BUYING SCHOOL BOOKS

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 45, 21 February 1917, Page 8

BUYING SCHOOL BOOKS

TO VIHS EDITOR. < \ Sir,—lll your issue of Tuesdapeared a letter' signed "W;-..yg, i Mother," complaining of the trou , ] buying books for school use. We ,■)]? v heard from various sources that c |. tion is "free, secular, and coropulst ._ But, Sir, I maintain that there is some-' thing very wrong with our system of | Education, for it certainly is not free, inasmuch as parents are continually having to purchase books, thereby making j a direct payment for the education of their children. I have carefully read the Education Act, arid have failed to find any authority for teachers to demand that children should 1 provide thenown books, etc. It seems to me that it is quite . time that something was done to at once alter tin's unsatisfactory , state of affairs'. My contention is that all books, etc., should ,be provided by the State, and parents and guardians should not be called upon to pay for these things except insofar, as indirect taxation to' meet the cost, for, after all, who benefits! by the knowledge gained by the children, the parents only, or the general public? If the State erects a post office or any' public building it equips the same before it opens the doors to tho public, but in a school the ' State erects the building, partly equips it, and the parents or guardians have to directly pay for the balance. I trust, sir, that i this matter will not be allowed to drop, j but rather some others will take up the j question and help to have it settled for I the good of. the country as a whole.—l am, etc., A. J. WHITE.? 21st February.