Illiteracy

inability to read and write. The term is applied usually to grown up people. The degree of illiteracy in a number of countries is shown in the following table. The number of people per thousand of population who were over twelve years of age and were unable to read and write was in 1900-05 about:

The low rate in Germany and Switzerland is due to laws requiring attendance at school until the rudiments of an education have been acquired. The high rate in the United States (1900) may be understood by the following analysis. Illiteracy is seven times as great among the colored people as among the whites, but the native whites with over 1,000,000 adults unable to read and write have no call to throw stones at immigrants or at a race lately held in bondage. According to race and parentage, American illiterates are:

The following table, based on the census of 1900, gives the number of children per thousand between the ages of ten and fourteen, who could neither read nor write; and also the rank of each state in child illiteracy:

II Penseroso. See Milton; John