THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION. 229 



pie to insist upon better State laws for the protection and preservation 

 of our fish and game." 



EDUCATION IN MISSOURI. 



School Enumeration and Enrollment.— There are all told 974,923 

 children of school age— 6 to 20 years— in the State. Of this number 780,- 

 541 are enrolled in the schools. For the instruction of these children 

 there are employed 20,166 teachers, of whom 16,923 are in the public 

 schools, 185 in the State University and State Normal Schools, 1,417 in 

 private colleges and academies and 1,551 in parochial schools. 



Number of Schools. — A school is in easy reach of every man's door,, 

 and opens with equal privileges to rich and poor. There are 9,119 rural, 

 school districts, and 613 town or city districts. There are 10,393 teachers- 

 in rural schools and 6,530 in town and city. There are 482,284 children: 

 enumerated in the rural schools and 492,639 in town and city. 



Money Expended. — Missouri has the largest permanent productive 

 school fund of any state in the Union. The sum of $13,023,997 is in- 

 vested in securities, the proceeds of which help to defray the current 

 expenses of the schools. The legislature annually appropriates one-third 

 of the State revenue for support of the public schools. In addition to 

 the above, the districts levy an annual school tax which averages for all 

 the schools 57 cents on the $100 valuation. Missouri has school property 

 valued at $42,600,117, and expends annually for her schools the enor- 

 mous sum of $10,959,828. 



Illiteracy Loiu in Missouri. — In 20 years the percentage of illiterates 

 in the State had fallen from 13.4 in 1880 to 6.4 in 1900, a decrease of 7 

 per cent, while in the United States for the same period the decrease was 

 only 6-2 per cent. In the United States the percentage of illiterates in 

 1900 was 10.7, while in Missouri it was only 6.4. 



The following quotation from the report of the Missouri Commission 

 gives a good description of the Missouri educational exhibit at the 

 World's Fair: 



TPIE STATE EXHIBIT. 



''The Missouri educational exhibit was conspicuously located direct- 

 ly within the main entrance to the Palace of Education. It was di- 

 vided into three sections, viz. : The general State exhibit, the St. Louis 

 city exhibit and the State University exhibit. This whole exhibit cov- 

 ered nearly ten thousand square feet of floor, and in size, beauty and 

 attractiveness of installation and high quality of exhibits, outranked the 

 educational exhibit of everv other state. 



