literature, is admirably suited to exhaust the overused areas of pupils' brains, whereupon the mental and physical effects of fatigue make their appearance. In one of the large cities of our country the amount of time spent in writing was calculated for all the grades in the schools, and it was found that at least one hour was required of the children in every grade, and in the fourth and fifth grades they were engaged for two hundred minutes every day in writing in some form or other.

[Footnote 50: Donaldson, The Growth of the Brain, chapters ix to
xiii.]

Doubtless every one has observed how readily he becomes fatigued when he is engaged in activities demanding very delicate muscular adjustments--threading a needle, for instance. Work of this character involves particularly the higher co-ordinating areas of the brain, those controlling the more precise and elaborate adjustments of the body, and this work makes large demands upon one's nervous energy. This seems to be pre-eminently true of the child, in whose brain the highest regions are yet comparatively undeveloped, so that much exercise of them leads quickly to exhaustion. Those activities, then, which compel a great amount of exact co-ordination of young children will easily fatigue them. The writer has for some time been observing the effect of various sorts of playthings upon the activities, particularly upon the emotions, of two young children. He has noticed that those plays requiring most accurate co-ordination, as stringing kindergarten beads with small openings or writing with a hard lead pencil, will quickly produce fatigue, shown in irritability, discontent, and lack of control; while those plays which employ the larger muscles, as working in sand or drawing a cart, are more enduring in their interest and are not attended by such disagreeable after effects. It is customary, however, in many homes and schools to require of the youngest children the finest work in the management of the smallest tools and materials, such, for instance, as writing on very narrow spaced paper, greater freedom being permitted in this respect as the pupil grows older--an inversion of the natural order. The mode of development of the nervous system indicates unmistakably that in all training the individual should proceed gradually from the acquirement of _strength_ and _force_ in large, coarse, and relatively inexact movements to the acquisition of _skill_ in precisely co-ordinated activities.

Any reference to the remediable causes of mental fatigue would be incomplete without allusion to the harmful influence of certain personal characteristics in the people with whom we associate. By virtue of a great law of our being, that of suggestion, the importance of which we are appreciating more fully from day to day, we tend ever to reproduce within ourselves the activities of the things in our environment.[51] Now, when we are forced to remain in the presence of one fatigued, as pupils too frequently are in the school and children in the home, and this fatigue manifests itself in irritability, impatience, tension of voice, and constraint of face and body--in such an environment we become overstimulated ourselves and rapidly waste our energies. Especially true is this of children, who are more suggestible than adults; and, in view of this, one can appreciate the necessity of placing in our schoolrooms, and if we could in our homes, persons possessing an endowment of nervous energy adequate for the demands to be made upon it without inducing too readily fatigue with all its train of evils.

[Footnote 51: _Cf._ Sidis, The Psychology of Suggestion; and
Vernon Lee and C. A. Thompson, Beauty and Ugliness, Contemporary
Review, vol. lxxii, pp. 544-569 and 669-688.]

BEST METHODS OF TAXATION.

BY THE LATE HON. DAVID A. WELLS.

PART II.

In passing from the tariff, or duties on imports, to the internal or excise taxes imposed by the Federal Government, there is evidently a distinct change in purpose. However subject to abuse the tax on distilled spirits has proved, and however frequently its agency has been invoked to exaggerate the profits of interested parties, there has never been an open and avowed intention of turning it to private gain. The policy that has become almost inseparable from the customs tariff, and is by most people regarded as inherent in all customs legislation, has not been transferred to the internal revenue taxes save in one or two instances of recent application and secondary importance. The danger of permitting taxation to be employed by either State or Federal Government for a purpose other than that of raising necessary revenue has been dwelt upon. When a police power is exercised in conjunction with a tax framed for revenue, and is regarded as the more important function to be performed, the policy requires careful examination. If revenue is the real object, the method of imposing the tax and the determination of the rate which will give the highest return with the least interference in the production, distribution, and export of the commodity taxed remains to be defined. If restriction in manufacture, sale, or consumption is intended, the question is no longer one of taxation proper, but of police regulation. The Federal taxes on oleomargarine, filled cheese, and mixed flour are of the nature of police inspection, and the tax on the circulation of State banks, amounting, as it has, to prohibition, is a still more extreme exercise of the same power. The imposition and collection of these duties have a penal quality, an intention to restrict or prohibit the production or sale or use of some article. They are not properly taxes; they are not a proper application of tax principles, but have originated, in private interest, or in the deliberate intention to constitute a monopoly, State or other.

