XIV.—ST. LOUIS AND KANSAS CITY.
St. Louis is eighty years old. It was incorporated as a town in 1808, thirteen years before the admission of Missouri into the Union as a State. In 1764 a company of thirty Frenchmen made a settlement on its site and gave it its distinguished name. For nearly half a century, under French and Spanish jurisdiction alternately, it was little more than a trading post, and at the beginning of this century it contained only about a thousand inhabitants. This period, however, gave it a romantic historic background, and as late as 1853, when its population was a hundred thousand, it preserved French characteristics and a French appearance—small brick houses and narrow streets crowded down by the river. To the stranger it was the Planters’ Hotel and a shoal of big steamboats moored along an extensive levee roaring with river traffic. Crowded, ill-paved, dirty streets, a few country houses on elevated sites, a population forced into a certain activity by trade, but hindered in municipal improvement by French conservatism, and touched with the rust of slavery—that was the St. Louis of thirty-five years ago.
Now everything is changed as by some magic touch. The growth of the city has always been solid, unspeculative, conservative in its business methods, with some persistence of the old French influence, only gradually parting from its ancient traditions, preserving always something of the aristocratic flavor of “old families,” accounted “slow” in the impatience of youth. But it has burst its old bounds, and grown with a rapidity that would be marvellous in any other country. The levee is comparatively deserted, although the trade on the lower river is actually very large. The traveller who enters the city from the east passes over the St. Louis Bridge, a magnificent structure and one of the engineering wonders of the modern world, plunges into a tunnel under the business portion of the old city, and emerges into a valley covered with a net-work of railway-tracks, and occupied by apparently interminable lines of passenger coaches and freight cars, out of the confusion of which he makes his way with difficulty to a carriage, impressed at once by the enormous railway traffic of the city. This is the site of the proposed Union Depot, which waits upon the halting action of the Missouri Pacific system. The eastern outlet for all this growing traffic is over the two tracks of the bridge; these are entirely inadequate, and during a portion of the year there is a serious blockade of freight. A second bridge over the Mississippi is already a necessity to the commerce of the city, and is certain to be built within a few years.
St. Louis, since the war, has spread westward over the gentle ridges which parallel the river, and become a city vast in territory and most attractive in appearance. While the business portion has expanded into noble avenues with stately business and public edifices, the residence parts have a beauty, in handsome streets and varied architecture, that is a continual surprise to one who has not seen the city for twenty years. I had set down the length of the city along the river-front as thirteen miles, with a depth of about six miles; but the official statistics are: length of river-front, 19.15 miles; length of western limits, 21.27; extent north and south in an air line, 17; and length east and west on an air line, 6.62. This gives an area of 61.37 square miles, or 39,276 acres. This includes the public parks (containing 2095 acres), and is sufficient room for the population of 450,000, which the city doubtless has in 1888. By the United States census of 1870 the population was reported much larger than it was, the figures having no doubt been manipulated for political purposes. Estimating the natural increase from this false report, the city was led to claim a population far beyond the actual number, and unjustly suffered a little ridicule for a mistake for which it was not responsible. The United States census of 1880 gave it 350,522. During the eight years from 1880 there were erected 18,574 new dwelling-houses, at a cost of over fifty millions of dollars.
The great territorial extension of the city in 1876 was for a time a disadvantage, for it threw upon the city the care of enormous street extensions, made a sporadic movement of population beyond Grand avenue, which left hiatuses in improvement, and created a sort of furor of fashion for getting away from what to me is still the most attractive residence portion of the town, namely, the elevated ridges west of Fourteenth Street, crossed by Lucas Place and adjoining avenues. In this quarter, and east of Grand avenue, are fine high streets, with detached houses and grounds, many of them both elegant and comfortable, and this is the region of the Washington University, some of the finest club-houses, and handsomest churches. The movements of eity populations, however, are not to be accounted for. One of the finest parts of the town, and one of the oldest of the better residence parts, that south of the railways, containing broad, well-planted avenues, and very stately old homes, and the exquisite Lafayette Park, is almost wholly occupied now by Germans, who make up so large a proportion of the population.
One would have predicted at an early day that the sightly bluffs below the eity would be the resort of fashion, and be occupied with fine country houses. But the movement has been almost altogether westward and away from the river. And this rolling, wooded region is most inviting, elevated, open, cheerful. No other eity in the West has fairer suburbs for expansion and adornment, and its noble avenues, dotted with conspicuously fine residences, give promise of great beauty and elegance. In its late architectural development, St. Louis, like Chicago, is just in time to escape a very mediocre and merely imitative period in American building. Beyond Grand avenue the stranger will be shown Vandeventer Place, a semiprivate oblong park, surrounded by many pretty and some notably fine residences. Two of them are by Richardson, and the city has other specimens of his work. I cannot refrain from again speaking of the effect that this original genius has had upon American architecture, especially in the West, when money and enterprise afforded him free scope. It is not too much to say that he created a new era, and the influence of his ideas is seen everywhere in the work of architects who have caught his spirit.
The city has addressed itself to the occupation and adornment of its great territory and the improvement of its most travelled thoroughfares with admirable public spirit. The rolling nature of the ground has been taken advantage of to give it a nearly perfect system of drainage and sewerage. The old pavements of soft limestone, which were dust in dry weather and liquid mud in wet weather, are being replaced by granite in the business parts and asphalt and wood blocks (laid on a concrete base) in the residence portions. Up to the beginning of 1888 this new pavement had cost nearly three and a half million dollars, and over thirty-three miles of it were granite blocks. Street railways have also been pushed all over the territory. The total of street lines is already over one hundred and fifty-four miles, and over thirty miles of these give rapid transit by cable. These facilities make the whole of the wide territory available for business and residence, and give the poorest inhabitants the means of reaching the parks.
