have an authoritative source from which the course should emanate, and this should have the force of law. . After us there will arise superintendents whose shoes we are not worthy to lace, and I say now for their speedy coming let us all hope and pray and work. Hon. M. A. NEWELL, State superintendent of public instruction, Baltimore, Md.: I speak with great reluctance on this occasion, as on all occasions. It is only a feeling of duty that brings me up here to-night, with a hope that the sketcher will not be around. It is something like fourteen years since I commenced preaching the gospel of a uniform schedule for country as well as for city schools. When I say the same I mean the same not in degree but in kind. Some time ago I went through all the counties of our State, gathered the teachers around me, offered to them a uniform schedule, explained the nature of it and the advantages, and for two long years my voice was as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. There was no response, except "It is impracticable; it is impossible; we cannot yet do in the country what you do in the city." The best thing, as my friend from Topeka has told us, is to bring in the strong arm of the law. So the State board of education issued a schedule, and by law required it to be enforced in every school of every county in the State. We are fortunate in not being troubled with the independent school district. We have only one, a little school district of about 450,000, the city of Baltimore, the only independent school district in the State. We are fortunate again in having superintendents who do not come in every year or every two years, but whose terms of office are practically for life or good behavior, or some very sudden turn up in politics. We have one gentleman who has been superintendent of his county for twenty-one years. We have now, what we have not always had, a tenure of office on the part of the teachers which is practically for life or during good behavior. The order upon the subject is simply this-that a teacher once appointed legally retains his office until he resigns or is dismissed. The power of prompt dismissal is still retained but is seldom exercised. With a uniform body of superintendents and a fairly uniform body of teachers there is not much difficulty in having a uniform course of study. The county superintendent makes quarterly, or half yearly or yearly, a uniform set of questions for his county. These are answered by the teachers and the result reported to him. Then we have diplomas for those who have passed the grammar grades and others for the high school grades. I shall add only a single observation in reference to what the superintendent of Kansas said when he seemed to insinuate that the country schools are at a disadvantage as compared with the city schools. I have not found this disadvantage. I find that although nominally in the list of graded studies your pupil from the high school of the city is ahead of the high school pupil from the country, and probably of grammar school pupils of the same grades. but when they get to work you can get more work from the country boy or girl than from the city boy or girl. I do not know that they will pass as good an examination, but I do say when you get to work that the best work is done by the country children. Hon. J. W. HOLCOMBE, Indianapolis, Ind.: I should like to call out a former superintendent from Indiana whom I am pleased to find here. I am quite sure that the convention would like to hear from Mr. M. A. Mess. Mr. M. A. MESS, Washington, D. C.: Fellow-teachers: I can stand before this audience with entire impunity from the sketchtaker, because I am a Government clerk, and the Government clerk is not noticed by the sketchtaker or anybody else particularly. For five years I was actively engaged in the work of superintending the schools of a county in Indiana, and I can speak from experience on the subject of gradation. The point made by the State superintendent of Kansas, that the course of study should emanate from the State superintendent, I think is not well taken, from the fact that the State superintendent is too far removed from the immediate working force of the county. The work of gradation must emanate from the working force in the county. For four years we agitated in our county the work of gradation against all objections. We found that advocating it did not help it along; we had to take hold of it ourselves and push it forward. The first thing we did in our county was to prepare not only a course of study, but brief and pointed directions how to put that course of study into practical operation in the school room. The course of study that we prepared at that time of course was not based upon experience. We had to take what we considered a practical plan, and although we did not labor under the difficulties that some of the speakers here have mentioned of having an independent district, &c., yet we had all of the other difficulties that are common to country schools. The children are distributed over wide territories, they have difficulty in attending school regularly, the terms of the schools are varied from three to ten months, each beginning everywhere from September to December, and yet we had to make our course of study and the practical operation of it so flexible that it will satisfy all these difficulties to a certain extent. What was to be done? We had to bring order out of chaos. Our board divided the work that was expected to be done in the district schools. The mastery of the common school branches had to be so distributed over the proper length of time and properly adjusted, so that each pupil could complete the course at that time. I think, too, that our course of study was adapted for the State. There were fifty different systems from different counties, each having a different course of study and plan of operation, yet åll reaching forward and tending to accomplish the end in view. From all of these courses of study which emanated, not from the State superintendent, not from the central authority of the State, but from each county superintendent and the teachers, we built up a harmonious whole. In the States where this has not been accomplished, I hold that the work must begin with the teacher. If your teaching force is not educated up to the point that the work of the pupil must be reduced to a system, your teacher is not ready for the work of grading a school. The county superintendent, in all States where there is one, should be the leader in this matter, and should not only arrange the course of study but should prepare a hand-book to put into the hands of the teacher that will guide him in the arrangement of his work and in carrying it out. This book need not bind the teacher to any particular system of instruction, or to any particular method or plan; it should simply be placed in his hands to form a general, guide to lead him in the right direction, to put his schools upon such a basis as will bring them together, draw them to a converging line, and be able to build them up on a classified basis. A course of study issued by the State authority is very good theoretically, but you will find that the teacher, the country teacher, will always look upon it as something which is handed down from a person who does not come into practical contact with the work. Therefore, educate your teachers and your teaching force to the necessity of reducing the work of the district schools to a system of arranging the work of the children in such way as to make a systematic whole. You