community. If teachers are to be appointed by boards or committees, the members of which are particularly sensitive to the desires of people who have votes or influence, looseness of action is inevitable and unworthy considerations will frequently prevail. If the action of a board or committee be conditioned upon the recommendation of a superintendent, the plan will not suffice. No one person is stronger than the system of which he is a part. Such a plan results in contests between the board and the superintendent, and such contests are obviously unequal ones. There is little doubt of the outcome. In recommending the appointment of teachers, the personal wishes of members of the board, in particular cases, will have to be acquiesced in. If a teacher, no matter how unfit, cannot be dropped from the list without the approval of a board or committee after they have heard from her friends and sympathizers, she will remain indefinitely in the service. This means a low tone in the teaching force and desolation in the work of the schools. If the superintendent accepts the situation, he becomes less and less capable of developing a professional teaching service. If he refuses to accept it, he is very likely to meet humiliation; dismissal is inevitable unless he is strong enough to make himself secure by doing the right thing and going directly to the people and winning their approval.

The superintendent of instruction should be charged with no duty save the supervision of the instruction, but should be charged with the responsibility of making that professional and scientific, and should be given the position and authority to accomplish that end.

If the board of education is constituted upon the old plan, he must be chosen by the board. If it is constituted upon the Cleveland plan, he may be appointed by the school director with the approval of twothirds or three-fourths of the council. The latter plan seems preferable, for it centralizes the main responsibility of this important appointment in a single individual. In either case, the law and the sentiment of the city should direct that the appointee shall be a person liberally educated, professionally trained, one who knows what good teaching is and is also experienced in administration, in touch with public affairs and in sympathy with popular feeling.

The term of the superintendent of instruction should be from five to ten years, and until a successor is appointed. In our judgment it should be determinate so that there may be a time of public examination, but it should be sufficiently long to enable one to lay foundations and show results without being carried under by the prejudices which always follow the first operation of efficient or drastic plans. The salary should be fixed by law and not subject to change in the middle of a term or except by law.

For reasons already suggested, the superintendent, once appointed, should have power to appoint from an eligible list all assistants and teachers authorized by the board, and unlimited authority to assign them to their respective positions and reassign them or remove them from the force at his discretion.

To secure a position upon the eligible list from which appointments may be made, a candidate, if without experience, should be required to complete the full four years' course of the city high schools, or its equivalent, and in addition thereto pass the examination of the board of examiners, and complete at least a year's course of professional training in a city normal training school under the direction of the superintendent. If the candidate has had say three years of successful experience as a teacher, he should be eligible to appointment by passing an examination held by a general examining board. This board may be appointed by the board of education, but should examine none but graduates of the high school and training school unless specially requested so to do by the superintendent of instruction. The number admitted to the training schools should be limited, and the examinations should be gauged to the prospective needs of the elementary schools for new teachers. The supply of new teachers may well be largely, but should not be wholly, drawn from this local source. The force will gain fresh vitality by some appointments of good and experienced teachers from outside.

The work of putting a large teaching force upon a professional basis, of making the teaching scientific and capable of arousing minds to action, is so difficult that a layman can scarcely appreciate it. It has hardly been commenced-it has been made possible only-when the avenues of approach to the service have been closed against the unqualified and unworthy. After that, the supervision must be close and general as well as sympathetic and decisive. The superintendent must have expert assistants enough to learn the characteristics and measure the work of every member of the force. They must help and encourage, advise and direct, according to the circumstances of each case. The work must be reduced to a system and the workers brought into harmonious relations. Each room must show neatness and life, and the whole force must show ardor and enthusiasm. By directing the reading, by encouraging an interchange of visits, by organizing clubs for self-improvement, by frequent class, grade, and general meetings, the professional spirit must be aroused and the work ener gized. Those who show teaching power, versatility, amiability, reliability, steadiness, and growth, must be rewarded with the highest positions; those who lack fiber, who have no energy, who are incapable of enthusiasm, who will not work agreeably with their associates, must go upon the retired list. Directness and openness must be en

couraged. Attempts to invoke social, political, religious, or other outside influences to secure preferment must operate to close the door to advancement. In general and in particular, bad teaching must be prevented. In every room a firm and kindly management must prevail and good teaching must be apparent. All must work along common lines which will insure general and essential ends. Until a teacher can do this and can be relied upon to do it, she must be helped and directed; when it is manifest she cannot or will not do it, she must be dismissed; when she shows she can do it and wants to do it, she must be left to exercise her own judgment and originality and do it in her own way. In the schoolroom the teacher must be secure against interference. In all the affairs of the school her judgment must be trusted to the utmost limit of safety. Then judgment will strengthen and self-respect and public respect will grow. The qualities which develop in the teacher will develop in the school. To develop these qualities with any degree of uniformity in a large teaching force requires steady and uniform treatment through a long course of years under superintendence which is professional, strong, just, and courageous; which has ample assistance and authority; which is worthy of public confidence and knows how to marshal facts, present arguments and appeal to the intelligence and integrity of the community with success.

