SOON after schools open each fall, we are conscious that TIME is undergoing a special kind of examination. For we begin to hear from some of the thousands of teach ers in secondary schools and colleges throughout the U.S. and Canada who use the magazine as a regular part of classroom work. Teachers and stu dents read, discuss, dissect, argue, criticize, challenge--and think. In some instances, as in the case of a St. Louis high school's freshman honors course for pupils with an IQ of 125 to 145, TIME has been required reading. For those schools formally associated with our Education Program, the Education Department supplies a series of quizzes, current-affairs tests, maps, special reports and other teaching aids. Some 100,000 teachers have used the program.

More often than not, the study of TIME goes far beyond mere classroom work in current events. A teacher in an Illinois high school, with pupils who come largely from rural homes that do not receive a daily newspaper, found that use of the magazine in her classwork "opened up the world to whole families." At Regis High School in Denver, the Rev. Donald H. Miller, S.J., has used TIME in teaching medieval and ancient history. "TIME," he wrote, "represents to me an ideal which I hold out to my history class --an understanding of contemporary events in a historical context."

As this school year began at Ewing High School in Trenton, N.J., History Teacher William R. di George put 125 seniors through his annual test. For two weeks, the students are given an opportunity to study a display of TIME covers on the classroom walls. Then each cover is placed under a mat so that only the face is visible, and the picture is projected onto a screen. In a written test, the students are required to identify 100 cover subjects by name and specific endeavor. Through the years, this visual test has a special impact in creating and deepening a lasting interest in contemporary history.

TAKING stock of a troubled chapter of current history, this week's cover story, written by Associate Editor Jesse Birnbaum, examines the state of Alabama and its Governor, George C. Wallace. For the background of his cover painting, Artist Boris Chaliapin chose the broken window of Birmingham's bombed-out 16th Street Baptist Church as a particularly striking symbol of the depth and bitterness of the struggle.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.