public schools are sup ported by local taxes; by a State distribution of the income of a fund now about $944,407 and of the proceeds of certain taxes, both yielding about $180,875 a year, devoted entirely to "pay Mg teachers' salaries and for furnithing free textbooks)); and by an annual appropriation beyond this, fixed by the constitution at a minimum of $100,000. The school year is 9 or 10 months in many schools throughout the State, though shorter in others. Attendance for • all children between the ages of 7 and 14 for five months in the year is made compulsory by law, though any district may by vote reduce this period to three months. Thanks to the enthusiastic labors of Chas. A. Wagner, Ph.D, Commissioner of Education, an increased inter est is being aroused throughout the State in the subject of education. One hundred and fifty °Parents' Teachers Associations," with a membership of 3,600 have been formed, whose meetings have been attended by 20,000 persons —one-fifth of the State's population attending school at night. Wilmington has a fine school system which is excepted from the provisions of the general law; has its own superintendent of schools, with many handsome buildings whose architecture and equipment compare fa vorably with those in other cities. There are separate schools for colored children, their schools sharing equally with the white in the State school fund, They have a State Agri cultural College near Dover and there is also at Clayton a Roman Catholic school for colored orphans. The Wilmington Conference Academy of the Methodist Episcopal Church is at Dover. Wilmington has two business • col leges, while throughout the State are many excellent academies and high schools. Its one college proper, Delaware College, at Newark, was founded in 1833. The State supports an experiment station with courses in agronomy, animal husbandry and horti culture. The facilities of its argicultural department are placed at the disposal of the farmers of the State during the first week in January of each year, styled "Farmers' Week.'" The college has greatly prospered in recent years. From 1870 to 1913 it was entirely sup ported by Federal and State appropriations. In 1914 the Alumni Association raised $57,000 and in 1915 $1,000,000 was donated for the purchase of land and the erection of new buildings. In 1914 the Woman's College of Delaware was established by the State and is sharing in the large growth and prosperity of the older insti tution. There is a State board of education and in each county a school commission and a •superintendent of public instruction. Teachers' institutes are yearly held in each county.
Government.— The present constitution is of• 1897; following its own practice-- as is also the eastern of a number of Southern States It was framed by• a convention elected by the people, but was not submitted to the people. The registration and •educational provisions in part exclude unfit electors. The legislature has a senate elected for four years and a house for two.. Seven members from New Castle County and five each from Kent and Sussex compose the senate, and 15 members from New Castle and 10' each from Kent and Sussex the house. Sessions are biennial. Provisions for revenue and impeachment are the same as in the national Constitution. The members are paid $5 a day for' 60 days, after which they sit at their own expense; special sessions are thus limited to 30 days. All State and county officers are chosen for four years, save the State treas urer and auditor, and county sheriff and coroner, chosen for two. The governor's veto includes any item of a bill for raising revenue; his pardoning power is on recommendation of a board of pardons. °The judicial power is vested in a supreme court, a superior court, a court of chancery, an orphans' court, a court of oyer and terminer, a court of general sessions, a register's court and justices of the peace)); there are six judges — a chancellor and five °law judges,* of whom one is chief justice—all ap pointed by the governor for 12 years with the concurrence of the senate. The State has one representative in Congress and three members in the Electoral College, chosen by popular election.
From 1889 to 1895 the Hon. Anthony Hig gins, a Republican, represented Delaware in the United States Senate and throughout his dis tinguished career therein maintained the former prestige of the State. In 1895 he was defeated for re-election and, owing to political entangle ments, no senatorial choice was made.
Thereafter, for a period of 10 years, John E. Addicks vainly endeavored to have himself chosen for this office, a division of the Republi can party being the result. The °Regulars* were opposed to Addicks and the Union Re publicans were in favor of him. Four times senatorial vacancies occurred that left the State but one senator for five years and with none for two.
Finance.— A State capitation tax of 25 cents is imposed, but the receipts are chiefly from fees, licenses, inheritance taxes, special taxes on banks, railroads, etc. The assessed valuation of the State is (1918) $185,283,517. This valuation includes only real estate and five-stock — no other personal property.
