(4) The shifting of population also accounts for some decreases and some increases. Oklahoma's increase in negro illiterates probably meant small decreases for Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The increase of white illiterates in the Dakotas was due to the influx of population to take up the land. In this population, there were some illiterates. The numbers are small, but they illustrate the movement very clearly.

(5) How many illiterates a state has acquired by immigration and how many it has lost by emigration cannot be clearly determined. It is safe to say, however, that the older states have lost illiterates by emigration while the newer states have gained by immigration. Since free movement from one state to another is one of the Constitutional provisions, a National problem is here involved which is usually overlooked. Industrial opportunities in one state may invite the immigration of illiterates from other states, and the first state may be absolutely powerless to protect itself from them no matter how undesirable they may be.

(6) The whole array of facts shows that very little was done by the states for the reduction of adult illiteracy in the decade under consideration. For the most part, the decrease was due to the prevention of additions from the children. If anything is to be done to remove existing illiteracy, the states must be effectively stimulated to do it. Merely to contend that it is

the duty of the states to remove illiteracy will not bring it about. A substantial inducement, equal to the Nation's interest in the matter, is defensible from every point of view.

It is impossible to close this discussion of illiteracy without a glance at illiteracy among the foreign-born. With them, illiteracy also means, in most cases, lack of ability to understand spoken English. There are many foreign-born persons who are classed as literates because, although they do not understand spoken English or printed English, they can read and write in their mother tongue.

We have already massed the facts regarding illiteracy among the native-born. With this increase or decrease as a starting point, we may set up the facts for the foreign-born illiterates for each state, noting whether there has been an increase or decrease. From this is derived the total increase or decrease for each state. Then from total increases or decreases in the decade we get a final column that shows what the several states have done toward solving the problem of illiteracy during the decade. This table has been prepared from data found on page 245, Abstract of the Census, 1919.

CHAPTER XVI

AMERICANIZATION

THE facts that have just been considered relative to the illiterate foreign-born population are only one aspect of the Americanization problem. We know what a native-born illiterate is in our country. If we transplant him imaginatively into a Spanish-speaking country, we can see what little chance he would have to discharge the common duties of citizenship. And yet, in 1910, we had in this country 1,650,361 foreign-born persons over ten years of age who could not write in any language. These people present a triple problem. To teach them to read, write, and speak the English language is one part of it. To give them that elementary body of common knowledge which most children by the age of ten get through school life, schoolbooks, and teachers is another aspect of the problem. To give them the basal ideas and ideals necessary for participation in our social life with its political responsibilities is the final aspect of the problem.

To the group just considered must be added those foreign-born persons "literate" in their own language but unable to speak or read English, whose ideas of American life beyond their own neighborhood are gained from the foreign-language press-with all the possibil