limited as careers and apprenticeships often have a prerequisite of an eighth grade education, which Adenville lacked in the beginning, and helped expand elementary education to solve this problem. Adenville contains a one-room schoolhouse with a single teacher who teaches the first through sixth grades. Parochial school: Papa sends Tom and Sweyn to a Catholic boarding academy in Salt Lake City that serves ten boys in the seventh grade and ten boys in the eighth grade. Much of this is discussed in The Great Brain at the Academy, where the Jesuit priests enforce strict discipline and have an academic curriculum more challenging than what Tom faced in Adenville. Later, as part of Thomas' initiative to expand lower education, a junior high known as the Adenville Academy is commissioned. Tom attends eighth grade there. In the series Sweyn attends high school in Boylestown, Pennsylvania, where Papa had earned his high school diploma. Sweyn lives with distant relatives of Papa's in Pennsylvania. One chapter touches upon the more stylish ways of the East, as shown by Sweyn's "dude" ways, as opposed to the West, which is slower to accept such ways due to being more concerned with settlement and hard work. Historical context Fitzgerald's books describe many issues regarding society and life in the context of the late 19th century, between 1896 and 1898 in the southwestern United States. Among the topics covered are the following: The dangers of backsliding, or ‘going back’ on one’s word. This was considered the most heinous act one could commit and one could be blackmailed for even calling someone else a backslider. The small-town culture of long ago Diabetes as a fatal disease (before insulin) The banking system in the days before the Federal Reserve, Mormonism, Catholicism and Lutheranism. Transportation in the days before the Interstate Highway System. The citizens of Adenville often get where they want to go by walking or making use of horse and buckboard. Bicycling is uncommon as most citizens of Adenville are unable to afford this. For extra-long journeys, such as when Tom goes to boarding school in Salt Lake City or Sweyn goes to Pennsylvania for high school, the train is used. Sewage and sanitation. Outhouses (referred to as "backhouses" in Utah at that time, due to the term "outhouse" being used in that region to refer to a storage shed, workshed, or other small out-building behind the main house)