Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/248

244 native whites of foreign parentage attend more steadily and persistently than native whites of native parentage, and in this regard the foreign born children lead both the other classes.

Illiteracy is seldom a matter of choice with the peasant. It is usually a matter of bad government. The governments of certain countries maintain no free school system, and paid schools of academies are out of the reach of the miserable peasants.

In other countries the government places monetary or religious restrictions upon certain races which prevent their attendance at school. One often hears the query, ' What is the effect of a mass of illiterate foreigners upon society?' There is very little effect. The illiterate foreigners in our own large cities are ostracized socially, as strictly as the negro in the south. ' These foreigners do not assimilate ' is heard every day. How can they? They can not take the initiative. The Italian, or the Jew, or the Slav, do not shrink away from their American neighbors more than their American neighbors shrink from them.

This mutual aloofness will persist through one or two generations. No sane man expects the Americanization of any but English-speaking immigrants in the first generation, but there is hope, and bright hope, for the immigrants' American bred children, even if their parents be