Читать книгу Introduction to the scientific study of education - Charles Hubbard Judd - Страница 54

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Certain cities supply the pupils with books and materials, while other cities require the children to bring their supplies from home. In the long run, the cost falls on the community in either case, but it is differently distributed. In the first case, the taxpayers pay for the supplies as they do for school buildings, each taxpayer contributing according to the assessed value of his property. In the second case, parents pay for supplies according to the number of their children and without regard to their property.

In regard to general supplies, there are also differences in policy. Some cities are lavish in furnishing maps and reference books and specimens for nature study, while others are very economical in these respects, sometimes justifying their policy by saying that they put all they can afford to expend into teachers’ salaries. The question is thus raised: How far is it legitimate to spend money in providing material equipment, and how far should it be devoted to the payment of high-salaried teachers? Is it well, for example, to ask a teacher of good training in geography to instruct a class without any wall maps? Is it economical to ask a teacher of history to conduct his classes without books of reference? Or, comparing various kinds of material equipment with each other, one may ask whether it is more essential to spend money on well-lighted, well-ventilated rooms that are barren of apparatus or to put up with old buildings and purchase laboratory equipment.