Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-10-07
VOTE FOR THE AMENDMENT

The present involvement of the local
Board of Education with the school-book
publishers emphasizes the duty of voters to
ratify the constitutional amendment pro-
yiding for the printing of the textbooks
for our schools by the State We have al
ready reviewed in detail and answered the
objections raised by the Teachers State
Convention.
Let us look at the matter now in a more
logical manner The amendment is an
economic measure, because it will remove
from the fifty-eight Boards of Education
the suspicion, now attaching. of yenal
practices. In many cases this is no suspi-
cicn. but established fact 1t is notorious
that educational officers in large numbers
are corrupted by book agents. 1t is notori-
Gus that the ambition of no small number
of men to serve in unsalaried positions
upon Boards of Education is prompted by
the stealings possible in the adoption of
textbooks.
When these opportunities are removed it
will be possible to fill Boards of Education
with better intellectual and educational
timber, for the amendment will tend, very
largely, to take school elections ont of pol
tics. There are now some good Boards,
many conscientious and philanthropic Di-
rectors, but we will undertake to say that
in scores of cases in the past it has been
found impossible to fill these Boards with
men fitted by experience and education for
the important trust, and that many Boards
of Education in this State are very ne-
venly balanced.
fpublishers within the State can afford
the commercial venture Of preparing school
books deemed worthy of adoption by coun.
ty and city Boards, the State can better
afford to do the same, since the factor of
profit is, in its case, eliminated If Eastern
houses find it profitable to prepare editions
of textbooks, especially for this State-as
they do, for instance, in the case of geogra-
phies-the State can afford to do the same
and save the margin of profit to the people,
that now goes into the pockets Of the pub
fishers. No matter whether the late es.i-
mates Of the Superintendent of State Print
ing are too low or not. The question is not
affected by that possibility. The world of
literature is open TO the State for compila-
ton of Readers; the world of skilled writers.
of geographers, mathematicians and his
torians, is as ready to prepare matter,
under competition for the State. as for
private publishers. There is no ROYALTY
upon knowledge, no close corporation CON
trolling scholarship If the State, how
ever, is placed in the earlier years of the
experiment at some disadvantage as to cost
in procuring the text matter, the climina-
ton of the immense profits made by pub
fishers will largely neutralize it,
The objection that the State supervisory
authorities cannot secure us satisfactory
matter as private publishers, is simply an
insult to intelligence. If our fifty-eight
distinct boards in fifty two counties are
now deemed capable of selecting from
among scores of competing books, the new
board of five persons will certainly possess
equal capacity to select for the whole State
from among the products of scholarship
which Will offer under competition. The
world IS not so poor in educational author
ship that we are driven to copyrights al
ready secured. Nor is it true that engravers'
and map-makers' arts are monopolized by
private publishers, to the exclusion of the
State in commanding work at economic
rates.
The capacity of the State Printing De
partment is equal to the demand to be
made upon it. 1t now annually prints ten
fold the matter embraced in the textbooks
used in the common schools, and still has
q broad margin of unemployed time But
if il be admitted that an additional plant
viii be necessary, it will be justified in the
light of the fact that to private publishing
firms the people Of California pay annuall( !
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