Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1897-02-18
TIE AUDUBON REPUBLICAN.
BY J. e. GRIFFITH.
For Free Text Books.

own. The teacher who tells farmer
how to care for corn is theorist and
farmer in the school world is largely the
same. If farmer is practical man in
agriculture the teacher is nothing less
in education. This is self defense.
Farmers are not practical men every
where and teachers nowhere.
Perhaps our school system does send
people down to poverty and beggary;
perhaps it does turn out tramps and
criminals. But there we're tramps and
in the dark ages before the school was
known to man; and what is more, so
many thatsneither property nor life was
safe anywhere at any time. Perhaps
there were no tramps and criminals in
this country before the days Of schools.
There was no one to be tramps and
criminals. We do not believe that these
characters are the product of the school
room. What do we believe? Our school
in commenting upon this statement ex-
pressed the belief that tramps and
criminals are as a rule the men who
were in their youth too indolent to go to
school and study; that they are not the
products of the school because they
never gave the school chance to pro-
duce them. Then do not charge their
degradation to our educational system.
They did not get their education in the
school room but on the streets and in
the gambling den. That men refuse to
be lifted is no argument against the
power that lifts.
And now about free text books. We
would not increase the taxes. Is not
the purchasing of text books by our
parents, as it is now, year in and year
out, tax in the truest sense of the
word? Indirect, perhaps, but it takes
money, and Of this we would save three
dollars for every one that we increase
the direct taxes; which is saving of two
dollars to the practical public. How
can this be? Books last nearly one half
longer under the free text book system.
This is cold-blooded fact; argument is
unavailing. But this means that only
two-thirds as many need be purchased,
and these are not always purchased.
Nebraska exchanges old books for new
at a cost that is next to nothing. We
cast the old ones aside and exchange
dollars for new ones, which is an opera
ton that is no doubt intensely satisfac-
tory to school book monopolies.
We grant the force of the argument
that clean, tidy pupils should not be
compelled to use books made ragged and
filthy by those who have used them be-
fore. But under the law the board of
directors holds the pupils responsible
for the treatment of his book and if it's
duty is we'll performed there is no need
OF the books being in such a condition.
1t is another rock ribbed truth that
educators who have usel and are using
the system are unanimous in their testi-
mony that books are not abused 10
death. They simply wear out. One
says that In two years he has not even
seen a book with the corners worn
round" and then he tells us in the same
sentence that in his own school days a
new book could not see one months
service without being in this condition
And we know he speaks the truth. Our
books are murdered; theirs die of old
age. Theirs will ever be in the better
condition.
But fostering the spirit of ownership!
We doubt it's propriety. When the spirit
of ownership only paves the way for the
development of the spirit of destructive
ness and carelessness it were better
stifled than fostered. Independence
does indeed come from this spirit of
ownership, but it is of the kind that
most children have in abundance with
out this incentive to its growth.
There is prevalent impression that
this free text book law is an experiment;
someone's hobby; that it looks we'll on
paper but lacks the practical part. An
old gentleman once spent half an hour
trying to convince a visiting friend that
it would be impossible to construct a
canal across the state of New York. 1t
CHANGED however that the friend had
travelled along the entire length of the
Erie Canal but short time before; and,
strange as it might seem, he refused to
be convinced.
And 80 it is with us. Do not tell us
we have only theory, a fad; that it can
not and will not work, for we look
around us and see that it will work, does
work and is working, and we too, like
the above mentioned gentleman, refuse
to be convinced. There are men in Au-
dubon county who have lived where this
system is the one in use. Our only re-
quest is that anyone interested will ask
them about it. Try to persuade them
that it is all theory and SO impracticable.
1t is remarkable how obstinate they will