in the public schools must be printed in Texas would play havoc with our schools. It would ultimately compel the selection of many books of inferior merit and this would incalculably injure the entire system of public education.

The text-book board should be free to select the very best books written, regardless of authorship or by whom published. Manifestly the first consideration is the welfare of the million school children and not the welfare of several hundred printers. All the books now in use in Texas and those likely to be used for many years are copyrighted works owned by publishers residing in other States. These outside publishers can not be expected to turn over the printing of their books to forty-five different printing establishments in as many States. Even if they should agree to do so, the element of economy would be lost, and economy was the main reason for uniformity.

When Texas text-book writers prepare as good books as outsiders, Texas will adopt them and in doing so will provide for their publication in Texas. Until that time comes, however, it would be folly to undertake to compel outside publishers to print their books in this State. The only way in which State publication could be had would be the adoption of books which are obsolete and upon which copyrights have expired. We do not desire such books and the profit to be derived by the printers could not possibly compensate for the lasting injury to the school children.

Texas buys school books as cheaply as they can be purchased. The competition is keen and the books are sold at a slight margin of profit. Moreover, there is no such sum as $3,000,000 a year invested in new books in Texas. That would imply that the children are equipped with practically a new set of books a year, which is not the case. The average school book is good for at least three years or longer and the new books annually required are merely the number needed for the increased enrollment and to replace those lost or destroyed.

We can not afford to adopt a policy that may injure the public school system, for the sake of obtaining a small profit which may never be realized. The text-book commission must be free to choose the best books, which means copyrighted books owned for the most part by publishers in other States. The printers must wait until Texas authors prepare our books, and even then sound public policy will require their purchase of publishing houses that will furnish them at the lowest prices.

2. About Home-Printed Text-Books

[Houston (Tex.) Post, May 4, 1907.]

The Post is a believer in home industry and it is a tireless toiler in the work of stimulating home industry sentiment throughout the State. It believes, however, that the Legislature should go slowly in adopting a provision requiring all text-books used in the public schools to be printed within the State. It would inevitably embarrass the school system, for few of the publishers would care to establish branch printing houses in Texas. And suppose, for instance, that every State using McGuffey's readers or any other copyrighted work and they are all copyrighted should also require the printing of the books within its borders, what would be the result? Inevitably an increase in the price of text-books.

Unfortunately, Texas teachers have done very little in the way of writing text-books suitable for the public schools. Most of the books used are owned by the publishing houses located elsewhere. It would be absurd to require these publishing houses to establish branch printing offices in every State where their books may be used, and they can not be expected to turn over their plates to Texas printing houses.

The text-books should be selected solely upon their merits as text-books and the children should have the benefit of the best text-books in existence, regardless of where the publisher or author resides.

In time, and it will come about gradually if at all, we shall probably have first class text-books written by Texas authors and printed by Texas houses, but at present we must get the best books from publishers living outside of the State just as other States have to purchase them. The economical production of text-books would be impossible if it were necessary for a publisher of a copyrighted book to conduct forty-five printing establishments in forty-five States, and no publisher of a copyrighted book is going to permit some other publishing house to do his printing.

If the State should employ authors to write text-books for the Texas public schools, it would be well enough to have such books printed in Texas, but copyrighted books owned by outside publishers can not by legislative enactment be printed within the State. The Legislature might say that unless such book be printed in Texas its use will not be permitted in the public schools, but that would deprive the children of the benefit of the best books.

The point the Post wishes to make is that the Legislature should not tamper with a question so full of menace to the welfare of the public school system. The idea is impractical.

3. Foolish Textbook Legislation

[From the Dial of November 1, 1909, pp. 319-320.]

That public education is the function of the State rather than of the municipality is a principle that we have always maintained. The State is bound to see to it that throughout its area the means of education are provided upon as ample a scale as the general prosperity of the commonwealth makes advisable. The parsimony of a particular locality must not be permitted to keep its schools below the generally accepted standard, and the locality which would find it a real hardship to provide the needed support is entitled to assistance at the expense of the more favored communities. On the other hand, the essentials being secured by law, the business of administration is distinctly a local affair, and it is in the last degree unwise for the State to prescribe matters of detail, or to interfere in questions that call for expert educational knowledge. The average legislature is about as well fitted to handle such delicate questions as it would be to regulate the circulation of books in public libraries or the scientific management of hospitals.

