The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1886-09-16

A strong Protest Against Ehe Action
OF the Board of Education.

a strong Protest. Against tne ActAOE
OF the Board Of Education.
To the Editor of the Daily News:
As citizen, and father of children
who attend the public schools, ask lit
tie space in your columns for the purpose
Of protesting against the school book
change. It seems the board of education
in its wisdom have seen ct to order an en-
tire new series OF readers for our public
schools, from fret reader up, resulting IN
an unnecessary expense of thousands OF
dollars 70 the parents Of our children who
go to school
know Of one father Of family whose
school book bill will amount TO something
ike $16, caused almost entirely by this
simple change Of text books. He il q
poor man who earns his daily bread by
his own labor. and this unnecessary ex-
pense seems TO him q great injustice. How
much more so IL IL 70 those who are much
poorer than he. Take for instance the
poor Iaborer who~works for the small pit
lance of dollar day. BE can III afford
to pay out even the ffty-four cents re
CURED by the change Of one book, when
=
good as new, for which he has paid prob
ably dollar.
It is all well enough 30 tell Us that these
books are far superior 90 the old ones, but
when We know that the very books
that are discarded are considered good
enough for use IN our State
Normal, it becomes pretty hard to make
rs believe that they are not good enough
for the public schools simply because
some book publishing firm convinces 9
mere majority of the board that 1t is so.
II Is but year or so ago that the his
tories and Biographies were changed.
Whyf Simply because . majority of the
school board said they thought the new
books were better than the old ones. A
poor consolation for parents who have to
pay for the change. The probabilities are
that the whole matter was engineered by
some person interested in the book bust
ness. Indeed, am credibly informed
that It is so, and that an agent of the
Barnes publishing house was the instiga
tor of the whole change. 1, tor one,
would like to know how much of q bonus
was paid to the agent for procuring the
change. SAVAGE.
The above protest against the change in
readers for our public schools, seems to
have considerable of basis for its argu-
ment. II change is imperstively neces
saEy-and we guarantee that the agent for
the new books thinks so-whY not make
the change book for book, the old ones for
the new. There would still be moderate
fortune for the publishers Of the new
books before the board would dare make
another change. These publishing firms
are huge syndicates, and they have agents
throughout the country for the simple
purpose of having changes similar TO this
made, there being thousands Of dollars in
each change, not only for the publishers,
but also for the booksellers. While in
this city change has been made from
the Appleton to the Barnes readers, In
some other place just the opposite change
has been made, and the same argument
used in both cases to justify tho extortion
from the people-that the change was nee
essary because the new book was the latest
and best. In connection with this subj ct,
1t will probably be IN order to state that
much indignation Is expressed at the
change by almost every citizen who has
been spoken to on the subject, and various
uncomplimentary remarks are freely made
on the streets.-[ED.