In most States one of the duties of the office is to visit schools, though this is not universal by any means. Why it should not be is difficult to say. Less than this makes a business office only. If supervising schools means anything, it implies familiarity with the management within the room, methods, discipline, and the means and character of instruction. It means counsel and criticism. Less than this may be needful as precautionary and economic measures; but these are in no sense professional, and contribute only indirectly to the school as an agency of culture.

Another duty usually assigned to the local supervisor is that of examining and licensing teachers. This, indeed, has been one of the functions of school inspectors for two hundred years. In twenty of the States, of very unlike organization, the offices of supervisor and examiner rest in the same person. Whether this is well, has been questioned; but the practice widely prevails.

Bibliography.

"School Supervision," by W. H. Payne; "School Inspection," by D. R. Fearon, 1876; the "Supervision of Schools," in "Proceedings of National Educational Association," 1887, p. 512; "Supervision of Schools in Massachesetts," by A. D. Mayo, “Unitarian Review," vol. vii, p. 400; “City School Systems of the United States,” by J. D. Philbrick, published by the United States Bureau of Education as Circular 1—1885; City Supervision,” by R. W. Stevenson, in "Proceedings of National Educational Association," 1884, p. 283, also "Proceedings of the National Council of Education," 1884, p. 26; and the Annual reports of Dr. W. T. Harris, St. Louis, 1867-'79. The "Inspection of Country Schools," by J. D. Philbrick, in "American Social Science Journal," vol. ii, p. 11; and, in general, "The School, its Rights and Duties," by J. H. Hoose, in Proceedings of National Educational Association," 1876, p. 167. See "Life of Horace Mann," by Mrs. Mary Mann (1881), and his collected "Lectures and Reports," 1872.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS.

THE changes already noted as accompanying the educational awakening were administrative. The transformation on the professional side, in the school course, the teacher, the objects and character of discipline, etc., was not less complete. The administrative function preceded, not because it must-logically, the changed function of the school should work out its own adapted organization-but because the former want, being professional and technical, was not generally recognized. A few men fifty years ago, fewer yet ten years earlier, saw both the need and the remedy; crudely it may be, and vaguely, but well in advance of the common mind. From their lectures and addresses and sermons, their books, the classes they taught, and their persistent influence on public and legislative sentiment, have developed, not only normal schools, but the earlier occasional classes, institutes, associations, journals, etc.

It is a large interest and, from the pedagogical standpoint, of the first importance.*

1. Educational Associations.

The principle of co-operation is fundamental in a republic; it is the soul of both its individual and institutional life. Social friction and the free interchange of experience presuppose a degree of equality; and equality, in turn, incites to combination. The individual is strong in proportion as he takes to himself the experience of all; each is increased as he gives to all.

Societies, then-combinations of individuals founded upon a like interest, looking to the accomplishment of the same

* "Good teachers," said Dr. Philbrick, "and what next? There is no

object, and that a general good—are in consonance with the organic law of our government. In a sketch of the people's culture, to leave out of view their organization, and the joint services of individuals, would be to miss a powerful agent in the upbuilding of our national life. Associations may be classified, according to their objects, as

1. Those looking to the general good, through the establishment and efficient administration of institutions and organizations.

2. Those whose purpose is the promotion of professional or class interests.

3. Those organized to investigate, discover, invent; to add to the sum of human knowledge.

To the first belong missionary organizations, school and manumission societies, and political parties. It includes most organized effort, indeed, as lecture associations, village improvement societies, temperance and other reforms, etc. It is a potent agency, and, well used, one of the most fruitful means of progress. With the second may be classed professional associations, conventions made permanent, industrial guilds, fraternities, and sects. Philosophical and scientific societies are representative of the last, and form a large class. A consideration of such of these, in so far as they are educational from the school or professional side, is the aim of this section. The consideration of the third class will be left mainly to a subsequent paragraph.

A. SOCIETIES FOR THE PROMOTION OF SCHOOLS.

To one who is familiar with the current governmental administration of schools only, the recital of how large a part in education voluntary association played fifty years ago in this country, must seem an exaggeration. It built up schools, and supplied houses, and found and prepared teachers; it manipulated parties and draughted laws; it formed public opinion, and initiated reforms. Whatever was best done in New York and Pennsylvania, in Rhode Island and the South, and especially in the newer States of the North

and West, in Ohio and Indiana and Kentucky, was the work of organized societies. The earlier habit of Massachusetts and Connecticut is in this respect in strong contrast with that of other colonies and States, and even with their own later history.

Rhode Island had no attempt at a school system until the Mechanics' Institute of Providence took it in hand. In New York city, the "Free School Society" established the first permanent schools (1805), and through the law of 1812 secured the present system. The Philadelphia Society for the Support of Charity Schools (1790) was the prime mover in all the important school legislation, not only of Philadelphia but of Pennsylvania, for forty years.

Of a like general nature, but of broader field, was the College Society formed at Yale, 1829, to assist collegiate and theological students in the West. Illinois College, at Jacksonville, was founded and for many years supported by it. The Western Baptist Educational Association organized a little later "for the promotion of schools and education generally in the valley of the Mississippi," sent teachers to both Indiana and Illinois; and ten years after (1844) a society, formed and controlled under the counsel of Miss Catherine E. Beecher, the Board of National Popular Education, sent West not less than five hundred teachers, several of whom became eminently successful and widely known.

About the same time was another organization* whose se vices deserve mention, for it operated in half a dozen States, and aided twice as many colleges that must otherwise have succumbed to misfortune. Nowhere were the financial reverses of 1837-'42 more seriously felt than in the then new West; and by no institutions more than by the colleges and schools. Twenty institutions for superior instruction had been founded in Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, in the fifteen years after 1825. Not

* The Western College Society.

one of them was endowed, few had even a moderate suppo at best, and, as the little property they held was chiefly i unimproved land, it was unproductive. It seemed as i numbers of these colleges must surrender their charters Most of them, of course, were denominational, and in 184 delegates of churches representing Wabash, Illinois, Mari etta, and Western Reserve Colleges, and Lane Theologica Seminary, met representatives of Eastern churches to confe on the state of Western education. The heavy losses o these institutions (approximating two hundred thousan dollars), already greatly aided by the East, were strong ap peals for renewed help. An organization was effected, un der the name of the Western College Society, “to affor assistance in such manner and so long only as, in the judgment of the directors, the exigencies of the institution: may demand." Besides the five colleges first aided, nine others received help at various times in thirty years. More than half a million dollars were contributed at the East, and twice as much in the West, to promote the objects of this management. Half the institutions became independent before 1860, and the others soon after. The Western College Society did an eminent service.

B. SOCIETIES FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHERS.

Supplementing these general endeavors, sometimes following them, were special organizations of teachers for mutual improvement and professional advancement. Me.nbers of the first class (A) were frequently not teachers, but business men, lawyers, public officers, and especially the clergy. The second class was composed of teachers. Indeed, membership in the profession was, at first, a condition of membership in the association. These were local and, largely, expedients. They were at once a product and a sign of the awakening interest in education and educational institutions in the third and fourth decades of the century. Reference has been found to but one earlier.