The park system is on the most liberal scale, both public and private; the parks are already famous for extent and beauty, but when the projected connecting boulevards are made they will attain world-wide notoriety. The most extensive of the private parks is that of the combined Agricultural Fair Grounds and Zoological Gardens. Here is held annually the St. Louis Fair, which is said to be the largest in the United States. The enclosure is finely laid out and planted, and contains an extensive park, exhibition buildings, cottages, a race-track, an amphitheatre, which suggests in size and construction some of the largest Spanish bull-rings, and picturesque houses for wild animals. The zoological exhibition is a very good one. There are eighteen public parks. One of the smaller (thirty acres) of these, and one of the oldest, is Lafayette Park, on the south side. Its beauty surprised me more than almost anything I saw in the city. It is a gem; just that artificial control of nature which most pleases—forest-trees, a pretty lake, fountains, flowers, walks planned to give everywhere exquisite vistas. It contains a statue of Thomas II. Benton, which may be a likeness, but utterly fails to give the character of the man. The largest is Forest Park, on the west side, a tract of 1372 acres, mostly forest, improved by excellent drives, and left as much as possible in a natural condition. It has ten miles of good driving-roads. This park cost the city about $850,000, and nearly as much more has been expended on it since its purchase. The surface has great variety of slopes, glens, elevations, lakes, and meadows. During the summer music is furnished in a handsome pagoda, and the place is much resorted to. Fronting the boulevard are statues of Governor Edward Bates and Frank P. Blair, the latter very characteristic.
Next in importance is Tower Grove Park, an oblong of 276 acres. This and Shaw’s Garden, adjoining, have been given to the city by Mr. Henry Shaw, an Englishman who made his fortune in the city, and they remain under his control as to care and adornment during his life. Those who have never seen foreign parks and pleasure-gardens can obtain a very good idea of their formal elegance and impressiveness by visiting Tower Grove Park and the Botanical Gardens. They will see the perfection of lawns, avenues ornamented by statuary, flower-beds, and tasteful walks. The entrances, with stone towers and lodges, suggest similar effects in France and in England. About the music-stand are white marble busts of six chief musical composers. The drives are adorned with three statues in bronze, thirty feet high, designed and cast in Munich by Frederick Millier. They are figures of Shakespeare, Humboldt, and Columbus, and so nobly conceived and executed that the patriotic American must wish they had been done in this country. Of Shaw’s Botanical Garden I need to say little, for its fame as a comprehensive and classified collection of trees, plants, and flowers is world-wide. It has no equal in this country. As a place for botanical study no one appreciated it more highly than the late Professor Asa Gray. Sometimes a peculiar classification is followed; one locality’ is devoted to economic plants—camphor, quinine, cotton, tea, coffee, etc.; another to “Plants of the Bible.” The space of fifty-four acres, enclosed by high stone walls, contains, besides the open garden and allées and glass houses, the summer residence and the tomb of Mr. Shaw. This old gentleman, still vigorous in his eighty-eighth year, is planning new adornments in the way of statuary and busts of statesmen, poets, and scientists. His plans are all liberal and cosmopolitan. For over thirty years his botanical knowledge, his taste, and abundant wealth and leisure have been devoted to the creation of this wonderful garden and park, which all bear the stamp of his strong individuality, and of a certain pleasing foreign formality. What a source of unfailing delight it must have been to him! As we sat talking with him I thought how other millionaires, if they knew how, might envy a matured life, after the struggle for a competency is over, devoted to this most rational enjoyment, in an occupation as elevating to the taste as to the character, and having in mind always the public good. Over the entrance gate is the inscription, “Missouri Botanical Gardens.” When the city has full control of the garden the word “Missouri” should be replaced by “Shaw.”
The money expended for public parks gives some idea of the liberal and far-sighted provision for the health and pleasure of a great city. The parks originally cost the city 81,309,944, and three millions more have been spent upon their improvement and maintenance. This indicates an enlightened spirit, which we shall see characterizes the city in other things, and is evidence of a high degree of culture.
Of the commerce and manufactures of the town I can give no adequate statement without going into details, which my space forbids. The importance of the Mississippi River is much emphasized, not only as an actual highway of traffic, but as a regulator of railway rates. The town has by the official reports been discriminated against, and even the Inter-State Act has not afforded all the relief expected. In 1887 the city shipped to foreign markets by way of the Mississippi and the jetties 3,973,000 bushels of wheat and 7,365,000 bushels of corn—a larger exportation than ever before except in the years 1880 and 1881. An outlet like this is of course a check on railway charges. The trade of the place employs a banking capital of fifteen millions. The deposits in 1887 were thirty-seven millions; the clearings over 8894,527,731—the largest ever reached, and over ten per cent, in excess of the clearings of 1886. To whatever departments I turn in the report of the Merchants’ Exchange for 1887 I find a vigorous growth—as in building—and in most articles of commerce a great increase. It appears by the tonnage statements that, taking receipts and shipments together, 12,060,995 tons of freight were handled in and out during 1886, against 14,359,059 tons in 1887—a gain of nineteen and a half per cent. The buildings in 1886 cost $7,030,819; in 1887, $8,162,914. There were $44,740 more stamps sold at the post-office in 1887 than in 1886. The custom-house collections were less than in 1886, but reached the figures of $1,414,747. The assessed value of real and personal property in 1887 was $217,142,320, on which the rate of taxation in the old city limits was $2.50.
It is never my intention in these papers to mention individual enterprises for their own sake, but I do not hesitate to do so when it is necessary in order to illustrate some peculiar development. It is a curious matter of observation that so many Western cities have one or more specialties in which they excel—houses of trade or manufacture larger and more important than can be found elsewhere. St. Louis finds itself in this category in regard to several establishments. One of these is a wooden-ware company, the largest of the sort in the country, a house which gathers its peculiar goods from all over the United States, and distributes them almost as widely—a business of gigantic proportions and bewildering detail. Its annual sales amount to as much as the sales of all the houses in its line in New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati together. Another is a hardware company, wholesale and retail, also the largest of its kind in the country, with sales annually amounting to six millions of dollars, a very large amount when we consider that it is made up of an infinite number of small and cheap articles in iron, from a fish-hook up—indeed, over fifty thousand separate articles. I spent half a day in this establishment, walking through its departments, noting the unequalled system of compact display, classification, and methods of sale and shipment. Merely as a method of system in business I have never seen anything more interesting. Another establishment, important on account of its central position in the continent and its relation to the Louisiana sugar-fields, is the St. Louis Sugar Refinery.
The refinery proper is the largest building in the Western country used for manufacturing purposes, and, together with its adjuncts of cooper-shops and warehouses, covers five entire blocks and employs 500 men. It has a capacity of working up 400 tons of raw sugar a day, but runs only to the extent of about 200 tons a day, making the value of its present product $7,500,000 a year.