The approach of war, or its actual presence, is made the excuse of an extension of taxes, and the Federal Government tacitly admits its inability to increase indirect taxes on consumption by its general resort to an extension of the internal taxes and excise. The instrumentalities of business offer a fair field for stamp taxes, and these, when not so burdensome as to invite evasion, are acceptable because of the ease with which they are assessed and collected. A specific duty on the more important acts of commerce and daily business may be evaded, it is true, but not when the paper or instrument taxed must become public evidence. Stamps of small denomination on bonds, debentures, or certificates of stock and of indebtedness; on a bill of sale or memorandum to sell; on bank checks, drafts, or certificates of deposit; bills of exchange, draft, or promissory note; money orders and bills of lading; on express and freight receipts, on telegraph messages, and a large number of legal and other instruments, such as leases, mortgages, charter party, insurance policies--these are simple duties, productive of large returns, and not unequal in their weight. The law of 1898 included such stamp taxes, as well as others on proprietary articles and wines. It was not simple to predict the incidence of these rates, and the distribution has been unequal. The charges of one cent on telegraph messages and express packages are paid by the sender in the larger number of cases, the companies merely adding a penny to their rates. This was not the intention of the law, and the courts have held that it was not so intended. The individual is powerless in a few transactions, and only the great concerns are able to avail themselves of this decision. The duties for seats or berths in a parlor car or for proprietary medicines, are paid by the company or manufacturer, though in certain preparations the price to the consumer was advanced on the passage of the act. With all their drawbacks, and they are not few in number, these stamp duties afford a ready means of obtaining a good revenue without increasing unduly the general burdens of taxation. The law of 1898 was modeled after that of 1863, and many of the rates and descriptions will undoubtedly be incorporated into the permanent internal revenue system of the country--a measure enforced by the remarkably unequal returns derived from the customs.

The existing system of internal duties is even more defensible than the tariff as a source of revenue. Its inequalities, due to the haste in which the measure was prepared and the inexperience of those who framed the provisions and fixed upon the rates, are worn away in use, and where the rates are moderate and are not infected with a penal quality, the community adapts itself to them, accepting them as a necessary convenience. In the United States this spirit of acquiescence is most marked, not only because of a natural patience of tax burdens, but because of as natural a fear of other untried and more radical or oppressive measures. The situation of "business" when a general tariff bill is pending in Congress is one almost of panic, and the scramble to protect interests or to obtain some special advantage against rivals has become a scandalous feature of tariff revision. Except in the instances named, as oleomargarine and filled cheese, the internal revenue system presents less of a field for such an exhibition of greed and self-interest; but the spirit duties, and even the tobacco rates, may be used in such a way as to favor the large manufacturer against the small concerns, and are to that extent misused and applied for purposes antagonistic to those properly pertaining to taxation. In a time of tax revision the suggestions for new taxes and ideas for changing the old are freely offered, and do not stop short of absolute prohibition of an industry, of total destruction of interest. The vagaries of a legislative body under such suggestions have instilled into the public mind a wholesome fear of its possible acts and fully explain the timid and uneasy condition of "business" when a general tax measure is under discussion. Whether it be the manufacturer or producer seeking protective duties, or the Granger or Populist asking for taxes of confiscation against capital and accumulated property, the spirit is the same--a desire to turn taxation to improper purposes.

The tendency of Federal taxation to turn to taxes on capital and the instruments of "business"--direct, rather than indirect taxes--found its most extreme illustration in the income tax of 1894, the principles of which have already been discussed. It finds a more moderate and restricted exercise in certain graduated duties under the act of 1898, and especially in the duties on legacies and distributive shares of personal property. It was no sentimental or even theoretical argument based upon the right of inheritance or the inequality of taxation that led to the adoption of these duties in 1898; it was only a blind following of the provisions of the earlier act, and the consciousness that revenue must be had at every cost, and no possible source of income should be overlooked. Yet the legacy tax is essentially a tax of democracy and defensible for much the same reasons as a tax, whether graduated or not, upon income might be.

By the act approved June 13, 1898, entitled "An act to provide ways and means to meet war expenditures, and for other purposes," the national Government imposed a tax upon legacies and distributive shares of personal property. This tax has been one of the features of the tax law of 1862 (§§ 111-114), but in a much simpler form and in a form better calculated to produce a revenue. This earlier law imposed a duty on all legacies exceeding one thousand dollars in amount, but very properly made a distinction in the rate according to the degree of connection between the person from whom the property came and the receiver of the legacy. Thus, lineal issue or lineal ancestor, brother or sister, should pay at the rate of seventy-five cents for each and every hundred dollars of the clear value of the interest in the property. A descendant of a brother or sister of the decedent paid double this rate; an uncle or an aunt was taxed three dollars for every one hundred dollars passing; a great-uncle or a great-aunt, four dollars; and persons in any other degree of collateral consanguinity, or a stranger, or a body politic or corporate, five dollars. The only exemption made was in favor of a wife or husband. As only personal property was intended to be reached, all land and real estate escaped the duty.

