periods if we can offer compensation equal to that which is given in other States.

You can help the Normal Schools in their work by urging your teachers to attend its sessions as far as possible, and by giving notice that, in filling new positions, preference will be accorded to students and graduates of the Normal Schools.

I need not take time to argue the need of trained teachers for our schools. Every man who has given school matters sufficient thought to warrant his being a member of a Board of Education realizes that the teacher is the most important factor in any school. And further, that men and women who have had professional preparation, special training for the work, are much more apt to give efficient instruction and render valuable service than those who have not had such advantages.

May I ask you then to favor applicants for school positions who have been in attendance on our normal schools? May I ask you to go further and seek teachers who have had normal training by getting into correspondence with the normal school presidents and asking their aid in filling positions? And will you not use your influence in your county to have offered such salaries and inducements to teachers as will attract the best trained men and women and hold them in the profession?

You can be most helpful to us in developing our normal schools by adopting such a policy, and you will at the same time render a most valuable and acceptable service to your county.. Very truly yours,

J. W. BRISTER,

State Superintendent.

NASHVILLE, TENN., November 17, 1911.

DEAR SIR: The Middle Tennessee Farmers' Convention will be held at State Capitol, in Nashville, December 5, 6, and 7, 1911.

The special train which has recently been run by the Southern Railway in East Tennessee, under the auspices of the State Agricultural Department, with the co-operation of the State Department of Education and Health, has taught us again the

value of co-operation, and convinced us of the identity of our interests. We have, indeed, one aim and are working for the same end; we are all endeavoring to make some contribution to rural life.

I am sure, therefore, the sessions of the Farmers' Convention will be of value to every county superintendent, and I urge you to attend. It will give us an opportunity not only to participate in a gathering in which we have a lively interest, but we can also take advantage of the occasion to confer in regard to the special matters which engage our attention.

Free transportation can be furnished every county superintendent. Please notify me at once whether you can be present, and the railroad ticket will be sent.

Very truly yours,

J. W. BRISTER,

State Superintendent.

NASHVILLE, TENN., December 12, 1911.

To County Superintendents:

Please give me the following information as soon as possible, taking into account only the white schools of your county, not including town and city schools:

1. How many schools in your county with only one teacher? 2. How many with two teachers? 3.. How many with three teachers? 4. How many with four teachers?

5. How many with more than four?

6. How many consolidations have been made the last two years?

7. How many single-teacher schools have been abandoned as a result?

8. Are you now planning any consolidations?

9. How many schools are to be abandoned if your plans are carried out?

10. Do you think that consolidation on any considerable scale is possible in your county?

11. If not, why not?

12. In your opinion, if consolidation is adopted as a policy, how many single-teacher schools can be advantageously abandoned?

13. If consolidation is adopted as a policy, how many schools will be necessary to furnish educational facilities for your county? 14. What is the total number of schools now?

NOTE-I am making a study of consolidation and need this information. I also desire your opinion before drawing any conclusions. Of course, consolidation, to be thoroughly successful, involves transportation. Please carefully consider questions 10, 11, 12 and 13, and let me have the benefit of your views.

I shall be obliged if you will respond to this communication at the earliest possible moment, giving answers on this sheet. Very truly yours,

J. W. BRISTER,

State Superintendent.

NASHVILLE, TENN., January 8, 1912.

To County Superintendents of Middle Tennessee:

The colored teachers of Nashville and adjoining counties have recently organized a Colored Teachers' Association, and a meeting of the association has been called for April 4, 5 and 6, in Nashville.

I believe this meeting, if largely attended, will be of benefit to the teachers and also to the schools they represent. I advise, therefore, that you take the matter up with your boards of education and get them to allow their colored teachers to attend the meeting, granting them holiday with pay for April 4-5, a policy which I understand you have pursued with reference to the white. teachers who attend the Middle Tennessee Teachers' Association.

I would be glad also if you would furnish me as soon as possible a list of the colored teachers of your county.

Very truly yours,

J. W. BRISTER,

State Superintendent.

NASHVILLE, TENN., January 20, 1912.

To County Superintendents:

There are some things of a general nature concerning your work that I have wanted to say for some time, not in a dictatorial way, but merely as suggestive.

I am profoundly convinced that the supreme need of our rural school system in Tennessee to-day is wise administration and competent supervision. Progress waits on this. We need not expect any far-reaching and permanent improvements in the schools in any county without it. But, given in any county a live, wide-awake, intelligent, consecrated superintendent, who devotes all his time and thought and energy to school work, and success is assured. He will work out a comprehensive scheme for the development of his school system, and sooner or later, will arouse general interest in educational matters and will be able to secure necessary funds for carrying on the plans he has devised.

Tennessee needs all her superintendents to be of this type. And she expects them to be. In a peculiar sense they have become State officials. Part of their salary now is paid by the State, and in the case of a large number of them the law requires that all of their time for nine months of the year shall be devoted to school work.

It is earnestly hoped that every county will soon increase the salary of the superintendent to an amount sufficient for him to receive the maximum from the State, for no county can afford to have less than the entire time of a well-equipped man to superintend its schools.

I am sure that a county superintendent cannot render his county efficient service, cannot do for the schools what he ought to do, when he is devoting a considerable part of his time and

thought to some other pursuit. This is not to be taken as reflecting on any particular individual. It is only to insist that the matter of supervising the schools of any county or administering its educational affairs is a big enough job for the brightest and brainiest man in the county, and any man whose interests are divided will fall short of doing his best for his schools.

I wish I could impress upon every county superintendent his importance, how he is standing for progress or in its way, how his country's schools depend largely, primarily on him, and their condition shows, beyond question, the kind of superintendent he is. He can't shirk the responsibility, he can't shift it. It is his. And if he can't make good, if school interests are lagging, his self respect ought to make him give place to some man better adapted to the great and important work.

Let me urge every one of you to renewed study of the educational situation in your county. Outline a comprehensive scheme of school development, inaugurate a general forward movement, devise, if possible, some specific, immediately workable plans, and then go at the work as if the future of your county depends, as it does, on your efforts.

Let me say again, what I have said to all of you in a general way, and to many particularly, that this office is ready to serve you in any possible way. Whenever we can help we shall be only too glad to do so. We have one aim, one purpose, one desire, and that is to build up, improve, develop the public schools of Tennessee.

Cordially yours,

J. W. BRISTER,

State Superintendent.

NASHVILLE, TENN., January 31, 1912.

To County Superintendents:

Please let me call your attention to the Boys' Corn Club movement and to urge every one of you to thoroughly investigate, and, if possible, have a part in it during the current year. A number of county superintendents organized clubs last year with signal success; others have joined them since, and the movement is well under way in the State.