LOUISIANA 



3513 



LOUISIANA 



Religion. In contrast to the other Southern 

 states, where the population belongs largely to 

 the Protestant churches, more than half of the 

 people of Louisiana are Roman Catholics. The 

 remainder belong mainly to the two dominant 

 Protestant churches of the south, namely, the 

 Baptists and the Methodists, in the order 

 named. 



Education. As in every state with a scat- 

 tered rural population and a great number of 

 negroes, there were until recently an insuffi- 

 cient number of schools, but these are increas- 

 ing steadily, and their standard is rising. The 

 education law voted in 1912 introduced many 

 reforms. It gave wide powers to the state board 

 of education, composed of the governor, the 

 superintendent of public education, the attor- 

 ney-general, and one citizen from each of the 

 eight congressional districts, appointed by the 

 governor for four years. The schools in each 

 parish (a parish in Louisiana is the same as a 

 county in other states) are under the direct 

 administration of a parish school board com- 

 posed of from five to ten members, , 'elected for 

 six years. The board appoints the parish super- 

 intendent, who must be a competent teacher. 

 The state now possesses quite a number of high 

 schools. Separate schools are provided for white 

 and negro children. 



At the head of the educational institutions 

 stands the State University and Agricultural 

 and Mechanical College, situated at Baton 

 Rouge. Then follow Tulane University at New 

 Orleans; Loyola University at New Orleans; 

 the Industrial Institute at Ruston; the South- 

 western Industrial Institute at Lafayette; and 

 two normal schools for the training of teachers, 

 one at New Orleans, and the other at Natchi- 

 toches. Among the institutions for the educa- 

 tion of negroes are the Southern University, 

 Straight University and Leland University, all 

 three situated at New Orleans; Southern Uni- 

 versity and Agricultural and Mechanical Col- 

 lege at Baton Rouge; and the Louisiana Aca- 

 demic and Industrial Institute at Alexandria. 

 Some of these are maintained by various reli- 

 gious denominations. 



Louisiana has the largest proportion of illit- 

 erates of any of the states of the Union. In 

 1910 there were 352,179 persons who could not 

 read or write, representing 29 per cent of the 

 population of ten years or over, as compared 

 with 38.5 per cent in 1900. The percentage of 

 illiteracy was 48.4 per cent among negroes, 24 

 per cent among foreign-born whites and 13.4 

 per cent among native whites. With a decrease 



in the proportion of negroes and better educa- 

 tional facilities, there is due very soon a vast 

 improvement. 



Charitable and Penal Institutions. The 

 state maintains an institute for deaf and dumb, 

 and another for blind children, both at Baton 

 Rouge; insane asylums at Jackson and Pine- 

 ville ; a soldiers' home at New Orleans, and sev- 

 eral hospitals. The state penitentiary is at 

 Baton Rouge, and there is a house of detention 

 at New Orleans. A reform school for juvenile 

 offenders is situated at Monroe, and an indus- 

 trial school and home for colored children is at 

 New Orleans. At Angola, Hope and other 

 places there are prison farms, where convicts 

 are employed in agricultural work. 



Physical Features. Louisiana is one of the 

 lowest and most level states in the Union, its 

 average elevation being only about seventy-five 

 feet above the level of the sea. The surface 

 slopes gradually from near the northern bor- 

 der, at Arcadia, where it reaches an altitude of 

 368 feet, to the sea. The southern portion is a 

 coastal plain, extending inland for thirty to 

 sixty miles, and is largely made up of marsh- 

 lands, cut up by lakes and lagoons. In this 

 coast region one often meets the so-called 

 "trembling prairies," that is, land that trembles 

 when men or cattle pass over it. These plains 

 are formed of vegetable mold, which rests on 

 water, peat or quicksands. To the north of this 

 region is a broad prairie belt extending into 

 Texas and bordered on the north by rolling 

 forest lands. The land along the Mississippi 

 and the other rivers consists of flat plains, that 

 are usually situated below the level of high- 

 water mark of the rivers, and are therefore ex- 

 posed to floods. These flood plains, which ex- 

 tend in width from six to sixty miles, contain 

 a soil of great fertility and are mostly occupied 

 by large plantations of sugar cane, cotton and 

 corn. They are protected against overflow of 

 the rivers by artificial banks, or levees, of which 

 there are now about 1,500 miles in Louisiana. 

 The system of levees, which has been of such 

 enormous benefit to the state, has been built 

 almost entirely since the War of Secession, and 

 represents an expenditure of nearly $50,000,000 

 for the original cost of construction alone. 



Rivers. Louisiana has nearly 4,000 miles of 

 navigable rivers. The chief river is, of course, ! 

 the Mississippi, which flows through about one- 

 half of the state, and borders the other half. 

 The Red River crosses the state from the i 

 northwest and joins the Mississippi; while the 

 Washita enters near the northeastern corner 



