referred to her, and there has never been a single appeal from her decisions. Another most complicated case involving a defaulting treasurer, was conducted entirely by the county superintendent until it became necessary to employ a lawyer to argue the case in court. What she had done was then submitted to one of the leading lawyers of the State, and he sanctioned and approved each step. Numerous other instances might be cited to show that woman has not failed in the legal part of her work as superintendent of schools.
III. Her Work with Teachers and Schools.—Here our superintendents were perfectly at home. Each of the ten had taught successfully for years, and so knew the wants of the school-room. This knowledge was invaluable, both in the examination of teachers and in the supervision of schools. Fears were expressed lest in the examination of candidates, womanly sympathy would lead them to grant certificates to needy applicants who were not altogether qualified. But the motherliness which is in every true woman's heart, warded off this danger. As one remarked, "I have a great deal of the milk of human kindness in my nature, but its streams flow toward the roomful of children to be injured by an incompetent teacher, rather than toward that teacher, however needy he may be. If his claims rest on his needs rather than his merits, let the poormaster attend to his wants, not the superintendent. School money is not a pauper fund." This motherliness comes in good play in school visitation. It draws the children to the superintendent; keeps them from being afraid of her, and hence leads them to work naturally during her visit; thus she can obtain a true idea of the status of the school, and know just how to advise and direct the teacher. The same thing holds true in regard to teachers; the majority of them are ladies, and they will come to a lady for the solution of their doubts and difficulties much more freely than to a gentleman. This gives her better opportunity to "impart instruction and give directions to inexperienced teachers." Woman's power to lift up the teachers under her control to a higher plane, both intellectually and morally, has been signally demonstrated by the experience of the past four years.
In looking after the details of official work, those tiresome minutiæ so often left at "loose ends," producing endless confusion, woman has shown great aptitude. You say, "this is but the clean sweeping of a new broom." May be so, in part; but in part it comes from the womanly instinct to "look well to the ways of her household," whether that household be the occupants of a cottage or the schools of a county. In the work of the State Association of County Superintendents, the ladies have well sustained their part. When placed on the programme, they have come prepared with carefully written papers, showing their desire to give the Association the benefit of their best thoughts, and not put off upon it such crudely digested ideas as may spring up at the moment. At the last meeting at Springfield, four out of the nine superintendents now in office were present, 44 per cent.; out of the 93 gentlemen in the same office, 18 were present, 19 per cent. The ratio of attendance has been about the same for the four years.
How has woman's work as county superintendent impressed other educators? State-Superintendent Etter, who confesses that he was not in favor of the plan, said at the State Teachers' Association, above referred to: "The ladies compare very favorably with their gentlemen co-laborers." Mr. E.L. Wells, for twelve years county superintendent of Ogle county, and thoroughly conversant with the work throughout the State, concurs in this opinion. President Newton Bateman, than whom no man in the State is better fitted to speak on this subject, in his political-economy class in Knox college, took occasion to commend the efficiency of women as county superintendents of our State. A gentleman who travels extensively, and looks into school affairs closely, says he is convinced that in every county where a woman was elected four years ago, the efficiency of the office had been doubled and in some cases increased four or even ten fold. If this be not an exaggeration, an explanation may be found in the fact that in most of these counties the best ladies were put in the place of gentlemen most poorly fitted for the place. The office had become a political foot-ball, kicked about as party exigencies demanded, and often came into possession of political hacks who "must be