WHY IMMIGRATION HAS NOT BEEN LARGER.

951

in the past have been: The Missouri lands have been much less thoroughly advertised; the State has not kept itself before the public to so great an extent, and has, indeed, seemed wholly indifferent to accessions by immigration; the State debt was somewhat large, and with the county and city debts made taxation heavier; the lands, though fairly fertile, were badly cultivated, and gave to the new-comers an impression of their barrenness and worthlessness, which facts did not justify; the farming in many parts of the State was very slovenly and inefficient. On as good lands as those of Missouri, the average yield of wheat should never be as low as eleven bushels to the acre; of corn, twenty-six bushels to the acre, or of potatoes seventy-five bushels to the acre; yet these were the reported averages of 1878. The efforts of the State Agricultural Society have produced some improvements in these crops, but they are, even now, much below what they ought to be. The educational advantages in the country were much inferior to those of the neighboring States of Iowa and Kansas, whereas they ought to have been much better than in those States. There was, moreover, hanging about the State the old taint of slavery. The slaves had been emancipated ten, fifteen, sixteen years before; but the thriftless, indolent, reckless, and sometimes ruffianly spirit engendered by it, still remained in some degree, and this spirit repelled immigration. It is now more than half a generation since slavery was abolished, and most of these untoward obstacles have now disappeared. To-day Missouri is as good a State for the immigrant as any in the Great West, and better than some. Its climate, soil, markets and advantages are unsurpassed, and cordiality toward the stranger is no longer wanting, though perhaps not yet so warmly manifested as in some of the newer States; but this will come in time.

Educational Advantages.-The public schools of Missouri are in an anomalous condition. In the cities the schools are of a high order, and will compare favorably with those in any State or city in the Union. In St. Louis within the last decade, owing to an enormous estimate of more than 100,000 more inhabitants than the city contained, the school population was supposed to be

much larger than it really was, and the city superintendent and other officers were distressed because the scholars enrolled were but two-sevenths, and the actual attendance less than one-fifth of the supposed school population. They understand this better

now.

The country schools were, to a large degree, without system or order, and were as much below those of the neighboring States in all good qualities as those of the cities were beyond the same class of schools elsewhere. There are not quite 300 schools of very high character in the State, most of them in the cities; the remainder, numbering nearly 8,200, are of very indifferent quality. In 1875, out of 7,224 school-houses in the State, 2,164 were built of logs; 4,636 were frame buildings, and only 424 brick or stone. The school fund is partly available, and partly at present unavailable. About $3,000,000 are available, and $7,300,000 unavailable now, but will eventually become so. The low condition of the country schools is due in part to the indifference of a considerable portion of the people to education; in part to the apathy of the legislature, and in part to the vagueness and incompleteness of the school law. The superintendent is deserving of great credit for his perseverance and efficiency under circumstances of great difficulty, but his efforts have not been so thoroughly sustained by the legislature as they should have been.

The following are the school statistics of the State for 1878, the last year whose report is published: School population, 688,248; school enrolment, 448,033: number of ungraded school districts, 8,142; number of graded school districts, 279; number of school-houses, 8,092; estimated value of school-houses, $8,321,399; average school year in months in graded school districts, 9; in all the districts, 5 months; total number of teachers employed, 11,268; total wages of teachers, $2,320,430.20; average wages of teachers per month, males, $36.36; females, $28.09; average wages of teachers per month in graded schools, males, $87.81; females, $40.73.

Revenue. From interest on State permanent fund, $174.030.15; from one-fourth the State revenue collections, $363,

EDUCATION IN MISSOURI.

953

276.32; from county and township permanent funds, $440,191.37; from district taxes, $2,446,910.71; total, $3,424.408.55. Permanent Funds.-State fund, $2,909,457.11; county fund, $2,388,368.29; township, or sixteenth section fund, $1,980,678.51; total, $7,278,046.80.

There are five normal schools in the State, besides normal departments in several of the colleges. There is one of these (Lincoln Institute) in Jefferson City for the instruction of colored teachers, which receives $5,000 a year from the State. The appropriations to the other normal schools are $7,500 each per annum. The State University at Columbia, with a School of Mines and Metallurgy at Rolla, has ten different departments or courses, in two groups, academic and professional. The UniverEity receives $19,500 annually from the State, and the School of Mines, $7,500. Washington University, at St. Louis, has departments of science, medicine and law, besides its academic course. There are also fifteen other colleges, four of them Roman Catholic, three Methodist, and the rest under the control of other denominations, four of medicine, one of dentistry, and one of pharmacy, beside those which are connected with the State University and Washington University. There are special institutions for deaf mutes, for the blind, for orphans, the aged, etc., etc. Most of these receive liberal appropriations from the State. The educational condition of the State, as a whole, is improving, and will in a few years attain to as high a standard as that of the adjacent States.

