efficient supervision. The very
nature of rural school organization has rendered expert supervision
impossible, no matter how able the supervising officer might be. With
slight modifications, the office of _county superintendent_ is,
throughout the country, typical of the attempt to provide supervision
for the rural school. While such a system may have afforded all that
could be expected in the pioneer days, its inadequacy to meet
present-day demands is almost too patent to require discussion.

First of all, it is physically impossible for a county superintendent to
visit and supervise one hundred and fifty teachers at work in as many
different schools scattered over four or five hundred square miles of
territory. If he were to devote all his time to visiting country
schools, he would have only one day to each school per year. When it is
remembered that the county superintendent must also attend to an office
that has a large amount of correspondence and clerical work, that he is
usually commissioned with authority to oversee the building of all
schoolhouses in his county, that he must act as judge in hearing appeals
in school disputes, that he must conduct all teachers' examinations and
in many instances grade the papers, and, finally, that country roads are
often impassable, it is seen that his time for supervision is greatly
curtailed. As a matter of fact some rural schools receive no visit from
the county superintendent for several years at a time.

A still further obstacle comes from the fact of the frequent changes of
teachers among rural schools. A teacher visited by the county
superintendent in a certain school this term, and advised as to how best
to meet its problems, is likely to be in a different school next term,
and required to meet an entirely new set of problems.

This is all very different from the problem of supervision met by the
town or city superintendent. For the town or city district is of small
area, and the schools few and close together. If the number of teachers
is large, the superintendent is assisted by principals of different
schools, and by deputies. The teaching force is better prepared, and
hence requires less close supervision. School standards are higher, and
the cooeperation of patrons more easily secured. The course of study is
better organized, the schools better graded and equipped, and all other
conditions more favorable to efficient supervision. It would not,
therefore, be just