it was $1.60. This shows that the country children should have at least as good an education as the city children, for their parents pay more for it. In eight country schools visited in one area the highest enrollment was thirteen, the lowest six; each of these contained worthless reading charts costing $37.50 apiece.

SUPERINTENDENT B. E. YORK, of Kingsville, O.-The consolidation of rural schools in Ohio began at Kingsville six years ago. Now the whole town is consolidated; at the last election the vote carried six to one in favor of the plan. The gross expense is a little more, but the per capita expense is less. A high-school course of four years has been established, and there are seventy-four pupils in the high school.

SUPERINTENDENT Collins, of South Dakota.—The advantages of the system more than outweigh any small increase in cost. Farmers will be willing to pay a little more if they see results. Great interest is shown in South Dakota. Many are opposed, but do

If the schools

not give the cost as the reason for opposition. Social conditions must settle the question. In prairie states probably three-fourths of the towns might save money. were large, consolidation would add to the cost; if small, it would not.

SUPERINTENDENT BRIGHT, of Cook county, Ill.-The two subjects on the program are closely related. There would be a good opportunity for instruction in the elements of agriculture in the high schools established by consolidation of the districts.

COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT W. G. HARTRANFT, of Seattle, Wash., said he had come to the meeting expressly to hear this topic discussed. There are so many schools in Washington of three or four pupils that something should be done. He is urging consolidation. He reaches the farmers by a paper explaining and commending the plan.

SUPERINTENDENT BONEBRAKE, of Ohio.- Centralization not only gives better results in the grades, but results in the formation of high schools. Such has been the experience in the townships of Ohio. Sixty-three new high schools have been established this year. Growth of libraries and the bringing in of lecture courses have also followed consolidation. These high schools should not imitate too closely the high schools in large cities. Review work in the common branches should receive attention as well as advanced subjects.

B. ROUND TABLE OF CITY SUPERINTENDENTS

TOPIC I: FOUR MINOR DUTIES OF A SUPERINTENDENT

I. C. MCNEILL, PRESIDENT, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, SUPERIOR, WIS. The four topics I am asked to touch upon in this short discussion relate to the selection of teachers, the elimination of teachers who are not intellectually prepared, the elimination of teachers who are not morally prepared, and the stimulation of teachers to reach the fullest measure of individual strength so as to render, thru active co-operation, the most efficient service.

SELECTION OF TEACHERS

Every superintendent is confronted with serious problems in the selection of new teachers. There are economic, practical, and prudential reasons for selecting some people of little experience from one's own city. The superintendent and the school board have opportunities, because of their residence in the neighborhood, to make closer analyses of the intellectual and moral fitness of inexperienced home applicants than they can make of non-residents. Worthy and loyal teachers who are important factors in the community life can render abler service in interpreting the schools to the patrons, and the patrons to the system, than equally well-prepared strangers can give.

Notwithstanding these facts, it is exceedingly dangerous to employ young teachers fresh from the high schools. They have vague notions of the duties teachers must assume, and are able to give no better reason for their employment than Micawber could give for the practice of law. Untrained high-school graduates have been in contact with teaching processes as pupils, while Micawber had been in contact with legal processes many times as defendant.

High-school graduates of worthy character and exemplary habits should be encouraged to take two-years' courses in good normal schools, supported at public expense or by ample endowment, where subject-matter, ideals, and work can in no way be influenced by fees paid for tuition. After the training and the close sifting of well-equipped and well-conducted normal or training schools, the young teachers will be anchored to some fundamental notions so that they can begin to adapt themselves, subject-matter, methods, and government to the capability of the taught. With very few exceptions, the most able and successful teachers in any large system are they who have had professional training in normal schools. It is the experience of most superintendents who have studied the question in all its phases that the probability that young teachers will succeed is greatly increased after graduating from a well-conducted training course.

New blood should be infused into the city school system by selecting some teachers of recognized training, scholarship, successful experience, and pleasing and worthy character from outside every year. It is a menace to the best interests of the schools to erect a wall so high that it is not possible to scale it and secure the most efficient service without regard to municipal or state lines.

The superintendent should base his recommendations for the selection of new teachers upon his own knowledge when possible; and, in other cases, upon honest, expert, disinterested advice from people who, thru contact and visitation, know the teacher at work, and have given attention to the personality, the scholarship, the organization of knowledge as illustrated in the recitation, and the kind and efficiency of his or her discipline. Special care needs to be exercised to distinguish between the personality that wins the visitor because of blandishments, and the personality which guides the children to cheerful and independent work because of the presence of character. As a matter of fact, many selections must be made upon information given by interested parties, such as personal friends and teachers' agencies. In such instances the information should be considered as tentative rather than final; and verification of it ought to be sought from all other sources at command; for all mistakes reflect upon the judgment of the superintendent. The more confidence the community has in the honesty and soundness of the superintendent's judgment, the more hearty and generous will be the support given his

school administration.

