advantages of industry and independence.

This is a very good way of assigning subjects of composition, and, if
well managed, it may be the means of awakening a great interest in
writing among almost all the pupils of a school.

5. Though the superintendents, as such, have, necessarily speaking, no
_teaching_ to do, still they ought particularly to secure the progress
of every pupil in what may be called the _essential_ studies, such as
reading, writing, and spelling. For this purpose, they either see that
their pupils are going on successfully in classes in school in these
branches, or they may attend to them in the section, provided that they
never allow such instruction to interfere with their more appropriate
and important duties.

In a word, the superintendents are to consider the members of their
sections as pupils confided to their care, and they are not merely to
discharge mechanically any mere routine of duty, such as can be here
pointed out, but to exert all their powers, their ingenuity, their
knowledge of human character, their judgment and discretion, in every
way, to secure for each of those committed to their care the highest
benefits which the institution to which they belong can afford. They are
to keep a careful and faithful record of their plans and of the history
of their respective sections, and to endeavor as faithfully and as
diligently to advance the interests of the members of them as if the
sections were separate and independent schools of their own.

A great responsibility is thus evidently intrusted to them, but not a great
deal of _power_. They ought not to make changes, except in very plain
cases, without referring the subject to me. They ought not to make rash
experiments, or even to try many new plans, without first obtaining my
approval of them. They ought to refer all cases which they can not easily
manage to my care. They ought to understand the distinction between _seeing
that a thing is done_ and _doing it_. For example, if a superintendent
thinks that one of her section is in too high a class in Arithmetic, her
duty is not to undertake, by her own authority, to remove her to a lower
one, for, as superintendent, she has no authority over Arithmetic classes,
nor should she go to the opposite extreme of saying, "I have no authority
over Arithmetic classes, and therefore I have nothing to do with this
case." She ought to go to the teacher of the class to which her pupil
had been unw