teachers but receive in return practically nothing for the money thus expended. If the limited number of teachers prepared and the kind of training given by the normal schools conspire to deprive the rural communities of their quota of trained teachers, universal taxation for the support of these schools is not justified.

Salary. The average salary of the teachers replying is $563 per year; the average term, 8 months; or about $70 per school month and $48 per calendar month if counted on the basis of 12 months. This is higher than the total average for the State as reported by the county superintendents, which is $60. In some counties a few salaries as low as $30 per school month are paid. The length of term in rural districts also varies from 2 to 10 months, as stated in the section on attendance.

Professional spirit.-The interest which rural teachers take in selfimprovement may be judged somewhat from attendance at institutes and summer schools and from the amount of professional reading done. A large number attend institutes as a preparation for teachers' examinations and for the 5 per cent allowed on examination grades because of this attendance. A worthy desire for improvement is shown by the 26 per cent who have gone to summer school and by the 57 per cent who have read professional books.

The classroom.-No investigation of classroom instruction was made by the Bureau of Education, but some idea of schoolroom organization may be obtained from the replies received. The prevailing number of grades taught in rural schools in the State is six or seven; some schools have few pupils and only three or four grades, others have the whole number, or eight grades. The average enrollment in the schools taught by the teachers replying is 17, varying from 8 to 30 in the different counties. The average number of recitations conducted daily in the schools of the several counties varies from 16 to 29, with an average of 22 for all counties. In single schools the number of recitations conducted in many cases reported was as high as 37. If this be interpreted in terms of the teacher's time per recitation, it means: If 37 recitations are conducted in a school day of 5 hours, or 330 minutes (exclusive of noon hour and recesses), the teacher can devote an average of eight minutes to each class, provided not more than half a minute is consumed in passing to and from classes and that no time is used for opening exercises or rest periods. If 22 recitations are conducted daily, the recitation time averages 15 minutes. If first and second grade classes be excepted, no recitation can be properly conducted in 15 minutes. There is apparently little real effort toward alternation or combination of classes.

Living conditions.-Nearly all of the teachers reporting live or board within the district in which they teach. As a rule they have

boarding places reasonably satisfactory, though about 13 per cent report very objectionable living conditions.

A few teachers' cottages were reported. Teachers' living expenses vary from $16 to $35 per month, the average being $19.

A large number of letters accompanied the replies to questions submitted explaining the difficulty of securing privacy and heated bedrooms. Even teachers who reported boarding places reasonably satisfactory are not well enough contented with living and salary to be willing to remain in the country. Of the teachers reporting, 61 per cent are teaching their first year in the district, 22 their second year, and 16 per cent have taught more than two years. An itinerant teaching force can not accomplish satisfactory results nor be organized into a body working systematically with continuity of purpose or unity of aim.

The most important consideration in the efficiency of any school is the teacher. This is particularly true in rural schools because the entire responsibility of organization, management, course of study, selection of books, etc., is likely to rest on the teacher. In cities where principals and supervisors make frequent visits and where there is an organized system, there is a far better chance of success for the untrained and inexperienced teachers than in the rural schools where there are none of these advantages. Colorado needs to insist on better trained teachers, longer tenure, better living conditions, and better salaries if good teachers are to be secured and retained or if the educational opportunities furnished in rural schools are to approximate those furnished in the larger city districts.

(7) TEACHER TRAINING.

The committee has pointed out in the preceding section that 58 per cent of the teachers replying to the bureau's questionnaire are entirely untrained and that 83 per cent have not had the equivalent of the six years above elementary school prescribed for graduation from the State normal school and teachers' college. As the only compensation for this deficiency and as the sole means given by all but five of the county superintendents for supplying training for teachers in service, the State provides summer normal institutes. These are attended by rural school teachers almost exclusively and very largely by untrained teachers working for higher grade certificates. The State may be credited with furnishing for the training of teachers for rural schools the 13 summer institutes and the rural departments of the teachers' college and State normal school. The institutes are treated more at length because their conduct and management are among the administrative duties of the State and county school officials and because a study of the teacher-training institutions was not included in the scope of this report.

Institutes.-Colorado is divided into 13 institute districts, each containing from 3 to 11 counties. In each district an institute, usually two weeks in length, is held under the management of a committee of three county superintendents elected by the superintendents of all the counties in the district, at a point designated by the committee. The total cost of institutes held in Colorado in 1916 must have approached $15,000. The cost of nine reporting was $9,080. The money is obtained from teachers' examination and certificate renewal fees (apportioned among the institute districts), institute attendance fees, and the county general fund of the counties represented in the registration.

There is a very grave question as to the advisability of expending this sum for teachers' institutes. Like many other school arrangements in Colorado, the institutes were established to meet pioneer conditions at a time when the value of professional training was underestimated and a short course to prepare prospective applicants for the regular teachers' examinations was considered a necessity. What the State now needs is increased facilities for professional education and provision for training teachers in service. The money expended would be far more profitably spent if institutes were replaced by two or three day teachers' meetings in every county and six-week summer schools located in accessible places.