It is the business of the plan of organization to secure such superintendence. It cannot be secured through an ordinary board of edu cation operating on the old plan. It is well known what the influences are that are everywhere prevalent and must inevitably prevent it. It may be secured in the law, and it must be secured there or it will not be secured at all.

In concluding this portion of the report, the committee indicates briefly the principles which must necessarily be observed in framing a plan of organization and government in a large city school system. First-The affairs of the school should not be mixed up with partisan contests or municipal business.

Second-There should be a sharp distinction between legislative functions and executive duties.

Third-Legislative functions should be clearly fixed by statute and be exercised by a comparatively small board, each member of which is representative of the whole city. This board, within statutory limitations, should determine the policy of the system, levy taxes, and control the expenditures. It should make no appointments. Every act should be by a recorded resolution. It seems preferable that this board be created by appointment rather than election, and that it be constituted of two branches acting against each other.

Fourth—Administration should be separated into two great independent departments, one of which manages the business interests and the other of which supervises the instruction. Each of these should be wholly directed by a single official who is vested with ample authority and charged with full responsibility for sound administration.

Fifth-The chief executive officer on the business side should be charged with the care of all property and with the duty of keeping it in suitable condition; he should provide all necessary furnishings and appliances; he should make all agreements and see that they are properly performed; he should appoint all assistants, janitors, and workmen. In a word, he should do all that the law contemplates and all that the board authorizes concerning the business affairs of the school system, and when anything goes wrong he should answer for it. He may be appointed by the board, but we think it preferable that he be chosen in the same way the members of the board are chosen, and be given a veto upon the acts of the board.

Sixth-The chief executive officer of the department of instruction should be given a long term and may be appointed by the board. If the board is constituted of two branches, he should be nominated by the business executive and confirmed by the legislative branch. Once appointed, he should be independent. He should appoint all authorized assistants and teachers from an eligible list to be constituted as provided by law. He should assign to duties and discontinue services for cause at his discretion. He should determine all matters relating to instruction. He should be charged with the responsibility of developing a professional and enthusiastic teaching force and of making all the teaching scientific and forceful. He must perfect the organization of his department and make and carry out plans to accomplish. this. If he cannot do this in a reasonable time he should be superseded by one who can.

The government of a vast city school system comes to have an autonomy which is largely its own and almost independent of direction or restraint. The volume of business which this government transacts is represented only by millions of dollars; it calls not only for the highest sagacity and the ripest experience, but also for much. special information relating to school property and school affairs. Even more important than this is the fact that this government coutrols and determines the educational policy of the city and carries on the instruction of tens or hundreds of thousands of children. This instruction is of little value, and perhaps vicious, unless it is professional and scientific. This government is representative. All citizens are compelled to support it, and all have large interests which it is bound to promote. Every parent has rights which it is the duty

of this school government to protect and enforce. When government exacts our support of public education, when it comes into our homes and takes our children into its custody and instructs them according to its will, we acquire a right which is as exalted as any right of property, or of person, or of conscience can be; and that is the right to know that the environment is healthful, that the management is kindly and ennobling, and that the instruction is rational and scientific. It is needless to say to what extent these interests are impeded or blocked, or how commonly these rights of citizenship and of parentage are denied or defied, or how helpless the individual is who seeks their enforcement under the system of school government which has heretofore obtained in some of the great cities of the country. This is not surprising. It is only the logical result of the rapid growth of cities, of a marvelous advance in knowledge of what is needed in the schools, of the antagonism of selfish interests by which all public administration and particularly school administration is encompassed, and of the lack of plan and system, the confusion of powers, the ab sence of individual responsibility, in the government of a system of schools. By the census of 1890 there are seven cities in the United States, each with a population greater than any one of sixteen states. The aggregate population of twelve cities exceeds the aggregate population of twenty states. Government for education certainly requires as strong and responsible an organization as government for any other purpose. These great centers of population, with their vast and complex educational problems, have passed the stage when government by the time-honored commission will suffice. No popular government ever determined the policy and administered the affairs of such large bodies of people successfully, ever transacted such a vast volume of business satisfactorily, ever promoted high and beneficent ends, ever afforded protection to the rights of each individual of the great multitude, unless in its plan of organization there was an organic separation of executive, legislative, and judicial functions and powers. All the circumstances of the case and the uniform experience of the world forbid our expecting any substantial solution of the problem we are considering until it is well settled in the sentiments of the people that the school systems of the greatest cities are only a part of the school systems of the states of which these cities form a part, and are subject to the legislative authority thereof-until there is a plan of school government in each city which differentiates executive acts from legislative functions, which emancipates the legislative branch of that government from the influence of pelf-seekers; which fixes upon individuals the responsibility for executive acts, either performed or omitted; which gives to the intelligence of the community the power to influence legislation and exact perfect and complete ex