ILLITERACY, inability to read and write any language. In the United States the census officers consider those who cannot write, but can read, illiterate. In the United States inquiry is made of all persons as to their literacy and those persons above 10 years of age who cannot write are considered illiterate. The European countries differ in their methods of securing their statistics in this matter and the age limit is not al ways 10 years. Of the European coun tries, Germany, with but one-half of one per cent. of her population illiterates, heads the list, closely followed by Switz erland. Illiteracy is the greatest in southern and southeastern Europe. In Spain, Portugal, Servia, and Rumania a considerable per cent. of the population, in the case of the last named country nearly 90 per cent. of the popula tion, is illiterate. While comparison be tween nations is on an insecure basis due to the different methods of collect ing statistics used in the various coun tries, it is clear that those nations which send the greatest number of immi grants to this country are those with a high proportion of illiterates.
According to the census of 1910 the illiterates in the United States numbered 5,516,163, or 7.7 per cent. of the popula tion. The draft of 1917-1918 revealed a slightly higher percentage, but in the main confirmed the census figures. The greatest percentage of illiteracy is reached among the negroes, who make up 40 per cent. of all the illiterates of
the nation; 30 per cent. of the illiterate group are foreign-born whites, 28 per cent. are native whites, and two per cent. of. them are Chinese and Indians. As !night be. expected, the rural population is more illiterate than the city, because of the relative scarcity of schools.
Of the adult male population there are 2,273,603 illiterates, those cities hav ing the greatest percentage of illiterate males over 21 being Fall River with 15.6, Birmingham with 10.4, Scranton 8.9, Nashville 8.8, Atlanta 8.6, and Rich mond 8.2. These cities have this rela tively large percentage because of large foreign or negro populations. The five largest cities in the United States com pare in the percentage of illiterates above 21 years of age thus: New York 6.4, Chicago 5.1, Philadelphia 4.7, Bos ton 4.5, St. Louis 4.1.
The States having the lowest percen tage of illiteracy are Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon and Washington; in all these the percentage is under 2 per cent. The highest percentage of illiteracy is reached in the Southern States with their large negro population, and in those States along the Mexican border: Louisiana (29.0), South Carolina (25.7), Alabama (22.9), Mississippi (22.4), Arizona (20.9), New Mexico (20.2).