From the Pacific coast also, she has a considerable trade in the productions of the Orient. In the first half of 1873, Chicago received assignments of three-million pounds of tea, two million pounds of coffee, eight hundred thousand pounds of foreign wool, and three hundred and nine thousand, seven hundred and twenty four pounds of foreign silk. Cotton came to her from the Pacific Isles, and nuts from South America.
Some idea of the commercial importance of Chicago's trade may be reached by the amount of some of her exports by rail during 1872: namely, two hundred and thirty-four million pounds of meat; eighty million, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of lard; one million, nine hundred and sixty-five thousand whole swine; four hundred and eighty-four thousand head of cattle, and one hundred and sixty-two thousand head of sheep.
I found Chicago justly proud of her public schools. It was roughly estimated that in the city about fifty thousand children between six and twelve years of age received daily instruction.
The graded system employed in these schools is so advanced, and has proved so successful, that it has become a general model for all the schools of the great Northwest.
More than that, it has been adopted, in part, by the Minister of Education in France, and at the late Vienna Exposition a reward for progress, in the shape of a beautiful medal, was awarded to the school system of Chicago. Chicago claims for herself absolute superiority in two particulars over all the public schools in the United States, the "Hub" institutions of Boston not excepted. First: Perfect discipline is said to be attained without the use of corporal punishment. Second: The musical culture of the school children is said to far excel anything attained before on this Continent.
I found that the city contained a number of colleges, theological seminaries and universities. The University of Chicago occupies one of the most elegant and commodious buildings in the West.
The Dearborn Observatory, which is a part of this University, contains the famous Clark Telescope, one of the most magnificent instruments of its kind in existence.
The Chicago Theological Seminary is noted for the beauty of its chapel and lecture rooms, and the extent and quality of its library. The Academy of Science was incorporated in 1865. It has a vast building, well stocked with natural curiosities.
The Historical Society organized in 1856 possesses a rare collection of public and private documents, as well as a library of nearly one hundred thousand volumes.