Of this unique system of examination, the annual report for 1880 remarked as follows:

The most important act of the board of trustees since its organization, August 2, 1878, was the adoption of amendments to Articles IV and V of the by-laws. These amendments consisted of a series of provisions and safeguards thrown around the examinations of applicants for teacherships and promotions. They were prepared by Charles E. Hovey, esq., of the old board of trustees, and, in addition to providing a philosophical and uniform rule for examination of candidates, they secured impartiality on the part of the examiners, independence on the part of the trustees, and provided scholarship as a basis of admission as an instructor, leaving to time-the only test-to determine respecting the possession of those other essential qualifications whose possession or want trial alone can discern.

The amendments have been an impassable barrier to the entrance into the profession of teacher of many applicants who, together with their friends, regard public schools as an asylum for the maintenance of such as have more influence than means, more friends than abilities.

The board can congratulate itself upon the possession of a method of examination which not only secures the strictest impartiality, but leaves no room for suspicion upon the part of the class of chronic fault finders that infest every school community. It may readily be admitted that this plan is well calculated to guard against partiality, but it seems to make no provision for considering any evidence of competency other than the marking by the examiners of the results of the examination in the prescribed branches of study, such as successful experience in teaching, courses of education passed through, testimonials of scholarship received, &c.

The system of examination and certificating of teachers which has been in operation in the city of Denver for a number of years being peculiar in some of its features and being known to me to have worked very successfully, a description of it is here introduced.

It is made the duty of the committee on teachers, consisting of two members, to examine or cause to be examined all applicants for positions as teachers. It is made the duty of the superintendent to assist in conducting examinations of applicants for positions as teachers and to issue certificates as provided by law under the direction of the board. The examination is both oral and written and embraces reading, spelling, English grammar, physical and descriptive geography, arithmetic, elements of algebra, United States history, English literature, elements of vocal music, and methods and theory of teaching.

The certificates are not graded and they are granted for an indeter minate period.

On an appointed day all who wish to obtain a certificate to teach in our schools present themselves as a class. No preliminaries previous to this time are necessary. The following instructions are given to them:

66 DIRECTIONS TO CANDIDATES.

“At the beginning of the examination an envelope, with a number written thereon, will be handed you. You will be known during the examination not by your name but by the number on your envelope.

"Write on a slip of paper your number, name in full, and present address; inclose the slip in a numbered envelope and seal the envelope.

"At the head of every sheet and separate half sheet of paper used at this examination write your number and the subject. Place before the answers the same figures that are before the questions."

Having taken this precation to have the examination impersonal, questions on the branches required are submitted to the candidates and written answers obtained. These written papers are overlooked and ranked as is the custom in all written examinations. The average standing of the individual obtained from all the papers is recorded as the scholarship standing.

Each person (number) whose scholarship standing has been found satisfactory is asked to remain for a personal interview with the committee and such members of the board as can be present. This interview lasts from twenty to thirty minutes, during which time the candidate presents evidence of good moral character, and takes part in conversation relative to her history, experience, and success, and answers questions propounded by the superintendent on theory of teaching.

At the close of the interview, the candidate having withdrawn, each member of the board present rates the ability of the candidate on a scale of ten, each member stating in figures his estimate of the candidate's fitness for work in our schools. The average of this ranking by members of the board is the candidate's standing in oral examination.

The average of the scholarship standing and of the oral examination standing is the final rank of the candidate. When each member of the class has passed a like examination, the individual standing of each is set opposite the appropriate number and the board elect what numbers shall receive certificates to teach in our schools. Then the sealed envelopes are opened and the names of the candidates learned. From those holding certificates, teachers are elected in the order of their rank at examination.1

This system, it will be seen, is like that of the District of Columbia in reserving the awarding of certificates in the hands of the school board, while it differs from it widely in making much of evidence of qualification other than that of scholarship ascertained by the examination, and it affords a good safeguard against favoritism in the appointments. It is also in effect a competitive examination for appointment as well as a general examination for a certificate.

A general survey of this element of our city systems leads to the conclusion that, on the whole, it is far from being all that could be de sired. This subject deserves far more attention than it has received from our leading educators. It is obviously a delicate subject for the discussion of superintendents in their reports; and hence, if referred to by them at all, it is for the most part referred to in a perfunctory or timid manner. We have much to learn in this regard from those countries where civil service and educational service examinations have been far more scientifically treated than with us. The administrators of our city systems might study with profit the examination scheme of the civil service in England. In France, the examination of pupils and teachers, both general and competitive, has been reduced to almost anex act science. Our examinations for principals and teachers in high schools 'From report for 1883 by P. Gottesleben and Frank Church, committee on teachers.

are especially lame and inadequate. Examinations of teachers for certificates ought to be in the hands of the State authorities. Local boards or municipal boards might be allowed to institute competitive examinations of certificated teachers for appointment to particular situations, such examinations having reference rather to skill and capacity than to scholastic attainments.

