Superintendent Battle

“ He is always ready to do the contrary of what reason, the vizier, commands. He strives to appropriate to himself whatever he sees in the city, which is the body. Anger, the superintendent, is rebellious and corrupt, quick and passionate. He is always ready to be enraged, to spill blood, and to blast one's reputation. ”

“ If a superintendent should have the temerity to come out in the open and describe, for the benefit of the public, the process of running his division by a combination of rules, schedules, and grievance committees, with himself as an almost impersonal factor in the midst of it all, turning the crank merely as director of the machinery, he would in short order be called upon to back up his story with his resignation. ”

“ The first man from whom Pinel removed the manacles had, [386] with those very manacles, killed one of his keepers. The superintendent who really takes most precautions against violence is not the man who applies the most complete restrictions upon liberty, but he who weighs the general results of different modes of treatment, and selects that which proves in practice most successful in decreasing the number of violent acts. ”

“ He was yawning, burying his flabby red nose in his grey whiskers; and he was thinking that he ought to wait for the military; that it was nonsense to go for such a man without soldiers, with nothing but stupid drowsy policemen who didn't know how to shoot. More than once he reached the point of calling himself the slave of duty, yawning every time long and heavily.
The superintendent was a drunkard, a regular debauchee of the resorts of his district; and they paid him heavily for the right to exist. ”

“ He has an idea that the Police Superintendent is the natural enemy of those who discuss politics, and that he has the power of hanging any such person in the back part of the jail at the Collector's command. ”

“ Removal of superintendents, teachers and employees for treasonable or seditious acts or utterances. A person employed as superintendent of schools, teacher or employee in the public schools, in any city or school district of the state, shall be removed from such position for the utterance of any treasonable or seditious word or words or the doing of any treasonable or seditious act or acts while holding such position. ”

“ Why, monsieur the superintendent, I only want one valet de chambre, for my part, and even if I were alone, could help myself very well; but you, you who have so many enemies—a hundred men are not enough for me to defend you with. A hundred men!—you ought to have ten thousand. ”

“ It is impossible for me not to be the best servant of the king."
"You shall be intendant of the finances, M. Colbert."
"But there is already a superintendent, sire."
"I know that."
"Sire, the superintendent of the finances is the most powerful man in the kingdom."
"Ah!" cried Louis, coloring, "do you think so?"
"He will crush me in a week, sire. Your majesty gives me a controle for which strength is indispensable. An intendant under a superintendent,--that is inferiority." ”

“ On the other hand, since we all like to feel that we are highly useful, the general superintendent, or his chief clerk, is unconsciously dwarfing the initiative of superintendents by requiring references to him of matters that should receive final action at division headquarters. ”

“ I say, without intending to indict anybody, that it has too often happened that men have felt themselves obliged to dismiss superintendents who overtaxed a delicate piece of machinery, who have not gone further and felt obliged to dismiss a superintendent who overtaxed that most delicate of all pieces of machinery, the human body and the human brain. ”

“ You feel that a man from another division has been forced on you by the general superintendent; that you have suffered a personal affront because the promotion you recommended on your own division has not been approved. I am sorry to rule against you, but from your own story if anybody deserves six months twice a year, it is you and not the general superintendent. ”

“ Particularly must each superior take pains always to recognize the rights and responsibilities of his subordinates and to give full play to their powers in the proper exercise of the functions of their grades. If the superintendent saw a man going wrong he would properly correct the foreman, not the man himself ”

“ He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city. As no man can take a city or do any great work unaided he must learn first to rule his own spirit in order that he may rule others and gain their heartiest co-operation. The superintendent who is habitually calm and polite, however great the provocation to speak angrily, will soon find that if he is firm and just his men are worrying even more than he lest things go wrong on the division. ”

“ And as the superintendent in each city is practically, though not theoretically, the doer of all that is done in the general management, and is responsible for the condition of all the schools in the city, his office is, in fact, second in importance to none. ”

“ They ought to talk; and they do, in spite of spies, governor, and the whip. They learn to murmur intelligibly behind their teeth, without moving the lips, and to take advantage of the briefest instants when the superintendent turns his back. ”

“ While the men bore it without a combined protest, a superintendent of a branch might, if he chose, become a little despot, with the power to render miserable the hundreds of men under his control. For as is the master so are his stewards and bailiffs. The example set by one higher official is eagerly imitated by his immediate subordinates, and those over whom they have control are the sufferers.
That the apathy of the force in respect to combination for mutual interest was taken advantage of by their immediate superiors, was shown in many curious and significant ways. ”

“ The superintendent seems to be the man upon whom rests the greatest responsibility, and he is responsible to the directors for all his acts. As stated already, he makes the purchases or orders them made; he disposes of the goods, or orders them disposed of. He makes arrangements for all its business transactions, and he reports to the directors, monthly, the status of the institution. In his hands is placed the power to manipulate and regulate the affairs thereof. If some person in that institution—he may be a good man—is incompetent, he uses his discretion in removing that man. ”

“ What can a supervising officer do for a school or for a teacher under such circumstances? Practically nothing. The county superintendent is usually elected to office by the people and frequently on a partisan ticket. This method of choosing naturally tends to make him give more attention to politics than he otherwise would think of giving. So the supervision or superintendency of country schools is too often slighted or neglected—and who is to blame? ”

“ The thought is that our organization should provide automatically, as in the army and the navy, for the next in rank available to assume the duties of an absent or incapacitated official. A superintendent has to be sick or absent for quite a long time before we designate an acting superintendent. ”

