Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/206

 CALIFORNIA

172

CALIFORNIA

of raw material from her soil, cheap fuel from her for- ests, and cheap power from her streams. The heav- ii si items of manufacture are sugar, lumber and tim- ber products, flour, machinery, and leather goods. During 1906 the total output of sugar was 62,1 10 tons. The discovery of rich deposits of petroleum has given an impetus to manufactures that is already far-reach- ing in its results. In 1900 there were 12,582 manu- faeturing plants in California, representing a total investment of $205,395,025, and giving employment to 98,931 persons; the sum paid out for labour was $55,786,776, and for materials, $188,125,602.

Mini in). — Mining is still one of the most important industries of California, notwithstanding that the flood of population first lured to her mountains by the discovery of gold has long ago been turned to agricul- ture and commerce. There are some forty-seven mineral substances now being mined in the State. The value of the total output in 1900 was $28,870,405. In L906 it was over $54,000,000. Gold, petroleum, and copper are now the most valuable items of this output. In the same year there were 1,107 producing mines in the State. The value of the gold output was $19,700,000; silver, $2,460,000; copper, $3,750,000; quicksilver. $904,000; petroleum, $10,000,000. It is estimated that in the petroleum industry alone the total investment is more than $20,000,000; 35,000,000 barrels of oil were produced in 1906. There are also large and valuable deposits of brick and pottery clays, lime, asphaltum, bitumen, and iron ore.

Lumber. — Twenty-two per cent of the area of the State is forest-clad, and the importance of the lumber industry in California increases each year as the mountains of the east and t he north are denuded of their trees. California is the home of the redwood (Se- quoia). These remarkable trees attain a height of three hundred feet in the famous groves of Big Trees in Mariposa and Calaveras Counties. Redwood and pine are the two principal woods. It is estimated that, without the growth of another tree, the forests of California can not be exhausted for two hundred years. San Francisco alone sends 400,000,000 feet of lumber to the world each year. The total output of the State for 1906 was 900,000,000 feet. There are $16,000,000 invested in the industry, 250 mills, and the value of the total output, together with the by- products of the forests, is $17,000.000— the lumber itself amounting to $8,500,000.

Commerce. — Through the splendid harbour of San Francisco passes by far the greatest part of the ocean commerce of California, as well as of the entire Pacific Coast. The harbours of the State now carry on an ocean commerce of about $100,000,000 per year, the precise figure for 1906 being: imports $49,193,303; exports $45,479,422. The total foreign commerce of the State tor 1900 was $119,212,911, and in 1906 San Francisco was fourth among the cities of the United States in point of customs receipts. Besides the ocean commerce of California with every port of the world which passes through her harbours, she has direct communication by rail with every quarter of the United States. Four great transcontinental railroads carry her goods and passengers to and from her cities, fifth is now (1907) nearing completion. In 1900 the total railroad mileage of the State was 5,532.

KnrcATioNAL System. — The educational system of the State commences with primary schools and con- tinues through grammar schools and high schools, culminating in the State University. These are all public schools, being supported by the State ami counties, and affording free education to all. The State Constitution creates the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction; it also provides for a superin- tendent of schools fur each of the fifty-seven counties in the State. It makes provision for the maintenance of the public school system, and directs that tin' pro-

ceeds of all public lands and of all escheated estates shall be appropriated to the support of the common schools. The State University is situated at Berkeley on the Bay of San Francisco. It was created by act of the legislature on 23 .March. 1868, and this act is confirmed by the present constitution (that of 1879), making the organization and government of the uni- versity perpetual. The university is designed for the education of male and female students alike, and in fact the principle of co-education is recognized and put in practice in nearly all state educational institutions.

The total number of professors, including the various officers of instruction and research, in the Univer- sity of California, for the year ending 30 June, 1906, was 318, as follows: academic, 252; art, 9; Lick Astronomical Observatory, 9; law, 6; medicine, 34; pharmacy, 8. The total number of students for the same period was 3,338, of whom 2,007 were men, and 1,331 women, the women being nearly 40 per cent of the total enrolment. This percentage is far higher in the Colleges of Letters, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences, in which, as an average, the women outnum- ber the men more than two to one. The College of Agriculture, as well as several other technological col- leges, including the College of Mechanics, the College of Mining, the College of Commerce, the College of Civil Engineering, and the College of Chemistry, are designed to afford a complete technical training in their respective branches. The Affiliated Colleges of the University, being the schools of Law. Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry, are situated in San Fran- cisco; there are several experiment stations for which the university receives $15,000 annually from the Federal Government ; and there is a State University Farm of 780 acres at Davisville. The university has been the recipient of munificent endowments both from the State and from private persons. In addi- tion to these, and to the proceeds of public land al- ready mentioned, a direct tax of two cents on every $100* of taxable property in the State is levied, and applied to the support of the university. But four of the fifty-seven counties of the State have no high school, and some counties have several. There are also five normal schools, situated respectively at San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, and Chico. In addition to these there are night schools, technical schools, and commercial schools in all the large cities of the State.

The public school system of the State was founded in the constitutional convention at Monterey, in Sep- tember, 1849. The 500,000 acres of land granted by Congress to new States for the purpose of internal improvement were appropriated to constitute a per- petual school fund. It was also provided that a school should be kept in each district at least three months each year to secure any share of the State school funds. ' In the school year ending 30 June, 1906, there were 3,227 primary and grammar schools in the State, and 117 high schools. The total num- ber of teachers in the public schools was 9.371 ; the total number of pupils, 321,870. Tin- total number of pupils in private schools was 43.(18(1. California has been more than lavish in her provision for her public school system. The total income of her public schools during" the scholastic year 1905-06 was $11,- 194,670.29. The total value of public school prop- erty for the same vear was $23,860,341. This does not include the State University. The total income

of the State University for the same period was

$1,564,190. The Leland Stanford Junior University is situated at Palo Alto. It was founded by Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford as a memorial to their only child. The total value of the endowments given to

the university bv its founders readies the astonishing

figure of $26,000,000. bike the University of Cali-

itisi o educational, but (he numberol women