Examinations/Exhibitions/Premiums
Pupils were examined quarterly by the Board of Trustees from 1810 until 1846 when examinations became semiannual. The exams took place on the last Friday preceding the end of the term (1836) or on the day preceding the semiannual vacations (1846). The Minutes consistently stated that the students "acquitted themselves to the entire satisfaction of all present."(33)

As with the examinations, exhibitions were a means to judge the progress and advancement of each pupil. A provision for semiannual exhibitions was made as early as 1831. The Minutes state that an exhibition was held in 1856. E. Guy Jewell reports that "as evidence of what the pupils learned, the program of the forty-third annual exhibition listed nine memorized addresses by students, one tableau, three dramatic skits, nine interludes of music by Webber's Band of Washington, seven original addresses by students, and one report by the Board of Trustees."(34)

Students were given premiums as a reward for good examinations. The premiums were paid for from fines arising when Trustees were late to meetings (1822) and from rent money received in excess of Academy expenses (1831). Edward Stabler was authorized by the Board to engrave a die for the purpose of stamping premiums (1833).

33 Brookeville Academy Minute Book, Vol. 1, 1810-1831, Montgomery County Historical Society Library.

34 E. Guy Jewell, A History of the Brookeville Academy, (Rockville, Maryland: unpublished manuscript), p. 28.