five classes according to population, the powers being concentrated and simplified by degrees in the case of the smaller cities, and reaching a maximum of separation and completeness in class 1, i.e. cities of 100,000 and over, which includes only Indianapolis. In all classes the executive officer is a mayor elected for four years and ineligible to succeed himself. There are six administrative departments (the number is often less in cities of the lower classes, where several departments may be combined under one head)—departments of public works, public safety, public health and charities, law, finance, and collection and assessment. There is a city court with elected judge or judges, and an elected common council, which may authorize the municipal ownership of public utilities by ordinance, and can pass legislation over the mayor’s veto by a two-thirds vote. Communities under 2500 in population are regarded as towns, and have a separate form of government by a board of trustees.
Until 1908 the state had a prohibition law “by remonstrance,” under which if a majority of the legal voters of a township or city ward remonstrated against the granting of licences for the sale of liquor, no licence could be granted by the county commissioners in that township or ward. Under this system 800 out of 1016 townships and more than 30 entire counties were in 1908 without saloons. In 1908, when the Republican party had declared in favour of county option and the Democratic party favoured township and ward option, a special session of the legislature, called by the Republican governor, passed the Cox Bill for county options.
Education.—Indiana has a well-organized free public school system. Provision was made for such a system in the first state constitution, to utilize the school lands set aside in all the North-West Territory by the Ordinance of 1787, but the existing system is of late growth. The first step toward such a system was a law of 1824 which provided for the election of school trustees in every township and for the erection of school buildings, but made no provision for support. Therefore, before 1850 what schools there were were not free. The constitution of 1851 made further and more complete provisions for a uniform system, and on that basis the general school law of 1852 erected the framework of the existing system. It provided, for the organization of free schools, supported by a property tax, and for county and township control. The movement, however, was retarded in 1858 by a decision of the supreme court holding that under the law of 1852 the system was not “uniform” as provided for by the constitution. In 1865 a new and more satisfactory law was passed, which with supplemental legislation is still in force. Under the existing system supreme administrative control is vested in a state superintendent elected biennially. County superintendents, county boards, and township trustees are also chosen, the latter possessing the important power of issuing school bonds. Teachers’ institutes are regularly held, and a state normal school, established in 1870, is maintained at Terre Haute. There are normal schools at Valparaiso, Angola, Marion and Danville, and a Teachers’ College at Indianapolis, which are on the state’s “accredited” list and belong to the normal school system. In 1897 a compulsory education law was enacted. In 1906–1907 the state school tax was increased from 11.6 cents per $100 to 13.6 cents per $100; an educational standard was provided, coming into effect in August 1908, for public school teachers, in addition to the previous requirement of a written test; a regular system of normal training was authorized; uniform courses were provided for the public high schools; and small township schools with twelve pupils or less were discontinued, and transportation supplied for pupils in such abandoned schools to central school houses. The proportion of illiterates is very small, in 1900, 95.4% of the population (of 10 years old or over) being able to read and write. The total school revenue from state and local sources in 1905 amounted to $10,642,638, or $13.85 per capita of enumeration ($19.34 per capita of enrolment). In 1824 a state college was opened at Bloomington; it was re-chartered in 1838 as the State University. Purdue University (1874) at Lafayette, maintained under state control, received the benefit of the Federal grant under the Morrill Act. Other educational institutions of college rank include Vincennes University (non-sectarian), at Vincennes; Hanover College (1833, Presbyterian), at Hanover; Wabash College (1832, non-sectarian), at Crawfordsville; Franklin College (1837, Baptist), at Franklin; De Pauw University (1837, Methodist Episcopal), at Greencastle; Butler University (1855, Christian), at Indianapolis; Earlham College (1847, Friends), at Richmond; Notre Dame University (1842, Roman Catholic), at Notre Dame; Moore’s Hill College (1856, Methodist Episcopal), at Moore’s Hill; the University of Indianapolis (non-sectarian), a loosely affiliated series of schools at Indianapolis, centring around Butler University; and Rose Polytechnic Institute (1883, non-sectarian), at Terre Haute.
