Texas

The most pressing problem of the school system is the proper maintenance of the common or rural schools. The situation is rec ognized and aided by a special rural aid appropriation from the State. The total expenditure on public elementary and secondary schools was $78,779,000 in 1932, or $13.21 per caput. of total pop ulation. The totals for State and local support show that the State shared the educational expense almost fifty-fifty with local units, a proportion which is very high indeed compared with other States. Texas had a larger per manent endowment for its public schools than any other State, de rived from the sale of public school lands.

There are 17 institutions of higher learning, besides seven State Teachers' Colleges. The chief State institutions are the University of Texas at Austin and its branches, the Medical school at Galveston, and the College of Mines and Metallurgy at El Paso.

The Agricultural and Mechanical college is located at College Station, the North Texas Junior Agricultural college at Arlington, and the John Tarleton Agricultural college at Stephenville. The Texas Technological college is at Lubbock, and the College of Industrial Arts at Denton. Prairie View State Normal and Indus trial college for negroes is at Prairie View. Of the II private universities, four are under Baptist control (Baylor Univ., Waco; Baylor College, Belton ; Howard Payne College, Brownwood ; and Simmons Univ., Abilene), three are under Methodist auspices (Southern Methodist Univ., Dallas; South-Western Univ., George town ; and Texas Women's College, Fort Worth), and two are Presbyterian (Austin College, Sherman; and Daniel Baker Col lege, Brownwood). The others are Texas Christian Univ., Fort Worth (Christian), and Christian College, Abilene (Church of Christ).

Charities and Corrections.

There are under the administra tion of the State board of control the following charitable and correctional their populations on Sept. 1, 1934 being given in parentheses : Five hospitals for the insane at Austin (2,206), Rusk (5,982), Terrell (2,282), Wichita Falls (2,062) and San Antonio (2,490) ; a special State hospital for epileptics at Abilene (1,058) ; State tuberculosis sanatorium at Sanatorium (705) ; State orphan home at Corsicana (738) ; home for depend ent and neglected children at Waco (373) ; State juvenile train ing school at Gatesville (746) ; Girls' training school at Gainesville (234) ; school for the blind at Austin (221) ; school for the deaf at Austin (50') ; deaf, dumb and blind institute for coloured youths at Austin (257); Confederate woman's home at Austin (87) ; Texas Confederate Home at Austin (133) ; and the Austin State school for the feeble-minded at Austin (1,075). The State

prison is situated at Huntsville, and there are also 12 State con vict farms.

Mines and Quarries.

The value of the total mineral output of Texas leaped from $29,220,000 for 1915 to $371,250,000 for 1920. A sudden depression reduced the value of the 1921 output to $212,302,000, but from then to 1926 the valuation steadily in creased, amounting to $351,211,000 for 1925 and $420,587,000 in 1926. After falling again to $374,503,000 in 1927, the value of production rose to a peak of $495,820,000 in 1929. With the on slaught of the depression, production slumped rapidly to $302, 201,000 in 1931, recovered to $390,141,325 in 1932, and then declined again to in 1933. In 1925 Texas ranked fourth among the States in the value of its mineral production; in 1932 and 1933 it ranked second, being exceeded only by Penn sylvania.

The steady upward trend of the value of mineral production has been due largely to rapid exploitation of the State's great petroleum deposits. For the period 1901-1910 production of petroleum averaged only 14,534,000 bbl. annually. For the five years 1916-1920 the average was 55,008,000 bbl. annually; for 1926-1930 it averaged 245,792,000 bbl. The 1930 output was 290,457,000 bbl. and that of 1931, 332,437,000. A decline to 312, 478,000 bbl. in 1932 was followed by another record output of bbl. in 1933 and one of 380,820,000 bbl. in 1934. By 1928 Texas occupied first place among the petroleum producing States and by 1933 its output was double that of the next ranking State and nearly one-half the total production of the United States. Next to cotton, petroleum became the State's chief source of income, the output being valued at $259,700,000 in 1932 and $225,000,000 in 1933.

The petroleum-producing fields are widely scattered and differ greatly in character. It was the discovery of the Spindle Top field near Beaumont in 1901 that first brought Texas to the front in petroleum production. This field in 1902 produced bbl. after which it declined so that in 1925 it produced but 428, 873 barrels. In 1926, however, there came a startling leap to 13,370,000 bbl., the field again leading all Texas fields but one. Another even older field, the Corsicana, in which production started in 1896 saw a similar rejuvenation in 1923 when deeper sands were discovered, the output jumping from 245,705 bbl. in 1922 to 32,361,150 bbl. in 1923. The immensely rich East Texas field later outdistanced all others, yielding more than one-half of the State's output in 1933. Of 2,407 wells sunk in this field during 1933, 98% struck oil.