read, or that the statistical paragraphs should be passed over for the
narrative and historical parts. This is a dilettante and lazy attitude
to take, and especially so in the study of social subjects, for in these
subjects it is only statistics that tell us the true proportions and
relative importance of our facts. The study of statistics leads us to a
study of social causes and forces, and when we see that in the year 1790
three per cent of our population lived in cities, and in the year 1900
thirty-three per cent lived in cities of 8000 population and over, we
are aroused to the importance of making a serious inquiry into the
reasons for this growth of cities and the effects of city life on the
future of democracy and the welfare of the nation. More impressive to
the student of race problems becomes the inquiry when we realize that
while one-fifth of our entire population lives in the thirty-eight
cities of over 100,000 population, two-fifths of our foreign-born
population, one-third of our native offspring of foreign parents, and
only one-tenth of our people of native parentage live in such cities.
That is to say, the proportion of the foreign-born in great cities is
four times as great, and the proportion of the children of foreign
parents is three and one-third times as great as that of the colonial
and older native stock. These proportions appear in the accompanying
table and the upper diagram on page 162.

POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND LARGE CITIES: 1900

=======================+===================+===========================
| | IN 38 CITIES OF 100,000
| IN UNITED STATES | POPULATION AND OVER
+-----------+-------+------------+--------------
TOTAL FOR UNITED STATES| | | | Per cent of
| | Per | | total of
| Number | cent | Number | corresponding
| | | | class
-----------------------+-----------+-------+------------+--------------
Population |75,994,575 | 100.0 | 14,208,347 | 18.7
Native white, native | | | |
parents |40,958,216 | 53.9 | 4,245,817 | 10.3
Native white, foreign | | | |
parents |15,637,063 | 20.6 | 5,280,186 |