The law of 1898 made important modifications in these rates and manner of assessing. In the first place, the rates fell only on legacies in excess of $10,000, a limit ten times larger than that of the law of 1862. The degrees of relationship were the same, the rates were copied from those of the earlier act, and the same exemption of property passing between husband and wife was admitted. But the idea of a progressive tax was ingrafted into the law. Thus, the old rates applied only to legacies of more than $10,000 and not more than $25,000. When the property passing was valued between $25,000 and $100,000 the rates were multiplied by one and a half; between $100,000 and $500,000, they were multiplied by two; between $500,000 and $1,000,000, they were multiplied by two and a half; and by three when the property was in excess of $1,000,000. In restricting the tax to personal property passing by inheritance the measure aims at a crude means of making the burdens of personal more nearly approach those of real property. No such consideration controlled the views of those responsible for the act, and, after all, it offers only a question of theoretical interest. The inheritance tax collected in many of the States may have owed their adoption to such an idea, but the United States, in taking up these duties, merely saw a means of obtaining revenue without regarding the actual results of the tax on the estates paying it.

"The inheritance tax in one form or another has come to stay, and new States are being added every year to the list of those which have adopted it. Five years ago it was found in only nine States of the Union--Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New York, West Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and New Jersey. During the first half of 1893 Ohio, Maine, California, and Michigan were added to the list, though the Michigan law was afterward annulled because of an unusual provision in the State Constitution which was not complied with. In 1894 Louisiana revived her former tax on foreign heirs; Minnesota adopted a constitutional amendment permitting a progressive inheritance tax which has not yet been given effect by the Legislature; and Ohio added to her collateral inheritance tax a progressive tax on direct successions. In 1895 progressive inheritance taxes were adopted in Illinois and Missouri, and an old proportional tax was revived in Virginia; and last year Iowa adopted in part the inheritance tax recommendation of her revenue commission."[52]

[Footnote 52: Max West, in North American Review, May, 1897, p.
635.]

The real problems are to be encountered in local taxation. The many different methods used in the different States, the want of uniformity in the local divisions of each State, and the extraordinary diversity in the interpretation or application of tax laws by the courts and executive authorities of the States have introduced a confusion, to end which, many would invoke the intervention of the Federal Government. The haphazard manner in which the laws have been framed and passed is only the least notable explanation of the variety of phrase and interpretation to be found. Even were the Federal Government to establish definitions, and frame rules of uniform assessment, there would still be room for difference. The customs tariff is known to be variously applied in the different ports of the country, and there is greater certainty in the tariff rate than could be found in a tax resting on the assessed valuation of land, for example.

The difficulty encountered by France in its attempt to determine the net income from land for the purposes of taxation carries an important lesson. Failing to obtain uniformity of appraisement of this net income under the crude method first employed--of basing it on the character of soil and nature of cultivation, deducting the expenses of cultivation--a _cadastre_ was decreed.[53] In this _cadastre_ each particular piece of property was recorded, with its boundaries, its manner of cultivation, and its net rental. Begun in 1807, it was not completed until 1850, and proved of little value, as no provision had been made for recording the changes in cultivation, rentals, or other conditions, except those of ownership, buildings, and exemption from taxes. Instead of proving a successful means to a desired end, it "turned out to be a stupendous disillusionment." "The experience of both the western Prussian provinces and of France showed that the newly constructed _cadastre_ was of considerable service in equalizing the land tax within a relatively small area, but not as a basis for alterations in the contingents to be paid by large and widely separated regions. The officials in charge of the _cadastre_ on the Rhine, as well as those in France, themselves admitted that any computation of net income was uncertain; that the coincidence of the figures obtained by the cadastral computation with the actual net income could never be assured; that the figures afforded by the _cadastre_ were rather of the nature of a proportion, while uniformity of assessment was to be attained rather by observation of the business transacted than by depending on the figures obtained by computation."[54] This effort to discover and record the net income from land was a failure.

[Footnote 53: The word _cadastre_ was derived from the Latin
_capitastrum_, or register of _capita_, _griga_, or units of
territorial taxation into which the Roman provinces were divided
for the purposes of _capitatio terrena_, or land tax. It is of
modern use and is locally found in Louisiana.]

[Footnote 54: Cohn, Science of Finance, p. 477.]

