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quote anything that they said in their personal letters to me in answer to my questionnaire.

The following statements came from superintendents in cities varying in population from 30,000 to 100,000:

"For teachers who study along professional lines or who carry one academic study or who do summer work in an approved summer school, credit is given so that they can reach the maximum salary in five years."

"To encourage those who do not have a first-grade certificate, a renewal of certificate s based upon certain pedagogical studies prescribed by the superintendent. This work not only counts for a renewal of certificate, but also applies toward securing a highergrade certificate."

"Teachers are required to pursue some line of professional study during the entire school year. At monthly meetings the subject is discussed and reports made upon the same."

"For the past few years we have organized courses in the evening school which have taken up certain lines of work that would be of advantage to teachers, and the teachers in different grades have been required to take these courses. The class thus organized meets once a week during the winter. For instance, the primary grades one winter had geography, taking special methods with some outline work in geography; the grammar grades taking history. Two or three courses of lectures during the following winter will be arranged, one along lines of general culture, and the others more definitely professional.” "When once appointed, a certain amount of professional work prescribed by the superintendent is required each year as a condition for the renewal of a city certificate, which technically expires at the end of each year. This professional work may include the reading and study of some book or attendance upon a course of university-extension lectures, as was the case last year and this year. This is regarded as the mimimum amount of professional work. Two years ago each teacher was permitted to choose some branch of study upon which a report was given at the close of the year."

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The most definite schemes of promotional or professional examinations which have come to me as a result of my investigations are those now carried on in Chicago, Kansas City, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Saginaw and Springfield, Ohio. It will be observed that all these cities are large except Saginaw and Springfield, each of which has a population of less than 50,000. In outlining the scheme as planned by each of these cities, I shall take into account only the essential features.

In Chicago the promotional examinations, which have now been discontinued by vote of the school board, were given at the end of the sixth year of service. At that time if the teacher's mark for efficiency in the schoolroom was 80 or above, she was permitted to take a promotional examination, and on passing it to receive an increase in salary. These promotional examinations included: (1) an examination in a professional study-psychology, pedagogy, and history of education, and (2) an examination in one of a number of academic subjects. The mark which a teacher received was the average of those received in (1) an academic subject, (2) a professional paper, and (3) the efficiency of the school work. This system was begun in 1902. So many Since writing this statement I have learned, as noted below, that Chicago has given up the promotional examination.

teachers wished to take these courses that Chicago was obliged to adopt a normal-extension scheme, in accordance with which a group of teachers in any part of the city desiring to pursue a definite line of study was furnished by the school board with a room and a teacher without cost to the group. The enrollment in such classes in 1904-5 was about 3,000. It should be noted that not all of these teachers were studying for promotional examinations. The most popular classes were in the various branches taught by normal instructors who presented the studies from the standpoint of their pedagogical significance.

In Kansas City the first professional examination may be taken at the close of the fifth year of service, when there is an increase of salary if the examination is passed, and the second may be taken one year later. The first professional examination covers the following subjects: history of education, philosophy of education, school management, and English literature; and the second includes history of education, philosophy of education, school management, and history of western Europe. Any teacher, after passing the second examination, shall receive a salary of $800, and on teaching at that salary for one year shall receive a salary of $825 per year, if the superintendent so recommends. But none of these professional examinations are given to teachers who have not shown advancement in teaching and governing that is satisfactory to the supervision. Superintendent Greenwood reports a “remarkable awakening," and says that "mental activity is aroused which indicates a genuine revival of learning."

In Baltimore, the first promotional examination may be taken during the third year of service, and the second two years later, provided the teacher's schoolroom record is satisfactory. The first examination consists of an "impersonal written test in the correct and effective use and interpretation of English," and the second of a thesis upon some schoolroom problem. The teacher is expected to make, before an examining committee, an oral defense of the statements appearing in the thesis, and to offer an explanation of all the authorities quoted and cited by page references and in marginal notes. It will be noted that the second examination is distinctly professional. It does not necessarily demand originality, but it tends to develop it, and it also encourages a sympathetic study of children, individually and collectively, not only in their school life but in their outside environment.