ELIMINATION OF TEACHERS WHO ARE NOT INTELLECTUALLY PREPARED

There is hope for the teacher who is weak in scholarship but strong in character. Elimination does not necessarily mean retirement. Weak scholarship in many instances may be overcome.

As a general line of action, it is my opinion that the superintendent should attempt to stimulate self-culture, and thus eliminate weak scholarship by study, observation, and reflection, rather than by dismissals; yet, retirements because of weak scholastic attainments sometimes act as a powerful spur and cause intellectually inefficient teachers to embrace every opportunity to grow in knowledge of facts and plans of organizing them, as well as in methods of teaching. The problem of inefficiency cannot be solved by retiring all teachers of poor scholarship; for frequent changes in teaching force usually lower the vitality of a system of schools. It is well for the superintendent to be animated by a desire to stimulate poor teachers to become fair teachers and fair teachers to become excellent.

Teachers who are inefficient in one grade may sometimes do better work in another

where tact and management count for more than scholarship. Such teachers will usually be found ready and anxious to follow courses of study for self-improvement. The superintendent, or someone under his direction, may form classes in which the facts of the branches, one branch at a time, and the organization of the facts into teaching plans, are taught at stated intervals until the fundamental branches are understood and organized in the minds of teachers of poor scholarship. Teaching plans, such as State Superintendent L. D. Harvey, of Wisconsin, has promulgated, are heartily commended, and might well test both scholarship and the organization of subject-matter with teachers of the class now under consideration.

Summer schools, conducted by educational experts, in which teachers attempt not more than two branches, often help teachers rich in character but poor in scholarship to be able to approach their duties in such a way as to do violence to no child brought under them for instruction and moral guidance.

The most effective means of helping is to win the confidence of teachers of this class and induce them to ask for leave of absence for one or two years to enter upon a scientific study of the branches and the general subject of education in a well-equipped normal school. When they shall have completed the course of study, their places in the system should be opened to them without doubt. I personally know superintendents who have followed this last-mentioned plan to the decided betterment of their schools. Many of the teachers who are thus helped soon prove themselves superior and are in line for promotion when better places are open.

In dealing with all teachers of the class now considered the utmost frankness and the fullest sympathy should characterize the intercourse of the superintendent with them. They need the uplifting influence of honest hearts and friendly hands in overcoming obstacles which stand between them and due proficiency. One of the greatest rewards that may come to a superintendent is the consciousness of having placed about a teacher of poor scholarship and beautiful character such influences as induced her to make preparation for a larger and a fuller life which culture and training enabled her to reach.

ELIMINATION OF TEACHERS WHO ARE NOT MORALLY PREPARED

This topic is one that causes the superintendent the greatest concern. Teachers who are morally prepared have trained and logical minds, high ideals of right and equity, active and sensitive consciences, steady wills, persistent purposes, keen sympathies, and an abundance of common-sense. The teacher who is weak in character lacks in development of mind, of ideals, of manners, of conscience, of steadiness and persistence of will, of sympathy, or of common-sense, but not of all. The teacher who is positively depraved represents arrested development or active degeneration in intellectual or moral lines. Such a person is short-sighted and looks to present selfish gratification.

A very few forms of moral disqualification may be overcome. The indiscreet teacher in her actions outside the schoolroom may sometimes be saved by a frank request from the superintendent that she change her course of conduct concerning the things he sets forth in a firm but pleasant manner. The passive teacher, correct in her own personal habits, lacking power to exert an active, positive influence for right in her pupils, by association as assistant with a positive, aggressive type of teacher may sometimes, but not often, thru imitation, be brought into the light of clearer ideals and caused to take on a disposition to guide the energies of children and secure a power to control.

The nagging teacher, the fuming teacher, the vindictive teacher, the slovenly teacher, the untruthful teacher, the giddy teacher, and many other types of teachers who are not morally prepared, should in very many cases be advised to find other avenues of employment. The school's great aim is to train the character of the pupils, not the character of the teachers. Elimination by substitution is the safest method of dealing with teachers who are morally unfit for their duties.

STIMULATION OF TEACHERS TO FOLLOW RIGHT IDEALS

The superintendent's task of stimulating each individual to do his best in teaching, in managing, and in carrying out plans for private practice or public policy is one that tests training and common-sense. The superintendent who, thru a laudable desire to secure the greatest efficiency, insists that his plans in the minutest details shall be the only guide for individual faith and practice, soon finds himself rated as an educational czar. There is danger that such a man, no matter how great an educator he may be, will kill off by the "starvation plan" individual initiative and hearty support which are always needed to give tone and public confidence.

On the other hand, the "good fellow," who makes it his chief business to "stand in everywhere in the course of time, is looked upon as a person without educational charac

ter.

Such a superintendent is often made the tool of designing egotists with their factional organizations. He becomes unable to enlist effort to improve, because he lacks the power or courage to recognize individual merit by directing attention to personal worth or by promoting deserving persons when opportunity arises.

