28 SUMMARY ON ORIGIN AND BIRTHPLACE
Ukrainian immigrants are the worst with a proportion of 39-46 p.c. illiterate, and the Austrians
are not much better—35-08 p.c. of them are illiterate. The Czechs are different from
the other Slavs in respect to literacy, as in many other particulars; their illiterates represent
only 11-94 p.c. Of the foreign born from Latin and Greek countries, the Roumanians with
27:03 p.c. unable to read or write any language, are the most illiterate; the Italians rank
second with 23:68 p.c. The Greeks are much better, showing only 11-59 p.c. illiterate. All
those percentages, however, are quite high when compared with 3-08 pc. for the immigrants
of Germanic origin, and 1-81 p.c. for the Scandinavians. These dats are presented in summary
form in Chart 11.
(2) Birthplace is a factor in illiteracy. The native born show considerably smaller proportions
illiterate than the foreign born, which is an evidence of the effectiveness of Canadian
schools and other institutions. However, strong ancestral tendencies appear over and
above the influence of nativity, making it very clear that illiteracy is in no small measure a
matter of group heredity.
(3) A comparison of the above data on illiteracy with the distribution of the various
origins by provinces and the proportions naturalized, is rather significant.
Cuaart XI
PROPORTIONS ILL! TERATE AMONG FOREIGN BORN, 10 YRS
ap OVER, ror SPECIFIED GROUPS or COUNTRIES of BIRTH.
1921.
%0
10
-€
N.Westean Eunoee
S, Eastern ano Cent. Europe
Scanonavian Countries
Germanic Countries
Latin anp Greer Countries
Sravic Countries
CRIME
The relation of criminality to extraction and birthplace is shown by an examination of
data for reformatory and penitentiary population and of the statistics of convictions for
indictable offences.
(1) Data on Convictions for Indictable Offences—An analysis of the data covering all
convictions for indictable offences showed that, taking the age and sex distribution as they
actually existed in 1921, the problem of law enforcement was 50 p.c. greater among the
British born and between three and four times more difficult among the foreien born than
