, finds his knees knocking together; but
after a few months or years of practice he acquires ease, confidence,
and mastery in his work. The same is true of the physician and the
teacher. Some successful experience always counts for much. School
boards, however, often over-estimate _mere_ experience. Poor experience
may be worse than none; and some good superintendents are willing, and
often prefer, to select promising candidates without experience, and
then train or build them up into the kind of teachers they wish them to
become.

=Choosing a Teacher.=--If I were a member of a school board in a
country district where there is either a good one-room school or a
consolidated school, I should go about securing a good teacher somewhat
as follows: I should keep, so to speak, my "weather eye" open for a
teacher who had become known to some extent in all the surrounding
country; one who had made a name and a reputation for himself. I should
inquire, in regard to this teacher, of the county superintendent and of
his supervising officers. I should make this my business; and then, if I
should become convinced that such a person was the one needed in our
school, and if I had the authority to act, I should employ such a person
regardless of wages or salary. If after a term or two this teacher
should make a satisfactory record, I would then promote him,
unsolicited, and endeavor to keep him as long as he would stay.

=A "Scoop."=--Sometimes there is considerable rivalry among the
newspapers of a city. The editors or local reporters watch for what they
call a "scoop." This is a piece of news that will be very much sought by
the public and which remains unknown to the people or, in fact, to the
other papers until it appears in the one that has discovered it. This is
analogous to what I should try to do in securing a teacher: I should try
to get a veritable educational "scoop" on all the other districts of the
surrounding country. The only way to secure such persons is for some
individual or for the school board to make this a specific business. In
the country districts this might be done by one of the leading
directors; in a consolidated school, by the principal or superintendent.
If it is true that "as the teacher so is the school," it is likewise
true that as is the principal or superintendent so are the teachers.

=What Makes the Difference.=--It will be found that a small difference
in salary will frequently make all the differ