So thorough an experiment, carried through so long a time, and presenting an example to be avoided, was in fact imitated by Prussia under a law of 1865. In each division (_Kreis_) was appointed a commissioner, who was chairman of a committee, the size of which ranged from four to ten members, according to the size of the division. One half of this committee was appointed by the representatives of the division and one half by the central Government. A number of divisions formed a department, with its commissioner and committee of similar composition as in the division, and above all was a central committee, presided over by the Minister of Finance. The valuation was accomplished in less than four years. The method was applied only to land employed in agriculture or forests; a separate law provided for the taxation of buildings and gardens. In the end the results were no better than those obtained in France. In either case a plan too refined to work to advantage had been employed, and, apart from its simplest function, that of making a general survey of the land and the uses to which it was applied, it could not advance the theory of a proper land tax. No modification could make it a better instrument of taxation. The gross income from land as a taxing basis would involve heavy injustice, and further supervision by government officers could not do away with the mechanical difficulties of securing uniformity. The English plan of making rental value the foundation is more easily applied and gives better results.

If land be difficult of assessment, personal property offers a very much more difficult problem. On this particular question this country has much to learn from the experience of other governments. In Great Britain a Royal Commission has been making a study of local taxation, and, in a preliminary report, concludes that an alteration in the law for the purpose of obtaining a uniform basis of valuation in England and Wales is a necessary preliminary to any revision of the existing system of local taxation. It has been already stated that the poor rate constituted the basis of valuation of property for local rates. In its development the system has become more complicated. Two valuations of the same property may be made for raising imperial taxes--namely, one for the income tax, and one for the land tax. Three valuations of the same property may be made for raising local rates--namely, one for the poor rate, one for the county rate, and one for the borough rate. Here, then, are five different valuations in activity.

Of these the parish was the first and most important division, having been introduced in the sixteenth century, when the dissolution of the monasteries had raised the question of poor relief. It was adopted for convenience, as the contributions were at first entirely voluntary; but as the problem of the poor increased in importance, compulsion was applied, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, by the acts of Elizabeth of 1597 and 1601, compulsion was fully established and the parish adopted as the area for levying rates for the relief of its poor. It now became necessary to define more specifically the persons liable for this rate, but the law framed no system by which assessments were to be made or rates collected. A distinction was made between the occupier of certain properties (such as lands, houses, coal mines, or salable underwoods) and an inhabitant of the parish. The occupier was to be taxed upon the basis of the annual benefit arising from the property situated in the parish; but the inhabitant was taxed not in respect to any specified subjects, implying an intention to tax them upon some other basis. This raised the question of "ability," and how that question was to be determined. The act said nothing that could point to personal property, "and it was only on the ground of his being an inhabitant that any owner of personal property could be rated for that property, because there was no word in that statute to include him, except the word inhabitant. Under that statute, therefore, there was necessarily a distinction between residents and nonresidents, because the resident would be ratable for his personalty within the place, the nonresident not. The distinction, however, under that statute applied only to those kinds of property which the statute did not specify, for the occupier of lands, houses, etc., and whatever the statute enumerated, was ratable whether he were resident or not."[55] And when the judge of assize was asked to give an opinion he decided that lands should be taxed equally and indifferently, but an additional tax could be laid on the "personal visible ability" of the parishioner. Further, "all things which are real, and a yearly revenue must be taxed to the poor." Yet there were limitations on this apparently wide interpretation, and as early as 1633 it was only visible properties, both real and personal, of the inhabitants within the parish, and only within the parish, that could be taxed. The property to be assessed must be local, visible, and productive; it must consist only of the surplus left after deducting debts; it must be rated according to the profit produced; and its nature must be distinctly specified. "Consequently, such subjects as wages, pensions, easements, profits derived from labor and talent, profits from money invested or lent elsewhere, and furniture, were exempt."

[Footnote 55: Abbott (Chief Justice) in R. _vs._ The Hull Dock
Company, 3 B and C, p. 525.]

The absence of all attempts to tax or value property other than what was visible and tangible continued to the reign of Queen Anne, when a single decision of the court pointed to the taxation of the stock in trade of a tradesman, a decision that does not appear to have been acted upon. As late as 1775 Lord Mansfield said, "In general, I believe neither here nor in any other part of the kingdom is personal property taxed to the poor." At all events, it could not be taxed unless usage could support it. Toward the end of the century, when taxation for the Napoleonic wars was touching more intimately the concerns of the people, the idea of subjecting personal property to the poor rate was favored, but nearly half a century passed before it attracted attention. In their report for 1843 on local taxation the poor-law commissioners gave the following summary of the status of this question:

"The practice of rating stock in trade never prevailed in the greater part of England and Wales. It was, with comparatively few exceptions, confined to the old clothing districts of the south and west of England. It gained ground just as the stock of the wool staplers and clothiers increased, so as to make it an object with the farmers and other rate payers, who still constituted a majority in their parishes, to bring so considerable a property within the rate. They succeeded by degrees, and there followed upon their success a more improvident practice in giving relief than had ever prevailed before in England.... When the practice of rating stock in trade was fully established in this district, the ancient staple trade rapidly declined there and withdrew itself still more rapidly into the northern clothing districts, where no such burden was ever cast upon the trade."

