The record-union., 1896-01-06
THE SECRETARY OF STATES REPORT.
The State Board of Education VIII
Consider It.
How the Estimates OF the Cost Of State
Textbooks Have Been
Arrived at.

The State Board of Education meets
to-day and will among other things con-
slider the report that the Governor has
asked Secretary of State Brown to
make regarding the publication of
school books by the State. and in re-
gard to which there seems to be some
misconception.
Mr.. Brown says it is not, as has been
stated, an attack on the school books,
but that, in response to the Governors
request, he is simply reporting figures
and facts concerning their publication
State Superintendent Of Instruction
Black said last night that he had been
misquoted by San Francisco paper as
saying that the revolving fund was
bankrupt.
THAT is impossible" said Mr.. Black.
SIT never can become bankrupt. There
is always either money in the fund or
books in store. In the five months from
July 1st to December 1st I paid into
the fund about $4,000 and the amount
10 be paid in for December will prob
ably be about $500 or $4,000.
"I do not know anything about the
appropriation for the purchase of
paper, ETC., for the State Printer con-
system of arriving at the cost of books
that has been in practice by the board. F"
The revolving fund, or as it is termed
in the law, the State text book fund,
consists of the money received for the
sale of books, which is to be again paid
out for the manufacture of other books,
the idea being to make it self-sustain-
ing by this constant turning over of
the money in it,
The records of the State Board of
Education show that the various State
Printers have all reported on the cost
of the first $4,000 copies of each book
printed, in order that the State Board of
Education might be able to make an
estimate of the cost of the books. Some
of these reports were in themselves
partly estimates, as the editions were
unfinished at the time. They were in
two parts.
The first part included such ex-
penses as would never have to be re-
peated in the manufacture of the book,
such as composition, electrotyping. en-
craving, etc. The second part included
expenses that would pertain to each
edition, as paper, printing, binding, etc.
The beard took the first part, and add
ton and a. certain per cent. of the cost
Of the printing plant, distributed the to-
tai amount over the probable life of the
book, on the basis of eight years,
the percentage of the plant being
distributed according to the estimated
number of pages in the edition Of any
enc book for the eight years. as the dif-
ferent books We're not of the same size.
IL. w
mate the number that would be sold in
eight years, and some of the estimates
were too high, through no fault of the
board. In San Francisco, in spite of the
State law, for several years the Board
of Education did not use the Elementary
Arithmetic, the Elementary Grammar
and the Speller, and when they took up
the Elementary Grammar they dropped
the advanced one. Oakland did the
same thing for a time, and these two
large cities, of course, disarranged the
estimates.
AS has been stated, a percentage of
the plant, which originally was valued
at $36 eco, but which was reported in
1898 to be worth $4,000, has been dis
tributed and added in estimating the
cost of each book. The books originally
ordered by the Legislature were three
readers, a speller, an arithmetic,
grammar, a history and a geography.
To these were added by a subsequent
Legislature an Elementary Grammar,
an Elementary Arithmetic, an Elemen-
tary Geography, a Physiology and a
book on civil government.
In 1898 the Legislature appropriated
So, 900 from the State textbook fund,
or revolving fund. for the revision Of
certain books, and changed the series OF
readers-which had been originally linn
tied by law to three books, but which
had been found by the teachers of the
State to be too few to give the best re-
sults-to four readers. In accordance
with this change the readers were re-
vised, and the new First, Second, Third
and Fourth Readers were printed dur
ing the past year. The Arithmetic,
Grammar and, History are also under
going revision.