tion as he can where he feels that his hands are free;
and so in some places supervision may act as a wet blanket. It may
suppress spontaneity, initiative, and real life in the school. But this
is only an abuse of a good thing, and probably does not occur
frequently. In any event, the exception would only prove the rule.
Supervision is as necessary in a system of schools as it is in a
railroad or in large industries.

[Illustration: A basket ball team for the girls]

[Illustration: A brass band for the young men]

[Caption for the above illustrations: ACTIVITIES OF THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL]

=Needed in Rural Schools.=--The country partakes of the same isolation
in regard to its schools as it does in regard to life in general. This
isolation is accentuated where there is little or no supervision.
Without it, the necessary stimulus seldom or never touches the life of
the teacher or the school. There is little uplift; the school runs along
in its ordinary, humdrum fashion, and never measures itself with other
schools, and is seldom measured by a supervisor. A poor teacher may be
in the chair one term and a good teacher another. The terms are short
and the service somewhat disconnected. The whole situation gives the
impression to people, pupils, and teacher that education is not of very
great value.

=No Supervision in Some States.=--In some states there is but little
supervision. There may be, it is true, a district board, but these are
laymen, much better acquainted with the principles of farming than with
those of teaching. They have no standards for judging a school and
seldom visit one. The selection known as the "Deestrict Skule"
illustrates fairly well the ability of the old-time school board to pass
judgment upon the professional merits of the teacher.

=Nominal Supervision.=--In other states there is a county superintendent
on part time who has a kind of general but attenuated supervision over
all the schools of a county. He is usually engaged in some other line of
work--in business, in medicine, in law, in preaching--and can give only
a small portion of his time to the work of superintendence. Indeed,
this means only an occasional visit to the school, probably once every
one or two years, and such simple and necessary reports as are demanded
by the state superintendent or State Board of Education. Such
supervision, however honestly performed, accomplishes but little. The
superintendent may visit the teacher t