BOOKS OUT AND IN AT JACKSON, MISS.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 The Jackson, Miss., public school system has withdrawn 800 textbooks it had trans ferred to a new “segregation academy,” apparently averting the loss of a $1.3‐million Fed eral grant for easing desegrega tion.

The private academy has nevertheless ended in posses sion of the books after a series of transfers. Following the with drawal, the books were’ taken over to a state agency, which then returned them to the academy.

Officials of the United States Office of Education, which quickly began an in vestigation into the original transfer, said today that they would investigate further.

But it appears, one official said, that the city school system has purged itself of a possible violation of the terms that re cently enabled it to receive the first grant under the new Fed eral desegregation assistance program.

Books Transferred

The original public school ac tion on Aug. 25 was a transfer of the books to the Woodland Hills Academy, one of a num ber of new, all‐white Southern schools that were instituted fol lowing public school desegre gation.

This transfer was directed by the State Textbook Department, which owns and assigns books to schoolchildren across the state. Though the books are state‐owned, the transfer ap peared to flout the Federal ban on direct or indirect assistance to segregated academies by re cipients of desegregation‐assist ance funds.

Shortly after newspaper in quiries were made about the transfer on Sept. 4, a public school truck was sent to the Woodland Academy to reclaim the books and return them to the state agency.

School Aide Comments

“We didn't realize it would be all that controversial,” R. B. Layton, Assistant School Super intendent, said today. “When we did, we took the books back and returned them to the State Textbook Board.”

The board acknowledged in response to an inquiry that it had reassigned the books to the Woodland Academy direct ly in time for its opening yes terday.

Billy R. Swindle, principal of the academy, declined com ment, saying he had been in structed not to talk with re porters and refusing to say by whom. But he did say, “Yes, We have gotten the books from the state.”

“Absolutely routine,” said M. A. Snowden, executive sec retary of the School Textbook Board. “We loan books to all schoolchildren” under a 1942 state statute.

Attorneys for the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., plan to challenge the statute, however, in Fed eral court on the ground that public support of segregated private sehools is unconstitu tional.