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and defend his assistants. It is, however, possible to over-superintend -to take away too much from the discretion of the teachTeachers need to be carefully studied, as persons, and to be individually understood, so that he may give each one the exact aid, encouragement and criticism that will guarantee the best returns. Work ought always to be judged by results more than by methods, and hence all matters not an essential part of the whole should be entirely left to the discretion of the teachers, giving suggestions and advice where wanted. Good common sense supervision develops all the power of the teachers and enables them daily to grow in judgment, in ability to do, in strength to overcome and in genuine independence. Supervision should emancipate, not enslave; it should develop, not retard; it should assist, not hinder, the wide awake, thorough-going teacher. The individuality of the teacher should be absolutely respected. She should be a queen in her room; and his official treatment of her should never detract from this power and authority which recognizes the dignity and secures the respect due the teacher. Oversight and supervision should stop short of over-organization and over-management. There can be too much uniformity in non essentials, in methods, in management; such uniformity always costs more to maintain than it is worth, and yet it often is the chief and the strong point in a much praised and too frequently admired kind of supervision.

Supervision cannot secure success to any and all would-be teachers. There are some who can not and will not be helped. Efficient supervision weeds out the inefficient and unsatisfactory at the same time that it supports ability, success and power wherever found. Supervision guards well the door of entrance for the new teachers, rather than puts in its time driving unsatisfactory ones from the vocation It gradually builds a good, strong corps, by introducing efficiency, strength and power through the new teachers. Supervision fails if it does not simplify management; if it does not make a teacher's work easier and more efficient; if it does not put the time on work rather than on system and machinery; if it does not strengthen discipline, develop teachers of ability and expertness, and accomplish more in the same time at less cost of effort. System is only a good thing when it serves the interests of the children being educated and trained. It must be sacrificed if it stands in the

way of the prosperity and the right treatment of a single pupil; and it is the province of supervision to attend to the proper management of all affairs so as to render education the quickest, the best and the most practical possible.

VII. THE PEOPLE AND THE SCHOOLS.

He

Lastly, the superintendent must be a man of the people. must know them thoroughly and completely. His acquaintance must reach all kinds and conditions of men, as his work is not alone in the school room and with the children but also with the parents and with the voters. He must be popular with the people and enjoy their full respect, confidence and good will, as only by attaining this condition can he create the necessary public opinion, so essential to the best and highest grade of public educational results. Public opinion is the great factor in the management of schools in America, and it can in America, and it can never be left out of the calculation of probabilities and results. The more important agencies in modern civilization in the forming of public opinion are the local newspaper, the platform and the social organization. Educational departments, sensibly edited, in local papers are effective and far reaching in creating public sentiment; platform addresses on thought-producing topics, from time to time as occasion happens, when carefully prepared and effectively given, set people to thinking and strengthen the tendency to make up good conclusions; educational meetings and socials bringing teachers and people together to consider the problems in hand arouse interest, develop sympathy and produce co-operation.

So important and great is the superintendency that the people are right in setting up so high and so noble a standard. Educational ability, cultivation, unquestioned moral standing, freedom from doubtful and harmful habits, a personal interest in the moral and social welfare of the community, a living interest in childhood, a life of soul giving service and fidelity, are not too much to expect of a leader in educational progress and reform— the one called to the important charge of superintending schools. Since he represents the school board and the people in the very heart of the campaign, he should always maintain a dignity and a reputation that always represents and guards well these greatest of great human interests. These very things cause him to be a greater man than he could otherwise without them be; they give

him more power, more influence, and consequently more responsibility. The work well done exalts the man and glorifies his life so that he, if thoughtful and conscientious, can never forget his duty to the public or the honor that comes through the great province that is confided to his control and direction. Building new school houses, equipping and furnishing schools, securing distinguished talent in teachers, providing for the welfare and health of the children, developing the work, increasing its efficiency, redressing grievances, suppressing evils, battling with vice, making necessary changes, introducing more practical and more useful courses of study, are all comparatively easy of accomplishment when the people feel and know that trustworthy discretion, great wisdom, good judgment, unselfish ability, consecrated personal power, honest manhood, hold control of, direct and manage the sacred interests of education.

THE PERSONAL FACTOR.

FANNY A. COMSTOCK, BRIDGEWATER, MASS.