During the winter and spring it uses Louisiana sugars; the remainder of the year, sugars of Cuba and the Sandwich Islands. Like all other refineries of which I have inquired, this reckons the advent of the Louisiana crop as an important regulator of prices. This establishment, in common with other industries of the city, has had to complain of business somewhat hampered by discrimination in railway rates. St. Louis also has what I suppose, from the figures accessible, to be the largest lager-beer brewing establishment in the world; its solid, gigantic, and architecturally imposing buildings lift themselves up like a fortress over the thirty acres of ground they cover. Its manufacture and sales in 1887 were 456,511 barrels of beer—an increase of nearly 100,000 since 1885-86. It exports largely to Mexico, South America, the West Indies, and Australia. The establishment is a marvel of system and ingenious devices. It employs 1200 laborers, to whom it pays $500,000 a year. Some of the details are of interest. In the bottling department we saw workmen filling, corking, labelling, and packing at the rate of 100,000 bottles a day. In a year 25,000,000 bottles are used, packed in 400,000 barrels and boxes. The consumption of barley is 1,100,000 bushels yearly, and of hops over 700,000 pounds, and the amount of water used for all purposes is 250,000,000 gallons—nearly enough to float our navy. The charges for freight received and shipped by rail amount to nearly a million dollars a year. There are several other large breweries in the city. The total product manufactured in 1887 was 1,383,301 barrels, equal to 43,575,872 gallons—more than three times the amount of 1877. The barley used in the city and vicinity was 2,932,192 bushels, of which 340,335 bushels came from Canada. The direct export of beer during 1887 to foreign countries was equal to 1,924,108 quart bottles. The greater part of the barley used comes from Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
It is useless to enumerate the many railways which touch and affect St. Louis. The most considerable is the agglomeration known as the Missouri Pacific, or South-western System, which operated 6994 miles of road on January 1, 1888. This great aggregate is likely to be much diminished by the surrender of lines, but the railway facilities of the city are constantly extending.
There are figures enough to show that St. Louis is a prosperous city, constantly developing new enterprises with fresh energy; to walk its handsome streets and drive about its great avenues and parks is to obtain an impression of a cheerful town on the way to be most attractive; but its chief distinction lies in its social and intellectual life, and in the spirit that has made it a pioneer in so many educational movements. It seems to me a very good place to study the influence of speculative thought in economic and practical affairs. The question I am oftenest asked is, whether the little knot of speculative philosophers accidentally gathered there a few years ago, and who gave a sort of fame to the city, have had any permanent influence. For years they discussed abstractions; they sustained for some time a very remarkable periodical of speculative philosophy, and in a limited sphere they maintained an elevated tone of thought and life quite in contrast with our general materialism. The circle is broken, the members are scattered. Probably the town never understood them, perhaps they did not altogether understand each other, and maybe the tremendous conflict of Kant and Hegel settled nothing. But if there is anything that can be demonstrated in this world it is the influence of abstract thought upon practical affairs in the long-run. And although one may not be able to point to any definite thing created or established by this metaphysical movement, I think I can see that it was a leaven that had a marked effect in the social, and especially in the educational, life of the town, and liberalized minds, and opened the way for the trial of theories in education. One of the disciples declares that the State Constitution of Missouri and the charter of St. Louis are distinctly Hegelian. However this may be, both these organic laws are uncommonly wise in their provisions. A study of the evolution of the city government is one of the most interesting that the student can make. Many of the provisions of the charter are admirable, such as those securing honest elections, furnishing financial checks, and guarding against public debt. The mayor is elected for four years, and the important offices filled by his appointment are not vacant until the beginning of the third year of his appointment, so that hope of reward for political work is too dim to affect the merits of an election. The composition and election of the school board is also worthy of notice. Of the twenty-one members, seven are elected on a general ticket, and the remaining fourteen by districts, made by consolidating the twenty-eight city wards, members to serve four years, divided into two classes. This arrangement secures immunity from the ward politician.
St. Louis is famous for its public schools, and especially for the enlightened methods, and the willingness to experiment in improving them. The school expenditures for the year ending June 30, 1887, were $1,095,773; the school property in lots, buildings, and furniture in 1885 was estimated at $3,445,254. The total number of pupils enrolled was 56,936. These required about 1200 teachers, of whom over a thousand were women. The actual average of pupils to each teacher was about 42. There were 106 school buildings, with a seating capacity for about 50,000 scholars. Of the district schools 13 were colored, in which were employed 78 colored teachers. The salaries of teachers are progressive, according to length of service. As for instance, the principal of the High-school has $2400 the first year, $2500 the second, $2600 the third, $2750 the fourth; a head assistant in a district school, $650 the first year, $700 the second, $750 the third, $800 the fourth, $850 the fifth.
The few schools that I saw fully sustained their public reputation as to methods, discipline, and attainments. The Normal School, of something over 100 pupils, nearly all the girls being graduates of the High-school, was admirable in drill, in literary training, in calisthenic exercises. The High-school is also admirable, a school with a thoroughly elevated tone and an able principal. Of the 600 pupils at least two-thirds were girls. From appearances I should judge that it is attended by children of the most intelligent families, for certainly the girls of the junior and senior classes, in manner, looks, dress, and attainments, compared favorably with those of one of the best girls’ schools I have seen anywhere, the Mary Institute, which is a department of the Washington University. This fact is most important, for the excellence of our public schools (for the product of good men and women) depends largely upon their popularity with the well-to-do classes. One of the most interesting schools I saw was the Jefferson, presided over by a woman, having fine fire-proof buildings and 1100 pupils, nearly all whom are of foreign parentage—German, Russian, and Italian, with many Hebrews also—a finely ordered, wide-awake school of eight grades. The kindergarten here was the best I saw; good teachers, bright and happy little children, with natural manners, throwing themselves gracefully into their games with enjoyment and without self-consciousness, and exhibiting exceedingly pretty fancy and kindergarten work. In St. Louis the kindergarten is a part of the public-school system, and the experiment is one of general interest. The question cannot be called settled. In the first place the experiment is hampered in St. Louis by a decision of the Supreme Court that the public money cannot be used for children out of the school age, that is, under six and over twenty. This prevents teaching English to adult foreigners in the evening schools, and, rigidly applied, it shuts out pupils from the kindergarten under six. One advantage from the kindergarten was expected to be an extension of the school period; and there is no doubt that the kindergarten instruction ought to begin before the age of six, especially for the mass of children who miss home training and home care. As a matter of fact, many of the children I saw in the kindergartens were only constructively six years old. It cannot be said, also, that the Froebel system is fully understood or accepted. In my observation, the success of the kindergarten depends entirely upon the teacher; where she is competent, fully believes in and understands the Froebel system, and is enthusiastic, the pupils are interested and alert; otherwise they are listless, and fail to get the benefit of it. The Froebel system is the developing the concrete idea in education, and in the opinion of his disciples this is as important for children of the intelligent and well-to-do as for those of the poor and ignorant. They resist, therefore, the attempt which is constantly made, to introduce the primary work into the kindergarten. But for the six years’ limit the kindergarten in St. Louis would have a better chance in its connection with the public schools. As the majority of children leave school for work at the age of twelve or fourteen, there is little time enough given for book education; many educators think time is wasted in the kindergarten, and they advocate the introduction of what they call kindergarten features in the primary classes. This is called by the disciples of Froebel an entire abandonment of his system. I should like to see the kindergarten in connection with the public school tried long enough to demonstrate all that is claimed for it in its influence on mental development, character, and manners, but it seems unlikely to be done in St. Louis, unless the public-school year begins at least as early as five, or, better still, is specially unlimited for kindergarten pupils.
