INDIANA 



2951 



INDIANA 



Union. It is, however, larger than all the New 

 England States, excluding Maine. 



Popularly called a "middle western" state, 

 Indiana is far to the east of the center of the 

 country. On the north it is bounded by Michi- 

 gan and, for a distance of about sixty miles, 

 by the southern shore of Lake Michigan; on 

 the east by Ohio, on the south by Kentucky, 

 from which it is separated by the Ohio River, 

 and on the west by Illinois, the Wabash River 

 forming the southern part of the boundary 

 between these two states. About 440 square 

 miles of its area are water surface, more being 

 in rivers than in lakes. 



The People. The term "Hoosiers" was long 

 a term of mild derision, but Indiana folk have 

 proved so capable and so progressive that they 

 have earned the right to be proud of the name. 

 Especially in recent years Indiana has produced 

 more than its share of the popular writers, Lew 

 Wallace, James Whitcomb Riley, Maurice 

 Thompson, George Ade, George B. McCutch- 

 eon, Booth Tarkington and others, giving rise 

 to the saying that "Every Hoosier is born 

 with a pen in his hand." 



The state had 2,700,876 inhabitants in 1910 

 and thus ranks ninth among the states in popu- 

 lation. A hundred years earlier the popula- 

 tion was but 24,520. In 1917 the number of 

 people was estimated at 2,826,154 by the Fed- 

 eral Census Bureau. Especially noteworthy in 

 any study of the inhabitants of Indiana is the 

 relatively-small proportion of foreigners among 

 them, only 5.9 per cent being foreign-born. 

 The average number of people to the square 

 mile was 74.9 in 1910, and considerably more 

 than half of the people lived under rural con- 

 ditions. The number of people per square 

 mile in all the United States in the same year 

 was 30.9. There are within the state about 

 ninety cities with a population exceeding 2,500, 

 ten of these having over 20,000 inhabitants 

 each. These in the order of their size, are 

 Indianapolis, the capital; Evansville, Fort 

 Wayne, Terra Haute, South Bend, Muncie, 

 Anderson, Richmond, Hammond and Lafayette. 

 Another city, Gary, attracted considerable at- 

 tention early in the twentieth century. In 

 1900 its site on Lake Michigan was but a 

 wilderness of sand; ten years later there had 

 arisen a prosperous "steel city," which before 

 1925 will doubtless be. the home of 50,000 

 people. It has now every modern improve- 

 ment and a school system to which the whole 

 country has looked for inspiration. See GARY 

 SCHOOL SYSTEM. 



Education and Religion. No state has shown 

 a greater and more intelligent interest in edu- 

 cation, and of the people above the age of 

 ten there are but 3.1 out of every 100 who are 

 unable to read and write. The school system 

 is excellent, and its administration has been 

 of late years particularly effective. In the 

 course of a year the state pays out for school 

 purposes somewhat more than $16,000,000, over 

 half of this being in salaries to teachers. 

 There are compulsory education laws, demand- 

 ing of all children between the ages of six and 

 fourteen attendance at school for at least six 

 months out of each year, and out of the 766,- 

 000 persons of school age in the state, about 

 548,500 are enrolled. High schools form a part 

 of the regular school system, and there are in 

 the state about 800 of these. Not all are of 

 such a nature as to send. their pupils direct 

 to college without further preparation, but the 

 standard is constantly being raised. The num- 

 ber of pupils attending rural schools has been 

 increased by the introduction of the consoli- 

 dated district system. Indiana has been very 

 progressive in such matters as vocational and 

 industrial training, and the state agricultural 

 school in connection with Purdue University 

 at Lafayette has promoted very effective work 

 among the rural population. Of especial inter- 

 est have been the clubs which by competition 

 have stimulated the boys and girls to the 

 raising of various crops by the most systematic 

 modern methods. 



The teachers' institutes of Indiana have been 

 noteworthy in their results. Each township 

 gives at least one Saturday a month to such a 

 gathering, and the teachers here get new in- 

 spiration and solutions of many of their most 

 difficult problems. 



Among the higher institutions of learning in 

 the state may be mentioned Indiana Univer- 

 sity, at Bloomington; Purdue University, at 

 Lafayette ; De Pauw University, at Greencastle ; 

 University of Notre Dame, at Notre Dame; 

 Wabash College, at Crawf ordsville ; Vincennes 

 University, at Vincennes; Butler College, at 

 Indianapolis, and Valparaiso University, at Val- 

 paraiso. 



Of all the churches, the Methodist Episco- 

 pal is the strongest in Indiana; indeed, in no 

 other Northern state has this denomination 

 so large a membership in proportion to the 

 total number of church members. The Roman 

 Catholics, on the other hand, have a smaller 

 proportionate membership than in any other 

 Northern state, although ranking second in 



