Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1898 — ALTON’S EXPENSIVE BOY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ALTON’S EXPENSIVE BOY.

Taxpayers Put Up Nearly $1,200 a Year for His Schooling, It costs the public of Alton, 111., $1,186.08 annually to educate one black boy. This is the largest, sum ever ex-

pended publie on tile education of one simple individual. His name is Arthur Odey. For him a teacher is employed at S27C per annum, for him a principal Is engaged at $315 per annum, to keep his school-rooms in or-

der a janitor is kept at a yearly expenditure of $135, and to prevent Arthur from getting cold SSO is expended on fuel. The interest on the $5,944 that it cost to build the handsome two-story brick sehoolhouse in which he is taught amounts to $416.08. Thus the total cost of the schooling of this one child is $1,186.08. Arthur is a quiet little chap of 8 years, as black as the fabled Egyptian darkness, with big round eyes that look out upon the world without the least sign of astonishment or concern at the extravagance of his education. That he drinks in knowledge at the public expense at the rate of $30.41 per week, or $6.08 per day, is no cause of wonder to him. It has not been charged that his teachers quarrel over which shall instruct him, but it is a known fact that he has to furnish the excitement for the school, because he is the only scholar in the new Lovcjoy school, erected solely for the colored children.

ARTHUR ODEY.