system by creating separate departments, a feature that met with universal approval.

In regard to the affairs of the office, I will say that so much territory is embraced in big Kossuth that the adjusting of differences between the township boards and other interested parties as to the removal and location of school-houses, the boundary lines of sub-districts, the establishing of granted schools, etc., occupies nearly one-half of my time. But, notwithstanding these encroachments, by the aid of special deputies which I have employed at my own expense, I have been able to attend to the office details and visit nearly all the schools once each term since I have held this position.

The Kossuth School Journal, published monthly in connection with this office, which circulates among all the teachers and school officers, is a potent factor in my work, and of more assistance to me than a regularly appointed deputy could be.

LEE COUNTY.

BY J. J. DOFFLEMYER.

The educational interests of Lee county are advancing. The schools in the cities and towns have closed an unusually successful year's work, and the teachers, generally, have a great reserve force of enthusiasm for next year's duties.

I have this year discontinued the third class certificate.

We expect a large attendance of teachers and students of the profession at our normal institute. It will be divided in two parts: a graded section and an ungraded section. The former will include those who teach in first, second or third grades of public school work; the latter all others enrolled. Each section will have instruction adapted to its needs, and will be separate from the other as a body. The ungraded section will be further classified on the basis of the qualification and experience of its members. It will be thus sub-divided into three parts: A, B, C.

We shall this year endeavor to accomplish much that shall be of immediate value to our teachers. To this end the work attempted will be such as has been proven necessary, and will be so arranged that it may be immediately given a place in the teacher's outline of her own work in her next school.

I believe much is lost in our institutes by not duly regarding the pressing needs of the schools. Too often the work attempted is purely academic. In

such instances it is far too ambitious for the usually short session of the normal, and is barren of good results Teachers expect that which will prove helpful to them in their urgent needs.

This county has very many pretty school-houses. A large number of them are brick or stone; others are neat and substantial frame houses. Most all are properly heated and well lighted; but few are wisely ventilated. As a rule, comfortable and convenient furniture is found, and some money has been expended for apparatus for country schools. In some few schools there is no apparatus worthy the name, and the furniture is the most crude.

The general condition of the grounds around the country school-houses is that of neglect. The out-houses generally are monuments to the low thoughts of those barbaric vandals which invade and debauch most schools. Around most, the fences are well kept, and there has been a generous provision for shade in the planting of trees.

The city school-houses and grounds are in splendid condition. These schools are also amply provided with the very best furniture and the most useful apparatus.

The length of term for our schools varies from six to nine months.

In most instances salaries are fair; but we have a few who would almost teach for nothing and board themselves beside. These, I need not add, are not our best teachers, and we have our official eye on all of them. All of the common school branches are taught in the schools of that grade, and our high schools, in this particular, rank with those of any county.

In the city schools, penmanship, drawing and vocal music are taught by special teachers. This is found to be the most fruitful method of instruction. In the schools of Keokuk and Ft. Madison, vocal music has proven itself a great blessing in the way of general discipline as well. The law concerning physiology has been very generally observed in Lee county, but I am not now able to make a full report of the manner and extent of instruction in the same.

LINN COUNTY.

BY F. J. SESSIONS.

The schools of this county are in a fair condition, and are making substantial improvement in many directions. As a rule, I find each community having as good schools as the people intelligently and persistently demand. I have labored earnestly and constantly to awaken a more lively interest on

the part of patrons in the cause of the public school, to the end that the demand for better schools might be imperative. In the past year there have been organized a county teachers' association and three district associations, each of the latter embracing from two to five townships. There have been held three county meetings and thirteen district meetings. The interest and enthusiasm of teachers in these association meetings have been most hearty. The patrons of the schools have attended in fair numbers, and have taken part in many of the discussions in a way which has been profitable to all. The results have been very gratifying. Already I see a tendency to hold good teachers in place for longer terms of work, and I think there is a desire to re-elect faithful directors. There is also a growing disposition on the part of school boards to replace old mixed lots of textbooks with books modern and uniform. There is also a tendency toward the payment of better wages for good teachers.

The people of Brown township have just voted to organize their nine schools on the independent township district plan; thus cutting down the number of directors from nine to six.