Except in the primary work in drawing and modelling, there is no manual training feature in the St. Louis public schools. The teaching of German is recently dropped from all the district schools (though retained in the High), in accordance with the well-founded idea of Americanizing our foreign population as rapidly as possible.
One of the most important institutions in the Mississippi Valley, and one that exercises a decided influence upon the intellectual and social life of St. Louis, and is a fair measure of its culture and the value of the higher education, is the Washington University, which was incorporated in 1853, and was presided over until his death, in 1887, by the late Chancellor William Green-leaf Eliot, of revered memory. It covers the whole range of university studies, except theology, and allows no instruction either sectarian in religion or partisan in politics, nor the application of any sectarian or party test in the election of professors, teachers, or officers. Its real estate and buildings in use for educational purposes cost $625,000; its libraries, scientific apparatus, casts, and machinery cost over $100,000, and it has investments for revenue amounting to over $650,000. The University comprehends an undergraduate department, including the college (a thorough classical, literary, and philosophical course, with about sixty students), open to women, and the polytechnic, an admirably equipped school of science; the St. Louis Law School, of excellent reputation; the Manual Training School, the most celebrated school of this sort, and one that has furnished more manual training teachers than any other; the Henry Shaw School of Botany; the St. Louis School of Fine Arts; the Smith Academy, for boys; and the Mary Institute, one of the roomiest and most cheerful school buildings I know, where 400 girls, whose collective appearance need not fear comparison with any in the country, enjoy the best educational advantages. Mary Institute is justly the pride of the city.
The School of Botany, which is endowed and has its own laboratory, workshop, and working library, was, of course, the outgrowth of the Shaw Botanical Garden; it has usually from twenty to thirty special students.
The School of Fine Arts, which was reorganized under the University in 1879, has enrolled over 200 students, and gives a wide and careful training in all the departments of drawing, painting, and modelling, with instructions in anatomy, perspective, and composition, and has life classes for both sexes, in drawing from draped and nude figures. Its lecture, working rooms, and galleries of paintings and casts are in its Crow Art Museum—a beautiful building, well planned and justly distinguished for architectural excellence. It ranks among the best Art buildings in the country.
The Manual Training School has been in operation since 1880. It may be called the most fully developed pioneer institution of the sort. I spent some time in its workshops and schools, thinking of the very interesting question at the bottom of the experiment, namely, the mental development involved in the training of the hand and the eye, and the reflex help to manual skill in the purely intellectual training of study. It is, it may be said again, not the purpose of the modern manual training to teach a trade, but to teach the use of tools as an aid in the symmetrical development of the human being. The students here certainly do beautiful work in wood-turning and simple carving, in ironwork and forging. They enjoy the work; they are alert and interested in it. I am certain that they are the more interested in it in seeing how they can work out and apply what they have learned in books, and I doubt not they take hold of literary study more freshly for this manual training in exactness. The school exacts close and thoughtful study with tools as well as in books, and I can believe that it gives dignity in the opinion of the working student to hand labor. The school is large, its graduates have been generally successful in practical pursuits and in teaching, and it lias demonstrated in itself the correctness of the theory of its authors, that intellectual drill and manual training are mutually advantageous together. Whether manual training shall be a part of all district school education is a question involving many considerations that do not enter into the practicability of this school, but I have no doubt that manual training schools of this sort would be immensely useful in every city. There are many boys in every community who cannot in any other wayr be awakened to any real study. This training school deserves a chapter by itself, and as I have no space for details, I take the liberty of referring those interested to a volume on its aims and methods by Dr. C. M. Woodward, its director.
Notwithstanding the excellence of the public-school system of St. Louis, there is no other city in the country, except New Orleans, where so large a proportion of the youths are being educated outside the public schools. A very considerable portion of the population is Catholic. There are forty-four parochial schools, attended by nineteen thousand pupils, and over a dozen different Sisterhoods are engaged in teaching in them. Generally each parochial school has two departments—one for boys and one for girls. They are sustained entirely by the parishes. In these schools, as in the two Catholic universities, the prominence of ethical and religious training is to be noted. Seven-eighths of the schools are in charge of thoroughly trained religious teachers. Many of the boys’ schools are taught by Christian Brothers. The girls are almost invariably taught by members of religious Sisterhoods. In most of the German schools the girls and smaller boys are taught by Sisters, the larger boys by lay teachers. Some reports of school attendance are given in the Catholic Directory: SS. Peter and Paul’s (German), 1300 pupils; St. Joseph’s (German), 957; St. Bridget’s, 950; St. Malaehy’s, 756; St. John’s, 700; St. Patrick’s, 700. There is a school for colored children of 150 pupils taught by colored Sisters.
In addition to these parochial schools there are a dozen academies and convents of higher education for young ladies, all under charge of Catholic Sisterhoods, commonly with a mixed attendance of boarders and day scholars, and some of them with a reputation for learning that attracts pupils from other States, notably the Academy of the Sacred Heart, St. Joseph’s Academy, and the Academy of the Visitation, in charge of cloistered nuns of that order. Besides these, in connection with various reformatory and charitable institutions, such as the House of the Good Shepherd and St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum, there are industrial schools in charge of the Sisterhoods, where girls receive, in addition to their education, training in some industry to maintain themselves respectably when they leave their temporary homes. Statistics are wanting, but it will be readily inferred from these statements that there are in the city a great number of single women devoted for life, and by special religious and intellectual training, to the office of teaching.
