There are many citizens of the United States, however, who look upon the immigrant as something more than a mere productive machine. To them the proof of his economic efficiency is not sufficient. They wish to know something of his adaptability to assimilation into the American life, and of his probable contribution to the ethnic type of the United States. To such as these, there are a number of further conditions which must be considered, and which are of at least equal significance in determining the final effects of immigration upon this country.
Prominent among these is the intellectual quality of the immigrant. This is naturally a very difficult thing to measure. Beyond actual feeble-mindedness, the only test of intellectual capacity which has received wide application is the literacy—or, as it is more frequently expressed, the illiteracy—test. This concerns the ability to read and write, and is given a great deal of weight by many students of the subject. It is not, however, necessarily an indication of intellectual capacity, but rather of education. The inability to read or write may be due to lack of early opportunity, rather than to inferior mental caliber. Nevertheless, the matter of literacy has received sufficient attention, and is in fact of sufficient importance, so that it is desirable to have the facts in this respect before us.
Two forms of illiteracy are recognized by the immigration authorities, inability to either read or write, and inability to write coupled with ability to read. The latter class is a very small one, and for all practical purposes those who are spoken of as illiterates are those who can neither read nor write. For the period of 1899–1909 the average illiteracy of all European immigrants fourteen years of age or over was 26.6 per cent. There is a marked difference between the old and new immigrants in this respect. Of the former class, during the period mentioned, only 2.7 per cent of the immigrants fourteen years of age or over was illiterate; of the latter class, 35.6 per cent. The same difference is brought out by the following table, showing the illiteracy of certain specified races:
| PERCENTAGE OF ILLITERACY[[161]] OF IMMIGRANTS OF THE SPECIFIED RACES, 14 YEARS OF AGE OR OVER, FOR THE YEARS 1899 TO 1909[[162]] | |
|---|---|
| Race or People | Per Cent |
| Scandinavian | 0.4 |
| English | 1.1 |
| Irish | 2.7 |
| German | 5.1 |
| Italian, north | 11.8 |
| Magyar | 11.4 |
| Hebrew | 25.7 |
| Greek | 27.0 |
| Roumanian | 34.7 |
| Polish | 35.4 |
| Croatian and Slovenian | 36.4 |
| Italian, south | 54.2 |
| Portuguese | 68.2 |
[161]. Those who can neither read nor write.
[162]. Rept. Imm. Com., Emig. Cond. in Eur., Abs., p. 17.
Where there is such a marked difference between races as is exhibited in the foregoing table, it seems fair to assume that there is a corresponding difference in the intellectual condition of the respective peoples—if not in their potential capacity, at least in the actual mental equipment of the immigrants themselves.[[163]] In fact, it is quite customary to take the degree of illiteracy as a reasonable index of the desirability of a given stream of immigration. There seems to be considerable basis for this idea, for it appears probable that an immigrant who has had the ability and the opportunity to secure, in his home land, such a degree of education as is indicated by the ability to read and write, is better equipped for adapting himself to life in a new country than one who has not. On the other hand, there is considerable testimony to the effect that the immigrants who have the hardest time to get along in this country are those who have a moderate degree of education, bookkeepers, mediocre musicians, clerks, etc. They are either unable or unwilling to do the menial work which their less educated countrymen perform, and are not able to compete with persons trained in this country in the occupations which they followed at home. There are relatively few of the occupations into which the typical immigrant of to-day goes, and for which he is encouraged to come to this country, in which the ability to read and write adds to the efficiency of the worker to any considerable degree. It is possible that the ability to read and write may hasten the process of assimilation somewhat; it is questionable whether it adds appreciably to the economic fitness of the immigrant for life in this country.
The question of literacy as a test of immigrants has received a large amount of attention recently through its inclusion in the proposed immigration bill which barely failed of becoming a law early in the year 1913. This bill was the result of the investigations of the Immigration Commission, and embodied several of the recommendations of that body. The one upon which most of the opposition was centered was a clause providing a reading test for adult aliens. There were certain exceptions to the rule, however, so that in its actual application the exclusion would have been limited almost wholly to adult males. The bill passed both houses of Congress, but was vetoed by the President, after a careful and judicial consideration. The Senate promptly passed the bill over the veto, but a similar action in the House failed by the narrow margin of half a dozen votes.
The agitation for a literacy test rests upon two main groups of arguments. The first class includes the efforts to show that literacy, in itself, is a desirable qualification for citizenship, economically, socially, and politically. The second group rests on the belief that the total number of immigrants ought to be cut down, and that a literacy test is a good way to accomplish the result. It is not unlikely that this latter set of opinions predominated over the former in the minds of the adherents of the proposed measure, though it was not necessarily expressed openly. And there is much to be said in favor of the literacy test from this point of view. In the first place, it is a perfectly definite and comprehensible test, which could be applied by the immigrant to himself before he left his native village. In the second place, it is a test which any normal alien could prepare himself to meet if he were willing to make the effort. It does not seem too much to require of one who wishes to become a member of the American body politic, that he take the pains to equip himself with the rudiments of an education before presenting himself. Finally, as Miss Claghorn has pointed out,[[164]] it is a test which would react favorably upon the immigrant himself. It is impossible to tell, as noted above, just how much value attaches to literacy in the effort of the alien to maintain himself in this country. Yet without doubt there is some advantage. And perhaps there would be even more in the strengthening of character and purpose which would result from the effort to attain it. A glance at the preceding table will show which of the immigrant races, as the immigration stream is now constituted, would be most affected by such a test. But it is not at all impossible that the passage of a literacy test by this government would have the effect of materially stimulating the progress of education in some of the more backward countries of Europe.
This tendency to illiteracy on the part of immigrants is apparently well overcome in the second generation, for among the employees in manufacturing studied by the Immigration Commission the percentage of illiteracy was lower among the native-born descendants of foreign fathers than among the native-born of native fathers.[[165]]