The Making of Our Wisconsin Schools
1848-1948

Professional Leadership

State Supervision

The constitutional conventions were in general agreement on the organization of a school system, which then was relatively simple. They agreed that there should be a state supervising officer, whether a commissioner or superintendent. New York had created the office of state superintendent in 1813. The position was abolished in 1821 and the secretary of state was designated to act as state superintendent. In 1854 the position of “superintendent of public schools” was recreated. Michigan was the first state (1835) to make constitutional provision for the office of “superintendent of public instruction.” Wisconsin territory had adopted the Michigan school code in 1836 and the members of the constitutional convention were familiar with the idea of a state officer who could collect, analyze, and disseminate school statistics, furnish information to local school officers, travel through the state to visit schools, organize meetings to encourage and counsel teachers, act as a final and ultimate authority to enforce the school laws, determine all matters in dispute, and in general be the authoritative head of its schools.

There was considerable debate as to the best method of choosing a superintendent. The exponents of efficiency were for appointive officers, but the majority, being followers of Andrew Jackson, believed that as much authority as possible should be exercised directly by the people. The elective principle was therefore applied here as it was to the selection of judges. The first section of Article X provided that “the supervision of public instruction should be vested in the state superintendent and such other officers as the legislature shall direct.” By establishing the office in the constitution it was made permanent and could not be, as it had been in New York, subject to the whims of the voters, but it also prevented a change in the manner of election. The salary was fixed at not to exceed $1,200. By various subterfuges it was increased and eventually rose to $5,000. By a constitutional amendment in 1902 the length of the term was extended from two to four years, and the position made nonpartisan by requiring the election to be held at the same time as for members of the supreme court. The qualifications, powers, duties, and compensation were to be prescribed by law. At the next session of the legislature (1903) the salary was made $5,000.

The first state superintendent was Eleazer Root of Waukesha, who had been a member of the constitutional convention and who was the author of the article on education. He had been at the head of “female seminaries” in Virginia and Missouri and at Carroll College. After the county superintendency was established, he held that office in Fond du Lac County. He was nominated by both the Whig and Democratic parties, and was elected for the term of one year. His second term was for two years. His first report showed that enrollment of all the schools was 46,136, the average wages of male teachers was $15.22 a month and for women, it was $6.92. There were 704 public schools and 96 unincorporated private schools.

In the 100 years of statehood 18, men have served as state superintendents. Many of them, after leaving the position, went to very important posts. Naturally they differed in ability, in educational attainment, administrative capacity, interest, and accomplishments.

In 1854, the state superintendent was authorized to appoint an assistant and was given an allowance for clerical help. He was made an ex-officio member of the boards of regents for the university and the normal schools. From 1866 to 1870 he was secretary of the latter board.

One of the difficulties of his position was the lack of authority to enforce his decisions, especially where he ruled on appeals from decisions of the town superintendents fixing district boundaries. The ideas of those who created the position have never been fully realized, and no one was more aware of the limitations to his power than the men who have held the office of state superintendent.

Local Supervision

The schools of 1848 could hardly be called a system of education. At the top, following the Prussian idea of a highly centralized system, there was a state superintendent who was far removed from the locally controlled, managed, and supported district schools which had come to Wisconsin by way of Michigan, New York, and New England. Under the territorial organization, the schools of each township were under the control of three commissioners with vague and indefinite supervision by county commissioners.

The idea of a town superintendent, like those of New England and New York, was early advocated, and in the school laws of 1849 the office was created. Each town superintendent was empowered to divide his town into school districts and to determine and alter their boundaries, to receive and apportion school moneys to the districts, to make an annual report to the country board, to examine and certificate teachers, to visit the schools and examine the management, teaching, and progress of the schools, and to direct the course of study. He was paid $1.00 a day for his services.

These powers were so fundamental that they brought about many conflicts with the state superintendent, who was nominally the final authority. Superintendent Ladd in his report of 1853 said that the method of apportioning school money was unfair and unworkable. He objected to the right of town superintendents to grant teachers’ certificates when the men granting them were in many cases incompetent or inefficient. Their neglect and indifference was also a matter of complaint. Superintendent Ladd considered the selection of teachers as the most important function of a school administrator. “The Cheapest teacher,” he said, “is usually the most expensive in the end.” He strongly recommended the county as the proper administrative unit, although he acknowledged that there was a constitutional requirement for the distribution of school funds to towns and cities. “If the framers of the constitution,” he said, “intended to confer this power upon the counties instead of towns and cities, it is somewhat singular that counties passed unnoticed while towns and cities are named.”

