Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1878 — Intellectual Test of Nations. [ARTICLE]

Intellectual Test of Nations.

So far as the general ability of the people of a nation to read and write is a proof of their superior enlightenment, the Americans have no rivals in the world. As readers we lead all nations. We are 42,000,000. The population of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland is 33,000,000; of France, 36,000,000; Germany, 45,000,000. In 1870 there were published in the United States 274 daily, 4,295 weekly and 1,002 other papers and periodicals. In 1877 the figures were: Dailies, 709; weeklies. 6,221; all others, 1,014; total, 7,914. England has but 2,252; Germany but 1,985; France but 1,559 and Italy but 835. The total for the four nations, embracing an aggregate population of 137,000,000, is but 6,731, or 1,213 less than supplies the American population of 42,000,000. The distribution of onr daily and weekly papers among the several States is instructive. They are not by any means apportioned according to population, though New York is always first. It appears that New York has 87 dailies; Pennsylvania comes next, with 79; Illinois third, witli 47; curiously enough, California fourth, with 43. In that State of less than 850,000 of the European race, they have 4 more daily papers than Ohio, with her 3,000,000, 15 more than Massachusetts or Indiana, 17 more than Missouri, 20 more than lowa, as many, lacking one, as Wisconsin, Virginia and Georgia combined, and more than eight times as many as either Minnesota, Delaware or Oregon. If, then, the reading of current publications is an irrefragable test of the superior instruction of a community generally, the population of California stands at the very summit of modern civilization—so says a California exchange.