New Orleans Republican., 1868-12-15
eUBBRNAToR ON SCHOOL BOOKS.


prevented our giving that attention, which
the public interests require, to the subject
Of our city public schools. The School
Board is unfortunately making itself about
as unpopular as the remainder CT the city
government, Of which it is part 90
At the last session of the Board that ac-
tive and enterprising fellow citizen, John
l.. Gubernator, Esq, gentleman who
figures conspicuously as one of our chief
Commissioners Of Drainage, President Of
the Democratic Club of the Second Ward
standing member and active committeeman
of all the Democratic conventions, etc., Of
fered a resolution requiring all the children
of the public schools to pay for their school
books, except such whose parents could
establish before the Superintendent their
indigence and inability to pay.
The result Of such resolution, though
coming from Democratic source, would be
to establish an undemocratic distinction
between citizens and even their children
and families. The rich would by such
means maintain an aristocracy of caste in
the schools, where the children of all
should be equal, with the exceptions Of such
as would debase themselves by meanly pre-
tending indigence before the Superintend-
ent. The poor would be mulcted of the
hard-earned sum, or have to submit to the
humiliation of making an application On
the score of inability to pay. Many would
manfully withdraw their children from the
schools, rather than have them classified as
paupers and insulted in their honorable
poverty, perhaps upon the playground, be-
cause furnished with books at the public
expense. As for the Superintendent, it
would make of him lordly grandee with
power to exacts revenue return from every
citizen.
School books are necessary part OF the
educational system. They are so consid-
cred wherever the common school system
has found vogue. They can or ought to
be purchased most cheaply by wholesale
from the school fund. The purchasing of
them at retail by each pupil would en-
hance the prices, besides turning the
schools into retailing shops, in addi-
ton to the odious distinctions it would
make. 1t would also render it difficult to
improve upon or change the school books
when necessary; at present when the chill
dren advance from class to class the books
which the pupils have finished using are
handed back to their successors. Thus
one book will answer for several pupils
successively until it is worn out The
other system would make each purchase
full sets for himself alone, costing thus per-
haps four times as much as they would aver
age by the other system. Allowing say fifty
per cent between wholesale and retail
price, this would make the total amount in
money Of the sales of school books for the
children of New Orleans say six times as
much as they ought to be at present. The
present is or ought to be the most economi-
cal way for the public to get the books.
The long-tried system of furnishing them
as part of the plan of education is in
fnitely preferable to the impossible idea of
making general education depend upon
barter and sale, to say ten thousand chill |
dren.
About twenty or twenty-five years age
Mr.. Breedlove made proposition to sell |
the pianos in theschools, as a measure of
The measure was secuted
by the public, and poor Mr.. Breedlove,
most honorable and well meaning gentle
man, suffered the consequences when
for Mayor against John L. Lewis,
late Major General of the rebel States mi
itia, by running two thousand votes be-
hind his ticket. 1t is said to be worse than
/ crime to make blunder, and Mr.. Gu
oernator, an active and reputed by his
riends to be a rising If not ambitious poll
ieian, has probably done for himself for
'ver in this community. He will have to
De luekier than Mr.. Breedlove to ever live
I down. Mr.. Breedlove never heard the
asst Of his pianos, but we trust that our
worthy and estimsble fellow-citizen, Mr..
1nbernator, may not be SO unfortunate
With his school books.
Rather would it not have been better for
Ar. Gubernator, as apublic retrencher and
economy man, to turn his attention to the
lrainage system, which has long been more
! drainage to the pockets of our citizens
han to anything else, and which is reputed
o have served little to any other purpose.
{ has been often asserted that from the
Fery origin Of the drainage tax system
more money has been expended in office
expenses, salaries and etceteras, than in
lrainage operations upen the swamp lands
n the rear of our city. Wedo not think it
will need another article to head off the
chool book movement, but it may require
mother one or two TO call the attention of
he State officials, the Property Holders
Association and the Legislature to some Of
be beauties of the drainage system exhib-
ted In detailed form.
t
The Tines man is evidently jealous Of the
gentlemen whose names have
'een inserted in Senator Kellogg's clem-
ncy BILL It also pitches into US again on
ccount Of our having been assirned last