The foregoing facts are shown graphically in Figures III and IV. The value of the investment per child in school property owned by the districts was:

The condition of the physical equipment as shown by the per centage on the investment spent for supplies and repairs for the year was:

The records of the urban schools do not make possible a differentiation of common school and secondary school expenditures except in expenditures for instruction. The salaries paid per month in grades below the high school were:

The per capita cost of instruction as based on enrollment in the first eight school years, was: Rural, $10.39, village, $14.01, city, $11.98. (This item for the city does not include special teachers of domestic science and art, manual training, drawing, music, nor kindergarten teachers).

The per capita cost of school maintenance, including instruction as based on enrollment, was: Rural, $20.16, village, $25.24, city, $52.50. This item includes the village and city expenditure for high schools, and for the city the kindergarten and the special teachers omitted from the item per capita cost of instruction.

No close estimate of the cost of supervision in villages could be made because the supervision is by teachers and there was a superviwide difference of the proportion of time given to supervision sion. and to teaching. As between the rural schools and city schools,

a comparison of the cost of supervision is significant. For rural schools, supervision is by the county commissioner, who is paid $1,350 for supervising 115 one room schools and 14 village schools employing 180 teachers, whom he must visit, although supervision in villages is largely by the principals. These schools are located in an area of 576 square miles and most of them must be reached by cross county travel involving the loss of a great deal of time. Their wide isolation makes it practically impossible to get all of the teachers together for direction and conference, and the absence of any official leadership by townships makes the formation of local centers, as aids to supervision very difficult. Then, too, in many counties, the commissioner must pay his own traveling expenses and this adds a very practical discouragement, for the more he does get about over his broad

NOTE: Thirteen and one-half per cent. of the school children in the city are in well equipped and well administered church schools,

field and try to do his duty, the less the county will actually pay him. That is, he will reduce his own salary by every dollar that he spends for official travel. The city pays a superintendent more than twice the salary of the commissioner for the supervision of 10 schools, employing 155 teachers. These schools are located on an area of eight square miles and easily and quickly reached, nearly all being on street car lines. The superintendent is aided by an adequate office force, by supervising principals in every building and by a superintendent for primary grades.

tion.

Some phases of the operation of the mechanism of administration are not subject to exact statement in statistics. However, reliable inferences may be drawn from carefully made estimates. The expendiExpenses of ture per pupil for district official services was: For rural disAdministra- tricts, 36 cents, for village districts, 17 cents, for city districts, 7 cents. Out of 122 districts, executive work was performed gratis in 53. Is gratuitous executive official service on so small a scale, as a rule, a multiplier or a divisor of executive efficiency? Furthermore, existing conditions in many districts suggest that the meager measure of official authority and responsibility reduces necessary attention to such an extent that very little interest is developed by officials in their duties.

Officers'

The holding of county meetings for school officers during the past year by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction was" Meeting. the first general attempt to integrate rural school administrative intelligence and to enrich such intelligence by co-operation and interchange. The proposal was brought out by these meetings that the township as an area unit for the purposes of taxation and administration would insure greater equality in tax matters and more experience proven intelligence in administration. Reference has already been had to a larger taxation unit. A contrast is offered to raise a question as to the validity of the suggested larger administration unit. The smallest number of officers for the administration of rural schools in any township in the county studied is twelve, all districts but four being graded, and the largest number is 33. The average number of officers per township is 21, and of these seven are executive officers. The question is, would one board instead of seven boards and one executive officer looking after seven schools totalling 217 children instead of seven executives each looking after one school of 31 children, be likely to insure a greater executive efficiency? A relative answer may be had by comparison of rural small units of administration with the larger urban units in the relation of the preparation and experience to the salaries paid to the instructors employed. In rural districts, there is one executive officer for every 31 children; in villages, there is one executive officer for every 192 children, and in cities, there is one executive officer for every 7,987 children.

Relative
Cost.

Granting all the disadvantages and the necessary delays to which rural school administration is subject and the fact already shown that the per cent on the investment spent for repairs and supplies is approximately twice as much in rural as in urban districts, and not forgetting that the amount of taxable property per child is one-third more in the rural districts than in the urban districts, the comparison in repairs and accessories both as to condition and quality is not favorable to the small unit of administration.

