In acquiring the use of English and in maintaining high standards of education, the Scandinavians have an unimpeachable record which no other foreign, non-English-speaking element can equal. Illiteracy in Norway and Sweden is almost unknown. Taken together, these two kingdoms have less than one per-cent of illiteracy, and among the recruits in Sweden in 1896 only .13% were unlettered, and only .63% were unable to write.[253] Personal acquaintance with many hundreds of Scandinavians, on both sides of the Atlantic, has failed to reveal to the writer a single adult who was unable to read and write. [253] _Statesman's Year Book, 1900_, 1049; Kiddle & Schem, _Dictionary of Education_, 452. In the latter work, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland are marked with asterisks, signifying that they are practically without illiteracy. The contrast of these figures with the percentages of illiteracy of some other European countries is very striking. In 1890 the percentage of illiterates in Austria was 40%, in Hungary, 54%, in Italy, in 1897, among conscripts, 37.3% (reduced from 56.7% in 1871), and among those persons marrying, males, 32.9%, females, 52.13% (reduced respectively from 37.73% and 76.73% in 1871). For Russia the percentage is probably about 80%, perhaps as high as 90%. See _Statesman's Year Book, 1900_, 374-375, 392, 744-745. Statistical returns relating to German army recruits indicate that in 1896-7 only about .11% could neither read nor write. _Ibid._, 592. See also, Hall, _Immigration_, 46, 48, 54, 61, 141. One of the very first matters to receive attention in a Scandinavian settlement in the United States, has been the establishment of a school, and, as speedily as possible, the instruction has been given in English, partly because the school laws of most of the States would not recognize a public school conducted in a foreign language, and partly because the settlers desired to have the children know English.[254] For a year or two in some of the isolated communities, as in Arendahl, Fillmore County, Minnesota, in 1857-8, it was necessary to conduct the schools in Swedish or Norwegian; but only rarely has any attempt been made to continue systematic, regular instruction exclusively in the mother-tongue by the maintenance of year-long parish schools. The immigrants have frequently been insistent, and properly so, upon some scheme by which they might be able to educate their children in the use of the mother-tongue; but schools for this purpose have usually supplemented rather than supplanted the ordinary public school.[255] In a very few localities, like the older settlements in Goodhue County and Fillmore County, Minnesota, Allamakee County, Iowa, and Dane County, Wisconsin, parish schools are still maintained throughout the year.[256]