At the last meeting, in March, the board of directors of the district township of Fairfax elected Mr. C. E. Bonner as principal of the township high school and made him township superintendent of schools. The plan is working finely, and is resulting in good to the schools. The boards of two other townships are considering the plan, and I hope in a short time each will elect township superintendents. The plan, briefly, is this: the board appropriates $100 to pay a township superintendent; then selects the teacher of the township best qualified for the work, and arranges his term of schools so that he has one month or more to devote to inspection and supervision of the other schools; when he is teaching he devotes as much time as possible to assisting his teachers and advising directors. He does not do the work of the county superintendent, but supplements it by looking after many detalls which it is impossible for the latter to attend to in his necessarily hurried visits. The county superintendent plans and directs the work in general, and the township superintendent sees that the plans are carried out in detail. The results are, system and uniformity in the work of the schools. The schools of the county are being graded or classified according to Welch's scheme as rapidly as possible. Before the close of the next fall terms I hope to have all rural schools working up to this plan.

It is not necessary to speak, perhaps, of the work of the city and town graded schools in detail. It is sufficient to say that we have seven graded schools which fit pupils for entrance to the freshman classes of most of the colleges of the State. Some of them do work still more advanced than this. All are in excellent condition.

There are fewer district quarrels now than when I first came in office, and I have had but one appeal case come to trial.

NORMAL INSTITUTES.

The teachers of this county are divided into four classes for institute work, and follow substantially the plan outlined by the State Department of Public Instruction.

I seek to have my institute instructors impress best methods of teaching by following those methods in their classes at normal. I do not have as much academic work done in institute as some superintendents do, but aim to have much of didactics and normal methods.

Last year I organized the primary teachers of the county into a class by themselves, and gave them a teacher specially fitted to instruct them in best primary methods. The results were such as to warrant me in doing the same this coming institute. I also formed a principals' section for the discussion of topics of special interest to principals and high school teachers. This feature was a success and I shall re-organize the section again this year.

SCHOOL-HOUSES.

Of the 197 school-houses in the county, 170 are frame; twenty-five brick, and two stone. Country school-houses are, with few exceptions, built of wood. They are all heated by stoves and ventilated by means of the windows. As to comfort and convenience little can be said in their favor, though most of them are well seated and fairly well supplied with charts, maps and black-boards.

The city and town buildings are more pretentious, notably those recently built in Cedar Rapids and Springville. In the past four years three fine buildings have been built in Cedar Rapids, all of which are heated and ventilated by the best air system and provided with dry closets. The Marion high school building is heated and ventilated by a steam system.

GROUNDS.

Generally the county school-houses are pleasantly located on good roomy grounds, which in too many cases are indifferently fenced, they are, however, mostly surrounded by few or many shade trees. A few school-houses have no trees and there seems to have been no attempt to grow them. I am pleased to report that generally I find the out-houses in fair condition, a few are in filthy, obscene condition. There are but few double privies, and at many schools the entrances to the out-houses are screened by high fences. In the main I can see some improvement in the condition of outhouses in the past year.

SCHOOLS.

The average length of the school year for the country is 7.2 months, for the whole county is 7.5 months. Terms of school vary from two to four months in length. Our schools enrolled seventy-one per cent of the school population last year. Two good colleges, a business college and an academy

in the county drove a good many of the older pupils from the public schools. Average salary paid males last year, $40.05; females, $26.88 per month. All the common branches are taught in schools having pupils old enough to take the higher ones. Penmanship is being taught in all schools. An effort is being made to have more attention paid to the teaching of this branch. At the last institute a special instructor in drawing gave impetus to this work, and now in many schools drawing is being taught in a limited way. The schools of Cedar Rapids, Marion, Springville and Mt. Vernon, each have drawing in the regular course, and do good work. The law in regard to hygienic physiology is being very generally complied with. I do not know of a single school in which instruction is not being given in this branch either orally or from a text-book.

GENERAL.

While the schools of the county are not all that I should like to have them, yet I have many reasons to feel encouraged and filled with hope for their future. Among the many things needful to assure their more complete success are the necessity. of a more compact and wieldy district organization, with the township as the unit. A longer tenure of office for the director, longer, terms of employment for the teacher, and the entire removal of the county superintendency from the influence of politics.

LOUISA COUNTY.

BY MRS. L. G. MURDOCK.

The condition of education in this county compared with adjoining counties, is fair, with a perceptible degree of progress in every department of it. The normal institute is steadily growing.

a. From two ungraded classes four years ago, we now have three large graded divisions, with work suited to each grade.

b. I have sought to make teachers, not scholars; have tried to abolish the idea that the normal is a place wherein to freshen the memory or "cram" for an examination, but a school for the purpose of learning to teach.

C. The methods employed to accomplish this have been largely practical school-room work, the presenting of subjects to teachers, as they should be to the school.

d. The special features of our normals have been the primary methods with actual classes, and the exhibit of work brought from all the schools in the county, and displayed after the manner of a fair.