For the higher education of Catholic young men the city is distinguished by two remarkable institutions. The one is the old St. Louis University, and the other is the Christian Brothers’ College. The latter, which a few years ago outgrew its old buildings in the city, has a fine pile of buildings at Côte Brillante, on a commanding site about five miles out, with ample grounds, and in the neighborhood of the great parks and the Botanical Garden. The character of the school is indicated by the motto on the façade of the building—Religio, Mores, Cultura. The institution is designed to accommodate a thousand boarding students. The present attendance is 450, about half of whom are boarders, and represent twenty States. There is a corps of thirty-five professors, and three courses of study are maintained—the classical, the scientific, and the commercial. As several of the best parochial schools are in charge of Christian Brothers, these schools are feeders of the college, and the pupils have the advantage of an unbroken system with a consistent purpose from the day they enter into the primary department till they graduate at the college. The order has, at Glencoe, a large Normal School for the training of teachers. The fame and success of the Christian Brothers as educators in elementary and the higher education, in Europe and the United States, is largely due to the fact that they labor as a unit in a system that never varies in its methods of imparting instruction, in which the exponents of it have all undergone the same pedagogic training, in which there is no room for the personal fancy of the teacher in correction, discipline, or scholarship, for everything is judiciously governed by prescribed modes of procedure, founded on long experience, and exemplified in the co-operative plan of the Brothers. In vindication of the exceptional skill acquired by its teachers in the thorough drill of the order, the Brotherhood points to the success of its graduates in competitive examinations for public employment in this country and in Europe, and to the commendation its educational exhibits received at London and New Orleans.
The St. Louis University, founded in 1829 by members of the Society of Jesus, and chartered in 1834, is officered and controlled by the Jesuit Fathers. It is an unendowed institution, depending upon fees paid for tuition. Before the war its students were largely the children of Southern planters, and its graduates are found all over the South and South-west; and up to 1881 the pupils boarded and lodged within the precincts of the old buildings on the corner of Ninth Street and Washington, where for over half a century the school has vigorously flourished. The place, which is now sold and about to be used for business purposes, has a certain flavor of antique scholarship, and the quaint buildings keep in mind the plain but rather pleasing architecture of the French period. The University is in process of removal to the new buildings on Grand avenue, which are a conspicuous ornament to one of the most attractive parts of the city. Soon nothing will be left of the institution on Ninth Street except the old college church, which is still a favorite place of worship for the Catholics of the city. The new buildings, in the early decorated English Gothic style, are ample and imposing; they have a front of 270 feet, and the northern wing extends 325 feet westward from the avenue. The library, probably the finest room of the kind in the West, is sixty-seven feet high, amply lighted, and provided with three balconies. The library, which was packed for removal, has over 25,000 volumes, is said to contain many rare and interesting books, and to fairly represent science and literature. Besides this, there are special libraries, open to students, of over 0000 volumes. The museum of the new building is a noble ball, one hundred feet by sixty feet, and fifty-two feet high, without columns, and lighted from above and from the side. The University has a valuable collection of ores and minerals, and other objects of nature and art that will be deposited in this hall, which will also serve as a picture-gallery for the many paintings of historical interest. Philosophical apparatus, a chemical laboratory, and an astronomical observatory are the equipments on the scientific side.
The University has now no dormitories and no boarders. There are twenty-five professors and instructors. The entire course, including the preparatory, is seven years. A glance at the catalogue shows that in the curriculum the institution keeps pace with the demands of the age. Besides the preparatory course (89 pupils), it has a classical course (143 pupils), an English course (82 pupils), and 85 post-graduate students, making a total of 399. Its students form societies for various purposes; one, the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with distinct organizations in the senior and junior classes, is for the promotion of piety and the practice of devotion towards the Blessed Virgin; another is for training in public speaking and philosophic and literary disputation; there is also a scientific academy, to foster a taste for scientific culture; and there is a student’s library of 4000 volumes, independent of the religious books of the Sodality societies.
In a conversation with the president I learned that the prevailing idea in the courses of study is the gradual and healthy development of the mind. The classes are carefully graded. The classics are favorite branches, but mental philosophy, chemistry, physics, astronomy, are taught with a view to practical application. Much stress is laid upon mathematics. During the whole course of seven years, one hour each day is devoted to this branch. In short, I was impressed with the fact that this is an institution for mental training. Still more was I struck with the prominence in the whole course of ethical and religious culture. On assembling every morning, all the Catholic students hear mass. In every class in every year Christian doctrine has as prominent a place as any branch of study; beginning in the elementary class with the small catechism and practical instructions in the manner of reciting the ordinary prayers, it goes on through the whole range of doctrine—creed, evidences, ritual, ceremonial, mysteries—in the minutest details of theory and practice; ingraining, so far as repeated instruction can, the Catholic faith and pure moral conduct in the character, involving instructions as to what occasions and what amusements are dangerous to a good life, on the reading of good books and the avoiding bad books and bad company.
In the post-graduate course, lectures are given and examinations made in ethics, psychology, anthropology, biology, and physics; and in the published abstracts of lectures for the past two years I find that none of the subjects of modern doubt and speculation are ignored—spiritism, psychical research, the cell theory, the idea of God, socialism, agnosticism, the Noachinn deluge, theories of government, fundamental notions of physical science, unity of the human species, potency of matter, and so on. During the past fifty years this faculty has contained many men famous as pulpit orators and missionaries, and this course of lectures on philosophic and scientific subjects has brought it prominently before the cultivated inhabitants of the town.
Another educational institution of note in St. Louis is the Concordia Seminar of the Old Lutheran, or the Evangelical Lutheran Church. This denomination, which originated in Saxony, and has a large membership in our Western States, adheres strictly to the Augsburg Confession, and is distinguished from the general Lutheran Church by greater strictness of doctrine and practice, or, as may be said, by a return to primitive Lutheranism; that is to say, it grounds itself upon the literal inspiration of the Scriptures, upon salvation by faith alone, and upon individual liberty. This Seminar is one of several related institutions in the Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States: there is a college at Fort Wayne, Indiana, a Progymnasium at Milwaukee, a Seminar of practical theology at Springfield, Illinois, and this Seminar at St. Louis, which is wholly devoted to theoretical theology. This Church numbers, I believe, about 200,000 members.
