Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1855-09-08

| aoJo W OhO AiOhth, Sl'So A%V uey eAoO ehs
public schools of the county are in operation
l20 day.. then, are all that are allowed fol
visiting 100 schools, which is at the rate Of
about six day, or one an hour during
school hours. If We were given to betting, We
would wager Mr. GUYER that that he cant
ride old gray by the school houses in the coun
ty at that rate, without so much as peepine
into one of them No school can be visited
we think, to any profit short of the six hours
it is in session. Nothing like proper knowl
edge of the teachers skill, his mode and sue
cess in teaching and governing his school car
be obtained In less time neither can the Su
perintendent do much by way of detecting
and correcting his defects, suggesting definite
| Improvements in instruction and school govern
ment, &C., &c." in visit of shorter duration.
What then | would ask, can be accomplished
by visiting six schools per day? Just what
has already been accomplished
Visiting the schools, then, according to the
requirements of the law must be regarded as
an impracticability. Mr. GUYER seems to have
come to the same conclusion, for he has not
attempted as yet a general visitation of the
schools of the county. He says, however, in
his late circular of defence, which is being
thrust into every mans face in the county, that
he has visited 293 schools out of the 100. He
says he has spent 800 days in the school SER
vice Now 80 of those days must have been
spent in examining teachers---a few of them in
writing his 4I9 letters-a few more in writing
the 800 pages of his foolscap, and not a few,
we opine, at Harrisburg boring the legislature
for the law by which a thousand dollars were
put into his pocket. Not a great many could
have been left for visiting professionally y
those schools. Some of those schools must
have been pirate schools, or merely the school
houses, or else he has rode his old gray most
numerically in visiting so many in so short a
time. All we can say is he has never visited
public school in Sheshequin to our knowledge
| If he has looked into school here it must have
been private one, and therefore no concern
of his other districts can answer for them
selves No doubt he has done something at
visiting public schools We hear of his visit.
ing " professionally" two in Smithfcld The
story runs-that while old gray was feeding by
the way-side, Mr. GUYER, with his saddle-bags
on his arm, planted himself in the centre Of
the floor and visited the teachers and scholars
with speech which so frightened and shocked
them that the scholars could not be coaXed
out of their hiding places to 60 through any
exercises in his presence and what is more
the teachers could not be induced to coax them
out The benefits of those visits are best known
to those more Immediately affected by them
| Visiting some of the schools and neglectne
Others is productive of no good. 1t begets
hard feelings and jealousies. Some complain
because they hare not been visited, aud other:
because they hare, and it is not for us to say
which has the greatest cause of complaint.
We have heard something said about sub
sttutes The law knows nothing of substitutes
The Office is one which cannot be filled by those
the school directors do not select Our legis
| ldOOIS may us Wtll ulIt Substitutes W SO u
Harrisburg and make the laws, or the judges
on the bench hire substitutes to decide tn,
laws The introduction of substitutes and as
sistants would be practical abandonment O
the one man superntcndency and an approx
nation to the system of Township Superinten
dents Again we say, one man cannot visi
the public schools of the County to any bene
fit whatever and if Mr.. GUyER has not aban
doned the notion, he has at least abandoned
the practice. Two hundred days are about al
he can employ in travcrsing the county,-S(
days in inspecting teachers and 1870 in trying
to visit the schools and we think $500 fai
compensation for the labor expended ;-leav
ing the visiting of schools out of the question
and it would be decidedly too much. In ethe
case it could not be paid him on the principl
of quid pro quo. The equivalent has not beer
received. X.
SHEsHEoUIN, August "a, 1855