The Charlotte Democrat., 1891-05-08
The Biblical Recorders Remarks.

The Biblical Recorder prints the act
requiring the use of certain books on alco
hol in our schools and says:
The above bill is about the boldest piece
ofjobbery that ever passed State Legis
lature.
l. "These books have been more or less
prepared and wholly supervised by Mrs.
Mary II. Hunt" So says the preface to
the books.
2. Section l forces every teacher and
every pupil to buy and study them in any
school supported wholly or in part by
public money-the State University and
the A. and NJ. College, and Prof McIver's
training school, should it ever materialize.
3. These books prepared by Mrs. Hunt
have as one fourth of their contents Physi
ology and Hygiene, and the act says this
limit shall control the Board of Education
4. Section 3 requires that no one be
granted a certificate as teacher in North
Carolina who has not stood an examina
tion on the subjects specified.
5. Section 4 dismisses every teacher
and school officer in North Carolina who
refuses to use these books.
Why the Superintendent of Public In.
struction ever allowed such bill to be
presented to the Legislature for consid-
GRAFTON, is past finding out. ~
The publishers of these books very
shrewdly sent female agent to lobby this
bill through the Assembly, and so we'll did
she succeed that the act passed unani-
mousIy. We protested against this legis
lation at the time, but our warnings all
amounted to nothing, as the members of
the Legislature refused to believe that the
GE,oin H. L.,
pure and disinterested motives. Now
that the law is on our books, she insists
on it's strictest enforcement.
We give our readers our reason for OBJ
lection to the bill: There are in North
Carolina 533, 900 children, white and
colored, within what is termed the 'school
age" The act of Assembly provides for
one of these books to be put into the hands
of each child in the public schools and col.
leges supported by the State. The pub
| fishers have four of these books-one for
each grade in the school, and one for the
teachers. These books are furnished &C.
cording to grade, at thirty, fifty and
sixty cents piece, and the one for the
teacher is $1.25. 1t turns out that the
books are compiled, in part at least, by
the female agent who waited on the Leg.
islature, and who is, in all probability
well paid by the astute publishers who
hold monopoly of the books described
great and tar-reaching trust.
In order that our readers may see this
matter as we see it, we will suppose, for
their benefit. that there are 100000 chill
dren in our public schools. If each ont
should be compelled, as the act provides
to buy this book, they will pay out $1.4(
each for their Physiologies, or $420, 900
/ This is exclusive of the $1.25 for th,
teacher, and in addition to the amountl
for other books needed in the schools.
One of the astonishing things to US was
and still is, that lot of men elected Il
the Legislature pledged. to economy, re
trenchment and reform, should have beef
so easily persuaded to believe that tn
American Book Company and Mrs. Hunt
its agent, was wholly disinterested il
urging them to put the people of Nortl
Carolina to this enormous and almost en-
tirely useless expense. Wesincerely hop
that the Superintendent of Public In
struction and the Board of Education will
at least 80 far ignore the act Of Genera
Assembly as to adopt only one of the fou
books, and thus save the poor people Q
| Cho OIoIo d worry laFSo anu neeoIesS GA
pense.
| We have noticed for years the grea
zeal, as well as the methods, of publishing
companies in foisting their books upo
the public schools. We have fifteen o
twenty lawyers and dozens of women en-
ployed by the agents of q publishing CON
pany to lobby the Legislature and urg
the Superintendent of Public Instructio
i. to adopt their books. Many thousand