Morning journal and courier., 1889-09-12
COMMUNICATIONS.

duO HoW OcEsoy.
 COMMUNICATIONS.
 "Free,' Text Books and the Taxes. Tothe Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 misapprehension evidently exists on the part of some persons as to the meaning of free text books in relation to the taxes. While keeping down the taxes is an exeeed- ingly important matter it Is not so vitally important as the education of all the child ren. To show that free books means ruin- ous taxation it is sometimes claimed that the principle involved logically involves free dinners and free clothes. We reply that it is the principle at present. in vogue that in- wolves the giving of free dinners and free clothing far more directly than does the prin- ciple of free text books-for at present the board does give away to indigent pupils, the property of the district in sort of out door relief, to the amount of $420 to $450 a year. These are absolute gifts. The "free" text book system does not involve the giving away of any books whatever. It is only an extension to the children of the principle in volved in establishing the free library. There you loan books to the parents and the older menbers of the family; and even to their very children, why not also loan books to the children In school as out of of school-as well to them ss to their parents. If 1t is good to compel children and parents to sacrifice fer their chiiarens books, why not compel parents to sacrifice fer their own books-and so have no free library. It comes to that. Then again, if it is good policy to furnish building and black kboards, why not the arithmetics that go with blackboards. If | 1t is good to furnish free maps and globes, | why not free geographies and histories. But, after all, if free text books will largely 1 increase the amount of the taxes and serious act with wise caution lest we pay too much ! for a really good thing. Let us see our way \ very clearly in this matter and rather put the schools in the way of ultimately having free books rather than incur great sudden expense ! and risk the defeat of the principle altogether | by rash and ill-considered movements such | as very seriously impsrilled the free text book ! movement last week.
 We don't need any sudden, alarming in- | crease of taxation to bring about the com plete ultimate adoption of the system of free ! text books. It may be presumed that the | children are now all or nearly all furnished ! with text books; they do not need to be fur
 nished with what they already have. Lot them continue to use the text books they al-
 
 formerly given them away. Books loaned
 and cared for by the teachers will last about
 seven years. Take a little time to accon- plish the object aimed at, but begin at once. Agsin, books we'll bought at wholesale by the school district will cost far less than the same books i'll bought at retail by people un- able to buy we'll.
 But moderate taxes jadiciously expended | to make schools free, to make a whole people
 strong and intelligent, to make them able
 like Edison and Whitney,,,to devise new ways of increasing and producing wealth, of eseap-
 ing the perils to which the ignorant are ev-
 erywhere specially exposed and which are
 always doubly perilous when the ignorant
 man is a ruler by the possession of the ballot
 ing among us to build their homes or estsb- fish themselves in business.
 ' Again let us look at the facts in another
 way. Colonel Sprague estimates that fully a
 week is usually substantially lost each year
 in getting the machinery of the schools in
 operation on the present system, mourning a
 loss of about St, ,ooo year, which would be
 saved by "free books"
 | There are also about four thousand chil
 dren not in school at all. about fourteen \ hundred between four and five years old I about thirteen hundred between five an6 | eight, nearly two hundred between eight and | fourteen, and about @ thousand between
 fourteen and sixteen. If release from tn, I burden of furnishing textbooks brings in al
 the rate bills here, which cost about t',
 same as the textbooks, we should have a | least ono thousand out of the four thousant | brought into school without any substantial
 increase of tho cost of the schools. If re
 lease from the burden of furnishing text
 books has the same effect here that 1t ha
 had always wherever it has been tried, VI ! shall draw more than a thousand additioaa
 children into the schools. This thousand O
 absentees is another item of loss and waste | under our present system which might b,
 substantially saved by free books.
 But better stop tho annual appropriation
 for the free public library than give up ire books for the children. These two items Q . loss saved by free books, together with tn amount absolutely given away under tn present system, would go far to make up tn ! first cost of the needed books. If the 2 were kept steadily in view through a modef ) ate length of time by malicious person | thoroughly in sympathy with the change, i could be made without increasing taxes t. , any alarming extent. But it would be bette | to stop the annual appropriation for the ire public library for adults than to give up fur nishing free books for the children.
 Again VIC do hot attack the High school 0 ! menace the Grammar schools; many thinl \ them in need perhaps of more real teaching | ana less f0Q L0po ana pursuit or averages But the schools are reasonably geod and al : connected with them are probably doing a ! well as they know how, and they will un doubtedly be abundantly obliged to thos critics who will show them practically an' clearly more excellent way. But VIC ought 3 however, to set before us an object distinc ! and clear to make the public schools in thei
 own sphere so good that no rio
 | man can easily find 8 better, . | practically useful that no poor ma ? can think of negleoting to send his childre f to then to them so filled with high moralit - and vigorous intelligence that no sectaria a can ever hope to rival them. With e wis
 abstention from teaching special religion dogmas with spirit of helpfulness, of de Q votion to the public good, of high manly an b womanly character, we may leave the publi [. schools to do their work, and the ohurche - each in it's way to crown the edifce of ir struction in it's chosen churches and with il k own views of religion. Finally the mistak, r of few young persons at public meetin |. ought not to jeopardize matter of decide ' public utility. To visit the short coming + or even the corruption, if you please to ca 1t it SO, of one or few on the helpless chi
 dren of the school district is surely u
 height of unreason, and intelligent men wi 10 be unwilling to do it.
 V Let the question be fairly aud candid :, argued and be finally decided, not as que
 tion of ward politics, but as one of great al at admitted public importance.
 al JosHHH SHELDON.