=Needed in Rural Schools.=--The country partakes of the same isolation in regard to its schools as it does in regard to life in general. This isolation is accentuated where there is little or no supervision. Without it, the necessary stimulus seldom or never touches the life of the teacher or the school. There is little uplift; the school runs along in its ordinary, humdrum fashion, and never measures itself with other schools, and is seldom measured by a supervisor. A poor teacher may be in the chair one term and a good teacher another. The terms are short and the service somewhat disconnected. The whole situation gives the impression to people, pupils, and teacher that education is not of very great value. =No Supervision in Some States.=--In some states there is but little supervision. There may be, it is true, a district board, but these are laymen, much better acquainted with the principles of farming than with those of teaching. They have no standards for judging a school and seldom visit one. The selection known as the "Deestrict Skule" illustrates fairly well the ability of the old-time school board to pass judgment upon the professional merits of the teacher. =Nominal Supervision.=--In other states there is a county superintendent on part time who has a kind of general but attenuated supervision over all the schools of a county. He is usually engaged in some other line of work--in business, in medicine, in law, in preaching--and can give only a small portion of his time to the work of superintendence. Indeed, this means only an occasional visit to the school, probably once every one or two years, and such simple and necessary reports as are demanded by the state superintendent or State Board of Education. Such supervision, however honestly performed, accomplishes but little. The superintendent may visit the teacher to-day, but when he returns a year hence, he is likely to find another teacher in charge. Under such circumstances, what can he do? He has seen the teacher at work for half an hour or an hour; he offers a suggestion, or makes some complimentary remark, and goes his way. No one realizes better than he how little he has been able to accomplish. And yet, under existing circumstances he has done all that could be expected.