Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1860-1862, 1860-07-10
For Il e Daily Patriot.
Free Schools Of Nashville

If the committee found the pupils of the
Free Schools SO well skilled in their stud
les as they represent, how happens it that so
few of them can stand an examination at
home in some of the multiplicity Of books,
they have been required to buy during the
last five years, or he expelled?
How happens it that classes 10 to 16 years
of age who have peen in the school four
years have to be put back into TWO new
spelling books. new geOpI apRics, aud new
grammar? 90 The committee was (were) less
pleased with the writing than anything else
they saw" (was pleasedO OF course, be-
cause it was in black and white, aud it
could not deceive as other studies can easily
be made to do. The negro says, $ dat is dat,
and Dat is dat, now put dat aud dat togedder
and what does it make ?" Put the bad " rit-
ing, the use for five years of copy books at
Sl.20 per quire, ink at 50 to S3, der COLON,
pen holders at So per gross, and the extra
teaching oil Brown and Gregory down as the
first dat, and the admission of Mr.. Pearl be-
fore the Board ard Committee that he saw
me teach successfully in Ndtchez, 800 pupils
in one month, and one dime for paper as the
second dat, and in the last five years, it would
have made more than SO, 900 difference in ex
pense to the people, besides the difference in
skill. If Mr.. Hume could be successful in
the use such saving plan, then the teachers
of these schools could, and Mr.. Pearl could
have had it done without extra expense for
writing teachers.
Yet the committee care of the opinion that
the Board hare invariably guarded the inter-
ests of the corporation and of parents with
extreme care Was this shown in paying
$50 per hundred for states instead of $40 or
SIS, So per gross for pen-holders, instead of
IS cents, 81 or So per gallon for ink after
their records show they had bought it at so
cents per gallon; Sl2 per hundred for copy
books, instead of 81 20 cents for spelling
book, and then buying the same matter over
again at 35 cents in increasing the wages
OF same teachers $500, 5000 or 500 per
year, without increasing the number OF hours
for teaching; in giving some teachers twice
OF thrice as much as others for teaching the
same branches; in requiring scholars to get
Sundry new books, and then throw them aside
in a month or so, before they had half learned
them; in requiring them to pay several dol
lars each for Latin books in certain rooms
and :hen throw Latin out of the room; in
stopping the exercises of the school for
Scribner and other agents of Crosby, Nichols
& Co., 10 explain and recommend their books;
in taking time of teachers aud scholars to
recommend as good phrenplogist, and advise
pupils to pay dollar to have their heads
examined by low vulgar ignoramus; in re-
commanding :" showmen " and distributing
their bill; in recommending singing teachers,
writing teachers, and in furnishing room
rent, fuel, furniture, &c. TO private specula-
tors for several months during the uery hours
for which the city vas paying another set of
teacher $23. 900, in buying supplies at retail
instead of Wholesale prices; in failing to get
the customary discount on supplies furnished
to schools: in buyin Biographies at 80 cents
with the peoples money, and then compel
them to pay Is or 80 cents in cash and give
another book that cost IS cents, (when the
Board acknowledge the old books are worth
nothing to them. Why not let the people
keep them or are the people 20 be the victims
of the tricks of publishers y fin receiving a
multiplicity of pupils from out of the cor
poratlon, when the schools are so crowded as
to require some $4,000 fo. new building,
&C.. &C., &c. (Yet the committee give Mr..
Pearls statement, " that these admissions
have not been made when the schools were
thereby incommoded." and THAT the chill
dren thus admitted by him would not exceed
twelve in number since The schools were Or
eauized." If the committee will publish the
names of this twelve" can get namSs
of IL times IL more.) If it be said there are
in part the acts of MIR. Pearl, the Board have
sanctioned them by re-electing him. The
expenses above alluded 10, may appear not
large in detail, but when tBken in the aggre-
gate. a mercantile calculation made by one
acquainted with the details of the business,
will show that more than $50 900 might have
been saved TO the people. On the teaching
of writing alone more than $4,000 might
I, ave been saved. Some may think this too
uigh calculations, but l speak OF what
have tested for twenty years.
The laboured efforts of the committee to