ILLINOIS 



2922 



ILLINOIS 



administration of every state charitable and 

 correctional institution. Auxiliary boards have 

 a similar power in each county. There is 

 also in the state a psychopathic institute, es- 

 tablished in 1906 and widened in its scope in 



ILLINOIS 



The map shows boundary lines, principal cities 

 and rivers, location of coal and gas fields and the 

 highest point of land in the state. 



1911, which has as its object continual study 

 into the causes and treatment of insanity. 

 Advanced methods, such as indeterminate sen- 

 tence and the parole system, have also been 

 used in connection with the penal institutions, 

 while efforts have been made to check the 

 growth of crime among the young by means 

 of juvenile courts (which see). The honor 

 system, which has attracted much favorable 

 attention in some of the Western states, has 

 been tried at the state penitentiary at Joliet, 

 but not with entire success. 



The state penal institutions are the peniten- 

 tiaries at Joliet and at Chester, the State Re- 

 formatory for Boys at Pontiac and the Home 

 for Delinquent Boys at Saint Charles, while 

 the charitable institutions include eight hospi- 

 tals for the insane, at Kankakee, Chicago 

 (Dunning), Anna, Jacksonville, Elgin, Water- 

 town, Peoria and Alton, the last-named estab- 

 lished in 1913 and having in connection with it 

 a colony for epileptics; the state school and 



colony for the feeble-minded at Lincoln; the 

 soldiers' home at Quincy; the soldiers' orphans' 

 home at Normal; the schools for the deaf and 

 the blind, at Jacksonville, and the training 

 school for girls, at Geneva. In the official 

 names of most of the institutions such titles 

 as "insane" and "feeble-minded" have been 

 dropped. 



The "Lay of the Land." Illinois is one of 

 the most level states in the Union. It has a 

 flat or undulating surface, and slopes gently 

 to the south and southwest. Its highest point, 

 in the extreme north on the Wisconsin border, 

 is 1,241 feet above sea level, and its lowest, 

 at Cairo on the Ohio River, is 267 feet above 

 the sea. The extreme southern lowland section 

 is known as "Little Egypt," and it is thought 

 that it was here that Dickens, in Martin 

 Chuzzlemt, planted his "Eden," with its 

 swamps and miasma and resulting backward- 

 ness. The average altitude of the state is 

 about 550 feet above sea level, and the chief 

 elevations above that height are in the north- 

 west and in the south, where a ridge from six 

 to ten miles wide crosses the state, rising at 

 times to a height of 1,040 feet. This is in 

 reality a spur of the Ozark Mountains, and 

 constitutes scenically the most beautiful part 

 of the state, with its picturesque valleys, 

 wooded ravines and sloping stretches clothed 

 with hardwood forests. 



Despite its low-lying position, the state has 

 for the most part excellent drainage. No 

 large territories are waste because of marshes, 

 for there are within its borders no fewer than 

 275 streams, flowing into the Mississippi, the 

 Wabash or the Ohio. Chicago River, very 

 small but very important, formerly emptied 

 into Lake Michigan, but the Drainage Canal 

 turned its current so that to-day its waters find 

 their way finally to the Mississippi. The great- 

 est river within the state is the Illinois, which 

 drains over half the area of the state and 

 is navigable almost throughout its length. It 

 is quite impossible, in this day of railroad 

 travel, to estimate the part which this stream 

 played in the early history and development 

 of Illinois. Down it the first white men who 

 visited the state found their way, and later 

 it was the highroad for the products of its 

 extremely fertile valley region a region which 

 to-day supports a large proportion of the popu- 

 lation of the state. Near Utica, on the Illinois, 

 where the bluffs rise tall and sheer from the 

 river, is one of the most picturesque spots in 

 the state, as well as one of the most interesting 



