The Schools 



Justly Proud of Her Splendid School 

 System, Montana Makes Princely 

 Provision for All Her Institutions 

 of Learning — High Standards Are 

 Set and Maintained — This State 

 Leads in Educational Work. 

 By DR. H. H. SWAIN, 

 Deputy State Superintendent of Pub- 

 lic Instruction. 



m early days pioneers had often to count on coming to a wilderness 

 when they decided to seek homes in the west. There must be a balancing 

 in their minds of advantages against disadvantages. They would have to 

 decide v/hether cheap lands, fresh soil, and the tempting oppor- 

 As the Early tunities of a new country were worth enough to offset the 

 Settlers breaking of home ties, the hard and perilous journey, and the 



loss of all chance for the education of their children. 



Now, however, many factors of the problem are decidedly 

 changed. The journey has been reduced to a veritable holi- 

 day excursion, and yet all the developm.ent of steam power 

 and the building of great commercial highways have hardly altered the 

 situation for the new settler more than the changes in educational op- 

 portunities. 



Montana is a state of vast extent, and a wide variety of local school 

 co'nditions may be found in different parts of this great empire, but many 

 a settler has come to Montana to find school facilities far superior to those 

 he had left behind in some of the older states. 



Looked on 



Their 



Chances. 



— The Knocker soon grows listless and anaemic in Montana. 



