would have its own high school. We need these high schools to articulate the common schools with the University of Virginia and the other higher institutions of learning. We need them also to prepare teachers for the common schools. The proportion of college and normal school graduates who are teaching in the public schools is very small. The great majority of our teachers have had no other training than that which they received in the district. schools. The wonder is that so many of these teachers are doing such excellent work, since it is an educational maxim universally accepted that no one should undertake to teach a grammar school who has not had at least a good high school education. Nearly all the faulty teaching in our public schools is due to the fact that the teachers have not got the firm grasp on the subjects that only a thorough high school or collegiate education will give. They lack the power to handle the subjects in the course of study, and instead of having a complete mastery over the books they pretend to teach, they are slaves to the books and weak imitators of those whose methods they do not understand.

The public high schools then are to be the hives from which must come the swarms of teachers who are to work in our common schools. The normal, the college, and the university graduates will naturally seek the more favored positions, and even if we could command all of them who expect to follow the profession of teaching they would form but an insignificant part of the great number of teachers required for the public schools of the State. We must look then to the public high schools to train the teachers for our common schools.

The diffusion of public high schools throughout the rural districts would render an inestimable service to the Commonwealth by kindling in thousands of boys and girls a desire to get something more than a primary or a grammar school education. Our public and private institutions of higher learning would be filled with ambitious and aspiring students who otherwise might never have felt the thirst for knowledge. Such high schools would become the social and intellectual centers of the surrounding country. Their assembly halls would afford opportunities for the meeting of local associations formed for the enjoyment and improvement of the people of the community. Popular lectures, debates, concerts, and other social and intellectual functions would here tend to elevate the tone of the people and render country life richer and more en

joyable. We have our primary and our grammar schools in the rural districts, but we need the rural high schools to fill the hiatus between these schools and our State institutions of higher learning. When this is done we shall begin to realize the dream of Jefferson for a complete system of public education from the primary school to the university. After the consolidation of the small district. schools I can conceive of nothing that would do more to enhance the cause of public education or confer a greater boon on the people than the establishment of a good public high school in every rural district.

SUPPLY OF TEACHERS.

As I have indicated above, one of the most crying needs of our public schools is better equipped teachers. But it can hardly be expected that the schools can command the services of thoroughly educated teachers without offering them more adequate compensation for their work. The average salary of male teachers in Virginia public schools, including cities as well as counties, is only $32.09, while that of female teachers is $26.39. The average salary of the rural male teacher hardly exceeds twenty-five dollars per month, and that of the rural female teacher will probably not exceed twentytwo. When one reflects that the term of the country school in Virginia rarely extends beyond five or six months, one must be amazed that so many excellent teachers can be found in our rural schools.

The salaries of teachers should not be regulated by the law of supply and demand. We should endeavor to secure the best teachers for our schools, and we should pay them good living salaries. In order to do this, we shall have to consolidate the small country schools, lengthen the school term, and raise more money by State and local taxation for school purposes. We could then give our teachers an honest year's work and an honest year's wage. Many more of our most promising young men and women would then be induced to prepare themselves by special professional training for the work of teaching, and it would not be so difficult to retain such teachers in our rural schools, since many of them would prefer this service from family or social connections or from a natural preference for country life.

The following table, compiled from the latest report of the United States Commissioner of Education, shows the average monthly salaries of the teachers in the various States of the Union:

It should be borne in mind that the foregoing table includes the salaries of the city teachers as well as those from the country, and only in a few States is the average school term more than seven or eight months long. It is fair to presume that country teachers generally find employment for only five or six months. In only two of the States given above is the average salary of the public school teachers smaller than in Virginia. These are the States of North and South Carolina, in which educational conditions are nothing like so favorable as in Virginia. It would thus seem that we are not paying our teachers the salaries that they deserve, and it is not to be wondered at that men and women who can get larger salaries in other fields of endeavor leave the schoolroom for occupations that offer them a better living.

When teachers are paid as much for their services as persons of like ability and accomplishments can get in other vocations, then we may expect to retain in the service of the State those who have the capacity and the learning necessary, to the work of efficient teaching. It is unreasonable to expect young men and women to go to the expense of equipping themselves for the work of teaching when the

salaries paid are so inadequate and the school term so short. We must lengthen the term and increase the pay of our teachers before we can expect to attract persons of ability and culture into our schools with the hope of retaining them as teachers for any considerable length of time. As long as we continue to pay such slender salaries and have such short terms for our rural schools, just so long must we expect the profession of the teacher to be considered a steppingstone to more lucrative positions.

STATE BOARD OF EXAMINERS.

The necessity for a State Board of Examiners is so self-evident a proposition to every well-informed person that to discuss it would be like arguing to establish the axiom that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. And yet it would seem that a statement of the needs that are felt in Virginia for the organization of such a piece of educational machinery must be made before we can hope to induce our law-makers to consent to such legislation as will give shape and vital force to what every ambitious and welleducated teacher recognizes as a prime factor in our system of public instruction.

We are all convinced of the necessity of a uniform system of examination requirements in a unified system of public instruction. For years we have had the uniform examination questions, but we are probably as far away from a uniform system of grading as we were when every examiner made out his own examination questions. First-grade certificates in some counties do not represent any higher attainments or greater fitness to teach than do third-grade certificates in other jurisdictions I have in mind a case in which a teacher who held a first-grade certificate in one jurisdiction of this State, and who, on being examined in another county, barely made a thirdgrade certificate. Any system of public instruction that renders possible such inequality of grading is unjust to well-qualified teachers and ruinous to the schools. In fact, we can hope for no permanent improvement of the schools throughout the State till we elevate the standard of attainment on the part of the teachers and crowd out of the system those who cannot and will not fit themselves in the highest sense for the great work of educating the children of the State. Nepotism, the bane of so many communities in the appoint

ment of teachers, cannot be eradicated till we have an impartial central board of examiners to pass upon the papers of all who apply for positions in the public schools. Influences that the strongest men would find hard to resist are frequently brought to bear on superintendents to induce them to certificate candidates for teachers' places that either failed in the examination or declined to stand the uniform examinations in the hope of getting a special examination or of getting an expired certificate renewed or extended even against the letter and spirit of the law.

That indefinable quality that we call the professional spirit of the teacher cannot develop under a system that allows ignorance and unfitness to triumph over intelligence, capacity, and successful experience, as is not unfrequently the case in the election of teachers for our public schools. If we are to hold the best talent in the school-room we must make the tenure of teachers' positions sure against the assault of local favoritism and political machination. We must let every well-qualified teacher feel that his or her position is safe as long as the duties are faithfully and efficiently discharged, and that no change will be made except for good cause. The possession of a certificate from the State Board of Examiners as a prerequisite for election to a position in the public schools would eliminate nearly all the trouble that arises on account of the displacement of good and faithful teachers to make place for needy relatives or local favorites who may be able to summon enough of political or personal influence to secure for them positions that they have neither the learning nor the capacity to fill.

The professional course of study, the value of which for our public school teachers is recognized by every one acquainted with local. conditions, cannot be carried out without the intervention of the State Board of Examiners. The Department of Public Instruction, with its all too slender force of officials, cannot undertake the task of correcting the papers of the teachers who are with commendable zeal and in constantly increasing numbers entering from year to year on the prosecution of the studies embraced in this course. To make this course of study productive of the best results and to give due weight to the certificates of those who complete it, we must have the State Board of Examiners. To state this proposition is to prove it. The aim of this course is to elevate the standard of attainment among the public school teachers and to place those who complete it