=City Supervision.=--Compare the supervision described above with that which is usually found in cities. There we usually find a general superintendent and assistant superintendents; there are high school principals and a principal at the head of every grade building; there is also a supervisor of manual training, of domestic science, of music, of drawing, and possibly of other subjects. When we consider, too, that the teachers in the city are all close at hand and that the supervisor or superintendent may drop into any room at any time with scarcely a minute's notice, we see the difference between city supervision and country supervision. Add to this the fact that cities attract the strong teachers--the professionally trained teachers, the output of the professional schools--and we can see again how effective supervision becomes in the city as compared with that in the country. In the country we find only one superintendent for a county often as large as some of the older states, and the possibility of visiting each school only about once a year. Here also are the teachers who are not professionalized, as a rule, and who, therefore, need supervision most. =The Purpose of Supervision.=--The main purpose of supervision is to bring teachers up to a required standard of excellence in their work and to keep them there. It is always the easiest plan to dismiss a teacher who is found deficient, but this is cutting the knot rather than untying it. Efficient and intelligent supervision proceeds along the line of building such a teacher up, of making her strong where she is weak, of giving her initiative where she lacks it, of inculcating good methods where she is pursuing poor ones, of inducing her to come out of her shell where she is backward and diffident. In other words, the great work of the supervisor is to elicit from teachers their most active and hearty response in all positive directions. It should be understood by teachers--and they should know that the superintendent or supervisor indorses the idea--that it is always better to go ahead and blunder than to stand still for fear of blundering; and so, in the presence of a good supervisor, the teacher is not afraid to let herself out. In the conference, later, between herself and her supervisor, mistakes may be pointed out; but, better than this, the best traits of the teacher should be brought to her mind and the weak ones but lightly referred to.