The Concordia Seminar is housed in a large, commodious building, effectively set upon high ground in the southern part of the city. It was erected and the institution is sustained by the contributions of the congregations. The interior, roomy, light, and commodious, is plain to barrenness, and has a certain monastic severity, which is matched by the discipline and the fare. In visiting it one takes a step backward into the atmosphere and theology of the sixteenth century. The ministers of the denomination are distinguished for learning and earnest simplicity. The president, a very able man, only thirty-five years of age, is at least two centuries old in his opinions, and wholly undisturbed by any of the doubts which have agitated the Christian world since the Reformation. He holds the faith “once for all” delivered to the saints. The Seminar has a hundred students. It is requisite to admission, said the president, that they be perfect Latin, Greek, and Hebrew scholars. A large proportion of the lectures are given in Latin, the remainder in German and English, and Latin is current in the institution, although German is the familiar speech. The course of study is exacting, the rules are rigid, and the discipline severe. Social intercourse with the other sex is discouraged. The pursuit of love and learning are considered incompatible at the same time; and if a student were inconsiderate enough to become engaged, he would be expelled. Each student from abroad may select or be selected by a family in the communion, at whose house he may visit once a week, which attends to his washing, and supplies to a certain extent the place of a home. The young men are trained in the highest scholarship and the strictest code of morals. I know of no other denomination which holds its members to such primitive theology and such strictness of life. Individual liberty and responsibility are stoutly asserted, without any latitude in belief. It repudiates Prohibition as an infringement of personal liberty, would make the use of wine or beer depend upon the individual conscience, but no member of the communion would be permitted to sell intoxicating liquors, or to go to a beer-garden or a theatre. In regard to the sacrament of communion, there is no authority for altering the plain directions in the Scripture, and communion without wine, or the substitution of any concoction for wine, would be a sin. No member would be permitted to join any labor union or secret society. The sacrament of communion is a mystery. It is neither transubstantiation nor consubstantiation. The president, whose use of English in subtle distinctions is limited, resorted to Latin and German in explanation of the mystery, but left the question of real and actual presence, of spirit and substance, still a matter of terms; one can only say that neither the ordinary Protestant nor the Catholic interpretation is accepted. Conversion is not by any act or ability of man; salvation is by faith alone. As the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures is insisted on in all cases, the world was actually created in six days of twenty-four hours each. When I asked the president what he did with geology, he smiled and simply waved his hand. This communion has thirteen flourishing churches in the city. In a town so largely German, and with so many freethinkers as well as free-livers, I cannot but consider this strict sect, of a simple unquestioning faith and high moral demands, of the highest importance in the future of the city. But one encounters with surprise, in our modern life, this revival of the sixteenth century, which plants itself so squarely against so much that we call “progress.”
As to the institutions of charity, I must content myself with saying that they are many, and worthy of a great and enlightened city. There are of all denominations 211 churches; of these the Catholics lead with 47; the Presbyterians come next with 24; and the Baptists have 22; the Methodists North, 4; and the Methodists South, 8. The most interesting edifices, both for associations and architecture, are the old Cathedral; the old Christ Church (Episcopalian), excellent Gothic; and an exquisite edifice, the Church of the Messiah (Unitarian), in Locust Street.
The city has two excellent libraries. The Public Library, an adjunct of the public-school system, in the Polytechnic Building, has an annual appropriation of about $14,000 from the School Board, and receives about $5000 more from membership and other sources. It contains about 67,000 volumes, and is admirably managed. The Mercantile Library is in process of removal into a magnificent six-story building on Broadway and Locust Street. It is a solid and imposing structure, the first story of red granite, and the others of brick and terra-cotta. The library and reading-rooms are on the fifth story, the rest of the building is rented. This association, which is forty-two years old, has 3500 members, and had an income in 1887 of $120,000, nearly all from membership. In January, 1888, it had 68,732 volumes, and in a circulation of over 168,000 in the year, it had the unparalleled distinction of reducing the fiction given out to 41.95 per cent. Both these libraries have many treasures interesting to a book-lover, and though neither is free, the liberal, intelligent management of each has been such as to make it a most beneficent institution for the city.
There are many handsome and stately buildings in the city, the recent erections showing growth in wealth and taste. The Chamber of Commerce, which is conspicuous for solid elegance, cost a million and a half dollars. There are 3295 members of the Merchants’ Exchange. The Court-house, with its noble dome, is as well proportioned a building as can be found in the country. A good deal may be said for the size and effect of the Exposition Building, which covers what was once a pretty park at the foot of Lucas Place, and cost 6750,000. There are clubs many and flourishing. The St. Louis Club (social) has the finest building, an exceedingly tasteful piece of Romanesque architecture on Twenty-ninth Street. The University Club, which is like its namesake in other cities, has a charming old-fashioned house and grounds on Pine Street. The Commercial Club, an organization limited in its membership to sixty, has no club-house, but, like its namesake in Chicago, is a controlling influence in the prosperity of the city. Representing all the leading occupations, it is a body of men who, by character, intellect, and wealth, can carry through any project for the public good, and which is animated by the highest public spirit.
Of the social life of the town one is permitted to speak only in general terms. It has many elements to make it delightful—long use in social civilities, interest in letters and in education, the cultivation of travel, traditions, and the refinement of intellectual pursuits. The town has no academy of music, but there is a good deal of musical feeling and cultivation; there is a very good orchestra, one of the very best choruses in the country, and Verdi’s “Requiem” was recently given splendidly. I am told by men and women of rare and special cultivation that the city is a most satisfactory one to live in, and certainly to the stranger its society is charming. The city has, however, the Mississippi Valley climate—extreme heat in the summer, and trying winters.
There is no more interesting industrial establishment in the West than the plate-glass works at Crystal City, thirty miles south on the river. It was built up after repeated failures and reverses—for the business, like any other, had to be learned. The plant is very extensive, the buildings are of the best, the machinery is that most approved, and the whole represents a cash investment of $1,500,000. The location of the works at this point was determined by the existence of a mountain of sand which is quarried out like rock, and is the finest and cleanest silica known in the country. The production is confined entirety to plate-glass, which is cast in great slabs, twelve feet by twelve and a half in size, each of which weighs, before it is reduced half in thickness by grinding, smoothing, and polishing, about 750 pounds. The product for 1887 was 1,200,000 feet. The coal used in the furnaces is converted into gas, which is found to be the most economical and most easily regulated fuel. This industry has drawn together a population of about 1500. I was interested to learn that labor in the production of this glass is paid twice as much as similar labor in England, and from three to four times as much as similar labor in France and Belgium. As the materials used in making plate-glass are inexpensive, the main cost, after the plant, is in labor. Since plate-glass was first made in this country, eighteen years ago, the price of it in the foreign market has been continually forced down, until now it costs the American consumer only half what it cost him before, and the jobber gets it at an average cost of 75 cents a foot, as against the $1.50 a foot which we paid the foreign manufacturer before the establishment of American factories. And in these eighteen years the Government has had from this source a revenue of over seventeen millions, at an average duty, on all sizes, of less than 59 per cent.
