foundation a definite course of study which is not subject to changes, according to fancied needs in this or that particular locality, but one that will meet the requirements in every district and one that will be adhered to with a faithfulness that will pass all understanding. The foundation of all educational work in city or town, county or district, must be laid with the same precision, the same level and the same solidity if you would have it bear the weight of its own structure. The great argument which is being made in our present state of educational fermentation, and that which was instituted by Horace Mann, "Teach the child according to his environment," is today fatal doctrine. The country child knows his environment and seeks that which he has not. People move from rural districts into the city in order to educate their children, not so often because of the quality of the city school, but because of environment and the systematic work in the school. Much of the work in the rural school is necessarily done at haphazard. Plans are not thought out and carefully executed. Classification is poorly planned and causes great waste of energy and time. System must be the great remedy.

Another of the great hindrances to the improvement of the rural school lies in its isolation, and its inadequacy to furnish the teacher the stimulative influence which comes from social contact with superior minds in the research and study in the profession. There is a monotony in sparsely settled country localities that the average teacher cannot adapt to her well-being, and which is not conducive to contentment and long service. Teachers rarely ask for re-employment or for a second term in the isolated districts, and no school can grow to a marked degree with a continual change of supervision. Forceful and suc cessful teaching is the result of a well-defined system carried on from time to time with no intervening space nor disconnected links. Most of the teachers who teach in the rural schools are inexperienced, and as soon as they become proficient by reason of experience acquired, they are induced to seek better positions where larger salaries are offered and social conditions more inviting. The country school can ill afford to pay the higher salaries such as are given in towns and cities, and just so long as this condition exists, just so long will the country school be compelled to engage the new and inexperienced teacher from term to term. Throughout the West the question of salary soon will be no longer a mooted one, but it will be firmly fixed upon an increasing scale according to the increase of property value.

The argument frequently advanced that the small country school offers no educational features and no advancing interest to the boy or girl is a misguided one. The history of the world has been made by men reared in the country and schooled in country schools. There is something in the contact with farm life and rural training which in many instances, has developed a farmer's son into a world of power. Possibly it is the many hours every day which are spent largely away from his fellows; possibly it is the quiet of the farm house during the long winter evenings, where study is the rule and sport of any kind the exception, which accentuates the situation and develops the individuality and mental growth. At any rate the effect is there, and it is written plainly in the lives of our great men and there is no question but that the highest type of manhood and womanhood has germinated in the class of a country-school teacher. I am free to say that I have an abiding faith in the rural schools. I have faith in their possibilities, and the question of equipment, salaries, and organizations is determined by the everpresent supervision.

RURAL SCHOOL SUPERVISION

J. W. OLSEN, SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, MINNESOTA

The country child is entitled to just as efficient supervision as is the city child. At present he is not getting it. State superintendents, and other educational authorities throughout the land, generally agree that school work in our cities is more closely and

more ably supervised than that in the country. Some states have practically no rural superintendence. In most places the unit of supervision is so large that the directing authority cannot give the teachers, pupils, and local school officers, the time and attention requisite for the best results.

Nearly all rural superintendents are paid much less in proportion to the number of pupils under their charge than city superintendents, and also much less in average annual salaries. Some states do not prescribe educational or professional qualifications for their country superintendents or like officers. Most states elect them amid the turmoil incident to general election campaigns. Even where educational qualifications are prescribed by law, the standard is usually too low. Neither written law nor public sentiment demands for our rural schools the scholarly professional oversight that is making possible the excellent work in our city schools. Without train dispatchers, a railroad manned by employees of the utmost intelligence and energy would be unable to run its trains. Teachers cannot attain the highest results without system, order, organization, and competent superintend

ence.

Outlying rural communities, with their isolated and conservative population, that does not and cannot come into frequent contact with the most helpful intellectual stimuli, are even more in need of trained, scholarly, inspiring, sympathetic superintendents, than are our cities with their aggregations of financial and intellectual wealth, with their skilled teachers, and with liberal, broad-guaged business men upon their boards of education. The country needs the active leadership of experts of scholarship, culture, tact, wisdom, energy, consecrated purpose, and business ability who keep pace with the most advanced educational thought, become fully acquainted with the needs of their district, and intelligently meet them; who, from the public platform and by personal influence, can arouse parents, pupils, officers, and teachers to a sense of the possibilities and responsibilities of educating for twentieth-century life. In order to secure such, it is necessary to pay them living wages, and all legitimate traveling and other expenses incurred in the performance of duty. In most of our states non-provision for the payment of such expenses places a premium upon inactivity. Not only the standard of wages but the standard of educational and professional qualifications must be raised.