For several years the efficiency of teachers' institutes has been the subject of discussion and consideration among educators in the State. The minutes of the board of examiners show that they have found it expedient to impress instructors with the fact that institutes should be confined to professional and inspirational work and not devoted to preparation for teachers' examinations. A regular teachers' examination occurs in August, following closely the institute session, and there is a good deal of pressure on instructors for reviews which help applicants to pass it.

The Colorado law requires that every institute instructor must have a certificate granted by the State board of examiners. The minutes of the board are not sufficiently complete to indicate the kind of qualifications required. Each application is acted upon as an individual case. In a few instances the list of names of instructors for 1916 contained members of the faculty of the agricultural college, the State university, and normal school; but city superintendents and school principals and grade teachers from the larger cities predominate among the instructors. There is no evidence to show that special training for rural-school work or rural-school experience is demanded from instructors, though rural teachers only attend.

The number of institute certificates granted for the years from 1910 to 1916 are as follows:1

1 Not exact-some renewals, some omissions.

Data from questionnaires sent to the secretaries of the 13 institute districts are shown in Table 42. The subjects taught nearly always include reviews in the common branches, pedagogy, and primary work. The large institutes engage a great many instructors; the small ones employ fewer instructors, but cover practically the same ground. A large number of the teachers who attend are inexperienced, and are preparing to take the regular examination which follows the institute. A relatively small number, from 10 per cent to 38 per cent, have secured first-grade certificates, and so can be considered as attending for professional help rather than for preparation for teachers' examination or for the 5 per cent premium, which is added to examination grades for attendance. A large number of the attendants are persons, prospective teachers and others, who reside in the town in which the institute is held. Of over 2,000 attending the reported institutes, 830 paid board while attending and paid railroad or stage fare to reach the place of attendance, while 1,230 did not.

It is recommended that the summer normal institute be abolished and six-week summer schools substituted at five or more points in the State selected because of convenience of location. The amount now spent on institutes would probably support the suggested number of summer schools-at least very little in addition would be needed.

TABLE 42. Data relating to institutes.1

1 No replies were received from secretaries of institute districts Nos. 2, 8, and 12 (E. D. Webb, Boulder; Miss Mary Lake, Lamar; Mrs. E. Hinton, Grand Junction). A reply was received from Elmore Floyd, Trinidad, secretary of district 9, too late to be included.

Teacher training.-The State maintains two institutions for the training of teachers, one located within convenient reach of the counties in the northeastern portion of the State, the other within convenient reach of adjacent counties in the southwestern portion of the State. The remaining counties of the State are so far from either of these institutions that the expense of traveling, added to

the necessity of paying living expenses away from home, makes attendance prohibitive to a large number of young people who desire to prepare themselves to be teachers.

In 1916 the State teachers' college and the State normal school graduated 337 persons from the regular two-year course. There were 145 additional graduates from the three, four, or five year courses at the teachers' college. The State College of Agriculture maintains a department for training teachers in which there are enrolled in the fall of 1916 about 30 student teachers. There were 30 graduates of the college of education of the university in 1916, and 25 other graduates of the university with enough work in education to entitle them to State certificates. Altogether the State gave complete courses to approximately 575 teachers in 1916. Others, of course, took partial courses. Over 6,000 teachers are employed.

The majority of the trained teachers go into the cities and towns with special superintendents (see section on teachers). This is due partly to superior attractions of city positions, but also to the fact that few teachers are trained for rural-school work. The normal school at Gunnison and the teachers' college at Greeley both maintain departments for training rural teachers, but the number so trained at present is insignificant compared to the number needed. Institutes were established for the purpose of bringing teachertraining facilities within reach of people in the various localities, but the training offered is entirely inadequate for the purpose. It is clear that one of the most pressing needs of the State is an extension of facilities for training teachers for rural schools either through the establishment of additional normal schools under the control of the board now in charge of the two teacher-training institutions, or through branches of these schools so located that they shall be within reach of the portions of the State now remotely located from either the teachers' college or the normal school. Probably one normal school or branch normal school, well located in the thickly populated portion of the western slope, and an additional one located in the southeastern part of the State would, with the establishment of the summer-school facilities above recommended, be sufficient for immediate needs.

The attitude of educational authorities on this question is indicated by the following, quoted from the report of the survey of higher education in the State of North Dakota (Education Bulletin, 1916, No. 27):

If there is need for well-educated, well-trained, and experienced teachers in the schools of one community there is equal need for such teachers in all communities. If the State taxes all the property and all the people of the State for the entire or partial support of all the schools of the State to the end that the State may have intelligent, virtuous, self-supporting citizens, then the State must require every community to put into its schools teachers who are