The very earliesl settlers considered the school of sufficient importance that among their first public act- was to organize school districts, tax and provide schools for the educathe one at Hemingford occupying two buildings and employing five teachers. The public schools of Alliance occupy three large commodious buildings with a superintendent and a corps of thirty teachers. More than one thousand pupils are enrolled.

The great interest which the people of the county take in their schools, and the importance with which they are considered, is shown by the fact that more than one-half of the money raised by taxation in the county is used for the support of its schools.

In addition to the public schools there is located at Alliance St. Agnes' Academy, a parochial school, which is graded and has the same course of instruction as the high school, with an average attendance of two hundred and twenty-five pupils.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

CHURCHES -- THE PRESS -- THE

PROFESSIONS AND BUSINESSES

Practically all of the leading church denominations have organizations and church buildings in the county. The Catholics have churches in Alliance and Hemingford and Lawn. The Methodists have churches at Alliance, Hemingford, and at Fairview, twelve miles northeast of Alliance. The Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Seventh Day Adventists, and Lutherans each maintain a church in Alliance. The Congregationalists have a church in Hemingford.

The people are sufficiently interested in religious matters to support their ministers, as well or better than in other communities of much larger population.