ety and justice, be imposed upon the Clerk or Probate Judge; while our County Boards of Examiners, Township Clerks and Township Boards of Education, are expected to do much arduous labor for nothing; their duties are therefore not unfrequently performed in a careless, imperfect and unsatisfactory manner, not altogether to be unexpected.

Yet upon these very officers the success or failure of our school system depends. They are the executive, who bring the school law into immediate contact with the people, and through whom the people feel and experience its practical workings. How important, then, it be comes, that the school law should, in all its details, be intelligently and judiciously administered, that those most interested in its success, should have the most favorable opportunity of testing its merits! Yet what can be expected, when on examining our school laws, we find them entrusted, for their execution, to men who either serve for nothing, or who cannot but regard them as a burden forced upon their office in addition to other exacting duties!

The most serious objection which the opponents of the present school system have been able to urge against it is, that it is unwieldy and cumbersome in its details; that Township Boards of Education are a useless innovation, that they are uninformed in regard to their duties, unman ageable in their action, and given to tyranny. This, perhaps, its friends also have found to be its most salient point. It is not often that additions simplify, they! rather tend to complicate; but, in the present instance, our school system needs but one addition to make it so simple, so direct, so concentrated, and so harmonious in its action, that no further obstacles will exist calculated to impede us in our rapid progress to perfection.

The establishment of County Common School Superintendents is referred to, and the remainder of this article will be devoted to sugges tions and remarks upon the duties pertaining to such an office.

As the school interests of the whole State are centralized in one head, recognized as the School Commissioner, so the school interests of each county should be centered in one responsible local officer.

In presenting a sketch suggestive of the duties of County Superintendents of Common Schools, a few remarks illustrative or explanatory of the same, may not be altogether inappropriate.

I. The County Superintendent of Common Schools should be, ex officio, president of every Township Board of Education. It should be his duty to convene the same by public notice, properly published, twice a year, and to preside at all their regular and adjourned meetings, of which he should see that an accurate record is kept.

As our Township Boards of Education now exist, many of them are broad farces. There is neither order, system or regularity in themnothing but confusion. The most important interest of community, in many townships, appears only to obtain a struggling existence at all, because it is hard to annihilate so important a local affair so long as there are public funds to be distributed and Common School Teachers to secure them.

There are many well-intentioned and intelligent men in our Township Boards of Education, but they are not a majority, and are not always so circumstanced that they can exercise a leading influence, and control the action of the Board for good. Many who compose these Boards feel themselves taxed in time and labor, and have frequently but little interest in the welfare of education; possibly they are even opposed to the school law itself, and were therefore elected. Such men arrive late at the meeting, and are the first to break it up by their departure; such also are anxious to hurry every thing through, and, impatient of delay, create the confusion and occasion the mismanagement of which they are afterwards the loudest to complain. No wonder, in view of such circumstances, that Township Boards of Education are regarded as unwieldy. The presence of a controlling and intelligent head, officially entitled to instruct and explain, and well informed himself both in regard to the local condition and the peculiar wants of education, would effectually tend to expedite business: action would be concentrated, regularity would prevail, and, what before was disorderly and discordant, would speedily become methodical and harmonious.

A serious difficulty has doubtless already suggested itself to those intelligent readers who may favor this with a perusal, and this is, that all the Township Boards meet on the same day, and the County Superintendents could not attend all of them. This might be obviated by making it the duty of the County Superintendent to convene the respective Boards at their place of meeting, by notices duly published, upon such a day as he may designate, between the first and the twenty-first of May, and also between the first and the twenty-first of September. He would thus be able to meet them all without any very serious change in things as they are at present constituted.

II. He should be president of the County Board of School Examiners, and should, in conjunction with the Probate Judge and the County Auditor, appoint the other two Examiners.

It should be his duty, in conjunction with his colleagues, to prescribe a form by which these examinations should be conducted, and to con

duct them after such a form. He should also keep a regular record of the proceedings.

III. He should visit every school in his county, at least twice in a year. He should be empowered to instruct Teachers in their duties, and suggest to them whatever improvements he may deem advisable. He should deliver at least one lecture upon education annually, in each township in the county.

In the prosecution of these duties, together with his duties as County Examiner, be would be brought in contact with every Teacher in the county, and would be able to judge of their capabilities by an actual inspection of their modes of conducting the recitations of their classes and of governing their schools. In his lectures he should explain the duties of Boards of Education and other school officers, instruct in the best methods of securing good schools throughout the township, show the importance of parental visitation, strive to arouse a general interest in education, etc., etc.

IV. He should establish a Teachers' Institute in his county, and preside over the same. He should conduct the same for at least one week in each year, assisted by the County Examiners, and by such other friends of education as he may be able to secure.

