372 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1164 



While the ultra-conservative nature of 

 the district system makes it a serious ob- 

 stacle in the way of intelligent educational 

 progress, hardly less important as a hin- 

 drance to the improvement of rural educa- 

 tion is the political and local nature of the 

 ofSce of county superintendent of schools. 

 In twenty-one of the forty-one American 

 states having such an educational office, 

 the person who ought to he the educational 

 organizer and director of the public-school 

 system of the county is, instead, merely 

 another county political official, selected 

 from among the body of the electorate at 

 the county primary and elected at the 

 county political election, serving but a 

 short period in the office, confined largely 

 to statistical and clerical duties, afraid to 

 assume much responsibility for fear of the 

 enemies he will make in the districts, and 

 with little power to put any educational 

 ideas he might have into effect in the ad- 

 ministration of the schools of his county. 

 Generally speaking, the office attracts but 

 few men or women of real training or large 

 capacity for service, and the better trained 

 the superintendent may happen to be the 

 shorter is likely to be his term of service. 

 The office, if we neglect a few well-organ- 

 ized county-unit states, such as Maryland 

 or Utah, offers no educational career to any 

 one, and no premium whatever to any one 

 to make any professional preparation for 

 the organization or administration of rural 

 education. In but few states can a man or 

 woman hope to enter the work of county 

 school supervision — a service of funda- 

 mental importance to the children of half 

 our people — on the basis of educational 

 competency, or to retain the office on the 

 basis of efficient educational service. The 

 result is that the office offers but a tempo- 

 rary job to the few local residents willing 

 to consider political candidacy, and that in 

 but few states do we find any county edu- 

 cational organization capable of rendering 



any real service in the solution of our in- 

 creasingly important rural-life problem. 

 In consequence the education of rural chil- 

 dren is inadequate and misdirected, intelli- 

 gent farmers leave the farai for town in 

 order that their children may have proper 

 educational advantages, but little attention 

 is given to preparation for rural service by 

 either our normal schools or our colleges 

 of education, and but few men or women 

 think of trying to make any preparation 

 for the organization or direction of the 

 work of our rural and small village schools. 

 Passing from the county to the state, we 

 find something of the same conditions pre- 

 vailing. In nearly three fourths of our 

 states the chief educational office of the 

 state labors under the same political in- 

 cubus as does that of the county superin- 

 tendency of schools. Due to the larger 

 area for selection and the enlarged compe- 

 tition, better men are usually secured for 

 the position. As yet, however, but little 

 attention has been given to any serious 

 study of the problems of state educational 

 organization and administration, and the 

 political basis of the selection of the chief 

 educational officer for most of our states 

 places no premium on any other than po- 

 litical preparation. The great improve- 

 ment in the work of some of our state edu- 

 cational departments within recent years, 

 aside from the states where non-partisan 

 appointment from the nation at large has 

 replaced political nomination and election 

 from the state, has been due either to a 

 state superintendent of superior ability ris- 

 ing above the limitations of his office or to 

 the appointment of a number of state com- 

 missioners or agents or specialists, these 

 having been provided for under special 

 laws and given special powers of super- 

 vision and inspection. In but few of our 

 states, though, can we as yet be said to have 

 a well-thought-out educational policy which 

 is being followed for the improvement of 



