The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1894-01-31
DON'T BE SWINDLED.
Many Agents for School Apparatus
Are Imposing On the
Trustees.
Superintendent Of Public Instruct
ion Warns the People
Against Fraud.
READ THIS LETTER.

FRANKFoRT, KY, Jan. 10, lS0l-To
County Superintendent, Trustees and
others-Complaints are reaching this
Office with increasing frequency that
some agents for the sale OF maps, charts
and other illustrative apparatus are CIV
ing much ofTense by misrepresentation
through which they impose upon the
people; and it becomes my duty to no.
tice the charges made, that your atten-
ton may be directed to what ever abuses
may really exist 1t is clear that there
is some ground for serious disaffection.
1t is alleged:
|. That some men induce trustees to
take their articles by declaring that the
County Superintendent has adopted
them for all his districts and that they
cannot, therefore, legally buy any
others.
,. That they are exceedingly "learned in
the law"-reading AMI expounding it
and dwelling upon its penalties, to the
confusion of trustees, who, in some in.
S ances, are led to buy superhuous things
and more costly ones than are necessary,
and thus shamefully to increase the
burdens of the districts.
3. That men having but an Insignificant
part of the required outfit succeed, by
misconstrung the statute and garbling
such recommendations as they have OBJ
tanned, in selling such incomplete outfit
for about as much as complete equip
ment ought to cost. Trustees are
advised to buy only those combinations
or sets which fully meet the demands OF
the law. To buy here a little and there a
little will result in spending two, three
or four times too much money!
1t is important that County superin-
tendents guard themselves against being
misquoted or misrepresented in this
matter, and that they protect their PEG
pie by warning them against those
INSCRIPTIONS persons who are fast bring
ing into odium not only the law, but all
the good and true men engaged in the
work.
What the General Assembly aimed at
was largely to increase the efficiency OF
the teacher at a comparatively insignifi'
cant outlay-making it possible to i'm
part real instruction on all the branches
of our long course of study; but the law
has been made the means, in certain
localities, of exasporating the people
against it, and in no few instances OF
swindling them.
In several instances l have cordially
recommended combinations of maps,
charts, globes, &c, for two reasons;
first, they seemed to me to cover our
course OF study and to meet all the de-
mands OF the law; second, was assured
that such outfit as l held to be sufficient
should cost each district less than Fifty
Dollars. learn with establishment that
some into whose hands copies of these
letters have fallen are misquoting and
misconstruing them to make the impress
ion that the State Superintendent favors
only a particular outfit, so that my
efforts to protect the people have been
perverted to their hurt Some County
Superintendents have experienced the
same treatment.
The people have their remedy: In cas-
es where trustees have paid exhorbitant
prices for school supplies they ought to
proceed against the perpetrators of the
fraud under the Statute for furnishing
those who obtain money by false pre-
lenses Ed PORTER THOMPSON,
Supt. of Public Instruction.