In Boston, promotional examinations are based upon (1) success in school during the preceding year, (2) professional study, and (3) academic study in some one line. The rule of the Board is as follows:

All teachers whose compensation is on a sliding scale with a fixed increase for each succeeding year of service must take the promotional examination next following the second anniversary of the date on which they began service.

The first examination may be taken before the end of the second year of service and the second at the end of the seventh year.

In Cincinnati, the advance in salary for special study of some kind is not given until the end of the tenth year of service. At that time the teacher is

receiving $800 per annum. According to the rule, "elementary-grade teachers who have taught one year or more at a salary of $800 shall be entitled to an increase of salary the following year, provided they present satisfactory evidence that they have done sufficient scholastic or professional work" while teaching in Cincinnati to entitle them to a total of eight credits. These credits. are given for university courses and for club work of recognized character under the direction of a leader whom the superintendent approves. The clubs are conducted by the principals of the schools. To this scheme there are no examinations whatever attached.

In Saginaw, a course of professional study and reading must be taken before the teacher can receive the second-year salary. In either the second or third year the teacher is required to make a written report on some school problem-a report which may take the form of a study of a group of children. Every year thereafter, a course of reading must be taken by a teacher before there can be an increase in salary.

Springfield, Ohio, has just adopted a merit system, the principal feature of which, as I understand from a newspaper report, is that at the end of three years of satisfactory service, during which salaries rise at a fixed rate per annum, further increase in salary shall depend upon passing an éxamination. in English and on some professional study.

It is to be noted that all of these schemes are alike in the double purpose of (1) making the basis of salary increase improved efficiency and not length of service, and (2) of stimulating teachers to continue professional and cultural study.

If there were time, it would be of interest to comment upon the difference in the character of the professional and cultural work called for; upon the number of years in each case, during which, the salaries rise automatically as a result of increased experience, and at the end of which the special work must be done before any further increase of salary can be made; and upon the number of examinations given and the extent of the special work required in each city. Such comparisons would be fruitful in suggestion and can be easily made by anyone who may be inclined to do so.

But it will serve my present purpose to call attention to the fact that in most of the cities where these merit systems are in operation the teachers may take the examinations or not at their discretion. As a matter of fact, there is abundant evidence that many teachers continue both their professional and their cultural studies after they have reached the maximum salary. This is a highly important consideration, but it is exactly what we should expect. For a large proportion of American teachers have high aspirations and large ideals, and if they are offered suitable opportunities for growth they will cheerfully and eagerly seize them. Said Superintendent Greenwood, in answering my questionnaire, "Last year 89 of our grade teachers took some university work. with a view of getting degrees. They were of the number that had taken both professional examinations, and a large class is carrying forward such work this

year. All this is the result of our professional examinations for the advancement of salaries." Superintendent Van Sickle wrote: "Many teachers under our system who are not obliged to take examinations to secure advance in salary, are just as anxious to avail themselves of professional and cultural courses as are those who have in view promotional examination. . . . . At present there are 247 teachers taking courses in English, between 40 and 50 taking courses in botany, and 1,237 have applied for courses offered in educational psychology."

This definitely organized movement to condition the advance in salary upon the value of the service rendered, and to measure such value not by length of service but by increased efficiency as determined partly by professional interest on the one hand and by specialized knowledge and general scholarship on the other, signifies much for the future of American public schools. For no matter how greatly we may criticize the details of the various schemes just outlined, each has a commendable purpose, and that purpose is to aid in putting sound scholarship and a fine teaching spirit into every school

room.

Such is the brief statement I have to make to this body as a result of my investigations into the means employed in various school systems throughout the country to stimulate the growth of teachers. If it is true, as has often been said, that the teacher makes the school, and if it is equally true, as I believe, that the superintendent and his co-workers in supervision have much to do with making the teacher, the transcendent value of our work in its bearing upon professional interest and scholastic attainment must be strikingly evident to all.

