In similar fashion, the other written work was gone over and annotated.  Every pupil in this system of schools had a sample of his written work examined at regular and frequent intervals by the superintendent.  Every teacher knew just what her chief demanded in the way of results, and did her best to gain the results demanded.  I am not taking the position that the results that were demanded represented the highest ideals of what the elementary school should accomplish.  Good penmanship and good spelling and good language, in the light of contemporary educational thought, seem to be something like happiness—­you get them in larger measure the less you think about getting them.  But this possible objection aside, the superintendent in question had developed a system which kept him in very close touch with the work that was being done in widely separated schools.

He told me further that, on the infrequent occasions when he could visit his classrooms, he gave most of his time and attention to the matters that could not be supervised at “long range.”  He found out how the pupils were improving in their reading, and especially in oral expression, in its syntax, its freedom from errors of construction, its clearness and fluency.  He listed the common errors, directing his teachers to take them up in a systematic manner and eradicate them, and he did not fail to note at his next visit how much progress had been made.  He noted the condition of the blackboard work, and kept a list of the improvements that he suggested.  He tested for rapidity in arithmetical processes, for the papers sent to his office gave him only an index of accuracy.  He noted the habits of personal cleanliness that were being developed or neglected.  In fact, he had a long list of specific standards that he kept continually in mind, the progress toward which he constantly watched.  And last, but by no means least, he carried with him wherever he went an atmosphere of breezy good nature and cheerfulness, for he had mastered the first principle in the art of both supervision and teaching; he had learned that the best way to promote growth in either pupils or teachers is neither to let them do as they please nor to force them to do as you please, but to get them to please to do what you please to have them do.

I instance this superintendent as one type of efficiency in supervision.  He was efficient, not simply because he had a system that scrutinized every least detail of his pupils’ growth, but because that scrutiny really insured growth.  He obtained the results that he desired, and he obtained uniformly good results from a large number of young, untrained teachers.  We have all heard of the superintendent who boasted that he could tell by looking at his watch just what any pupil in any classroom was doing at just that moment.  Surely here system was not lacking.  But the boast did not strike the vital point.  It is not what the pupil is doing that is fundamentally