The charitable and correctional institutions of Indiana are well administered in accordance with the most improved modern methods, and form one of the most complete and adequate systems possessed by any state in the Union. The state was one of the first to establish schools for the deaf and the blind. Its Institution for the Education of the Deaf was established in 1844, and its Institution for the Education of the Blind in 1847, both being in Indianapolis. The first State Hospital for the Insane was opened in Indianapolis in 1848 and became the Central Indiana Hospital for the Insane in 1883; other similar institutions are the Northern Indiana Hospital at Logansport (1888), the Eastern at Richmond (1890), the Southern at Evansville (1890), and the South-eastern at North Madison (1905). There are a Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home at Knightstown (1868), and a State Soldiers’ Home at Lafayette (1896); a School for Feeble-Minded Youth (1879), removed from Knightstown to Fort Wayne in 1890; a village for epileptics at New Castle (1907); and a hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis, authorized in 1907, for which a site at Rockville was purchased in 1908. There are five state penal and correctional institutions: the Indiana Boys’ School (1868–1883, the House of Refuge; 1883–1903, the Reform School for Boys), at Plainfield; the Indiana Girls’ School, established at Indianapolis (1873), and removed to Clermont in 1907; a woman’s prison (the first in the United States, authorized in 1869 and opened in 1873 at Indianapolis), which is entirely under the control of women (as is also the Indiana Girls’ School) and has a correctional department (1908), in reality a state workhouse for women, formed with a view to removing as far as possible sentenced women from the county jails; a reformatory (1897), at Jeffersonville, conducted upon a modification of the “Elmira plan,” formerly the State Prison (1822), later (1860) the State Prison South, so called to distinguish it from the State Prison North (1860) at Michigan City; and the prison at Michigan City, which became the Indiana State Prison in 1897. The old State Prison at Jeffersonville was at first conducted on the lease system, but public opinion compelled the abandonment of that system some years before the Civil War. The prisoners of the reformatory work under a law providing for trade schools; the product of the work is sold to the state institutions and to the civil and political divisions of the state, the surplus being disposed of on the market. At the State Prison practically one half the prisoners are employed on contracts. Not more than 100 may be employed on any one contract, and the day’s work is limited to eight hours. The remainder of the population of the prison is employed on state account. The policy of indeterminate sentence and paroles was adopted in 1897 in the two prisons and the reformatory. Prisoners released upon parole are carefully supervised by state agents. Indiana has an habitual-criminal law, and a law providing for the sterilization of mental degenerates, confirmed criminals, and rapists. There are also an adult probation law and a juvenile court law, the latter applying to every county in the state. Each of the state institutions mentioned above is under the control of a separate bi-partisan board of four members. The whole system of public charities is under the supervision of a bi-partisan Board of State Charities (1889), which is appointed by the governor, and to which the excellent condition of state institutions is largely due. In the counties there are unsalaried boards of county charities and correction and county boards of children’s guardians, appointed by the circuit judges. The township trustees, 1016 in number, are ex-officio overseers of the poor. They dispense official outdoor relief. Nowhere else have the principles of organized charities in the administration of public outdoor relief been applied to an entire state. Each county provides for the indoor care of the poor in poor asylums and children’s homes, and for local prisoners in county jails. Provision is made for truant, dependent, neglected and delinquent children. No child can be made a public ward except upon order of the juvenile court, and all such children may be placed in family homes by agents of the Board of State Charities.
Finance.—The total true value of taxable property in the state was, according to the tax levy of 1907, $1,767,815,487, and the total taxes, including delinquencies, in the same year amounted to $38,880,257. The total net receipts for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1908, were $4,771,628, and the total net expenditure $5,259,002, the cash balance in the treasury for the year
