=The Schools Examined.=--The county superintendent and his assistants should give, periodically, oral and written examinations in each school, thus testing the work of both the teacher and the pupils. These examinations should not conform in any perfunctory or red-tape manner to a literally construed course of study. The course of study is a means and not an end, and should be, at all points and times, elastic and adaptable. To make pupils fit the course of study instead of making the course of study fit the pupils is the old method of the Procrustean bed--if the person is not long enough for it he is stretched; if too long, a piece is cut off. Any examination or tests which would wake up mind and stimulate education in the neighborhood may be resorted to; but it should be remembered that examinations are likewise a means and not an end. Some years ago when I was a county superintendent I tried the plan of giving such tests in any subject to classes that had completed a definite portion of that subject and arrived at a good stopping place. If, for example, the teacher announced that his class had acquired a thorough knowledge of the multiplication table, I gave a searching test upon that subject and issued a simple little certificate to the effect that the pupil had completed it. These little certificates acted like stakes put down along the way, to give incentive, direction, and definiteness to the educative processes, and to stimulate a reasonable class spirit or individual rivalry. I meet these pupils occasionally now--they are to-day grown men and women--and they retain in their possession these little colored certificates which they still highly prize. One portion of my county was populated almost entirely by Scandinavians, and here a list of fifty to a hundred words was selected which Scandinavian children always find it difficult to pronounce. At the first trial many or most of the children mispronounced a large percentage of them. I then announced that, the next time I visited the school, I would test the pupils again on these words and others like them, and issue "certificates of correct pronunciation" to all who were entitled to them. I found, on the next visit, that nearly all the children could secure these certificates. These tests created a great impetus in the direction of correct pronunciation and language. Some teachers, from mistaken kindness, had been accustomed to refrain from correcting the children on such words, but as superintendent I found that both the parents and the children wished drill in pronunciation and were gratified at their success. This is only a sample. I would advocate the giving of tests, or examinations, on any subject in the school likely to lead to good results and to stimulate the minds of the pupils in the right direction. The county superintendent and his assistants might agree to lay the accent or the emphasis on different subjects, or lines of work, in different years.