Missouri is one of the greatest of our States in resources and in promise, and it is conspicuous in the West for its variety and capacity of interesting development. The northern portion rivals Iowa in beautiful rolling prairie, with high divides and park-like forests; its water communication is unsurpassed; its mineral resources are immense; it has noble mountains as well as fine uplands and fertile valleys, and it never impresses the traveller as monotonous. So attractive is it in both scenery and resources that it seems unaccountable that so many settlers have passed it by. But, first slavery, and then a rural population disinclined to change, have stayed its development. This state of things, however, is changing, has changed marvellously within a few years in the northern portion, in the iron regions, and especially in larger cities of the west, St. Joseph and Kansas City. The State deserves a study by itself, for it is on the way to be a great empire of most varied interests. I can only mention here one indication of its moral progress. It has adopted a high license and local option law. Under this the saloons are closed in nearly all the smaller villages and country towns. A shaded map shows more than three-fourths of the area of the State, including three-fifths of the population, free from liquor-selling. The county court may grant a license to sell liquor to a person of good moral character on the signed petition of a majority of the taxpaying citizens of a township or of a city block; it must grant it on the petition of two-thirds of the citizens. Thus positive action is required to establish a saloon. On the map there are 76 white counties free of saloons, 14 counties In which there are from one to three saloons only, and 24 shaded counties which have altogether 2263 saloons, of which 1450 are in St. Louis and 520 in Kansas City. The revenue from the saloons in St. Louis is about 8800,000, in Kansas City about 8375,000, annually. The heavily shaded portions of the map are on the great rivers.
Of all the wonderful towns in the West, none has attracted more attention in the East than Kansas City. I think I am not wrong in saying that it is largely the product of Eastern energy and capital, and that its closest relations have been with Boston. I doubt if ever a new town was from the start built up so solidly or has grown more substantially. The situation, at the point where the Missouri River makes a sharp bend to the east, and the Kansas River enters it, was long ago pointed out as the natural centre of a great trade. Long before it started on its present career it was the great receiving and distributing point of South-western commerce, which left the Missouri River at this point for Santa Fé and other trading marts in the South-west. Aside from this river advantage, if one studies the course of streams and the incline of the land in a wide circle to the westward, he is impressed with the fact that the natural business drainage of a vast area is Kansas City. The city was therefore not fortuitously located, and when the railways centred there, they obeyed an inevitable law. Here nature intended, in the development of the country, a great city. Where the next one will be in the South-west is not likely to be determined until the Indian Territory is open to settlement. To the north, Omaha, with reference to Nebraska and the West, possesses many similar advantages, and is likewise growing with great vigor and solidity. Its situation on a slope rising from the river is commanding and beautiful, and its splendid business houses, handsome private residences, and fine public schools give ample evidence of the intelligent enterprise that is directing its rapid growth.
It is difficult to analyze the impression Kansas City first makes upon the Eastern stranger. It is usually that of immense movement, much of it crude, all of it full of purpose. At the Union Station, at the time of the arrival and departure of trains, the whole world seems afloat; one is in the midst of a continental movement of most varied populations. I remember that the first time I saw it in passing, the detail that most impressed me was the racks and rows of baggage checks; it did not seem to me that the whole travelling world could need so many. At that time a drive through the city revealed a chaos of enterprise—deep cuts for streets, cable roads in process of construction over the sharp ridges, new buildings, hills shaved down, houses perched high up on slashed knolls, streets swarming with traffic and roaring with speculation. A little more than a year later the change towards order was marvellous: the cable roads were running in all directions; gigantic buildings rising upon enormous blocks of stone gave distinction to the principal streets; the great residence avenues have been beautified, and showed all over the hills stately and picturesque houses. And it is worthy of remark that while the “boom” of speculation in lots had subsided, there was no slacking in building, and the reports showed a steady increase in legitimate business. I was confirmed in my theory that a city is likely to be most attractive when it has had to struggle heroically against natural obstacles in the building.
I am not going to describe the city. The reader knows that it lies south of the river Missouri, at the bend, and that the notable portion of it is built upon a series of sharp hills. The hill portion is already a beautiful city; the flat part, which contains the railway depot and yards, a considerable portion of the manufactories and wholesale houses, and much refuse and squatting population (white and black), is unattractive in a high degree. The Kaw, or Kansas, River would seem to be the natural western boundary, but it is not the boundary; the city and State line runs at some distance east of Kansas River, leaving a considerable portion of low ground in Kansas City, Kansas, which contains the larger number of the great packing-houses and the great stock-yards. This identity of names is confusing. Kansas City (Kansas), Wyandotte, Armourdale, Armstrong, and Riverview (all in the State of Kansas) have been recently consolidated under the name of Kansas City, Kansas. It is to be regretted that this thriving town of Kansas, which already claims a population of 40,000, did not take the name of Wyandotte. In its boundaries are the second largest stock-yards in the country, which received last year 670,000 cattle, nearly 2,500,000 hogs, and 210,000 sheep, estimated worth 851,000,000. There also are half a dozen large packing-houses, one of them ranking with the biggest in the country, which last year slaughtered 195,933 cattle, and 1,907,104 hogs. The great elevated railway, a wonderful structure, which connects Kansas City, Missouri, with Wyandotte, is owned and managed by men of Kansas City, Kansas. The city in Kansas has a great area of level ground for the accommodation of manufacturing enterprises, and I noticed a good deal of speculative feeling in regard to this territory. The Kansas side has fine elevated situations for residences, but Wyandotte itself does not compare in attractiveness with the Missouri city, and I fancy that the controlling impetus and capital will long remain with the city that has so much the start.