Rural communities must offer, not only larger financial inducement, but some system of appointment or election that insures stability of tenure, promotion in the service, and such removal from politics as will permit the self-respecting educator of scholarly instincts to be elected without going into an unbecoming contest with wire-pulling opponents. In nearly all of the northern states, outside of New England, a candidate for the county superintendency must go thru ward caucuses, county conventions, and all the annoyance and expense of a general election, and under this system, he cannot look forward to promotion in his specialty. After three or four years' service, when his experience should make him really valuable, the people are apt to insist, "He has had it long enough," and "It ought to be passed around." A superintendent in a smaller town who establishes a reputation for efficiency may expect a call to a larger one with its greater responsibility and larger remuneration; not so, a county superintendent.

Our country schools, in which the majority must receive their education, have been left to shamefully underpaid supervision that has too often lacked scholarship, experience, culture, and intelligent interest. Nor is it surprising that the rural superintendency fails to attract and retain our best educators. If city superintendents were elected at ward primaries from resident candidates only, during party contests; if the salary were so inadequate as to be beggarly, and if the situation offered no prospect of promotion, our city schools today would not have at their head the best men of the country.

Why should not the present successful system of choosing city superintendents be adapted to the needs of rural schools? The appointment of county superintendents by state boards of education, or the appointment by state authority of county boards of

education, that in turn appoint rural school superintendents, is generally satisfactory where it is in operation; but it is not probable that legislatures in our northern states will look with favor upon a plan to remove the administration of their school affairs so far from the people themselves. Why should not educational boards for the county, or other logical unit of government, be created to select county superintendents and other supervising officers in the same way as city boards of education select city superintendents? Cities go into the open markets of the nation to secure the best superintendents that a reasonable amount of money will purchase, regardless of parties and politics, the accident of residence, or any considerations other than the best interests of the service. Affairs of educational administration should not be intrusted to county commissioners, county courts, or county boards, whose duties are general, and whose officers are not elected with special reference to their interest in the cause of education. Members of boards of education in our cities, I believe, represent higher types than are found, as a rule among ward aldermen. Members of county boards of education, or their equivalents, should be elected or appointed because of their high character, generous public spirit, and special interest in the development of childhood into the noblest maturity. May we not hope that, should this plan become general it will induce some of our strongest young men and women to place themselves in special training for this responsible service? Why should not the superintendent of a smaller county have the same opportunities for promotion as has the superintendent of a town or smaller city? Why should not every county in the country be in a position to compete with every other for the services of experts in rural school supervision, like our friends O. J. Kern and Cap E. Miller?

Not only would the plan under discussion be a better means for the selecting of rural superintendents, but it would, after their selection, tend to render their services of more value. Accountable only to a small board of men, chosen because of their interest in educational affairs, a county superintendent would naturally feel more independent in the discharge of his duties than were he the choice of a hundred or more politicians, each of whom believes, or tries to make him believe, that he owns the voters of his precinct. Not infrequently a county superintendent has been elected by a very small plurality, and it is severely testing frail human nature to expect of him the strength of character necessary to refuse a certificate to the incompetent daughter of a politician, who, it is known, controls a larger number of votes than composed that plurality at the last election.

And in matters relating to the condemnation of unsuitable schoolhouses, the formation of school districts, the selection of textbooks, may we not look for more honest and independent action when the tenure of office does not depend upon the good will of those who are seeking their petty self-interests and are unable to see either their own or the public's ultimate good?

Then, too, such a board, we might confidently anticipate, would prove a strong moral support to the county superintendent in his working out of far-sighted policies for the advancement of education, which necessitate the molding of public opinion in their behalf and freedom in their execution.

We can hardly expect the masses, who do not give special thought to problems of school administration, to demand a reform that is in many places apparently so great an innovation. Public sentiment, within and without our legislative halls, must be framed by you and me, who have been chosen to lead in those movements toward something distinctly better and more helpful for the boys and girls that will be enrolled in our rural schools on the morrow.

DISCUSSION

R. B. COUSINS, superintendent of public instruction, Austin, Tex.—-Not having had a copy of Superintendent Olsen's paper, it has not been possible for me to prepare a written discussion of it. I shall therefore content myself with reinforcing a few points of the excellent paper.

The paper maintains, and so far as I know no one dissents from the position, that every county of sufficient population-say one thousand scholastics—should have a county superintendent. Or, which is better, each township in the populous states should have a township superintendent. The superintendent should be a man of force, scholarship, character, and special fitness for his work. In this day of organization no other business enterprise of half the importance of a system of county schools would be undertaken without first establishing an official head. No city or town attempts to run its schools without a superintendent or supervising principal. The public mind with discouraging but certain progress is reaching the conclusion that county schools are not an exception to the rule that is universal, that every business of whatever nature must have a responsible head.

It is agreed that the salary of this officer should be such as to command capable men. The poor pay of the position has in most states been the largest obstacle in the way of efficient service. Recently, great progress has been made in this matter throughout the country.

