The California Textbook System

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Excerpt from The California Textbook System: An Indictment of a Plan That Bars Free Textbooks, That Prevents a Democratic System of Local Adoptions, That Interferes With Our Educational Development, and That Costs the People Unreasonable Prices for Poorly Dressed Books "But we shall none of us err if, without further knowledge than we already have, we make up our minds that the system itself is rotten." This editorial in the Chronicle would seem to indicate that the people of California are about to come out of a twenty-six-year trance. Back in 1885 California ventured upon an experiment that no other state had ever tried, and one that no other state since then has deemed wise to try. Through specious argument and gross misrepresentation, the people of California voted in 1885 to compile and publish their own textbooks. It was loudly proclaimed and fondly believed that such a system would yield superior books, at a reduced cost, to those offered by the several publishing firms - denominated for political purposes as "the book trust." Thus the people enthusiastically created a real monopoly in the authorship, manufacture and sale of textbooks. All competition was eliminated. The grave responsibility of compiling the books was entrusted to the State Board of Education - a board containing no members experienced in producing texts. It was cheerfully assumed, however, that successful authors of textbooks were indigenous to California even as the giant redwoods. The serious task of managing the business end of the undertaking - the manufacture of the books - was placed in the hands of a politician selected, in nearly every instance, by big business interests which hoped to profit from favorable contracts. Truly a promising combination of politics and business to handle free from competition an enterprise running well toward a quarter million dollars a year! And this combination could not lose because it had the big purse of the State to fall back upon. The cheerful confidence of the people in 1885 in establishing this system seems pathetic to us now. Was not the plan in both its features an invitation to disaster? On the authorship side we deliberately turned our backs on books that had been tested in the fierce heat of competition all over the United States. Surely it was a provincial, short-sighted pride that refused the best the country at large had to offer, in favor of the work of unknown, untried California authors! On the business end we provided an unholy combination of politics and business, thereby laying a sure foundation for faulty service and grave scandals. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.