Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/520

 Northern and Western birth. Of foreign-born citizens there are comparatively few, the tides of immigration having flowed always north of Mason and Dixon's line. Knoxville is therefore a thoroughly American city, of forty thousand population, free from sectional sentiment, progressive, but withal conservative, and proud of its deserved reputation as a center of education and of culture.

Its free schools, handsomely and commodiously housed, are most liberally supported, while the State University is the pride of the intelligent people of Tennessee. The State Deaf and Dumb School and a branch of the Asylum for the Insane are located there, and Knoxville College for the education of negroes is one of the best of its kind.

Knoxville contributed a handsome building to the "White City" of the Nashville Centennial, and afterwards the women of the city secured the removal of the building to Knoxville, where, at a point of vantage, it was re-erected and dedicated to the cause of woman's advancement and to all the Muses.

Knoxville is an old town as things go in America, yet much of it is new. Its population has increased tenfold within thirty-five years.