Geographic Notes 



437 



LITERACY OF THE MEN OF THE 

 UNITED STATES 



THE most literate element of the 

 male population of the United 

 States is the native white of foreign 

 horn parents. Ninety-eight of everj^ loo 

 men, 21 years of age or over, who were 

 born in this country of white foreign 

 parents can read and write. A less pro- 

 portion of the native white of native 

 parents read and write — 94.2 per cent — 

 while not quite nine -tenths of the for- 

 eign born men and only a little more 



than half of the colored men can read 

 an addressed envelope or write a receipt. 

 The following diagram shows the read- 

 ing and writing ability of American men 

 of voting age in each element. There 

 are 21,329,819 males of voting age in 

 the United States. Of this great army 

 of men 19,003,524 read and write and 

 2,326,295 are capable of neither — that 

 is, of the total male population who are 

 of voting age in the United States 891 

 in every 1,000 are literate and 109 are 

 illiterate.* 



* See Census Bulletin no. 106. 



Diagram showing literacy of males 21 years of age and 

 over in the different elements of the population 



The diagram also shows the percentages of the different elements in 

 the total male population that is 21 years of age and over 



