A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

GENERAL ADMINISTRATION

545

(6) Unless these outside interferences are removed and funds are
supplied the only practicable improvements are some relatively trivial
ones, such as (a) more attention to humanizing administration; (b)
elimination of some of the paper work; (c) a clearer determination of the
work of each staff member and a greater delegation of authority by the
Director so that he may save his energies for the most important matters; (d) a listing of desired data with their possible uses and the reorganization of statistics so as to provide more useful data. An
example is the reorganization of the cost data so as to show per-pupil
cost figures on the different kinds of schools.
THE WORK OF THE DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT
The division superintendent is primarily the representative of the
Bureau of Education in his division. Theoretically, he has great responsibilities and is in almost complete control of the division's educational
affairs. He is expected to do all that the Bureau of Education could
do through a field representative, to report to the central office the things
that he cannot consummate by himself, and to follow the instructions of
that central office on this or any other matter.
In the main his work is of seven kinds: (1) The appointment and
assignment of teachers; (2) field work done largely through the supervisors and supervising teachers; (3) finance; (4) erection and maintenance of buildings; (5) reports and general correspondence with the
central office; (6) investigating charges against teachers and pupils, and
(7) teachers' institute. These will be discussed in order.
1. THE APPOINTMENT AND ASSIGNMENT OF TEACHERS.-The
permanent assignment of teachers is an exceedingly important part of a
superintendent's activities. He has to choose his teachers carefully, see
that they are placed where they will be most effective, and check them
up on their work. His labor here is complicated by the fact that the
insular teachers may be withdrawn at any time for assignments elsewhere. Whenever a teacher resigns he has to fill the place as early as
possible. This work on appointments and assignments take no small
part of a superintendent's time.
2. FIELD WORK.-Under the instructions of the central office, the
division superintendent is expected to devote about four-fifths of his time
to field work. This is, however, wholly out of the question for most of
the division superintendents, and the larger the division the more of the
superintendent's time will have to be spent in the office. He accordingly must spend a great deal of the time with the supervisors and supervising teachers going over their work and checking up their reports.
However, he must spend considerable time himself in visitations because
a system of the central office checks him up and demands to know from
211488 —35