w for my definite suggestion. It has taken me a long time to get to
it, but I believe it is worth the time. I want you to look upon the
superintendency of your schools as the largest, the most difficult, and
most important position within the bestowal of the city. The mayor's job
doesn't begin to compare with it. And then after you have so rated the
position, I want you to free the man who holds it from all hack-work,
from the details of business management, from anything and everything
that now prevents him from making a careful, scientific, investigative
study of fundamental educational problems that confront him right here
in Grand Forks.

And what are some of those problems, do you ask? Superintendent Kelly
could doubtless name a score of them that he is waiting to get at but
can not for want of time. Let me suggest a few that are confronting our
superintendents all over the land. Nor can I do more than mention them.
I name first this matter of retardation of which I have already spoken.
Why is it that so many children fail of promotion and so have to repeat
grades, thus adding to the expense of the schools? It no longer
satisfies to say, "Because they do not study"--the question is, "Why do
they not study?" Is it the fault of the child, the home, or the school?
And, whosoever it is, how can the difficulty be removed? You would not
in your business suffer a daily loss thru unnecessary friction--thru the
unsatisfactory working of your machinery. You demand the largest and
best output possible for the money expended. Why not the same in the
biggest business enterprise of the city--your schools? But to prevent
the friction, you must know the cause. I want the superintendent to have
time to investigate these matters. All this applies as well to those who
drop out before completing the course as to those merely repeating a
grade. An analogous question: Why do so few, relatively, of the
graduates of the eighth grade enter the high school? And why do so few
of those who enter complete the course? Again, is it because they can
see no real connection between the work of the high school and the work
of life--because it doesn't seem to fit them for anything? These things
should be investigated and, when reasons are found, the remedy applied.
We should know the facts. But all these matters take time, and the days
are only so long and a man's strength always limited. Exhausted by
hack-work, no man can do constructive thinking. An