The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-06-20
TAKES ISSUE
 WITH PITTS Mf. Gunne1s Replies to
 Legislator. DEFENDS SUPERVISION BILL Says County Superintendents Should Be Experienced Educators. Declares That Rural School Children Have as Much Right to Expect Supervision as Scholars
 of Cities.

Superintendent of Education H. c. Gunnells yesterday gave out an inter- view in which he took issue with the views of Representative Pitts of Dal- las County on the bill pending before the Legislature to secure competent supervision of the rural schools of the State. The Superintendent of Educa- ton at some length defends the piii and argues its merits
 The bill, if it should be made law by the present Legislature, would abol- ish the present system of County Su- perintendents, It is favored by the State Department of Education. Su- perintendent Gunnells says that 1t con- tains most vital advance in the edu- cational life of the State and assures the scholar of the rural school the same intelligent and expert supervision aftorded the child who attends the city schools.
 The bill provides that each County Superintendent must be the holder of a first grade or a life certificate. It provides further that the County Su- perintendent must devote his entire time to the supervision of the schools of the County for which he is to re- cefve an adequate salary. He Is to be elected by the members of the County Board of Education
 Superintendent GunneIIs Views.
 The views of Representative Pitts in opposition to the bill were contained in a communication from him published in The Advertiser. In support of the bill Superintendent Gunnells said yes- terday:
 My good friend. Representative Pitts of Dallas County, in last Sundays issue of The Advertiser undertakes to give a round dozen reasons why the Legislature should not pass the bill known as the Supervision Bill, which is on the calendar of both the House and the Senate.
 .sThe conclusions of M.' Pitts are based on premises which are so erron- eous that feel 1t my duty to call his attention to some of them. In the first place Mir. Pitts states that the people have ever had the right of elecring their County Superintendent No one can question the right of the people to elect their County Superintendents. provided the law fixes that method of selection, but MT. Pitts has evidently not studied the history of the legisla- ton in Alabama on the method of se- lecting the County Superintendent
 s'In great majority of the counties of the State, an investigation will show that the County Superintendents have been selected In various ways at diff IerenC times, ana even now In several counties the Superintendents are ap- pointed by the Superintendent of Edu- cation of the State. The method of se- lecting in the various counties, under the old Constitution which allowed To- cal legislation, depended largely on To- cal conditions and circumstances, and while the people have ever had the right in a great majority of counties they have not always elected directly, and some of them are not eiecting now.
 Question of ConstitutiOnality. 7 MT. Pitts further states that the putting of a qualification on an cleo tive officer cannot be done under the Constitution I cannot understand why so good a lawyer as my friend MT. Pitts should have allowed himself to have made so erroneous a statement In the first place the Constitution of Ala bama which should be paramount with all good men not only does not pro- hibit a qualification for an elective of- flee. but in great many instances ab- solutely fixes an educational qualifica- tion. True. the Constitution does say that the Probate Judge can not be re- ouired to be learned in the law but there Is nothing in the Constitution to prevent the fixing of other qualifica- tfons.
 MT. Pitts further says in connning