Education has gone hand in hand with the material growth of Kansas. It has been the boast of our people, for twenty years past, that the best building in every city, town or hamlet in the State was the school house. The census of 1880 revealed the fact that only 25,503 inhabitants of Kansas, over ten years of age, were unable to read. The growth of our school system is shown by the following figures:

Year.Scholars enrolled.School houses.School districts.Teach­ers.Amount paid to teachers.Value of school houses.
18605,915154...189......
186526,341640721899$86,898$122,822
187063,2181,5011,9502,210318,5961,520,041
1875141,6063,7154,5605,383689,9063,742,507
1880231,4345,3156,1347,7801,088,5044,049,212
1885335,5386,6737,1428,2191,989,1696,704,176

In 1861 the amount expended for the support of common schools was only $1,700, while the expenditures for the same purpose, during the year 1885, aggregated $2,977,763. For the five years ending with 1865, the expenditures for public schools aggregated $262,657.21; for the next succeeding five years they aggregated $2,259,497.89; for the next five, $7,552,191.43; for the next five, $7,509,375.23; and for the five years ending with 1885 the expenditures for public schools aggregated $12,630,480.64. Thus Kansas has expended for the support of her common schools, during the past quarter of a century, the enormous sum of $30,214,202.40.

The table following shows the expenditures each year, from 1861 to 1885, inclusive, and illustrates not only the growth of Kansas, but the general and generous interest of its citizens in public education:

Year.Expenditures.
1861$1,700 00
186211,894 45
186326,867 03
186481,221 30
1865137,974 45
1866225,426 27
1867364,402 50
1868431,316 54
1869565,311 17
1870673,041 41
18711,074,946 09
18721,701,950 44
18731,657,318 27
18741,638,977 99
18751,478,998 64
18761,165,638 80
18771,394,188 11
18781,541,417 12
18791,589,794 30
18801,818,336 90
18811,996,335 64
18822,194,174 65
18832,579,243 62
18842,882,963 53
18852,977,763 23
Total$30,214,202 40

CHURCHES AND NEWSPAPERS.

Churches have multiplied and newspapers increased as have the schools. In 1860 there were only 97 church buildings in Kansas, and they had cost only $143,950. In 1870 the number of churches had increased to 301, valued at $1,722,700; and in 1880 they numbered 2,514, costing an aggregate of $2,491,560.

There were only 27 newspapers published in Kansas in 1860, and of these only three were dailies. In 1870 the number had increased to 97, of which 12 were dailies. In 1880 there were 347 newspapers, including 20 dailies. During the year just closed 581 journals, of which 32 were dailies, were published in Kansas. The aggregate circulation of our newspapers, in 1860, was 21,920, while for 1885 their circulation aggregated 395,400. Every organized county has one or more newspapers, and, as a rule, our journals are creditable to their publishers and to the State.

WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

And now, having sketched the growth of Kansas during the past quarter of a century, it is proper to ask, what of the future? I answer, with confidence, that Kansas is yet in the dawn of her development, and that the growth, prosperity and triumphs of the next decade will surpass any we have yet known. Less than one-fifth of the area of the State has been broken by the plow—ten million of fifty-two million acres. Multiply the present development by five, and you can perhaps form some idea of the Kansas of the year 1900. The light of the morning is still shining upon our prairie slopes. The year just closed witnessed the first actual, permanent settlements in the counties along our Western frontier—not settlement by wandering stockmen or occasional frontiersmen, but by practical, home-building farmers and business men. The line of organized counties now extends four hundred miles, from the Missouri river to the Colorado line. The scientists, I know, are still discussing climatic changes, and questioning whether the western third of Kansas is fit for general farming. But the homesteader in Cheyenne or Hamilton counties entertains no doubt about this question. He has no weather-gauge or barometer, but he sees the buffalo grass vanishing and the blue-joint sending its long roots deep into the soil; he sees the trees growing on the high divides; he watches the corn he has planted springing up, and waving its green guidons of prosperity in the wind; he sees the clouds gathering and drifting, and he hears the rain pattering on his roof—and he knows all he cares to know about climatic changes. He is going to stay.