Lack of Public Appreciation of Central Problems
In general, it is evident from a study of American school systems that emphasis has not been laid on central organization. Cities have employed a superintendent when they had a population of five thousand inhabitants and have expected a single officer to continue to perform all the duties of that office when the population has increased to one hundred thousand. A principal is put in charge of a high school of two hundred students and continues to have full responsibility for the school when it increases to eight hundred students. Boards of education have refused to give supervisory officers clerical assistance, and have thus required a principal or superintendent receiving the highest salary of any person in the system to do work which a clerk could do more economically and quite as efficiently, thus interfering with the performance of important central duties for which no time is left.