The Richmond climax. (Richmond, Ky.) 1897-1914, 1899-03-01
A DEFENSE OF STATE BOARD OF EDUcA.
TON


HARRoDsBURG, KY, Feb. Is, '99.
Ed Gilman:
MY DEAR SIR:-In your issue Of the
inst, under the caption, Two Ridi-
culous Questions Asked at Teachers
Examination, you, in your usually
vigorous style and upon seemingly good
grounds, removed great patches of
cuticle from the State Board of Ex-
aminers, zone of which am whom"
You cited as instances of the Boards
incompetence two.problems approved
by the State Board of Education"
The first one read as follows: Bought
q 8 barrels sugar for S453.75 and sold it
at s. 624 a barrel; what did it bring a
barrel?".
OF course, the problem as it reads is
meaningless, but it seems to me that
any county board of examiners ought
easily to arrive at the intentions of the
State Board in cases where such errors
as this one may occur and make such
corrections, as in their judgment,
seem advisable.
! can't wholly excuse this and many
other errors that crept in last year, but
will say, in defense of the superintend
ent and other members of the Board,
that our troubles last year were "le-
gion," chief of which was, we had a
New printing firm that was not equip
ped for the business and it was with
the greatest difficulty that we were
enabled to furnish the questions at all.
And besides. the Supt. was Overworked
with his biennial report, a document
of of nearly 500 pages.
He also had on his hands extra work,
a suit against the city of Louisville for
false listing, which, by the way, he
won, thus saving to the other schools
of Kentucky. about $4,000 (ffty-six
thousand) annually.
Iwould also like to say word to
those who are unacquainted with the
amount and character of the work re-
quired of the State Board.
We are called upon each year to
furnish about 1900 eighteen hundred)
questions, principally on eleven
branches. We are supposed to ask none
but sensible" questions, not to repeat
any, and not to ask any sin the exact
language of the book" Also the ques-
tons must be reasonable, general,
(no catches" go) difficult enough to
meet with the heartiest approval Of
the educated crank" easy enough
for all applicants to get ''frst-class. v
They must not overreach the most in
competent county boards, they must
come up TO the standard of the mosI
up-to-date-county boards. They must
not be the same as last year and the
year before, they must not differ toe
much from last year and the year be-
fore. They must be along the same
lines as indicated by the former State
Board, but they must not be like the
former State Boards. And last but
not least, they must be gotten out il
time to send to all the counties in Ky.
but they must not be gotten out in time
for thieves to break through and stea
and sell
But it is in the second problem tina
you, unintentionally, do the Stat,
Board an injustice. 1t reads as fol
lows:
"a field has two of its four side
parallel and two not parallel; distance
between parallel sides rs rods; length
of non-parallel sides, so and ITO rods
respectively find area in acres"
You say that you have submitted
this problem to the foremost mathema
tician in Kentucky, and he land 9th
ers) "'pronounces it incapable of solu
ton"
Now, / am forced to believe that tn
persons to whom you submitted tn
problem passed judgment hurriedl
and without really making an attemp
to solve it, At first glance it does ar
pear impossible. But you will Sc
from the diagram and solution sui
mitted that it is a very simple problem
merely involving a knowledge of tn
right-angle triangle taught in a
arithmetics.
I hope you can print the diagraI
and solution; if you can't please sui
NIT it to the parties that pronounced
incapable of solution.
The answer is 25.3S acres.
l am inclined to think that the pc
sons to whom you submitted it, after
hurried examination took the view thu
the problem should read, land the pa
allel sides 80 and ITO rods" Eitht
seems simple and fair. And it doc
not require a knowledge Of Geometr.
as some may think, to solve it eith'
way. 4t
Believing that you will not hesita
to print the foregoing, thus righting q
unintended wrong las am forced
believe), l am most respectfully,
CHAs. w BELL,
Member of State Board of Examiners.
PSI am unable TO get any 9th
solution to the problem. In fact,
feel safe in saying that there is !
other; for that reason it is not an 81
determinate problem.
c. w. BELL.
[Rejoinder to foregoing will be foul
on inside page.-Ed. CLIMAx.l