Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1899 — Political Arithmetic. [ARTICLE]

Political Arithmetic.

In Australia, as in the United States, school teachers need a large discretion. Here, for example, is a story from the Sydney Telegraph: A New South Wales country school teacher set a boy a question in compound proportion for home work one evening. It happened to include the circumstance of “men working ten hours a day in orderto complete a certain work.” Next morning the unsuspecting teacher, in looking over the little pack of exercises, found “Jim’s” sum unattempted, and the following letter attached to the page: “Sur—l refuse to let Jim do his sum you give him last nite has it looks to me to be a slur at 8-hour sistum enny sum not more than 8 hours he is welcnm to do but not more. Yours truly, Abram Blank, Senr.”