Schools, Libraries, Newspapers, Etc.— In 1917 there were 135 public schools, of which nine were high schools. For the school year 1917-18 there were about 95,000 pupils enrolled with 2,400 teachers. Aside from the ordinary school curriculum there are classes for cripples, for the blind, for special and prevocational studies, open-air schools and summer schools. Especial attention is given to night schools for teaching foreign-born residents the English language, the rights and duties of citizenship and the elementary principles of our government. One of the high schools is a fully-equipped tech nical industrial training school. The school appropriations for 1917-18 aggregated $6,566, 278. There are also about 80 private and pa rochial schools, with an enrolment of 32,000. The number of of school age* (i.e. 5 to 20 years) in 1917 was 164,532. For pro fessional or higher education there is Detroit University (Jesuit); a normal .training school for teachers, which is part of the public school system; the Detroit College of Medicine, which has recently been taken over by the city, the Detroit College of Law. One of the State Normal schools is at Ypsilanti, 28 miles dis tant, and Michigan University is at Ann Arbor, 38 miles away.
The city owns a central public library, with 14 branches, 27 school and factory stations and 455,000 volumes. The appropriation for 1917-18 was $307,000 for maintenance and $1,250,000 for a new main library building. The Bar Association has an excellent law. library. The city also owns an art museum with a fine collection of paintings, statuary and Oriental curios and a good art library. During the last year 177,535 visitors passed through its turnstile.
There are in the city, including trade and advertising sheets, 124 regular publications. Of these six are English dailies, two Polish and one German.
Religion and Charities.--The church and religious assemblies and missions number 316. Of these 53 are Roman Catholic churches, 43 Lutheran, 35 Methodist, 30 Baptist, 25 Protest ant Episcopal, 21 Presbyterian and 16 Jewish. Architecturally may be noted Saint Anne's, Saint Hedwig's and Saint Albertus, all Roman Catholic; the First and Fort Street Presby terian; the Central Methodist; Trinity, Saint John's, Saint Paul's Cathedral (Episcopal); Woodward Avenue Baptist; the First Church of Christ, Scientist; church of Our Father (Universalist); First Unitarian, Woodward Avenue Congregational, First Congregational, First Baptist Church and the Temple Beth El.
The charities include a city poor fund, managed by a commission; the Detroit Asso ciated Charities and a large number of de nominational and special charities. There are several large general hospitals, of which the most noted are Grace and Harper, with train ing schools for nurses; Saint Mary's (Cath olic) ; the Ford General Hospital; Kiefer Hos pital for Contagious Diseases; the City Re ceiving Hospital; House of Providence (Cath olic) and the United States Marine Hospital.
Manufactures, Commerce and Trans Detroit is above all else a ing centre and its most rapid growth in this respect has come within the last few years. In
the calendar year 1909, according to the United States census reports, its 2,036 manufacturing establishments employed 81,011 wage earners and had a production valued at $252,939,000. It was then 13th in rank among industrial cen tres of the country. In 1916, according to the report of the State labor commissioner, there were 251,000 industrial employees in Detroit and its adjoining manufacturing suburbs. The value of the product was about $900,000,000 and the city stood fourth in this respect, being surpassed only by New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. A large part of this gain was due to the phenomenal growth of the automo bile business. In 1909 there were 68 establish ments in the city which either assembled auto mobiles or devoted their whole business to the making of auto parts and accessories. They employed 15,675 wage earners and their prod uct was valued at $59,536,000. In 1916 there were 31 companies that assembled automobiles and 120 others whose sole business was the making of auto bodies, parts or accessories. They had 130,000 employees and put out 959, 000 cars, valued at about $600,000,000. One of the companies, the Ford, had 42,000 men on its pay-roll and the Cadillac, Dodge Brothers, Packard and Studebaker had over 10,000 each. In 1917 and the first part of 1918 the produc tion of cars was less rapid, as the large com panies diverted part of their activities to the production of aeroplane parts, shipbuilding parts, the metal parts of munitions and other govern ment war work. In addition to its primacy in the automobile industry, Detroit is either first or conspicuously near the front in the making of adding machines, aluminum castings, brass and bronze products, iron, corsets, overalls, soda ash and furnace4. The city is also a large producer of furniture, foundry and machine shop products, tobacco and cigars.
The interests of Detroit in connection with the lake marine are great. It is first or second every year among the lake cities in shipyard production. It has the largest fleet of pas senger steamers of any port in the country except New York. They number 31, with ton nage of 38,000 and licensed passenger capacity of 60,000. Several of the steamers are li censed to carry 3,500 to 4,000 excursion pas sengers each. Their routes include nearby ports on the adjacent rivers and lakes, and also longer trips as far as Buffalo in the East and Mackinac to the north. Detroit is also a port of call for all steamers going from Buffalo to the Upper Lakes. The tonnage passing through Detroit River is more than twice that passing through the Suez Canal, and much lar ger than the tonnage arriving and leaving at New York or any other seaboard port in the world. The vessel passages in 1916 numbered 37,852, with net registered tonnage of 76,677, 264 and actual freight tonnage of 100,907,279.