Migration was accelerated by the need for manpower to build the railroads which were pushed across the plains and mountains of the West. The rapid exploitation of mineral and coal deposits and the expansion of the lumbering livestock industries of the Plains and Plateau States also called for thousands of migrant workers. The rise of industrial centers in the Great Lakes region encouraged the migration of many others.

The feverish activities of almost all of these operations put a new premium on knowledge and skill. It was during this period that America developed many of the adult education forms, such as the chautauqua, correspondence courses, agricultural extension, and workers, educations.

PRESENT TRENDS

The increasing growth of our cities, one of the most significant phenomena of 20th century, has multiplied and intensified the need for education at all levels. This is particularly true in the area of adult education because the majority of the people who migrate are in the young adult group.

The high proportion of changes of residence among young people can be explained in considerable part by changes in living arrangements that result from marriage and the search for new job opportunities. In the young adult group there is little difference between the proportion of males and females who change their residence.

Although there is considerable variation in mobility rates among the various age groups, movement takes place at all levels of the population. The peak mobility rate, in 1957, came at 22 to 24 years.

Approximately one out of every five persons 1 year old and over in the continental United States changed his place of residence between March 1957 and March 1958. As in other years, the majority of the 33 million persons who moved in 1957-58, 22 million, or 67 percent, moved within the same county and 11 million, or 33 percent, moved from one county to another. The latter group of persons was about equally divided between those who moved within the same State and those who moved between States.

Nonwhites, as usual in recent years, were more mobile than whites. One-fourth of the nonwhites compared with one-fifth of the whites moved during the period of March 1957 and March 1958. Nonwhites, however, differed from the whites in regard to distance moved, the nonwhites generally having moved shorter distances. Nonwhites on rural farms have had a consistently higher level of local mobility during the past several years.

Women in 1957-58 tended to be slightly less mobile than men. Men and women tend to have about the same rate of local movement, but men have tended to have a higher migration rate. Mobility rates were higher at the young adult ages and tended to decline with advancing

years.

The census data of March 1958 revealed no consistent relationship between participation of men in the labor force and mobility by age. In general, the search for work on the part of young adults and the unemployed may serve to explain their relatively high mobility.

Statistics on the mobility of the population indicate that an increasing number of Americans are moving each year. The data given below show this trend:

A breakdown of these figures indicates that an average of 10 million Americans moved from one county to another during each of the years mentioned. During this 4-year period more than 5 million Americans moved from one State to another yearly.

From April 1953 to March 1956, an average of 2,274,000 Americans per year moved from one region of the United States to another, the two largest migratory streams being from the South to the North Central States and from the South to the West.

Five of the largest metropolitan areas of the United States-New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Detroit-contained more than one-half of the total metropolitan population and almost one-fifth of the population of the Nation. It is estimated that by 1975, 70 percent of the Nation's total population will live in metropolitan

areas.

The 1950 census established, for statistical purposes, 168 standard metropolitan areas. Figure 1 shows the geographic location and outline of these areas as of 1957, the latest year for which chart information was available. A recent survey report by the Bureau of the Census indicated that two-thirds of the increase in the civilian population of the United States between April 1950 and April 1959 was accounted for by the same 168 standard metropolitan statistical areas as determined for the 1950 census. The metropolitan population of 99.9 million was 16.1 million, or 19.2 percent, greater than the 1950 level of 83.8 million. The 8 million rise in the population outside the established standard metropolitan statistical areas was 12.1 percent of the 1950 total of 65 million.

Many areas of the United States experienced continuing widespread redistribution of the population between 1950 and 1960, with the States in the West growing most rapidly and the Northeastern States growing most slowly. This was reflected in a recent report issued by the Bureau of the Census, showing the percent change, from 1950 to 1960, in the total population of the States. Figure 2 shows these changes which resulted chiefly from the movement of workers and their families within the labor force. The majority of the persons who moved were skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled workers mainly from the southern Appalachian region, the rural South, the cutover region of the Northwest, and Puerto Rico. The movers also included a fairly large number of professional workers who moved in search of better job opportunities and other workers who, because of the nature of their skills, shifted from one industrial job to another.

ADULT EDUCATION IMPLICATIONS

Population growth and mobility, caused by ease of transportation by sociological and technological change, have brought American cities to the place where many old and new residents need adult education to make living successful. Controls which were effective in the small settled farm community no longer suffice in the mobile, anonymous community of the city. To this fact may be traced many of the conditions, such as family disorganization, unemployment, crime, and personal maladjustments, whose solutions require systematic adult education and training.

There are many educational implications growing out of population expansion, mobility, and redistribution. The first major implication is that many adult migrants are undereducated and, therefore, need formal and informal educational opportunities. They need to be able to read and follow directions, to read with comprehension the material which contains the information required to meet their obligations or the knowledge to give them pleasure and enlightment. Other communication skills that are needed include the ability to listen with understanding and without bias to what one hears, to write and speak simply and clearly and to observe with accuracy, and to recognize differences in meaning growing out of differences in backgrounds.

Adult migrants have other needs growing out of their situations in new communities. Some of these needs pertain to the ability and willingness of old and new residents to adjust to change in a changing society, and to modify their framework of values.

Many of the problems involving old and new residents grow out of misunderstandings concerning employment opportunities, housing, recreation, education, and intergroup and community relations.

Adult migrants need citizenship education. Their participation in the responsibilities of citizenship need to be facilitated and encouraged. The involvement of people in the improvement of their communities, understanding and participation in politics, and effectiveness in organizational memberships are factors which are vital in a democracy. At the heart of the fundamental education process is the need to provide opportunities for personal growth and development. Little is accomplished in the change of residence from one place to another unless people grasp the opportunities to improve themselves. Those who work in the field of adult education should be as responsible for helping adult migrants to want this kind of education as they are for providing it.

The large-scale movement of people affects all phases of life both in the areas from which and into which they have moved. The fact that this movement is of great concern to all persons engaged in education and social services outlines a trend of growing significance.