Religious Denominations and Churches.-About 315,000, or one-seventh of the population of Missouri, are members of churches, and two-thirds of the population, say 1,575,000, are adherents, more or less pronounced, of these churches. The Baptists have the largest number of churches and church edifices, but are followed very closely by the Methodists, who are, however, divided into Northern and Southern. The Methodist membership is a few hundred more than the Baptist, and their adherent population is about the same-not far from 375,000. The Roman Catholics count all their adherent population as members, and report about 275,000, but their church property,

including their costly cathedral and churches at St. Louis, is estimated at about $4,300,000, or double that of the Methodists or Baptists. The other denominations in their order of churches, membership and church property, are regular Presbyterians, Christians and Disciples, Cumberland Presbyterians, Lutherans, the Protestant Episcopal Church, Congregationalists, United Brethren in Christ and Evangelical Association (both minor Methodist churches), Free Will Baptists, Reformed German, Unitarians, Friends, Universalists, Jews, New Jerusalem Church, and Union. The total amount of church property in the State exceeds $15,000,000; the whole number of churches is about 5,000, and of church edifices nearly 4,000; of clergymen and preachers about 2,900.

Historical Dates. First settlements in Missouri at or near St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, by the French, probably in 1720; at St. Genevieve about 1755. In 1775 St. Louis was a fur depot and trading station, with 800 inhabitants. In 1803 France ceded all this territory to the United States. In 1805 St. Louis was made the capital of the new Territory of Louisiana. In 1810 there were 1,500 inhabitants within the present limits of Missouri. In 1812 the name of the Territory was changed to Missouri Territory. In 1820 the people prepared and adopted a State Constitution. It was admitted into the Union as a State August 10, 1821, after a bitter and violent controversy in Congress as to its admission as a slave State, by an act known as the Missouri Compromise, which permitted slavery there, but prohibited it in all territory north of 36° 30′ north latitude. This act was virtually repealed in 1854. The people took part in the Kansas difficulties of 1854-59, and were very much divided in the civil

war.

Several severe battles were fought in the State. A new Constitution was adopted in 1865, and still another in 1875.

TOPOGRAPHY OF MONTANA.

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CHAPTER XIII.

MONTANA.

SITUATION-BOUNDARIES-EXTENT-MOUNTAINS-TIMBER-LAKES-RIVERS— GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY-GOLD IN EXTENSIVE PLACERS AND Lodes— SILVER-COPPER-LEAD-IRON-OTHER MINERALS-SOIL AND VEGETATION -ARABLE LANDS-GRAZING LANDS-TIMBER LANDS MINING LANDS

DESERT LANDS-ZoÖLOGY-CLIMATE-BLIZZARDS-THE "CHINOOK" WIND -METEOROLOGY OF FORT KEOGH-FORT BENTON-HELENA-VIRGINIA CITY -MINING-ENORMOUS YIELD OF THE PLACERS-GOLD LODES-SILVER LODES -THE STEMPLE DISTRICT-LAST CHANCE GULCH, NOW HELENA-PHILLIPSBURG- -WICKES-BUTTE-PECULIARITIES OF THE BUTTE MINES-OTHER MINES -TRAPPER DISTRICT-MINING THUS FAR ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY IN WESTERN MONTANA-PROBABILITIES OF MINES IN SOUTHERN AND SOUTHEASTERN MONTANA-AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIONS-TESTIMONY OF Z. L. WHITE-OF ROBERT E. STRAHORN-OF THOMSON P. MCELRATH-ENORMOUS Crops, of EXCELLENT QUALITY-Stock-Raising-Sheep-FarmiNG-BREEDING HORSES AND MULES-GOV. POTTS' EXPERIENCE-MANUFACTURES-OBJECTS OF INTEREST -THE MADISON River--The Upper Yellowstone ValLEY-THE STRUGGLE of the WateRS TO FORCE A PASSAGE Through—Other Wonders-RailROADS-BEST ROUTES FOR IMMIGRANTS AT PRESENT-INDIAN RESERVATIONS AND THEIR POPULATION-POPULATION OF MONTANA COUNTIES and AssessMENT-PRINCIPAL TOWNS OF MONTANA-PRICES OF ARTICLES OF GENERAL USE-AVERAGE WAGES-EDUCATION-RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS-CON

CLUSION.

MONTANA TERRITORY is a central Territory of the northern belt of States of "Our Western Empire." About four-fifths of its area lies east of the Main Divide of the Rocky Mountains. Between this Main Divide and the Bitter Root Mountains, which are a second range of the Rocky Mountains, and form the boundary between Montana and Idaho, is a broad, elevated valley, through which flows Clarke's fork of the Columbia river. East of the Main Divide there are several isolated mesas or plateaus, such as the Snake's Head, Beque d'Otard, Bear's Paw, Little Rocky Mountains, the Snow Mountains and Bull Mountains farther south. In the southeast there are several short ranges extending northward from Wyoming, and part of them apparently connected with the Black Hills. These are, begin