ROUND TABLES

A. ROUND TABLE OF STATE AND COUNTY SUPERIN

TENDENTS

TOPIC THE COUNTRY SCHOOL AND ITS BETTERMENT

HOW TO IMPROVE RURAL SCHOOLS

KATHARINE L. CRAIG, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION; DENVER, COLORADO The great and all-absorbing topic in the educational world today and one, I might say, which has been of vital importance for the last half-century, is, "How to improve the rural schools."

The typical school of half a century ago was the district school, rural in thought, rural in manners, with its rude benches, its battered seats, its wood stove, its austere teacher, and its iron discipline.

In many parts of our country the conditions which existed then exist now, but this is an exception rather than a rule.

The rural school no longer consists of the rude log hut or the one-room frame building but in nearly every locality it has been supplanted by well-constructed brick buildings, well lighted, well heated, and well ventilated. The rooms have all the modern equipments in seats, desks, books, charts, and maps necessary for the acquiring of knowledge. Even

the walls are no longer left bare to look down with a stony stare, but many of them have reproductions of famous paintings and statuary of exquisite mold.

Many of the defects of the old school have been remedied in our more modern educational system, and modern methods all elaborately wrought out and handed down for use; yet the question still remains, "How can we best improve the rural schools ?"

We frequently hear the inquiries, “Are our rural schools doing all that they can do ?” "Are they doing all that we have a right to expect them to do?" and "What are the most efficient means to increase their usefulness ?"

These are healthful inquiries made at an opportune time and may be answered from different view points, according to locality, population, and financial conditions, for the problems which confront the rural schools are many sided, and the solutions bearing upon the educational process and upon their administrative questions of ways and means are greatly varied.

The problem is a great one also because it lies at the heart of our educational system, affecting it at its very center, and it is certain to affect the character of our citizenship as it is correctly or incorrectly solved.

The rural school may be considered the thermometer which marks the rise and fall of public opinion and public interest. It rises to the height, or drops to the level according to the conditions by which it is surrounded.

As superintendents we boast with pardonable pride of the best-conceived and bestexecuted school system in the world, and frequently we are heard to say that from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific shores, from the breezy Northwest to the southern states, the forward progress of education is such as to awaken the pride and admiration of the whole thinking universe, and in our loud acclaim we often forget the thousands of men, women, and children who throng our states, and who cannot read nor write. And when educational statistics bring them vividly to mind we simply look wise and deplore the condition of the rural schools; and while many of these schools may be weak and poor and miserable, they are not wholly responsible for their condition. Still the questions characterizing able results attained by system, organization, consolidation, and efficient superintendency are ever confronting us.

In this broad land of ours there are thousands of rural-school districts administered by local officials, many of whom have only a mimimum training for the duties which devolve upon them, and who cannot always justly manage school interests. This condition is inherent and insuperable in sparsely settled localities, for the average country district does not always contain three men or women adequately equipped for school administration. Therefore the only way by which a thoroughly efficient administration can be secured is to abolish the numerous local boards and elect a county board of directors of several members who are well able to control school affairs, and clothe them with all the powers of local directors, duly compensating them for their services. This would not necessarily necessitate the consolidation of the rural districts, neither would it necessitate the change of the present laws relating to the distribution of public-school funds, but it would eliminate petty quarrels, jealousies, and sometimes inefficient school management. The schools in Europe are controlled from a central power, and while this method of national control of schools would not be deemed advisable under our form of government, yet as a county measure it would surely and certainly prove a solid foundation upon which to build good schools.

The present means which we have of overcoming or correcting inefficient school administration is through the supervision of the county superintendent, who in a marked degree is responsible for the educational standard in every district in his county, since it is made his duty, by law, to exercise a careful supervision over the schools of his county and to aid the superintendent of public instruction in unifying the work basing it upon scientific principles of definite working-plans. These working-plans must have for their

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