Lectures upon education generally, modes of teaching, of government, of keeping registers, making reports, etc., etc., and regular recitations and studies from the Teachers present, should be the order of the exercises. One week in the year is mentioned as the minimum. In many counties Institutes might be held for longer periods, and twice in the year. It would frequently happen that a local Normal School would arise out of these, and continue four or five weeks; not so much under his official control, as fostered and encouraged by his influence. The incalculable benefit this would be to the children of a community, in gradually providing them with more efficient Teachers, cannot be set forth in these brief remarks.

V. He should periodically inspect all the libraries and apparatus distributed throughout his county; and it should be his duty to appor tion to the townships the quotas of books and apparatus respectively due to them from the State. He should also instruct the township librarians in the proper performance of their duties.

The apportionment of books and apparatus has been a laborious burden imposed upon our County Auditors, and some are but poorly qual ified to perform this most delicate and responsible duty. An instance might be cited of a certain Auditor who first distributed to the various

townships of his county all the large books of an apportionment sent him, and reserved the small ones as equalizers and make-weights to supply existing deficiencies; these he dealt out accordingly, paying but slight regard to the nature of the books he bestowed. Duplicate volumes, duplicate copies, and broken sets, of course, prevailed more or less throughout the whole apportionment. Tytler's Universal History, a 16 mo. work in 6 vols., was divided and distributed through four townships; such works as Frank, 2 vols., the Swiss Family, 2 vols., Moral Tales, 2 vols., were similarly separated.

Although this is not always the case, as we are favored with many highly intelligent and able Auditors, yet it is too often so; and from townships so treated, violent opposition to libraries and the school law cannot but be expected.

VI. He should furnish the township clerks with blanks, and instructions to enable them properly to prepare their reports, and should receive and inspect the same. He should also furnish them with blanks to supply the Teachers, that their reports might be properly and correctly rendered.

These would be among the most important of his duties, and the due performance of them would also be of vast importance to the State. It would secure more accurate and extensive school statistics than we have ever been able hitherto to obtain. It would relieve the State Commissioner of some of his most perplexing and laborious duties. And whereas many County Auditors now declare that they scarcely ever obtain from the township clerks three or even two correct school reports, there would, under the supervision of the County Superintendent, be scarcely ever an incorrect return made if he did his duty.

VII. He should make, to the county commissioners, an annual report of the condition of education in his county; and the commissioners should be authorized to appropriate, for the proper publication of the same, whatever they may deem expedient.

This report should be to the county what the State School Commissioner's report is to the State; it is hardly necessary to remark further upon it.

VIII. He should annually meet the State Commissioner at the seat of government, and should make such a report, condensed from the returns of the township clerks of his county, as the State School Commissioner might require.

The whole of the County Superintendents in the State should be annually convened as a deliberative body, to confer together upon the

educational interests of the State. These meetings should be for not less than two nor more than five or six days. They should occur after the Commissioner has received the reports from the respective County Superintendents, that the reports having been previously examined may be then accepted or returned for proper amendment. At these meetings the State Commissioner should, of course, ex officio, preside, and a report of the proceedings of the convention should be appended to his annual report.

IX. He should be entitled to five per cent. upon the first $16,000 apportioned by the State to each county, and to two and a half per cent. upon all over that and less than $32,000, and upon any excess of State funds over 32,000 which any county may receive, he should be entitled to one per cent.

It may be first observed here, that by funds apportioned by the State are meant those funds of various kinds not arising from special local taxation; these should not be taxed for his services.

More than one half of the counties in the State draw less than $16,000, and in over one half of the counties, therefore, his salary would be less than $800 per annum.

The salary, and the means whereby it shall be paid, is the great point. Many active and intelligent educationists feel the need of an officer of this kind; such may also regard favorably many things contained in this sketch of his duties, but the means of meeting the expense created by such an office is, and may continue to be, the great impediment. The mode above suggested has been preferred for several reasons:

1st. The creation of such an officer will be a direct benefit to the people of the State. Much money that is now partially and indirectly wasted will be saved; much labor and time hitherto ill directed and misspent will, under his supervision, be economized and made more extensively beneficial. A more efficient application of the public funds to educational purposes, and an actively supervised system of schools throughout each county, will doubly enhance the amount of usefulness which the public funds have hitherto been able to secure. It is not, therefore, wrong that the public school fund should be taxed less than five per cent. to secure this increased efficiency.

2d. This is an experiment. It is of course expected that it would prove a successful one, but as an experiment, it is desirable that it should be tried wholly with the school funds themselves, without increasing the burden of taxation; the amount thus taken from the school