Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-12-31
A QUESTION OF DUTY.

As legislators begin TO assemble at the
capital, they discuss the school-boole
amendment, and very generally, we are
glad to say, with an evident sincere desire
TO gain information relative to the whole
subiect-matter, with view to proper legis-
lation to carry the amendment into full
effect, and give the experiment fair trial
1t is lamentable, however, to discover
that as a rule they have doubts as to the
wisdom of the experiment. Fathomed,
these doubts appear to he based on the
assumption that in the printing of the
books there 4" viii be steal
Now it may be assumed, for the purposes
of the argument, that there will be a
steal And if there is, and if the Gov
ernor, the Superintendent of Public In
struction and the Principals of the
Normal Schools steal the whole sum the
books are to cost, $4,000, and which
includes their compilation, printers
wages, binding, engraving, paper, cloth,
and delivery-if, we say, these officials
steal the whole sum, the people will still
be better off than when bled to the tune
of 100000 of clean profits every year by
tie rascally school-book agents,
%If they steal the whole sum, we repeat,
there viii be compensation in the fiddance
of the State of the wire-pulling bribery
and corruption in Boards of Education
by school-book publishers.
But why Should there be any steal The
sum paid for the compiling of the copy
rights cannot be stolen. The printers
wages cannot he stolen. The money for
the engraving and binding cannot be stolen
There might be steal effected on con-
tracts for paper and binders board But
Is not the Legislature equal to the task of
preventing that possibility? Ifnot, it has
less business capacity than We are willing
TO give it credit for.
But we find n class of legislators, whose
doubts Of the success of the system are
based upon the bold assumption that the
quality of the books will he inferior to
those furnished by private firms. Why
Is not the world OF literature open to the
Board of Education from which to compile
readers, for instance? In all the readers
extant there are not twenty articles pro
tected by existing copyright, and not one
that is desirable that is original with the
so-called author" Of the reader. If pri-
vate firms can employ Professor Allen, of
the California Board of Education, to COM
pile school books As they did, cannot the
Board itself employ equally as competent
educators to prepare spoilers and readers
and Biographies and histories Is there
any defensible argument to be advanced
why the State cannot buy out Of hand the
copyright for California for any book now
published that she desires to adopt? We
think not. All the outside books are now
excluded, and publishers are Just
as ready to sell US their copyright
for California rs they were a short time
ago to retail the volumes to the people at
a round profit, ont of which they paid
high-salaried agents, bought up educators,
corrupted Boards Of Education, subsidized
newspapers and controlled public in
fiuences.
There is small margin in the new sys-
tenn for any stealing. The Superintendent
of State Printing is unworthy the reproach
the doubts cast upon him, and so, too, are
the members of the State Board of Edu-
cation. 1t is an unfair, narrow and illogi-
cal line OF argument to pursue, to say that
no progress shall be made because it may
tempt some one to do wrong, or afford the
opportunity for malfeasanee in Office.
But all the objections noted sare irrele
want The amendment has been adopted,
and the legislators now assembling will be