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acres) was received by the State on its admission to the Union for the education of all its youth of both sexes. Congress also granted about twenty-six townships (500,000 acres) for a State university, and 90,000 acres for an agricultural college. A portion of these lands has been sold, and the proceeds have been made an irreducible fund for the objects named. The free-school system has been established in every county and almost every settlement. In Portland and other cities grades have been established from &ldquo;primary&rdquo; to &ldquo;high school.&rdquo; The State university is established at Eugene City, and an agricultural college at Corvallis. This public-school system is supplemented by many corporate academies, seminaries, and colleges, and by parochial and private schools representing different denominations. A school for mutes and one for the blind have been established at Salem by the legislature. Ten institutions report as endowments $290,132, yielding an annual income of $16,050, and thirteen report $35,166 from tuition, and a total annual income of $61,070. The number of children of school age (four to twenty years) is 65,216; enrolled in public schools 37,748, in private schools 5101. Public school expenses for the year ending 1st March 1882 amounted to $338,386; the public schoolhouses numbered 1061, of the value of $684,298. The United States Indian Industrial Training School at Forest Grove, which numbers 146 pupils, taken from schools on the reservation, has become a marked success. Of 119,482 white persons over ten years of age in 1880 only 3.6 per cent, were unable to write.

Charitable and Penal Institutions. &mdash; A State asylum for the insane at Salem has over 300 inmates. The State penitentiary is at Salem; the convicts are employed under contractors in various industries, subject to constant watch of officials.

Religion. &mdash; The statistics of 1875 report 351 religious organizations of all denominations, with 242 church edifices, 320 clergymen, 14,324 communicants, and 71,630 adherents. The estimated value of church property was $654,000. The rank of the several denominations in respect to numbers is approximately as follows: Methodists, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and five minor sects. The increase in seven years by immigration and other gains has been at least 35 per cent.

The Press. &mdash; Oregon has 74 newspapers &mdash; 72 in English and 2 in German. A weekly newspaper is published in every shire town, and in many of the larger villages. Four daily papers are issued in Portland.

Cities and Chief Towns. &mdash; ../Portland (q.v.) on the Willamette, 115 miles from the ocean, is the chief city of the Pacific coast north of San Francisco (population in 1880, 17,577); Astoria is a commercial city of 3000 inhabitants, with large salmon-canning establishments, which do an annual business of over $2,000,000; Oregon City, at the falls of the Willamette, is a nourishing manufacturing town; Salem (the capital), Albany, Corvallis, Eugene City, Roseburg, The Dalles, Pendleton, Union, and Baker City are places of rapidly-growing importance.}}

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 * width="25%" align="right"|PLATE XXIV.
 * colspan="3"|[[Image:EB9 Oregon - map.jpg|700px]]
 * align="right" colspan="3"| W. & A. K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London
 * align="center" colspan="3"| ENCYLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION.
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 * align="center" colspan="3"| ENCYLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION.
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