Final grand

VII. CAPITAL OUTLAY.

New

PAYMENTS OF INDEBTEDNESS.

Additional

Short Bonded Debt

total current Land. build equipment, Total. time princi- internotes. pal. est.

disbursements.

ing.

alterations,

etc.

By distributing expenses under the different headings, as teachers' salaries, textbooks, etc., it is possible to ascertain the proportion of funds expended for these purposes. Data can also be compiled showing cost per pupil enrolled and in average daily attendance for instruction, operation of plant, etc. Just what proportion of funds should be expended for each item is not definitely known, but a fair estimate based upon practice in small cities would be as follows, and probably would not vary much from this for villages: Teaching and supervision, 70 to 75 per cent of the total current disbursements; supervision alone, 7 to 10 per cent; teaching alone, 60 to 68 per cent; janitors' salaries, 5 to 7 per cent; textbooks and supplies, 4 to 6 per cent; fuel, 5 to 7 per cent; repairs, 3 to 5 per cent.

Many school boards waste public funds by purchasing maps, charts, and apparatus that are not used or that have no educational

value. Maps, charts, and apparatus are necessary, but it is unnecessary to pay exorbitant prices. No apparatus should be purchased without first being recommended by the principal of schools. If sehool boards would adhere to this practice, more money would be available for teachers' salaries, and apparatus suitable for school needs would be purchased.

THE VILLAGE SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL AND HIS WORK.

A supervising principal is one who does not teach or who teaches less than half time. Any principal who teaches most or all of the day should be classed as a teacher; probably head teacher or teaching principal would be the correct term.

No other school position carries with it a greater diversity of work than the supervising principalship of a village school. In a large or medium sized city school system the work of the superintendent is somewhat specialized, since he devotes most of his time. to the larger problems of administration and organization. He supervises indirectly through his assistant superintendents, supervisors, and principals. In a small system of schools the principal must do a score or more of things. He must be an administrator, an organizer, and a supervisor. He must be an investigator, a school surveyor, a school-efficiency expert, a playground director, and a general utility man. He must write letters, usually without the aid of a stenographer; he must meet people with grievances and keep his temper; he must settle difficulties that arise between teacher and pupil, between pupil and pupil, and between teacher and parent; he must be the leader of educational thought in his community, educating school boards, teachers, and taxpayers as to the educational needs of the village. Thus one might continue to enumerate almost indefinitely the many things that require the direct attention of the supervising principal of a village school.

QUALIFICATIONS.

Since the duties of a village school principal are so multifarious, he should be a person of broad education. In general, he should be a college graduate who has had several courses in a school of education. School boards should not consider a young college graduate for a village school principalship who has not elected courses in education; yet comparatively few of the young men and women just out of college and applying for the principalship of village schools have made any extended study of school administration and supervision, especially of the administration and supervision of village schools.

The preparation necessary for the principalship of a village school should include a study of such school rather than a study of city schools. He should not only make a study of the village school but of the village community. Probably more young village school principals fail because they do not understand village habits and customs than for any other reason.

Since the scheme of organization of the village school is exceedingly simple, the principal deals directly with teachers and parents. He is also close to the pupils, knowing most of them by name and where they live in the village. Thus the administration of a village school system becomes largely a personal matter. The principal should for this reason know village life, its psychology and its sociology. He should know what forces are at work and how they can be manipulated and directed in the administration of the schools and in the socialization of the village community.

RELATION TO SCHOOL BOARD.

In villages having school boards of their own the school principal should stand in practically the same relation to the school board as does the superintendent of a city school system. He should nominate teachers; select textbooks if in a State where there is local adoption; prepare courses of study, if there is not a county or State course that he must follow; and even then he must elaborate and work out in detail such course. He must be free to assign teachers to the grades for which they are best suited. He should also prepare the annual budget for the consideration of the school board. These are some of the administrative duties of a village principal, and unless the school board requires them of him, it is wasting public funds by employing a principal. If, for instance, the teachers are not nominated by the principal but by the members of the school board, the teaching corps may not yield to supervision, owing allegiance to the school-board member who nominated them. If the school-board members are inclined to meddle in matters of school discipline and instruction, the teachers naturally look to them and ignore the principal.

