The Topeka state journal., 1905-02-24
Mr.. WRIGHT RESIGNS.
j. r. Carter Appointed County SUPER
illtendent by Commissioners.

County Superintendent of Schools S.
F. Wright today resigned his Office to
take erect on March s. John r. Car
ter, last fall elected to the position.
was at once appointed by the board Of
county commissioners to fill the unex-
pred term. which runs to May g. Mr.
wright Will on a week from next Mon
day take charge of Grant school as
principal, in the place OF E. A Sim
merwell, who recently resigned it. to
go back to his farm near Harveyviile
MI Wright has served as county sup
er1ntendent of schools for four years,
or two terms During that time he
brought the schools of this county to a
point of efficiency and system not be-
tore attained. This is a well recogniz-
ed tact by all persons who are familiar
with the work
Mr- Wright gives much of the credit
to the county commissioners '"They
packed me up in every venture 1 un-
dertook, said he this morning. They
made 1t a special point to always give
attention to any of my suggestions and
after adopting them, followed them out
bilities.
Everything is in good shape" said
MI Wright this morning we have
12S teachers in the county and about
II, 900 school children in attendance.
There are no complaints from any
sources. Teachers are all giving salts
faction and the patrons of the schools
seem pleased with the progress made
One of the best things done by Mr..
Wright was the institution in his Of
flee, of the records of every school child
in the county. That was never done
before. Now it is possible to go into
the, county superintendent's Office and
within few minutes, tell the record of
any child during the past year. If a
pupil is to be transferred from one dis
trfct to another, or one county to an
other, the teachers will not have to de-
pend upon mere verbal statements of
the child's record, but can get it in act
ual. black and white from the county
superintendent's records
But the feature of Mr.. Wright's ad--
ministration was the introduction of a
uniform course of study to be fol-
lowed out by every teacher in the
sociation last year adopted for the en-
tire county school system of the
state.
Heretofore the teachers in country
schools usually mapped out their own
courses of study. These were in most
instances all right, but when it came
to the transferring of a child from
one place to another it took a good
deal of time to exactly place the grade
of the pupil. To systematic this, Mr.
Wright mapped out a course of four
years study and used it all over the
county. Once each month the county
teachers met in his office and talked
over the plan. In that way they re-
ceived mutual instruction and ideas
as how to work. The county COM
missioners fitted up a special room in
the Shawnee county court house last
year for these meetings. That was
but one instance of how the commits
sioners backed up Mr.. Wright's plans.
Two years ago the State Teachers
association called Mr.. Wright before
it's meetings and asked him to explain
his system He did so, and last
year the association adopted his plan,
and it is now in vogue over the en-
tire state. 1t is proving to be a factor
in the educational standing of Kan
sas.
The four things which Mr.. Wright
had planned to do he accomplished,
namely: The classification of the stu
dents so that they can be transferred
from one district to another without
losing time; the preparation and use
of course of study SO that all the
schools in the county could be doing
the same class of work at the same
time; the uniting of teachers for the
mutual discussion of the growth and
needs of their schools; and. the close
supervision of county work