The superintendent needs, thru contact with teachers and thru observation of their class-room work, where he may estimate the intellectual and moral development of pupils, to have an intimate knowledge of the working power, scholarship, educational philosophy, habits, and abilities of the teachers, that he may encourage them to keep on doing well the things that are done well and to change ideals and practices regarding the duties that are done poorly. Monthly teachers' institutes and grade teachers' meetings at stated intervals, if planned to establish clearer notions of teaching or managing and led by inspiring persons who because of acknowledged success or skill stand for ideas, will give zest and purpose to the system. The best interests of the schools will come from a carefully articulated course which starts with conditions as found and leads to consistent and persistent effort to avoid waste and to move in a straight rather than a broken line of progress.

Schools and teachers, because of standing on the solid ground of right adjustment of matter and method to the pupils, should be pointed out so that they may be studied and the sources of superior merit discovered by less forceful workers. When teachers are busy trying to reach safest methods in guiding activity of pupils so as to result in power and character, they are constructive and positive; they lose no time in tearing down good things.

The superintendent should be secure and steadfast, not easily turned aside by the petty worries and sordid cares of the daily turmoil. Some work may be done by the superintendent whose views are narrow and whose ideals are low, but the best work is done only by the man of large heart, broad views, and habitual singleness of purpose. The great superintendent, who realizes that education is a constant force that operates wherever ideas for good or for evil are alive, lives in the minds of associates as an exemplar of honesty, justice, courage, and courtesy. He should have a personality and stand for something in the educational world and out of it. The elements of leadership will enable him to

"Allure to brighter worlds
And lead the way."

TOPIC II: MODERNIZING THE COURSE OF STUDY

W. A. HESTER, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, EVANSVILLE, Ind.

In his efforts to modernize the course of study, to what extent should the superintendent be governed by: (1) the crack of the college professor's whip? (2) the nervous woman writer's tirade on the "crowded curriculum"? (3) the conclusions of

the notoriety-seeking schoolroom experimenter? (4) the demands of the old-school men that all be eliminated from the course of study excepting the "three R's"?

I have a bright young school friend whom I shall call, for the sake of convenience, Charles Merrill. Mr. Merrill is college-bred, thoughtful, sober, sensitive, and almost painfully conscientious. He voluntarily entered the profession of teaching when quite a young man, and, because of his superior intelligence, close study of his work, tactfulness, and devotion to duty, he was rapidly and deservedly promoted, his last position, and the one which he now holds and has held for nearly six years, being the superintendency of a system of schools in a prosperous western town of about thirty thousand people. As a superintendent he has had what may be termed a rich experience. He related much of it to me during last Christmas holiday week, and it was to me so interesting, so suggestive, and is, withal, so similar to that of many other young superintendents, that I venture to present a portion of it for our discussion here today.

He stated that before he took charge of the schools his board told him that their schools were not up to the standard of certain other schools which they named, and that they would expect him to bring them to such standard as soon as it could be done. Having given the superintendency of schools but little attention, said he, I began at once a careful reading of everything bearing on school management that I could find, and wrote to a number of the writers of articles that had impressed me most deeply for fuller statements of their views.

Several of them replied promptly and elaborately, and their letters have been of great help to me many times since their receipt; but others made assertions and expressed opinions that I could not but regard as being dangerously heterodox; they were so diametrically opposed to what I had been taught to believe was good pedagogy. I, therefore, laid their communications aside, determined to allow the writers to prove the pedagogical worth of their theories themselves, rather than risk testing them myself or allowing them to be tested in the schools for the success of which I should be held personally responsible.

The first and most important duty which the new position brought to me was the revision and improvement of the course of study. The old course, as I found it, provided for work in what we usually term the "eight common-school branches," none of the so-called "fads" finding a place in it.

About the first thing which I did, therefore, was to recommend the introduction of a system of drawing, to which I held with a blind faith in the efficacy of the system, tho I knew little of its real educational value, notwithstanding the fun that was poked at our "mud-pie making," our "scissor-cutting nonsense," and our "failure to turn out artists." A proficient and popular supervisor soon quieted the spirit of unrest, however, and things have gone serenely on in that department of our schools ever since.

The necessity for a complete course of nature work for the grades was also urged upon me, and what appeared to me to be a carefully worked out scheme of nature study was presented to the board, which readily adopted it, and then to the teachers, who sighed, but acquiesced and went faithfully to work to master the new subject as it applied to their respective grades.

Of course, time had to be set apart for the two new subjects of drawing and nature work, and it had to be taken from the time formerly devoted to instruction in the other branches.

Right here the college professor offered his assistance. He commended me for what I had done in "shortening and enriching" the course of study, but said that my work had not gone far enough. He insisted that further eliminations and contraction should be effected in the old-time subjects, and that a full eight-year course in history should be given to the pupils of the grades; that Latin should be begun in the seventh, and that elementary algebra and geometry should be made a part of the eighth-year assignment.

I was persuaded that all this must be done if we would be "up with the times; "