PREPONDERANCE OF FEMALE TEACHERS.

One of the most notable characteristics of our school system is the overwhelming preponderance of female teachers. So great is this preponderance that it would probably be not far from the truth to say that the cities where male teachers are employed in elementary schools, in any other capacity than that of principals or as teachers of special subjects, such as German, for example, may be reckoned as the exceptions. In the high schools, the proportion of male teachers is much larger than in those of the elementary grades. In the mixed high schools, especially in the larger cities, the number of male teachers is, perhaps, nearly equal to that of the female teachers. Where the high schools are unmixed, those for boys are taught by male teachers, while the schools for girls are taught mostly by female teachers, under the direction of a male principal. The following tables exhibit the proportion of male to female teachers in twenty-four representative cities:

Table showing the proportion of male to female teachers in ten cities of the first class.

Table showing the proportion of male to female teachers in fourteen representative cities.

It will be seen by the above tables that the average proportion of male teachers to female teachers in the twenty-four cities represented is about 1 to 10. The average of all the cities taken together would probably vary not far from this showing. Philadelphia has the lowest proportion of male teachers, but the male teachers employed are actually engaged in teaching, each one of these, except the high school teachers, being confined to the care and instruction of the upper class of a boys' grammar school and having supervision over a very limited number of lower classes. The next lowest proportion is found in Chicago. In this city there are, in fact, in the elementary schools no male teachers, properly so called. The men reckoned as teachers are, in reality, supervising principals, each having a large number of classes and teachers under his direction and supervision. It will be seen that in Cincinnati the proportion of male teachers is about six times as great as that of Philadelphia and Chicago. This is the result of the policy of employ ing to some extent male assistants in the elementary schools. This is the case in the other large cities, where the proportion is comparatively high, namely, Milwaukee, New York, St. Louis, and Boston. In Milwaukee there are several male principals of primary schools, as well as some subordinate male teachers of district schools, and, in addition, a number of special male teachers of the German language; and hence the high ratio of male teachers as compared with other cities. In some cases ladies are employed as principals of large mixed schools composed of grammar and primary grades. In Cleveland the experiment was made several years ago of placing all the elementary schools in charge of female principals, three or four general supervising male principals being employed to visit the schools at short intervals to give assistance where needed in the discipline and management. On the

other hand, in Boston the girls' grammar schools have, with one exception, always been in charge of male principals.

Speaking of this peculiarity of our system, Mr. Francis Adams, of England, in his excellent work on the American free school system, remarks as follows:

The large preponderance of female teachers in the States will always render the occupation of teacher more or less a temporary one. As a matter quite of course, women do not look to teaching as a lifelong career. In England scarce one in twenty of the female teachers reaches her tenth year of service. Of the female teachers trained at Bishop's Stortford, it has been ascertained that their average school life was under five years. The proportion of female teachers in America is ten times greater than in England. Female teachers may have other advantages over males, and in the United States are generally conceded to have, but the length of their school life is not one of them.

Bishop Fraser, in his well known and highly valuable Report on the Common School System in the United States, which was published nearly twenty years ago, uses the following language in relation to this

matter:

*

The vast majority of the teachers are females and most of them very young females. There is a strong preference in the United States for the employment of females as teachers, chiefly on the score of superior cheapness, but also, in the estimation of many, on the ground of superior efficiency.

He, however, placed a high estimate upon the natural capacity of these ladies for teaching.

M. Buisson, in his report on our public schools, says:

The teaching corps counts a large proportion of female teachers; the married instructresses are sufficiently rare; classes of boys of every age are intrusted to female teachers.

From the same document, other remarks relating to this topic have been quoted under the head "Tenure of office of teachers."

Some years back, it was quite common for State superintendents of schools, in their reports, to mention as a matter of congratulation and as evidence of progress the increasing proportion of the female teachers; but there seems to have been a turn in the tide. The question is coming to be discussed in more than one place whether the displacement of male teachers has not been carried too far for the best interests of our schools. In 1873, the annual report of the Massachusetts board of education contained the following remarks on this topic :

It appears that, of the persons employed as teachers, one-eighth were males and seven-eighths females, the decrease of males for the year being 25, while the increase of females was 233. For upwards of thirty years this process of diminution in the number of male teachers and increase in the number of female teachers has been going on. During past years the board and their secretaries have frequently referred with approbation to the substitution of female for male teachers in our schools as a movement in the direction of progress. But the time must come, if it has not actually arrived, when it will be necessary to consider seriously whether the best inter

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