Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1901 — Bacteria and School Kooks. [ARTICLE]

Bacteria and School Kooks.

Philadelphia introduced free textbooks when it established the public school system In 1818, and has furnished free books for eighty-three years without ‘suffering from bacteria, bankruptcy, or any other of the promised calamities that are supposed to wait upon this “dangerous experiment.” New York city has furnished all school books free for sixty-eight years; Bristol, R. I„ sixty-three years; Paterson, N. J., fifty-one years; Elizabeth, fortyfive years; Newark, forty-three years; Brighton and Hoboken, thirty-three from twenty to thirty years; the entire state of Massachusetts for seventeen years, and many of its cities for a much longer time. In the west Detroit has furnished school books free for nine years, employs a clerk to look after the books, Includes repairs, storage, fumigation, rebinding and clerk hire in its average annual cost of 65 cents per pupil. Saginaw, with seventeen years’ experience, finds its cost, including high school, to be 57 cents. Berlin, Wis., has furnished free textbooks for twenty-three years; Eau Claire, twenty years; La Crosse, eighteen years; Omaha, Neb., fifteen years; Duluth, Minn., thirteen years.—Chicago Journal.