will find that you will accomplish more by beginning at home and working from the immediate source than you will by commencing at the top and working downwards. Hon. B. S. MORGAN, State superintendent of public instruction, Charleston, W. Va.: I do not rise to discuss this subject, but to make a statement in regard to Monongalia County, West Virginia, and its public schools, when we undertook the grading of the schools in that county. The good work which was set on foot by Mr. Wait met with serious obstruction by his going out of office by a change in the law, abolishing the office of county superintendent. That lasted for two years. At the next session of the Legislature the law was again changed and required the superintendent to visit the schools. At that time I was elected county superintendent, and prepared an outline course for the schools that has been in operation ever since, and is to-day. I am glad to say that twenty counties in the State have these published outlines. You will see from this that it is not a dead letter in West Virginia, but we have the same obstructions in the way that we have everywhere. The work is going forward, and we expect to try at our next State educational association to prepare a plan and try to have it adopted at the next session of the Legislature for the entire State. In this purpose we have some facilities. We have a one-book series for the entire State, and we think that this will be one facility towards the adoption of a course of study for the entire State. We are heartily in sympathy with the work in West Virginia, and expect to push it forward until we have a course of study for the entire State. Hon. A. G. LANE, superintendent of schools, Cook County, Illinois: Just one word. I wish to call attention to this-that in every State there is an average, an expected requirement of work for every country school under the State law. If there can be an outline prepared and issued from the State department covering this minimum of requirement of the State law, accompanied by suggestions that are helpful, that are simply to direct, so that from this department to every county there can be issued this general outline, and upon that outline superintendents may have the power to enlarge or limit, or improve as the necessities of the case may require, we have then the foundation that the State law demands, and with such an outline as spoken of in the paper of Mr. Holcombe as required in Indiana, giving perfect freedom for the superintendent to enlarge or limit, as he may desire, and as the needs of his school may require, we have found the means by which you may reach all of the counties of the State, those counties that are neglected in their supervision, and when the State superintendent is in harmony with the great movement to reach all the schools and all the children, to arouse public sentiment and assist the county superintendents in enforcing this outline, in directing the educational work, and in arousing public sentiment in regard to the education of the children, then we have laid the foundation that can be built upon everywhere, an outline that can be made to suit the necessities of South Carolina at the present time, or of North Carolina, which will be different from that which is required in the States of New York and Pennsylvania. So, Mr. President, it seems to me that the work is progressing. Let us hope that there may be this outline embracing the minimum of requirement of the law as presented by the State department, leaving the county superintendent free to act upon it as the necessities may require. Upon the conclusion of Mr. Lane's remarks, at 12.45 o'clock, the convention adjourned. EIGHTH SESSION. The convention was called to order at 1.30 o'clock, Thursday, March 17, 1887. The committee appointed to take under consideration the paper of Dr. Andrew J. Rickoff, on "A Teacher's Certificate, County, City, State, and National," through their chairman, Dr. B. A. Hinsdale, presented the following report: The committee to whom were referred Mr. Rickoff's paper on the certificates of teachers, respectfully report: 1. Inasmuch as four-fifths or more of the teachers in the rural district schools of almost, if not all, the States are mere apprentices in the business of teaching, and inasmuch as tact in government and skill in the work of instruction is as much needed by the teacher as literary and scientific attainments, it is clear (1) That successive examinations of beginners should be directed to induce improve ment in the branches of study required and in the art of teaching (2) That the certificates of this class of teachers should be limited to six months, or at most one school year; (3) That they should be limited to the territorial jurisdiction of the board or other authority by which they were issued; and (4) That when the examining authority is a county superintendent of schools he should himself hold a first-grade teacher's certificate, and when it consists of a board of examiners it should contain one or more persons who hold such certificates. 2. Teachers who have had five years of successful experience and hold first-grade certificates should be relieved of the necessity of periodical examinations on obtaining State certificates from a State board of examiners, or other State authority appointed by law for that purpose. 3. State certificates should be valid throughout the State in which they are issued, and should be accepted as valid in other States under such conditions as may be established by law in the respective States. 4. The representatives of the several States in the Department of Superintendence may facilitate the policy herein recommended by considering at this, or subsequent meetings, whether the conditions of this reciprocity should be based on equal conditions of certification in the several States, or whether the certificates of one State should be accepted by other States for their face value. 5. The profession of teaching should fix its own standard independent of the State (and without regard to service in the public schools), and this committee would respectfully suggest the consideration by this Department and by all State teachers' associations of the practical means by which this may be realized. Respectfully, The resolutions were adopted. B. H. HINSDALE. The president then introduced Hon. WARREN EASTON, State superintendent of public education in Louisiana, who read the following paper: THE BEST SYSTEM OF STATE SCHOOL SUPERVISION. Mr. President and Gentlemen: It is not the purpose of this paper to present any dogmatic views as to the "best system of State supervision," but simply to make it a basis of discussion. I feel that this is the most important question that the convention has had before it, and one upon which time and careful study should be bestowed. I believe that upon a proper State supervision depends the perfect development of the common school system of the country. As all great bodies move and are controlled systematically, so should the educational work of a State be so systematized as to move in perfect unison; all departments should so fit one to another that there would be no adverse friction. To establish this ideal system has been the desire of our educators since schools have been founded, and, possibly, before it is perfected as many more years will have rolled around as have come and gone since the establishment of the free school system. I believe that to-day every State and Territory has made the proper beginning towards the establishment of a system of State supervision. |