Looking about for the specialty which I have learned to expect in every great Western city, I was struck by the number of warehouses for the sale of agricultural implements on the flats, and I was told that Kansas City excels all others in the amount of sales of farming implements. The sale is put down at 815,000,000 for the year 1887—a fourth of the entire reported product manufactured in the United States. Looking for the explanation of this, one largely accounts for the growth of Kansas City, namely, the vast rich agricultural regions to the west and southwest, the development of Missouri itself, and the facilities of distribution. It is a general belief that settlement is gradually pushing the rainy belt farther and farther westward over the prairies and plains, that the breaking up of the sod by the plough and the tilling have increased evaporation and consequently rainfall. I find this questioned by competent observers, who say that the observation of ten years is not enough to settle the fact of a change of climate, and that, as not a tenth part of the area under consideration has been broken by the plough, there is not cause enough for the alleged effect, and that we do not yet know the cycle of years of drought and years of rain. However this may be, there is no doubt of the vast agricultural yield of these new States and Territories, nor of the quantities of improved machinery they use. As to facility of distribution, the railways are in evidence. I need not name them, but I believe I counted fifteen lines and systems centring there. In 1887, 4565 miles of railway were added to the facilities of Kansas City, stretching out in every direction. The development of one is notable as peculiar and far-sighted, the Fort Scott and Gulf, which is grasping the East as well as the South-west; turning eastward from Fort Scott, it already reaches the iron industries of Birmingham, pushes on to Atlanta, and seeks the seaboard. I do not think I over-estimate the importance of this quite direct connection of Kansas City with the Atlantic.
The population of Kansas City, according to the statistics of the Board of Trade, increased from 41,786 in 1877 to 165,924 in 1887, the assessed valuation from $9,370,287 in 1877 to $53,017,290 in 1887, and the rate of taxation was reduced in the same period from about 22 mills to 14. I notice also that the banking capital increased in a year—1886 to 1887—from $3,873,000 to $6,950,000, and the Clearing-house transactions in the same year from $251,963,441 to $353,895,458. This, with other figures which might be given, sustains the assertion that while real-estate speculation has decreased in the current year, there was a substantial increase of business. During the year ending June 30, 1886, there were built 4054 new houses, costing $10,393,207; during the year ending June 30, 1887, 5889, costing $12,839,808. An important feature of the business of Kansas City is in the investment and loan and trust companies, which are many, and aggregate a capital of $7,773,000. Loans are made on farms in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa, and also for city improvements.
Details of business might be multiplied, but enough have been given to illustrate the material prosperity of the city. I might add a note of the enterprise which last year paved (mainly with cedar blocks on concrete) thirteen miles of the city; the very handsome churches in process of erection, and one or two (of the many) already built, admirable in plan and appearance; the really magnificent building of the Board of Trade—a palace, in fact; and other handsome, costly structures on every hand. There are thirty-five miles of cable road. I am not sure but these cable roads are the most interesting—certainly the most exciting—feature of the city to a stranger. They climb such steeps, they plunge down such grades, they penetrate and whiz through such crowded, lively thoroughfares, their trains go so rapidly, that the rider is in a perpetual exhilaration. I know no other locomotion more exciting and agreeable. Life seems a sort of holiday when one whizzes through the crowded city, up and down and around amid the tall buildings, and then launches off in any direction into the suburbs, which are alive with new buildings. Independence avenue is shown as one of the finest avenues, and very handsome it and that part of the town are, but I fancied I could detect a movement of fashion and preference to the hills southward.
In the midst of such a material expansion one has learned to expect fine houses, but I was surprised to find three very good book-stores (as I remember, St. Louis has not one so good), and a very good start for a public library, consisting of about 16,000 well-arranged and classified books. Members pay $2 a year, and the library receives only about $2500 a year from the city. The citizens could make no better-paying investment than to raise this library to the first rank. There is also the beginning of an art school in some pretty rooms, furnished with casts and autotypes, where pupils practise drawing under direction of local artiste. There are two social clubs—the University, which occupies pleasant apartments, and the Kansas City Club, which has just erected a handsome club-house. In these respects, and in a hundred refinements of living, the town, which has so largely drawn its young, enterprising population from the extreme East, has little the appearance of a frontier place; it is the push, the public spirit, the mixture of fashion and slouching negligence in street attire, the mingling of Eastern smartness with border emancipation in manner, and the general restlessness of movement, that proclaim the newness. It seems to me that the incessant stir, and especially the clatter, whir, and rapidity of the cable ears, must have a decided effect on the nerves of the whole population. The appearance is certainly that of an entire population incessantly in motion.
I have spoken of the public spirit. Besides the Board of Trade there is a Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Bureau, which works vigorously to bring to the city and establish mercantile and manufacturing enterprises. The same spirit is shown in the public schools. The expenditures in 1887 were, for school purposes, $226,923; for interest on bonds, $18,408; for grounds and buildings, $110,087; in all, $355,418. The total of children of school age was, white, 31,667; colored, 4204. Of these in attendance at school were, white, 12,933; colored, 1975. There were 25 school-houses and 212 teachers. The schools which I saw—one large grammar-school, a colored school, and the High-school of over 600 pupils—were good all through, full of intelligent emulation, the teachers alert and well equipped, and the attention to literature, to the science of government, to what, in short, goes to make intelligent citizens, highly commendable. I find the annual reports, under Prof. J. M. Greenwood, most interesting reading. Topics are taken up and investigations made of great public interest. These topics relate to the even physical and mental development of the young in distinction from the effort merely to stuff them with information. There is a most intelligent attempt to remedy defective eyesight. Twenty per cent, of school children have some anomaly of refraction or accommodation which should be recognized and corrected early; girls have a larger per cent, of anomalies than boys. Irish, Swedish, and German children have the highest percentage of affections of the eyes; English, French, Scotch, and Americans the lowest. Scientific observations of the eyes are made in the Kansas City schools, with a view to remedy defects. Another curious topic is the investigation of the Contents of Children’s Minds—that is, what very small children know about common things. Prof. Stanley Hall published recently the result of examinations made of very little folks in Boston schools. Professor Greenwood made similar investigations among the lowest grade of pupils in the Kansas City schools, and a table of comparisons is printed. The per cent, of children ignorant of common things is astonishingly less in Kansas City schools than in the Boston; even the colored children of the Western city made a much better showing. Another subject of investigation is the alleged physical deterioration in this country. Examinations were made of hundreds of school children from the age of ten to fifteen, and comparisons taken with the tables in Mulhal’s “Dictionary of Statistics,” London, 1884. It turns out that the Kansas City children are taller, taking sex into account, than the average English child at the age of either ten or fifteen, weigh a fraction less at ten, but upwards of four pounds more at fifteen, while the average Belgian boy and girl compare favorably with American children two years younger. The tabulated statistics show two facts, that the average Kansas child stands fully as tall as the tallest, and that in weight he tips the beam against an older child on the other side of the Atlantic. With this showing, we trust that our American experiment will be permitted to go on.
In reaching the necessary limit of a paper too short for its subject, I can only express my admiration of the indomitable energy and spirit of that portion of the West which Kansas City represents, and congratulate it upon so many indications of attention to the higher civilization, without which its material prosperity will be wonderful but not attractive.