Sir, – I am grateful to Áine Hyland (Letters, August 12th) for the information about how, when the national school system was set up in 1831, every school received free books. She goes on to describe the issuing of first reading books, second reading books and third readings books. Now I know what my grandfather (born 1869) meant when he regularly asked me in the 1940s, “What book are you on?” – Yours, etc,
TONY CORCORAN,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.