The relation of a village school board to the principal of schools does not differ materially from the relation that a board of bank directors sustains to the cashier or the president of the bank, or that the board of directors of any private corporation sustains to the superintendent that it employs. The stockholders in a private corporation elect a board of directors to look after their interests in the conduct of the enterprise. These directors know but little about the technical details of the business they are empowered to administer. Few, if any, could do the work of one of the clerks or

mechanics, much less supervise it: so they employ a superintendent to do this and hold him responsible for results. As another illustration, the relation of the board of directors of a hospital and the superintendent of the hospital may be mentioned. This board may be composed of laymen or of laymen and physicians, who appoint a superintendent of the hospital. None of the board members would think of interfering with the superintendent in his assignment of nurses, in administering medicine, and in other matters that are purely professional. If, in the opinion of the board, the superintendent is not skillful in his supervision, he is requested to resign and another is employed.

Some school board members are inclined to meddle in strictly professional matters, as school discipline, methods of instruction, promotion of pupils. Partly for this reason many village schools have remained on a low plane. If the directors of a business corporation attempt to dictate regarding matters upon which they are uninformed, or if the superintendent appointed by the board of directors of a private corporation is a figurehead, the corporation fails. The result is direct and the failure is known to all. If the principal of a village school is a figurehead only, the school fails; but the fact may not be known by the public, which often does not recognize what the duties of the school board and of the principal are and what a school should be. In brief, no board of directors, whether of a public or a private corporation, should attempt to do the work which it is paying an expert to do.

In county and township school systems, where the county or township school board administers the village schools, the principal should be subordinate to the county or township superintendent. He should have no direct relation to the school board, the board holding him responsible for results through the county or township superintendent. In other words, the village school principal in a county or township organization should have the same relation to the school board and the superintendent as the principal of a building or ward school in a city system has to the city school board and the city superintendent of schools.

SUPERVISION OF INSTRUCTION.

Notwithstanding the fact that there are a hundred and one matters that require the attention of a village school principal, he should give most of his attention to the supervision of instruction. Much of the poor teaching one finds in the village schools throughout the country is due largely to a lack of supervision or to the wrong kind. Of course, an exception must be made of those villages where politics, church membership, nepotism, and such things play a part in the selection of teachers, but in a village where the principal

selects his own teachers and exercises due care in their selection something is wrong if many fail. There is a lack of supervision, or poor methods are employed. If many pupils fail under the same teacher year after year, the principal is not slow to declare that the teaching is poor. It may be asserted with equal emphasis that if many teachers fail year after year suspicion should point strongly toward the principal. A village school principal is responsible for the success or failure of the school system. Since success or failure depends largely upon the kind of teaching, he must see to it that teachers are employing good methods. This he can not do unless he devotes much of his time to classroom visitation, to an analysis of results, and to conference with teachers.

The methods of supervision employed by two village school principals illustrate the difference between good and poor methods. Each of these villages employs about 20 teachers; the academic and the professional preparation of the teachers in each village are practically the same. During the year the principal in one of these villages visits each classroom about 15 times, averaging 15 minutes each visit. Thus, approximately, 75 hours, or 12 school days out of 180, are devoted to visiting teachers for the purpose of supervising instruction. In contrast the other principal visits each classroom 25 times a year, averaging an hour at each visit, a total of 83 school days. In the former school the principal is not at all familiar with the methods employed by the different teachers nor with the results obtained; in the latter school the principal knows what each teacher is doing and how she is doing it. In the one village the object of the school is defeated to a large extent because the teaching is poor, chiefly on account of a lack of supervision. The principal is tied to his desk or is looking after details. In the other village the principal does not neglect necessary details, but he makes them subordinate to the larger matter of supervision of instruction, attending to details before and after school hours and on Saturday mornings.

In many villages salaries are so low that well-qualified teachers can not be obtained, the median salary for village school teachers being between $500 and $600. Young inexperienced girls who have had little or no academic or professional preparation must be employed. These must be trained in service. Even normal school and college graduates, though they may have had the best instruction, need to be broken into real school life situations. They need to be shown how to apply their theories.

Before a principal can help his teachers he must diagnose classroom procedure and methods of instruction. He must observe the teaching to see whether it conforms to certain standards. At the outset a principal should inform the teachers of the standards by which he is going to judge their instruction. He may, for example, judge classroom instruction by the standards set up by Dr. Frank