The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-06-25
Questions Have Been Carefully
Guarded This Year
KEPT UNDER LOCK AND KEY
Bids VIII Be Opened Early Next
Month for the improvements
Which Are to Be Made on
the State Capitol.
BY HERvEY w. LAIRD.

Montgomery, June 24-(Special There
Is no department Of the service of the
state that receives so much watcnful care
possibly as that of education, and this
care is confined almost wholly to the
matter of examining teachers for their
fitness to become instructors in the schools
of the state. For many years it has been
almost impossible to keep the questions
for the January and July examinations
secret, and on not few occasions in the
past have they been secured in advance
and used by INSCRIPTIONS persons TO pass
muster and secure certificates.
To meet the conditions the superintend-
ent and his assistants have adopted all
! sorts of means, and it is now hoped that
the practice has been checked to the point
almost of elimination. This year the ques-
lions for the July examinations which be-
gin Monday, July 3, and run three days,
were carefully made out in the office
of the secretary of the board of exam
liners and zen to his own room for safe
keeping were then taken to a dis
tant state to be printed and never came
back to Alabama until this week, just
in time to be mailed out to the superin-
tendents.
In conversation with Superintendent of
Education l. W. Hill, in the presence of
Secretary w. +. Feagin of the state
board of examiners, it was learned that
the greatest safeguards have been placed
around the questions, and that about the
only possible way for them to get out
this year is for some of the county super
int n LOT On
lessly or by design, and the system is so
well planned and worked out that the
man who does let them get out will be
known.
Examination Schedule.
The schedule for the examinations Of
July is as follows:
Monday morning. July 8, preliminary
questions, agriculture and reading; af-
ternoon, photography, physiology and geo
graphy
Tuesday morning, arithmetic and Eng
fish grammar; afternoon, United States
and Alabama history.
Wednesday morning, preliminary ques-
tions, algebra and geometry afternoon,
school laws, theory and practice, physics.
Subjects assigned to certain days must
be taken up on those days, and the ques-
lions cannot be opened save for the day
indicated for their use on the back of
the large envelopes in which they are
sent out.
1t is quite evident that the sanctity
of the question lists is largely in the
hands of the county officials and they
are urged to be ever watchful to prevent
their becoming in any sense public prop
erty. One of the features of the instruc-
lions is to be on guard against this pos
sibility.
Moral Character.
Another rule that is given great atten-
ton is that which requires good moral
character in the selection of teachers
and the securing of men and women
whose lives are such as to give good
tone and standing in the communities
where they teach
1t is the hope of the department and
its officers to get the whole state imbued
with the idea that the schools are the
most important thing in the economy or
/ the state and that it is the duty OF all