The foregoing facts are shown graphically in Figures III and IV. The value of the investment per child in school property owned by the districts was:

The condition of the physical equipment as shown by the per centage on the investment spent for supplies and repairs for the year was:

The records of the urban schools do not make possible a differentiation of common school and secondary school expenditures except in expenditures for instruction. The salaries paid per month in grades below the high school were:

The per capita cost of instruction as based on enrollment in the first eight school years, was: Rural, $10.39, village, $14.01, city, $11.98. (This item for the city does not include special teachers of domestic science and art, manual training, drawing, music, nor kindergarten teachers).

The per capita cost of school maintenance, including instruction as based on enrollment, was: Rural, $20.16, village, $25.24, city, $52.50. This item includes the village and city expenditure for high schools, and for the city the kindergarten and the special teachers omitted from the item per capita cost of instruction.

No close estimate of the cost of supervision in villages could be made because the supervision is by teachers and there was a superviwide difference of the proportion of time given to supervision sion. and to teaching. As between the rural schools and city schools,

a comparison of the cost of supervision is significant. For rural schools, supervision is by the county commissioner, who is paid $1,350 for supervising 115 one room schools and 14 village schools employing 180 teachers, whom he must visit, although supervision in villages is largely by the principals. These schools are located in an area of 576 square miles and most of them must be reached by cross county travel involving the loss of a great deal of time. Their wide isolation makes it practically impossible to get all of the teachers together for direction and conference, and the absence of any official leadership by townships makes the formation of local centers, as aids to supervision very difficult. Then, too, in many counties, the commissioner must pay his own traveling expenses and this adds a very practical discouragement, for the more he does get about over his broad NOTE: Thirteen and one-half per cent. of the school children in the city are in well equipped and well administered church schools."

field and try to do his duty, the less the county will actually pay him. That is, he will reduce his own salary by every dollar that he spends for official travel. The city pays a superintendent more than twice the salary of the commissioner for the supervision of 10 schools, employing 155 teachers. These schools are located on an area of eight square miles and easily and quickly reached, nearly all being on street car lines. The superintendent is aided by an adequate office force, by supervising principals in every building and by a superintendent for primary grades.

tion.

Some phases of the operation of the mechanism of administration are not subject to exact statement in statistics. However, reliable inferences may be drawn from carefully made estimates. The expendiExpenses of ture per pupil for district official services was: For rural disAdministra- tricts, 36 cents, for village districts, 17 cents, for city districts, 7 cents. Out of 122 districts, executive work was performed gratis in 53. Is gratuitous executive official service on so small a scale, as a rule, a multiplier or a divisor of executive efficiency? Furthermore, existing conditions in many districts suggest that the meager measure of official authority and responsibility reduces necessary attention to such an extent that very little interest is developed by officials in their duties.

Meeting.

The holding of county meetings for school officers during the Officers' past year by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction was the first general attempt to integrate rural school administrative intelligence and to enrich such intelligence by co-operation and interchange. The proposal was brought out by these meetings that the township as an area unit for the purposes of taxation and administration would insure greater equality in tax matters and more experience proven intelligence in administration. Reference has already been had to a larger taxation unit. A contrast is offered to raise a question as to the validity of the suggested larger administration unit. The smallest number of officers for the administration of rural schools in any township in the county studied is twelve, all districts but four being graded, and the largest number is 33. The average number of officers per township is 21, and of these seven are executive officers. The question is, would one board instead of seven boards and one executive officer looking after seven schools totalling 217 children instead of seven executives each looking after one school of 31 children, be likely to insure a greater executive efficiency? A relative answer may be had by comparison of rural small units of administration with the larger urban units in the relation of the preparation and experience to the salaries paid to the instructors employed. In rural districts, there is one executive officer for every 31 children; in villages, there is one executive officer for every 192 children, and in cities, there is one executive officer for every 7,987 children.

Relative
Cost.

Granting all the disadvantages and the necessary delays to which rural school administration is subject and the fact already shown that the per cent on the investment spent for repairs and supplies is approximately twice as much in rural as in urban districts, and not forgetting that the amount of taxable property per child is one-third more in the rural districts than in the urban districts, the comparison in repairs and accessories both as to condition and quality is not favorable to the small unit of administration.