"Statistics has been the handmaid of science, and has poured a flood of light upon the dark questions of famine and pestilence, ignorance and crime, disease and death." This is a quote from James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States. The quote came in a speech delivered in the House of Representatives on December 16, 1867 in which Garfield (then a congressman) was arguing for the value of a broad and scientifically sound census. The quote is found on page 216 of the 1881 book The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, by John Clark Ridpath.