If we try to imagine the law of the State declaring that no library shall pay more than a dollar a volume for any of its books, or that the patients in every hospital shall be given fixed doses of certain specified drugs once a week, we shall have an exact parallel to the sort of educational legislation which is imposed with blithe and self-satisfied ignorance upon the hapless schools of many a town and city throughout this country. Through the efforts of wellmeaning people, whose judgment is as faulty as their intentions are good, a considerable number of our states have long been burdened with laws imposing upon their schools a castiron requirement concerning the teaching of physiology with reference to the use of alcohol and tobacco. The mischievous ingenuity of these laws is almost beyond belief. They demand that certain dogmas be enforced upon children with the most damnable iteration year after year, dogmas that even a child's experience knows to be unsound; and they make it almost impossible for textbooks of physiology written in scientific language to be used in the public schools. Men of science are practically unanimous in condemning these requirements, but the fanatics and doctrinaires have their way with the legislatures, and the voice of reason avails for nothing. Thus science is discredited, the canker of insincerity affects the teacher's work, the reasonable admonition against the evils of intemperance misses its opportunity altogether.

The Illinois legislature at its last session distinguished itself by imposing two singularly foolish laws upon the public schools of the State. One of these laws fixes a maximum price for every textbook used in the elementary schools; that is, forbids the authorization of any textbook that the publishers do not offer to supply at or below the price thus specified. The other law imposes upon all teachers in the State the obligation to devote a certain amount of time each week to the inculcation of ideas concerning the humane treatment of the lower animals.

Considering now the first of these amazing prescriptions, it is to be noted that the prices fixed are far below those at which the best books are obtainable. There is no reason to believe that the best books will be offered at the specified prices, for the simple reason that competition has already forced their prices to about as low a level as possible. Despite the "book trust" bogey that obsesses many minds, competition among schoolbook publishers has already made unreasonable prices a practical impossibility, and the margin of practicable reduction is a narrow one in most cases. The only possible effect of the new law must then be to force the substitution of distinctly inferior books for many of those hitherto in use. Now to save the child a few cents in the price of one of his school books is as good an example of a pennywise and pound-foolish policy as could well be imagined. It runs counter to the elementary truism that a textbook is a tool, an instrument of precision, and that it has to be employed in one of the most delicate of the arts. A teacher who does not have the use of the best book available is like a railway engineer furnished with a cheap watch, a meteorological expert with a cheap barometer, or a violinist with a cheap fiddle. In these cases, the use of the inferior implement would be universally recognized as an inconceivable folly; but in the case of the teacher, there seems to exist in many minds a notion that the implements he uses do not greatly matter. The making of textbooks is now comparable in refinement, in the nice fitting of means to ends, with the making of microscopes and chronometers, and the best of them would be cheap at almost any price. The injury done to education by debarring the best books from use is immeasurably greater than the benefit derived from the trifling economy that is thus effected.

III. REPORT OF THE GEORGIA SCHOOL-BOOK INVESTIGATING

COMMITTEE

[Made to the General Assembly of Georgia, 1914.]

To the Members of the General Assembly of Georgia: GENTLEMEN: The following resolution, known as House Resolution No. 17, was approved August 18, 1913:

WHEREAS, The contract for school books for the public schools of Georgia expires this year, and,

WHEREAS, It appears that the present prices paid for school books are exorbitant when compared to the prices of other school books,

"Be it resolved therefore by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring, That a joint committee of eight, composed of the State Superintendent of Schools and two other members of the State Board of Education, in addition to said Superintendent, to be selected by said Board, who, together with two members of the Senate, appointed by the President of the Senate, and three members of the House, appointed by the Speaker of the House, shall be a committee to inquire into and report as soon as practicable on the reasonableness of the present price of school books, and inquire into the prices of books used elsewhere, and also as to the practicability of the State furnishing school books for use in the public schools at cost of publication, and to make all investigation that may be necessary touching upon the furnishing of all books used in the Common and High Schools receiving State aid at cost of publication, and delivery of the same.

"Be it further resolved, That said Committee is hereby clothed with authority to subpoena witnesses, to take evidence, to employ a stenographer, and compel the production of documents and do such other acts as are necessary for this investigation.

"Be it further resolved, That said Committee shall make a report of its investigation, together with the testimony thereof, to the present session of the General Assembly, provided the investigation shall be concluded in time to render such report at the present session of the General Assembly. If the report, together with the testimony thereof, be not rendered to the present session of the General Assembly, then such report, together with the testimony thereof, shall be made at the next regular session of the General Assembly.

As set forth in the resolution, we have made diligent effort