RELATION OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE TO ILLITERACY 175 
adjoining urban areas.” It was made very clear, however, that the determining factor in respect 
to school attendance was illiteracy, and in communities where the amount of illiteracy was 
marked, there was also a tendency either “to fail to provide school accommodation for 
the children or to fail to send them to schools where accommodation had been provided.” 
The Pearsonian coefficient of correlation between percentages illiterate and percentages not 
at school by census divisions was found to be -+ *92 in essentially rural districts and + -75in 
urban areas. That such large coefficients are rather unusual in measuring correlation 
between social phenomena gives added significance to the relationships which they measure. 
“Illiteracy and other mental, social or ‘origin’ factors, kept more children out of school 
in 1921 than climate, thin and new settlements, ete., combined.” 
An illiterate communily thus shows a marked tendency to remain illiterate, and that fact 
is exceedingly important in the light of the previous conclusions of the study which identified 
illiteracy with the presence of certain non-Canadian elements among the population in the 
various parts of Canada.