BRITISH COLUMBIA 71

operation throughout the province, including 18 high schools, 51 graded
schools and 139 municipality schools, together with 240 of what are known
as common schools, employing, all told, 911 teachers. When this is com-
pared with the fact that with the opening of the public school system in
1872 there were just 28 schools with the same number of teachers and 1,028
pupils, the growth of this system can be readily pictured.

The high schools are distributed as follows: Victoria (Victoria Col-
lege), Vancouver (Vancouver College), New Westminster, Nanaimo,
Nelson, Rossland, Cumberland, Vernon, Kaslo, Chilliwack, Grand Forks,
Kamloops, Armstrong, Golden, Revelstoke, Enderby, Kelowna and Lady-
smith. There is a Provincial Normal School at Vancouver, and many
excellent private colleges and boarding schools. Victoria and Vancouver
Colleges are affiliated to McGill University, Montreal, and have high schools
and university departments.

SOCIAL CONDITIONS.
&

Respect for the law is one of the strong features in British Columbia,
and all unite in assisting in its administration. The police force is ample
for all requirements and splendidly trained. Most of the towns are pro-
vided with waterworks, electric lights, and telephones, the latter being
gradually extended into rural districts, linking villages and isolated
dwellings on a line extending in some cases over 100 miles from its base,
Hotels are clean and comfortable, possessing every modern convenience,
retail stores are well stocked, and the attendants alert and obliging. Pros-
perity is the prevailing condition, and work at remunerative wages is always
attainable by those industrially inclined. Personal need is seldom known
outside a few aged men, generally prospectors, for whom ample provision
is made by the Government in a picturesque building surrounded by lovely
grounds, known as the Provincial Home at Kamloops.

A Typical School House, British Columbia. Educational Facilities are Unsurpassed.