Answer.—The State Normal School of Nebraska is located at Peru, near the Missouri River, about fifty miles north of the Kansas line. This is a town of 567 inhabitants, according to the census, accessible only by a branch of the Burlington and Missouri Railroad. It secured the location of the school by a donation of site and other inducements at a time when the population of the State was only about 100,000. It graduated its first class, consisting of two members, in 1870. The total number of graduates to date is 73. Total enrollment last year, 318—the largest number in the history of the school. The normal endowment fund, in notes and bonds, aggregated $16,308.35 last year, and the income from all sources in 1881 amounted to $2,423.58. The total appropriation asked of the last Legislature, was as follows, the several items being represented by the principal as “absolutely necessary to the efficient working of the school for each of the next two fiscal years:”
| Salaries for teachers, per year | $11,000 |
| Fuel and lights, per year | 1,000 |
| Repairs, per year | 500 |
| Board’s expenses, per year | 500 |
| Janitor’s wages and help, per year | 500 |
| Apparatus, per year | 500 |
| Printing, stationery, advertising, per y’r. | 300 |
| Furniture, per year | 300 |
| Wells and cisterns, per year | 200 |
| Imp’ts of grounds and buildings, per y’r. | 200 |
| Incidentals, per year | 200 |
| Postage and postal expenses, per year | 100 |
| Expense special inst’n and lectures, p. yr. | 100 |
| Total | $15,400 |
The total amount granted averaged about $14,300 a year.
BLACK HAWK’S TOWER.
Springfield, Ill.
Where is Black Hawk’s Tower, and what is it like? Is it built of masonry or earth?
A. H. C.
Answer.—It is a natural rock near the Falls of Rock River, near the southeastern angle of Rock Island bluffs, a few miles from the city of Rock Island. It commands an extensive view of the surrounding country for ten miles up the Rock River Valley, and northward nearly eight miles to the Mississippi. Black Hawk’s chief village was situated in the forks of the Mississippi and Rock River, just below this, and this wooded rock formed a natural lookout tower for him on the side most open to attack. The name was given to it by the pioneers.