There is some debate yet as to the manner of selecting the superintendent. It is maintained in some quarters that he should be elected by the direct vote of the people. This, in my judgment, is not the best way to select him, because it involves the expense of a campaign and not infrequently involves the schools in all manner of political broils. The office and the officer should be removed as far as possible from the evil effects and influences of partisan or personal politics, and should be put on a professional basis. It is maintained in other quarters that the county superintendent should be selected by the governor or by the state superintendent, or by a county board thus appointed. This removes the office too far from the people and inhibits the bond of mutual dependence and sympathy which should obtain between the people and the officer. He should be elected by a county board which is selected by direct vote of the people.

The importance of the office is the supreme importance. If reforms are to be inaugurated or general improvements are to be made in the country schools they will begin and end in the county superintendent's office, in so far as these reach any given county. He is the only man that can attack the problems of longer terms, better houses, better salaries, consolidation of schools, or indeed any other problem of general interest in the counties, free from the charge of ulterior and selfish motives. This office is not inferior in importance to any other office in the counties in possibilities for good to all the people. In due time this fact will be generally recognized.

C. J. BAXTER, State superintendent of public instruction of New Jersey.-County superintendents should never be elected by popular vote. In New Jersey they are appointed by the State Board of Education. Each receives a salary of $2,000.00 per annum from the state and an allowance of $350.00 from the county for traveling expenses. Only those who have had extended experience in educational work and who hold state certificates are eligible to appointment. Each is required to formulate a county course of study that will receive the approval of the state superintendent. To make it practicable to carry out such course and complete our system of supervision, township supervising principals are appointed. The state appropriates $600 toward the salary of each supervising principal. To insure sanitary school accommodations all plans and specifications for school buildings must receive the approval of the state architect, before contracts for the construction of such buildings can be awarded.

COURSE OF STUDY FOR THE DISTRICT SCHOOL

M. BATES STEPHENS, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION, ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

The correspondence which took place between Superintendent Miller and myself in regard to this part of the program was brief, but I have a distinct recollection that he

laid more emphasis on his decision that this paper should be about fifteen minutes than about a course of study for the district school. Deference shall be shown his good judgment by doing everything possible to keep within the limit. Beyond the boundaries of that splendid little state of West Virginia, one of Maryland's nearest neighbors and her most beloved sister state, it is as impossible to deal with this question comprehensively in fifteen minutes, as it is to put a gallon of water in a pint bottle. I am persuaded it was meant that this paper should do nothing more than make a few observations regarding the curriculum for the rural school, and nothing more will be attempted.

During the past decade, many of us believed we saw a solution of the rural-school problem through the plan of consolidation, and had hoped that its inauguration was the beginning of the end of the one-teacher school. As late as five years ago, I would not have yielded to anyone the privilege of seeing larger possibilities in consolidated or central schools, where all pupils could enjoy equal educational facilities, than I did. This vision of the new school was so full of glamor that the district school and its perplexing problems faded from the scene. Some apprehension is now felt lest what was taken to be a vision was, in reality, a nightmare.

There must be some reasons why school consolidation has not made the headway which its seeming merits would warrant, and when we look around we find some of them. A weak point in the scheme is that absence of a satisfactory plan to collect the various pupils in the wagon for transportation. We have not been able, in the efforts made in Maryland looking to the consolidation of two or more schools, to meet this objection in a satisfactory way. There is also a tremendous sentiment in every community in favor of retaining its schoolhouse as a center of community interest and life. For generations to come, at least in my state, there will be no general consolidation of schools. It will be in spots, and these spots will include but a small percentage of the district schools.

Nothing is intended to be said in this digression from the subject, tending to throw cold water on the honest efforts which are being made in the direction of school consolidation, or to minimize the immense advantages which come to pupils in such schools as compared with those of the one-teacher school; but I really feel there are also advantages to the pupil of the district school, which are to some extent lost when he enters a school where there is a different teacher for each grade. This can be made clearer if you will tell me why it is that in our cities a very large percentage of the leading business men, bankers, and lawyers were raised in the country and were educated in the rural school. What they seemed to miss in a division of instruction among several teachers, they appear to have more than made up in some other way. They have been more uniformly successful in business pursuits than the more educationally favored city individual. The type of manhood and womanhood developed in the country district and its school seems to be more independent than we find in any other environment.

Michael Angelo saw in the rough marble a beautiful figure incarcerated within its walls, which only needed his master mind and artistic touch to set free. He entered upon his work with a definite conception of what the finished product should be, and he did not entrust to another the task of transforming the shapeless mass into an expression of the conception which was in his mind. For the reason that the teacher is the most vital element in the school system and is the architect and builder of the child's mental and moral structure, is it not probable that the developing process is subject to fewer jars, and that consequently the product will be of a higher type where there are fewest changes in instructors? There is an advantage of greater importance than we are apt to suppose where the same teacher can follow and work with the child from the period of crude material until that pupil becomes an expression of what the school can do to prepare him for complete living.

This apparent digression has been made not to enter the domain of any other discussion but to give expression to an opinion that the district school still lives, and, from