over 1,050 students, which included 318 enrolled from Baltimore City
at Towson.

Nearly 32 per cent of the white county high school graduates of
1937 continued their education beyond high schools in 1937-38 in
colleges, universities, hospitals, commercial schools, and other in-
stitutions.

Towson, Frostburg, Salisbury, and Bowie Teachers Colleges offer
a four-year course to students preparing to teach in the elementary
schools. Through the training of the teachers colleges, which until
1935 were normal schools, it has been possible to fill 98 per cent of
the positions in county elementary schools with teachers who have
had from two to four years of professional training. The financially
poorer counties have been able to finance the higher salaries for these
trained teachers through aid from the State Equalization Fund. Any
county which could not carry the minimum requirements of the State
program on a county school current expense tax rate of 67 cents plus
other forms of State aid received the additional amount necessary
through the State Equalization Fund from 1923 to 1933. As a result
of legislation in 1933, the 67-cent county school current expense tax
rate required of counties sharing the Equalization Fund was reduced
to 47 cents during the period from 1934 to 1939. In accordance with
the legislation of 1939 enacted to Lake care of the requirements of the
new minimum salary schedule for teachers, the county tax rate required
for participation in the Equalization Fund will be 51 cents for 1940.

During the school year ending in June, 1939, there was at least one
supervising or helping teacher in every county in Maryland. This is
the seventeenth year that this satisfactory situation has existed. The
State pays two-thirds of the salaries according to the minimum
schedule of the county supervising and helping teachers and of county
superintendents. The improvement in the results of the tests in read-
ing and arithmetic is one evidence of effective supervision.

The improvement of instruction through supervision is accomplished
by organizing the content of the curriculum into definite units of in-
struction in the various subjects; by setting up specific goals of accom-
plishment for each grade in the various subjects; by giving standard-
ized tests in the "three R's" to check on the accomplishment of goals
and to plan appropriate remedial teaching for deficiencies revealed; by
analyzing with teachers the achievements to secure more suitable
classification and to provide adequate guidance for individual pupils
who vary markedly from the average; by constantly urging the im-
provement of physical and hygienic conditions in the schools; by stimu-
lating teachers to do the best work of which they are capable through
visits to the classroom followed by helpful conferences and through
participation in professional group meetings of teachers conducted by
the supervisor; by breaking down the isolation of teachers in rural
schools and giving adequate educational opportunity to country chil-
dren; by building up new content and methods with older experienced
teachers who may be inclined to fall into a dull routine; by utilizing
the strength of superior teachers for the benefit of the entire group
through demonstration lessons; and by helping the public and parents
to understand more clearly what the schools are trying to accomplish
for their children.

In the fall of 1939 there were 49 county supervising or helping
teachers employed for the 2,920 white elementary teachers scattered
over the 9,870 square miles in the Maryland counties, an average of
60 teachers for each supervising or helping teacher. Since there are
very few non-teaching principals in the Maryland county schools,