A final determination of the question was imposed upon Parliament by the pressure of the manufacturing and commercial classes arising from a decision in the case of R. _vs._ Lumsdaine, in 1839, looking to the taxation of personal property. In consequence, an act was passed (3 and 4 Vict., c. 89), and has remained in force until the present time, exempting an inhabitant from any tax "in respect of his ability derived from the profits of stock in trade or any other property, for or toward the relief of the poor." Thus it is that the English local taxation has managed to keep clear from the bog of assessing personal property, and the annual value of immovable property, such as lands and houses, within the parish has come to be selected as the simplest and most practicable basis for assessments. The history is of high importance, because the basis of the poor rate was adopted as the basis for all other rates levied in local taxation. Whatever confusion has been introduced has arisen from other causes, such as the constituting poor-law unions containing more than one parish, the levying of county rates, a county having a boundary other than a parish or a union, and the assessing for rates by parish officers who acted independently of each other. Many efforts have been made to introduce a uniform system of assessment, but without success. One of the clearest thinkers on this subject was Sir George Cornewall Lewis. In appearing before a committee on taxation, in 1850, he said: "We have never recognized the principle of having one valuation for all the different rates. If that principle were once admitted, the inducement to have an accurate and complete valuation would be at its maximum, because then you would know that whatever charge might be imposed it would be imposed upon that valuation, whereas if there is one assessment for one rate and another assessment for another rate, and an amended assessment for a third rate, no one cares much about making any assessment perfect. This is one defect of the present system of valuation."

The defect has persisted and become more aggravated each year. In 1870 a special commission came to the resolution that "the great variety of rates levied by different authorities, even in the same area, on different assessments, with different deductions and by different collectors, has produced great confusion and expense; and that in any change of the law as regards local taxation, uniformity and simplicity of assessment and collection, as well as of economy of management, ought to be secured as far as possible." When it is considered that for the five independent valuations for raising rates on property there are in England and Wales more than one thousand valuation authorities, the hopelessness of obtaining uniformity is apparent. With such a multiplicity of agents it is useless to look for good results. There is no fixed or necessary time for making the valuation lists; no uniform system of or scale for making deductions for arriving at the ratable values of certain classes of property; exemptions and allowances are said to be given unduly, through undue pressure on the assessing authorities; and the assessment committees have no statutory power to ascertain from owners or occupiers the rentals and other particulars needed to determine values. The reforms needed are a geographical redistribution of taxing limits and uniform rules of assessments.

If so great confusion can occur where the property to be valued for taxation is visible and tangible property, and where the principles underlying the assessment are few and comparatively simple, what is to be expected when the attempt to reach invisible and intangible property is added?

Constitutional provisions have not secured equality of valuation, and the statute laws are powerless to make effective the sounding phrases of the Constitutions. "Property shall be assessed for taxes," says the Constitution of New Jersey, "under general laws and by uniform rules, according to true value." The Assembly sought to embody this principle or rule in the laws of the State. "All real and personal estate within this State, whether owned by individuals or corporations, shall be liable to taxation at the full and actual value thereof, on the day in each year when by law the assessment is to commence."[56] Such assertions of the basis of taxation need no further explanation, for the intention of the framers of constitution and law is unmistakable--equal and uniform taxation, a common burden involving a common obligation to discharge it. The practice at once creates the necessity for recognizing the inaptitude of the instruments called upon to carry the law into execution. More than four hundred separate assessors and boards of assessors determine the taxable values upon no uniform system and in defiance of law and Constitution. "In practice they value real estate all the way from twenty-five to seventy-five per cent of its true value, depending on its location, income, etc., and their personal or political prejudices, and value different contiguous areas at different valuations, though of equal values really; and as to personal property, I regret to say, they appear to make no earnest or honest effort to reach it anywhere, except in the agricultural districts, and even there very imperfectly."[57]

[Footnote 56: General Statutes of New Jersey, p. 3929, section
62.]

[Footnote 57: James F. Rusling, in the New Jersey report of
1897.]