CHAPTER XXI THE SUPERVISION OF RURAL SCHOOLS No system of schools can run successfully without adequate supervision. It matters not how skilful the teaching, how excellent the equipment, or how perfect the curriculum, there must be over it all some competent authority to unify and direct. Left without necessary supervision the schools are like a complex factory system possessing a supply of material and a full quota of workers, but lacking overseers and foremen to direct the operations. Such a system of manufacture would result in great waste, and would end in financial disaster. Waste from lack of supervision This point is well illustrated in a recent statement made by State Superintendent Hamlett of Kentucky: "Kentucky is spending annually the enormous sum of over three million dollars for rural education, practically without supervision. Here are nine thousand four hundred and eighty-one rural teachers in the service of the state; one thousand four hundred and forty-one of whom are beginners, and each one conducting his school in his own way. Fifty-two cents out of every dollar of state taxes go to public education; the school fund has increased over one million dollars in eight years; the salaries of rural teachers have increased until they average fortyeight dollars and sixty cents per month or two dollars and ten cents larger than the average of salaries of city teachers; and yet, in spite of the heavy tax on the people and the large increase in teachers' salaries, the rural schools are falling farther and farther behind as compared to city schools. What is the cause? Clearly one of the causes, if not the chief one, is a lack of competent direction or supervision of the rural schools." This condition of affairs is not peculiar to Kentucky, however, but is typical in too large a degree of the rural schools in most of the states. Rural schools especially need supervision Rural schools especially should not be left without skilful supervision. For here the problems are the most difficult to be met in the whole school system, the teachers are the youngest both in years and experience, and have had the least preparation and training for their work. The rural teachers, therefore, need and have a right to the help that comes from the sympathetic oversight of a competent supervisor whose knowledge and experience enable him to guide and direct the young teacher in meeting his many perplexing problems. Yet the rural schools have never been given supervision worthy the name. In the earlier days of our history the minister often had added to his clerical duties as a sort of side-line the task of inspecting the school and examining the fitness of the teacher. But with the divorcement of the church and public education, this custom lapsed. The care of the schools was then not infrequently attached to the duties of some public officer who already had duties enough to occupy all his time and interest. Finally, the office of county superintendent was created, and fortyone of the forty-eight states have now adopted the office. It is understood in every state that the specia function of the county superintendent is to oversee the work of the rural schools, special superintendents being employed for the towns and cities. County superintendent and supervision The office of county superintendent may therefore be looked on as typical of our attempt to supervise rural education. This office has played an important part in the development of our educational system, and its thousands of incumbents have on the whole been efficient and deeply devoted to their work. But the office imposes an impossible task on the superintendent. For, while the county is probably the most convenient unit for school organization and administration, it is far too large for successful supervision under one officer. | Counties vary greatly in size in different parts of the country, running from ten or fifteen miles square in some of the eastern states, to more than one hundred miles in certain western states. The average county in the greater part of the country is not far from twentyfive miles square, having therefore an area of some six hundred square miles. In better settled regions such counties have from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty rural schools, and not infrequently as many as two hundred. Together with town and village schools, the county superintendent often has from two hundred to three hundred teachers under his nominal supervision, or as many as would supply a city of forty thousand people. It is, of course, perfectly evident that no personal supervision can be had over the rural schools under such conditions as these. If the county Too great a terrisuperintendent should visit one rural tory to cover school every day that the schools are in session, |