School iPads to cost nearly $100 more each, revised budget shows

[happyslug]

37. You lost me.....

We are discussing the need for connectivity in a computer in school, then you bring out 19th century education. By the time Sears catalogs the one room school house, while still strong in rural areas, had been replaced in urban areas by large schools with many teachers (In rural areas one room school houses survived for many decades, but were NOT preferred, only kept for such schools could be put within walking distances of most students, a big issue in the days where walking was the main source of transportation).

Pulp paper had been invented in 1801, but came into full use in the 1850s. Pulp paper permitted the printing of massive numbers of books, including school books. McGuffey readers were one such series of books. It contain quotes from the bible, but also other sources. The Sears Catalog came out of this same pulp paper revolution but only in the 1880s by then every school in America had embraced what we know call "School Books" and issued them to students.

To give you an idea of the drop in price in books due to the switch from linen paper to pulp paper, lets look at what was called "Dime Novels". "Dime Novels" were invented in the 1860s (10 Cents in 1869 can be the same of about $2.50 today), very inexpensive and very popular, but it shows that books could be inexpensive in the late 1800s. Today linen sells for about $15 a square yard, or about $.93 per page (assuming each page is 10x8 inches). Thus if a book had 100 pages, if printed on Linen paper that comes to $93 just for the paper, printing was extra (Please this would be the price today). Most "Dime Novels" were under 100 pages, thus you are looking at the difference between $93 a book to $2.50 a book in today's prices. $93 is doable if you have no other choice and needed the book, but it also would turn off a lot of customers.

Please note, the above calculations as to the price of linen books has some problems. First the price I am using is for linen intended for clothing or other material use (bedsheets etc). Linen for books could be cheaper if someone would buy it wholesale for production of books, but even if the price for linen used in books would be a quarter of the price I am using, you have to add the cost of printing which I ignored. I can see people paying $100 for a book, but how many books will one buy if the price was 20 cents a page? 10 pages would be $2,00, 100 page $20,00, 1000 pages $200? This is why people tended to buy just the bible.

Pulp paper made books cheap enough to be produced en masse, thus while most people only had a family bible prior to 1800 and few other books (For one book was what most people could afford), most people had more then the bible by 1900 (do to the price of books dropping that much since 1800).

I bring this up, for by the time Sears Catalog came out, most people had more books then the bible. When people only had the bible, paper was to expensive to waste on something like a Sears Catalog (Even Newspapers printed prior to about 1850 were intended to be kept for months at a time and read, mostly in public by people paid to read them). Thus you are mixing metaphors, that are at least 50 years apart.

Worse, we are talking about how and what should be taught in schools. When Public Schools started in the 1830s in the US (in many ways, the result that you could have public schools, given the steady drop in the price of books with more and more people opting for cheaper pulp paper books over more expensive linen paper books), books were part of the trend (That included the bible, but also other texts, as such text became less and less expensive from the 1820s onward).

In those early days, history was taught, but mostly by the teacher reading from a book and the students writing notes down on pieces of slate (It took a while for what we called paper tablets to be adopted by schools, slate and chalk were reusable and the pencil sharper not invented till 1900 and no one used pens outside of offices till the ball point pen took off after WWII).

Yes, the pencil, invented around 1850 was a huge advancement in writing, it replaced the quill pen and the ink well that went with it and the desk both had to be on (Steel pointed pens were used, but do to the fact most leaked never popular, but would provide a permanent signature, something the pencil could not).

All of this gets to my question as to your comment, we are talking about HOW things were taught in the past. Since 1850 books have been the preferred way to obtain knowledge. Prior to 1800 (1800-1850 is transitional period), most people learn by using chalk (Cheap but not permanent). Some calculations were done in stone (we have such drawings from Ancient Rome that are clearly calculations and drawing in regards to a building project the etcher in the stone were working one), bark (This is very old, used by the Romans, but again not permanent) etc. Paper was to expensive for such calculations (Parchment was the preferred writing material prior to about 1350 in Europe, linen replaced it starting in the 1300s for linen was that much cheaper).

On the other hand math were taught, learning to read and write was taught. This was done by many people who knew the advantage of being educated. The Bible was one source, but most educated people spend the money and obtain other sources of knowledge. Prior to 1800 something like the Sears Catalog was NOT possible, but learning advance forms of math was. Learning to read books was possible, even if expensive. People did these things and all I am saying is what computers can be used for today is to replace all the pulp paper books that replaced the older linen texts as Linen had replaced parchment. While the text became cheaper with each change in paper technology, the underlying concept taught did not change. It is these underlying educational concepts, math and reading that are the most important things taught in school, not how to open a book or start up a computer.