FREE SCHOOL BOOKS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 70, 23 March 1908, Page 8

FREE SCHOOL BOOKS.

'AUCKLAND HEAT.UASTERS OPPOSE UNIFORMITY. Tut telegbaph. — fkkss association. l AUCKLAND, This Day. The Auckland Headmasters' Association, has passed a resolution affirming that — "In order that education be free in reality as well as in name . ifc ia nocessary for the State to provide all books and materials used in public schools free of cost to the parents." Reckoning the- number of children in average attendance as 120,000, it was estimated by the "association that they could be supplied with three readers each, (a general literary reader, a geographical, and a historical reader), at an approximate cost of Is per reader, i.e., at a cost of £18,000. Allowing £7000 for the provision of exercise books ,etc., the total initial cost would be, say, £25,000. After the initial cost a sum of., about £10,000 a year should, it was considered, keep the scheme in full working order, and bo sufficient to allow for depreciation of readers and their replacement -when necessary by now ones. The association also passed a resolution that it is inadvisable to have the same set of reading books in use throughout the Dominion. The- reasons given for this ' were that children required different reading matter acording to their circumstances and environment, and that what suited any particular locality could be best settled by the schoolmaster concerned. It was considered that the poorer class of schools should have an easier type of reader than that in use in better class neighbourhood. To aim at a dull uniformity was foreign to English ideals, and was unhesitatingly condemned by every educational authority of note. It was agreed that a list of books suited for school use should be drawn up by the committee, consisting of professors in English, inspectors, headmasters, and class teachers. This list should be revised every few years, and from it individual headmasters should make their own selection.