The experts working out the interpretation of the results of the Twelfth Census (1900) have made distinct progress towards a fair comparative judgment in matters relating to social classes and conditions. John Koren, for example, the son of the veteran Norwegian Lutheran pastor, the Rev. V. Koren, and an investigator and writer of unusual weight, points out that the insane in hospitals are at least ten years of age, while there are few children under fifteen among the immigrants as compared with the number under that age among the native whites, and he accordingly concludes that "Of the whites at least 10 years of age in the general population of the United States in 1900, 80.5% were native and 19.5% were foreign-born; while of the white insane of known nativity enumerated in hospitals on December 31, 1903, 65.7% were native and 34.3% were foreign-born. Relatively, therefore, the insane are more numerous among the foreign born whites than among the native."[331] How much more convincing is such a cautious and careful estimate than the sweeping generalizations of another recent writer: "Roughly speaking, the foreigners furnish more than twice as many criminals, two and one-third times as many insane, and three times as many paupers as the native element."[332] [331] _Special Reports, Bureau of the Census_, 1904, "Insane and Feebleminded in Hospitals and Institutions," 20. [332] Hall, _Immigration_, 166. The statistics for the insane in hospitals at the end of 1903 and of those admitted during 1904, as given by Mr. Koren, show a strikingly high percentage of insane persons of foreign parentage in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Iowa. No other State comes within ten per-cent of the ratio of the first three. Of those enumerated in December, 1903, 56% in Wisconsin, 48% in Minnesota, 52% in North Dakota, and 34% in Iowa, were of foreign parentage; the percentages of the admissions for 1904 were 53% in Wisconsin, 55% in Minnesota, and 33% in Iowa.[333] In all these States the Scandinavian element has been numerous for at least two generations. Figures gathered for this study for the period between 1885 and 1895, before the children of the Scandinavian immigrants reached in very considerable numbers what might be termed the age for acquiring insanity, gave similarly significant conclusions. Of the inmates of the state hospitals for the insane in Minnesota, the foreign-born Scandinavians were 28% in 1886 and 30.7% in 1890; of the admissions to the state hospital at St. Peter in 1890, 35% were Norse. Of the total admissions for the State in 1900, 23% were Scandinavians, while in the Fergus Falls hospital, located in the heart of a more recently settled Scandinavian area, 40% were of that nationality; Wisconsin reports show like percentages.[334] All of these statistics warrant the general conclusion that of all the foreign-born, the Scandinavians are the most prone to insanity.[335]