Divisions and Population.— The State has three counties : New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. The first, including Wilmington, has about one half of the entire population of the State. The counties are divided into °hundreds* instead of townships. There are incorporated cities and towns, of which Wilmington is the only large one, with a population (1918) of 110,000; (1900) 76,508, showing 43.7 per cent increase. Of the others the chief are Dover, the capital, slightly growing; New Castle, Milford, Lewes, and Smyrna. In Indian River hundred, Sussex County, there is a settlement of °white Indians)) or °Moors,* descended, tradition says, from a band of Moors. A like body of Moors is found in Kent County, near Moorton, who came there direct from Spain in 1710, Scharf says in his History. The two settlements, which are decreasing, are probably identical. They do not associate with the colored race, intermarry and maintain separate schools and churches with the help of the State.
History.— Delaware represents the sole at tempt of Sweden to seize its share of America. It does not take its name from the Indians who inhabited it, but from the river and bay, named by the English after Lord de la Warr (Sir Thomas West), who, tradition says, anchored in the bay in 1610; the Dutch called the river °South River* as distinguished from the °North River,* the Hudson. The first settlement actu ally made in Delaware was by the Dutch trader Peter Heyes in April 1631, on the creek near the present Lewes; he called it Hoornkill, or Hoorn Creek ("Kill* Dutch for creek), in honor of Hoorn, the home of De Vries who • visited the Delaware in 1632. The story that seeks to explain the corruption of the name Hoornkill to Whorekill has no historical truth whatever. Giles Hossett, whom Heyes left in command of this °Zwaanendael" (Walley of colony—so called from the number of swans there — fell out with the Indians, who slaughtered the whole settlement of about 30 persons and burned their little fort, Oplandt This brief little settlement defeated Lord Balti more's claim to the western half of this penin sula. Out of its ashes arose the present State of Delaware. In 1637 Axel Oxenstiern, the great Swedish Minister of Gustavus Adolphus, revived his dead master's pious plan of found ing a Swedish West India Company and sent Peter Minuit, the ex-director-general of New Netherlands, with a mixed Swedish and Dutch expedition to seize and settle a point on the coast. Minuit landed April 1638, choosing the peninsula where Wilmington now stands, about two miles back from the river; he called the creek °the Elbe,* and built a fort which he named Christina, after the girl-queen of Swe den, Gustavus' daughter. The creek later was given that name, now changed to Christiana. The entire domain he called New Sweden. The Dutch protested, but as their company had to pay its own war bills they did no more, and in 1640 the Swedish government sent another body of colonists. More Dutch came also and settled some miles below ; the stockholders of the enterprise were partly in Holland and partly in Sweden, and each party sent its own country men. The Swedish settlements were vigorous for a while and spread rapidly, colonizing New Gottenburg at Tinicum Island and Upland near by, driving a New Haven English colony off Salem Creek in New Jersey and keeping the place themselves, with a fort called Elsenburg. In 1646 the Dutch built a block-house on the site of Philadelphia, opposite Fort Nassau built by them in 1623; the Swedish governor, Prints, marched there and pulled it down. But when Stuyvesant came to New Netherlands in 1647 he was under orders to fight, and in 1651 built Fort Casimir on the site of New Castle, blocking the Delaware to the Swedes. Rising, Printz's suc cessor, attacked and captured it in 1654 and changed the name to Trinity. Stuyvesant came down in 1655 with a large force, captured not only Trinity but Christina, deported the officers to New Amsterdam and forced the rest to swear allegiance to New Netherlands or leave the country. Trinity was renamed New AmsteL The Swedish rule was now ended, but the Swedish blood remained, as many family names still attest, and made a worthy part of that mixed strain of blood, English with a very little Dutch, which composes the population of the State. Between 1631 and 1656 10 expedi tions were sent out by the Swedish government and, according to a census taken by Rising in 1654, there were 368 persons, Swedes and Dutch, on the Delaware.