Minnesota; Its Character and Climate | Page 9

is never ended in the life of the West; and, ere the present year passes, an entirely new line both north and east will have been completed, and then a new era of prosperity will be inaugurated. We refer to the St. Paul and Chicago Air-Line Railway, which, starting at St. Paul, follows the river banks to this place, where it is to cross to Wisconsin, thence direct to Chicago, leaving La Crosse forty miles below, and out of the line. Heretofore the means of travel to Chicago and the east has been either by rail to Owatanna, far to the west, or the more common practice of going by steamer in summer and stage in winter to La Crosse, thus of necessity paying both compliments and costs to this rival town, which has not been highly relished by the Winonians. The new route will make them entirely independent of the denizens of La Crosse. But both places have resources peculiar to themselves and quite sufficient to insure prosperity and fame.
Those visiting Winona are impressed with the general neatness of the place, and the number and finish of its business blocks and private residences. There are many fine churches erected, whose capacity, though large, is not much greater than seems demanded by the church-going inhabitants, which affords both a commentary and index to their general high character. Among the public buildings worthy of special attention is that of their Normal school, recently finished at a cost of over one hundred thousand dollars, being a model of elegance and convenience. This is a State institution, free to pupils of a certain class, and is one of three--all of the same character--erected under the patronage of the State, and for the location of which towns were invited to compete. Winona secured this, Mankato another, and St. Cloud the third, all noble buildings, as we can personally testify, and which give to the people of this State opportunities such as those of the older commonwealths were utterly destitute, and are still, so far as scope, scale, and affluence are concerned. Then there is the city school, costing over half a hundred thousand dollars, and likewise highly ornamental, as well as useful.
New England long boasted of her superiority in the rank of her schools; especially was this the case in Connecticut, where a school fund existed, reducing somewhat the expense attending their maintenance; but they used no part of this fund toward the building of school-houses, and it is a question if it has not had there an opposite effect of what originally it was intended to accomplish. The same old shabby school-houses, fifteen by twenty, still do duty, and the district committee annually figure with the many youthful candidates for teachers--who, it used to be said, came there on a horse--to make the per-head allowance of the school fund, with boarding around thrown in, pay for their three months' services. Had the people understood they must hand out the whole school expenses, and seen personally to the education of their children, they would have had a livelier interest in the whole business; and this, with compelled liberality, would have paved the way for greater expenditure and effort. Neighborhood rivalries of suitable buildings would have followed, and, instead of incompetent teachers being the rule, they would have been the exception, and those of us whose fortune it has been to be born in New England would not now be such "jacks of all trades and masters of none" as we are. The West deserves great commendation for their lively interest in all that relates to the education of the young. Why, almost any of these States excel those of New England in school matters, outside of two or three of the great universities which they happen to possess. Several years ago, in passing through Indiana and visiting several of the village schools, we were surprised and astonished at the superior class of text-books that were in use, and the improved methods of teaching in practice; and, likewise, the prompt and intelligent manner of the scholar in his exercises and examples, as compared with similar schools at the East; all a proof of the superior methods and facilities in vogue.
The new States have had it in their power to do what most of the older ones had not, and after all they cannot claim all the credit of their advancement in these matters, for the general government shares part of the honor in this wise provision for the education of the people, having donated one section of land in every township in some of the newer States. This was the case in Minnesota. These lands are to be used in establishing a school fund, and this has already amounted to a large sum--two million five