Twenty parochial schools, most of them maintained by the Roman Catholic or the Lutheran Church, offer grade and high school work, and are governed by the State department of public instruction.
Under the supervision of the board of administration, the State supports a school for the deaf at Devils Lake, a school for the blind at Bathgate, and an institution for feeble-minded at Grafton. The board also has jurisdiction over the hospital for the insane at Jamestown, the training school for delinquents at Mandan, the penitentiary at Bismarck, and a sanatorium at San Haven. Several semi-public homes and orphanages are operated by churches and other organizations.
It is compulsory for all children between the ages of 7 and 15 to attend school, and a student who has not completed the eighth grade must continue in school until he is 17 years of age. Agriculture is a compulsory course in public schools. Free textbooks are provided for rural schools, and uniform texts are prescribed for all public schools.
A school census taken in June 1930 showed North Dakota to have a school-age population of 222,798, of whom 169,277 were enrolled in public schools—139,580 in elementary, and 29,697 in high schools.
Indian children are given grade and high school education and vocational training in special schools at Fort Totten, Fort Yates, Elbowoods, Belcourt, and Wahpeton. Preservation of tribal arts, including beadwork and pottery, is encouraged.
The North Dakota educational system is greatly influenced by the agrarian character of the State. Because children are needed for farm work, most of the country schools are not opened until October, and operate for a term of only seven or eight months. A survey made in the winter of 1923-24 showed a sharp decline in attendance records in rural schools, and consequently legislation was enacted providing free transportation for pupils living more than two and one-half miles from school. The legislation affected two-fifths of the rural school population, and resulted in improved attendance in elementary schools. The one-room school is still the most common type of educational institution in the State, although the number of consolidated schools is being increased annually. Sixty high schools, including the Benson and Walsh County Agricultural Schools, receive Federal aid through the Smith-Hughes Act, which provides funds for vocational training and courses in agriculture. This act also enables the North Dakota Agricultural College in Fargo to operate extension service and experimental stations, and to provide a State-wide educational program for farmers.
Reading facilities in public schools were improved by the 1911 legislative appropriation of $25 to each school district for a permanent school library. In many communities these school libraries, supplemented by the loan services offered by the State educational institutions and the traveling libraries of the State library commission, are the only sources of reading material. The first public library in the State was opened in 1897 in Grafton by a group of clubwomen, and many other towns have received similar benefit from the efforts of women's clubs to build up library collections.
RELIGION
Through the influence of three prominent men in the Red River settlement—Joseph Rolette, Norman Kittson, and Anton Gringas—Father Belcourt was able to maintain his Pembina Mission, establish another at St. Joseph, and extend his work west to the Turtle Mountains. He held services for Indians and hunters alike.