“ Offenses are defined with great minuteness and precision, and the circle of punishments embraces demerits on the roll of conduct, private and public reprimand, confinement to Academy grounds, to room, or to guard-room, and withdrawal on necessity, or dismission. In the administration of discipline, the Superintendent is clothed with much power, which is exercised by the present incumbent with great discretion and the happiest results. ”

“ They threw it up to their comrades that they had been goaded into insurrection, and that a conclusion had been forced upon them which they had not liked. As yet fists played only a secondary part, but it was felt that a bloody encounter might ensue at any moment, and unchain all the fury of the excited multitude.
In the superintendent's building the officers had to sustain a regular siege. From the now closed workshops and bureaux, the younger ones had taken refuge here with their superiors, who were themselves thoroughly nonplused. ”

“ Nor is the disagreeableness of the task of superintendence diminished by this plan, in a much greater degree than the efficacy of it is increased. On all others, be the superintendent’s visit ever so unexpected, and his motions ever so quick, time there must always be for preparations blinding the real state of things. Out of nine hundred cells, he can visit but one at a time, and, in the meanwhile, the worst of the others may be arranged, and the inhabitants threatened, and tutored how to receive him. ”

“ It doesn't take much you know, to keep a man from going to church in this country, so the Superintendent's policy is to remove all possible excuses and barriers and to make it easy for men to give themselves a chance. Our principal man at The Fort is Macfarren, a kind of lawyer, land-agent, registrar, or something of that sort. Has cattle too, on a ranch. A very clever fellow, but the old story—whisky. ”

“ Under the American system a county superintendent of schools invariably has to be a school politician, and almost invariably has to be a political politician as well. His school gang is made up of his assistants and clerks and principals and other numerous appointees, all of whom depend upon his favor 225and are looking for promotion; also those teachers who serve him as bell-wethers, leading the flocks of teacher sheep. ”

“ Now the superintendent should endure all these things in a generous spirit, and not be provoked either by their unreasonable annoyance or their unreasonable complaints. For this class of persons deserve to be pitied for their misfortunes, not to be insulted; and to trample upon their calamities, and add the pain of insult to that which poverty brings, would be an act of extreme brutality. ”

“ You ask their use, and the superintendent replies, "When, in a violent shock, there is danger of the monster's upsetting, an arm is put out, on one side or the other, to keep the thing from turning a complete somersault." You get one idea, and an inkling of another. ”

“ I got there, you see; the superintendent comes out, rascally face, the liar! 'There are no horses,' said he. Well, now I must tell you, I have made a rule in such cases: when there are no horses, I keep on my shuba, and go straight to the superintendent's room,—not the waiting-room, mind you, but the superintendent's own room,—and I have all the windows and doors opened, as though it were stifling. ”

“ And I again saw the insulting, ferocious, familiar look which she had given the superintendent.
"And who is La Frieze?" I asked the magistrate suddenly. "I suppose you know that also?"
"He is a retired butcher, who had both his legs frozen in the war of 1870, and of whom she is very fond. No doubt he is a cripple, with two wooden legs, but still a vigorous man enough, in spite of his fifty-three years. The loins of a Hercules, and the face of a satyr. The superintendent is quite jealous of him!" ”

“ I have not trusted to his reports, I have made close scrutiny with my own eyes; and now I ask you, who has transferred the leased estates from German to Polish hands, and that, too, upon ruinous terms and without guaranties or security? Who has confided the management of the forests to a body of men who care nothing for my interests, but who will render good service to your cause? Who, finally, has made the superintendent's position so intolerable that his only alternative was resignation? ”

“ Under the unit system the superintendent can be thus spared from his division to help save the company money because there is always a competent man to perform his duties, and a provision all along the line for automatic successions to meet just such incidents of service. ”

“ How can he learn, except by doing everything, now and then, when the superintendent is present? Many a superintendent has worn himself out doing five men's work rather than train four men to help him. Elijah trained Elisha to be prophet in his stead. If he had not done so, I hardly think Elijah would have been carried to heaven in a chariot of fire. Every worker should prepare his successor, should make himself unnecessary.
Let it be the superintendent's ambition, then, to create an automatic Sunday-school, one he can leave to run itself. He must keep himself in the background. ”

“ To see any human being swept to such an end is dreadful, but for a county superintendent to witness the drowning of one of her best—though sometimes it must be confessed most insubordinate—teachers, under such circumstances, is unspeakable; and when that teacher is a young man who was once that county superintendent’s sweetheart, and falls in, clothed in a new made-to-order suit in which he looks almost handsome despite his manifest discomfort in his new cravat and starched collar, the experience is something almost 236 impossible to endure. ”

“ Every superintendent believes that he is the best judge of men on the pike. On every system are probably men who can give him cards and spades, picked coal and treated water, and then outclass him on such a run. ”

“ The Herr Superintendent is a man of unusual force of character, and has contrived to gather all the reins into his own hand in the course of the last three years. It is pretty well known now that he will tolerate no one as his superior or even equal in authority, save only the engineer-in-chief, who is now entirely upon his side. ”

“ No Station Master is allowed to be absent without leave from the Superintendent of his Division, except from illness, in which case he must immediately inform the Superintendent, and take care that some competent person is intrusted with the duties. ”

“ Refusal to comply with this form of tyranny or worse, imposed in the name of duty and discipline, would have meant rank insubordination, punishable with dismissal without character. Probably their protests never got beyond the branch superintendent, to whom they complained; but the authorities ought not to have been wholly blind to the men’s treatment. ”