Year after year state superintendents recommended to the legislature the creation of the office of county superintendent and the appointment of city superintendents under the direction of the state superintendent. In 1860 Superintendent Pickard reported that town clerks and superintendents refused to obey his decisions and declared that their inspection of schools and teachers was almost worthless. At last, even in the excitement of the beginning of the Civil War, the legislature acted and in 1861 abolished the office of town superintendent and created the county superintendency. The duties of examining and licensing teachers and the inspection of schools were transferred to the county superintendent, while the formation and alteration of school districts were to be determined by the town board. Teachers institutes were to be conducted by the county superintendent.

The first elections for county superintendents were held in November of 1861. The term of office was for two years and the duties were to begin on the first day of the following January. The salary was to be fixed by the county board of supervisors at from $500 to $1,500, depending on the size of the county. Those counties with more than 15,999 population could be divided into two districts. Many did so, but Dane County is now the only one with two districts. In 1875 a law making women eligible to school offices was passed and three counties, Eau Claire, Oconto, and Shawano, elected Miss Agnes Hosford, Miss M. M. Comstock and Miss C. A. Magee as superintendents although women could not vote. The time of election was changed in 1903 from the fall to the spring election, and in 1929 the term was extended to four years. The Legislature of 1943 raised the qualifications so that a superintendent must be a resident of the county, “have taught two years in a rural, public or in a graded elementary school and hold an unlimited state certificate based on at least four years of accredited scholastic training beyond high school, entitling him to teach in any public school.

Supervising Teachers

One of the greatest steps in advancing rural school teaching was the creation of the position of supervising teacher in 1915. The supervisors have been in the first line of defense and they have made contributions to the schools as great or greater than any other group.

City Superintendents

Since the establishment of the school system in Kenosha, there have been independent school districts not under the full control of state authority. Many of the city superintendents were lay persons or principals and teachers with a full load. It was several years before the practice of appointing an educator who would devote his full time to the superintendency was accepted by all of the incorporated cities of the state. The school board chose the superintendent as its educational adviser, but even now there are some systems in which a lay board attempts to exercise functions which clearly belong to the superintendent. On the whole the system has developed efficiently and has carried the schools forward on a sound basis.

It is apparent now that the development of the supervisory work of the state was the result of various and contradictory forces which resulted in constant compromises between a tightly organized system working either from the bottom up or down from the top. From the beginning and at every step there were objections from advocates of a unified system and from the partisans of local autonomy. Report after report has been made to the people and to the legislature recommending a total reorganization of our schools. In the last few years, recommendations from survey committees have superseded the more loosely drawn reports of state superintendents and educational committees. Perhaps the most important survey was that submitted to the legislature in 1931 which recommended a complete overhauling of the entire school system. Some of the recommendations have been adopted, but they came as special and independent laws and not as a response to the survey, although it had some influence.

The Wisconsin Teachers Association in 1876 made a thorough study which reads as if it might have been made in 1947. They found many defects in Wisconsin school organizations, among others:

Excessive subdivision of territory and local independence.
Lack of uniformity in burdens of cost.
Lack of uniformity in character and amount of instruction.
Lack of intelligent, permanent, and authoritative supervisors.

The report recommended:

A nonpolitical State Board of Education of 11 appointed members.
The State Superintendent to be appointed by the Board.
County superintendents to be appointed by the State Board.
The organization of district schools on a township basis.
Each township to have a central high or grammar school.
A uniform state tax so that “the property of the State shall educate the children of the State.”
Uniform state examination of teachers.
One-half of state school money to be distributed on basis of aggregate attendance.

The report admitted that it was a centralizing as well as an improvement program and that the changes could not all be secured at once. No measure “seemed so important for the present welfare and future progress of our school system as a general state school tax.” It is signed by six distinguished Wisconsin leaders of education under the chairmanship of John Bascom, the president of the University of Wisconsin.

After reading the report and comparing it with many modern survey reports, one can say, “How modern were the ancients and how ancient are the moderns.”

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