n from the better school positions;
hence the great majority of county superintendents come from the village
principalships, the grades of town schools, or even from the rural
schools.

A marked tendency of recent years has been to elect women as county
superintendents. In Iowa, for example, half of the present county
superintendents are women, and the proportion is increasing. In not a
few instances women have made exceptional records as county
superintendents, and, as a whole, are loyally devoted to their work.
They suffer one disadvantage in this office, however, which is hard to
overcome: they find it impossible, without undue exposure, to travel
about the county during the cold and stormy weather of winter or when
the roads are soaked with the spring rains. Whether they will be able to
effect the desired cooerdination between the rural school and the
agricultural interests of the community is a question yet to be settled.

In spite of the limitations of the office of county superintendent,
however, it must not be thought that this office has played an
unimportant part in our educational development. It has exerted a marked
influence in the upbuilding of our schools, and accomplished this under
the most unfavorable and discouraging circumstances. Among its occupants
have been some of the most able and efficient men and women engaged in
our school system. But the time has come in our educational advancement
when the rural schools should have better supervision than they are now
getting or can get under the present system.

The first step in improving the supervision, as in improving so many
other features of the rural schools, is the reorganization of the
system through consolidation, and the consequent reduction in the number
of schools to be supervised. The next step is to remove the supervising
office as far as possible from "practical" politics by making it
appointive by a non-partisan county board, who will be at liberty to go
anywhere for a superintendent, who will be glad to pay a good salary,
and who will seek to retain a superintendent in office as long as he is
rendering acceptable service to the county. The third step is to raise
the standard of fitness for the office so that the incumbent may be a
true intellectual leader among the teachers and people of his county.
Nor can this preparation be of the scholastic type alone, but must be of
such character as to adapt its possessor to the spirit and ideals