A street sign, "Union Rescue Mission," recently suggested the thought that the members of the teachers' guild constitute such a mission. This mission does not wait till men have become sinners. It aims to rescue the child from the possibility of degradation, and its task is, therefore, at once the more helpful and the more noble.

More and more must the hope of to-morrow be centered in the boys and girls of to-day. The downward path is really not so much a path as a gulf, whose depths must be sounded by the victims who lose their way over its dangerous edge. Let a boy or girl once enter the Reform School and the chances of his becoming a law-abiding citizen are small. What a solemnity of responsibility, then, rests upon the teacher's dealings with bad boys; and how infinitely the responsibility increases as we widen our view! A nation of full prisons or of full workshops; cities governed with corruption or with equity.

Who shall say how soon the characteristic bias asserts itself? If the final battle with truant tendencies and lawless impulses belongs to the higher grades, we may believe that the process of crystallization into definite modes of thought and action begins in

the very earliest years. Anything that makes school in itself disagreeable is an incalculable misfortune. While it is possible later to strengthen the will into a resolute determination to conquer the task, to work for work's sake, the habit of application, as everyone knows, must depend at first on the unconscious response to agreeable invitations. For a first-year or second-year boy to have formed the habit of neglecting work because he does not like it, or thinks school a disagreeable place, promises badly for the coming years.

We all know the peculiar reasons that make the relation of the school to citizenship more organic and vital here than in most other countries of the world,-every boyish hand may one day drop its ballot. Our nation has, from its founding, been composed of elements so diverse as to need specially wise and firm welding to insure union. These are familiar truths; they echo loudly on the air. None the less must we repeat them often to ourselves if we would remember the true meaning of our work.

It is a fact often stated, that there is too much educational waste. Good tendencies acquired during school life are often lost afterward. While the pupil must be strenuously followed after leaving school, by the watchful care which proffers the allurements of virtue as sedulously as those of vice are presented by tempting voices, may not a more lasting impulse for good be given during the earlier school years? Nothing is more instructive in such questions than to think back and try to gather up the influences that have made us what we are. After all acknowledgement to heredity, most of us would confess an immense debt to certain chance words let fall, certain books read, certain hints received in very early years. And for the groundwork of mental and moral consciousness, have we not to thank, far more than we realize, the personality of the people with whom we had most to do in childhood?

In the word personality we touch the deepest thought that can be reached in such a discussion as this, the answer to all questions concerning the teacher's influence. The charge in a recent editorial that many public school teachers are wanting in the full, rich personality demanded by their profession, was uttered as a familiar fact, due largely to the indifference of the public. Such charges are not to be indignantly resented. While no one would. deny the difficulty of wide, accurate generalization on such a

point, many would be inclined to grant the rule, while emphasizing the exceptions. If we care earnestly for the good name and fame of our profession, we shall welcome any criticism which shows a defect and points the remedy.

It happened to be my fortune, lately, to obtain a glimpse of a teacher's room. It was impossible not to be interested in such signs of mental and moral rank as could be obtained from the outside, hasty glance. An educational paper was observed. Numbers of a juvenile publication were scattered about in profusion. But the book-case was absolutely missing. On the table lay a note-book and two devotional books. The evidences of professional zeal and of a spiritual interest were thus shown, but a gap remained.

It is right to demand much more than this in the guide of childhood. It is not too much to say that the intellectual, æsthetic and moral developments so intertwine and mutually depend on one another that not one can be spared. The day will come when the relation between a teacher's salary and her possibilities of culture will be plainly seen, and tax-payers may sometime transfer the solicitude now felt for the minimum salary into a more worthy solicitude for the maximum culture.

SOCIAL EVOLUTION, BY BENJAMIN KIDD.

JOHN G. TAYLOR, MELROSE.

In a brief paper the quotations must of necessity be few, and yet the suggestiveness of this book cannot be adequately appreciated without careful reading. Many questions are discussed in connection with this theory of progress by conflict between the claims of reason and the claims of religion, such as the future of the inferior races, and the fate of certain views of socialism, and the change in the conception of the religious problems, which are profoundly interesting, but which might come about if some other principle of human progress were found to be true.

Let me suggest two other theories of social progress, for instance, before entering upon a criticism of Mr. Kidd's great discussion, namely,- that advocated by Mr. Huxley and that championed by Mr. Drummond.

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