COST OF SCHOOL BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13435, 13 March 1907, Page 5

COST OF SCHOOL BOOKS.

ACTION BY THE CITY SCHOOLS

COMMITTEE.

The cost of school hooks engaged the at* taction of the* City Schools Committee at its meeting East evening. '

The Chairman'(Mr. I*. M. Mackay) said the subject had been most ably dealt with by the New 'Arsxahd Hekaed, and he had no.doubt that the members of the committee had read the article for them.«*tlve*; but. the question that occurred to him wan whether it would not be wen for trie committee to formulate a resolution for presentation at the forthcoming householders' meeting, expressing the opinion that the education board* should provide the school books free throughout the colony.

Mr." A. Rosser observed that Mr. George George, the director of technical education, had laid down the dictum that anything that could be got for nothing wax of no real value. It was all very well for Mr. George to speak like that ; for he got £600 a year and a bonus of £100: but it was a very different matter for a man receiving £2 2s a week wages to provide school books for his children. There never came a year in which he (Mr. Rosser) did not have to pay away £1 for school books for oach of his own children, and this year it had cost him over £2 for hooks for one of his children attending the technical school. Irewas not so certain that the books should be provided free for children attending the technical school; but he had no doubt whatever that books should be provided five to children attending the primary schools.

The Chairman held that free education fit the technical day school could not be free to people who could not afford to pay for the books u» their children attending that school or any other Government school.

Dr. H&rdie Neil considered that the objection to uniformity of school books had been due to the idea that New Zealand could not produce text books that, were suitable for the schools of the colony. He did not think so, believing that there were capable men in the colony who were quite equal to, and certainlv better qualified than anyone outside to prepare books suitable for use in the New Zealand schools. There •was no reason that he could see why the people of New Zealand should be called upon to build up the profits made by publishers of school books in England. The Government could prepare the books and sell them at cost price. Ho thought the chairman's suggestion a step in the right direction, and that a motion should bo carried. Ho moved, "That a resolution be prepared and submitted to the householders' meeting to the effect that books should be prepared bv the Government for use in the New Zealand primary schools, and furnished at cost price." The Chairman considered that a resolution passed by tho householders would carry greater force than it it came from the committee alone. It would then bo forwarded to the Minister for Education. The secretary (Mi. Small) said there was no doubt what view the householders would express on the subject of school books. They would be unanimous. The Chairman said the matter had been already ably put before the public by the morning paper, and the householders would, no doubt, be well informed upon it when the time came for them to make themselroa heard. The motion was carried.