Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/226

 204 Charles Abner Howard obstacle to the best school work in these large districts is the great distance to be traveled by the children * * permanent school system will be removed only when we have secured a large number of people, thus making our school districts more populous and bringing the boundar- ies within smaller compass." 4 One of the principal needs during the early history of the state was legal provision for adequate educational leadership. Until 1873, the governor was ex-officio Sup- erintendent of Public Instruction and the burden of other important duties left him very little time for educational matters. The different counties of the state were, there- fore, practically independent of each other in school mat- ters. Even within the counties, adequate educational di- rection was lacking. County superintendents did not receive sufficient pay to justify their spending all their time at the work. In 1874 the annual salaries ranged from fifty to five hundred dollars, only five counties pay- ing the latter figure. 5 In 1885 the average annual salary for this important office was $370. 6 As late as 1898 this average had reached only $514. 7 This means that prac- tically all the county superintendents were engaged in regular teaching or in some other employment to eke out a living, and that few, however well endowed with qual- ities of leadership, could spend sufficient time at the job to properly organize and supervise the schools of a county. This lack of leadership meant that the school work of the state hung like a dead weight upon the shoulders of the state superintendent. Only a man of suerhuman en- ergy could be expected to bring about rapid improvement 4 £. B. McElroy — Eighth Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Pub- lic Instruction of the State of Oregon. 1889. pp. 111-112. 5 First Biennial Report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion of Oregon. 1874. p. 86. 6 Sixth Biennial Report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion of Oregon. 1885. p. 69. 7 Thirteenth Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion of Oregon. 1898. p. 7.
 * * * All the difficulties in the way of an efficient and