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to develop in present conditions in New York. A devout Christian teacher may conduct his school to all outward appearance just like that of his fellow-churchman across the way, but if one is formally indorsed by his denomination he can not receive the allotments of public funds still available for one not so indorsed.

Cities. Not to follow the question of custom in the use of the Bible in the common schools State by State, it will be sufficient to cite conditions in some of the great cities of 1856-Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans. In the schools of Boston the Bible was in use. In some schools of New York and Philadelphia it would have been found, but not uniformly. In Cincinnati it was in use, though one might have detected the indications of the contest in which its use was discontinued a few years later (1869). In the public schools of St. Louis the Bible was not used, notwithstanding something like a wholesale importation of New England teachers in 1853, notably from the Bridgewater Normal School, for superintendent, principals, and high-school teachers, to give character to the city system. The Bible had been in use in the schools of New Orleans, but was not in use there in 1856.

WANT OF UNIFORMITY IN USE OF TERMS.

Persons who have carried in their impressions the ideal of the Massachusetts common school have very generally regarded the question of the Bible in the schools as a question of defense, as though it were in general use, and not as an aggressive question that it might be adopted. In point of fact, it has not been in any such general use as assumed by a multitude of writers and speakers. When Calvin E.

Stowe addressed an Indiana audience in 1840 it was clearly the New England custom of using the Bible that he was defending. The common schools of Indiana at that date were very primitive, and could hardly be said to have a prevailing custom in any detail. Professor Stowe uttered similar views before the American Institute of Instruction, Portland, Me., 1844, in a region where his statements fitted the conditions. He was willing to have Protestants and Catholics each use their own Bible. In the Indiana address he said: "Every attempt to pervert the common-school funds so as to accommodate children of different languages or different religions with a separate education should be steadily resisted by every true friend of his country." The lack of definition of terms, or of the sense in which they are used, has led to much confusion in the discussion of the proper functions of the public school, and the variable meanings authors attach to "sectarian," "public school system,” and other expressions give a character of unstable equilibrium, as it might be called, to many of the arguments regarding the functions of the schools. As an example, the royal commission of 1888 to examine the condition of elementary schools in England and Wales sent circulars to various foreign countries, and to each of the States and Territories of this country. The replies were condensed into tabular form in the report of the commission. In the column for religious instruction the word "None" appears against every State reporting except Florida, "Devotional exercises, nonsectarian;" Maine, "General, not sectarian, optional;" Michigan, "Nonsectarian;" New Jersey," Bible read without note or comment, not obligatory;" Oregon, "Given by teacher, not compulsory, no special provision;" Vermont, "Bible read in most schools, not compulsory;" Virginia, "Not required by State, teachers usually give unsectarian religious instruction." The facts are not clearly shown, by reason of the varying significance attached to the term "religious instruction" by the officials who filled out replies. Massachusetts has a formal requirement that the Bible shall be read daily in all public schools, yet in the table cited eight States less stringent on the point have some entry indicating attention to religious instruction, while against Massachusetts is entered "None," as well as against other States in which the use of the Bible is favored.

1 Wisdom and Knowledge the Nation's Stability. An address before the Euphonian Society. Wabash College, July 7, 1840.

Some allowance is to be made for the changes in the use of terms as the years go by. When all accept a dogma it is hardly sectarian, but when a community is divided in the acceptance of the same article of belief those who accept it or its opposite form a sect as related to their neighbors.

The Douay (Catholic) version of the Bible was judicially called sectarian in Nevada some years ago (State of Nevada v. Hallock, 16 Nevada, 373) and more recently came the Wisconsin decision that the King James version of the Bible was sectarian.

The discussions cited convey widely different impressions of the writers' views according to the sense in which they appear to have used terms that have come into the variable use indicated.

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In the New Englander (Congregationalist), April, 1848, was an article contending for the common schools as against parochial schools advocated by Old-School Presbyterians. The author assumes that the common school is in accordance with the comprehensive character of Christianity," but after a number of pages he says: "IV. The preceding course of argument fully evinces the duty of good citizens to sustain the common schools rather than introduce the church schools, provided the varieties of religious belief in our communities do not render any safe and valuable system of instruction in the former impracticable.

"This brings us to the great, and, so far as appears, the only objection to the common-school system-the religious objection.

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"If the several religious denominations will act with an enlightened public spirit, the practical difficulties will be found very few and small. *** In common schools, schools under State and civil patronage, all religious denominations should stand on the same footing. * * * The opposite principle which has been so extensively adopted in the discussion of this subject, that in this country the State or civil power is Christian and Protestant, and therefore that schools sustained and directed in part thereby are Christian and Protestant, and that whoever attends them has no right to object to a rule requiring all to study Christian and Protestant books and doctrines, we wholly disbelieve and deny. The State, the civil power in whatever form in this country, is no more Protestant, or Christian, than it is Jewish or Mohammedan. It is of no religion whatever.

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"We fully admit, and, if necessary, would strenuously contend, that of a complete education the religious instruction and influence is an essential part, and far the most important part, and that it should be given in all the periods of a child's life. Any educational institution, therefore, which assumes for any considerable period the whole education and training of a child or youth and yet gives no religious instruction and training, is justly said to give an irreligious and godless education. But to say the same of a day school which gives only secular instruction-instruction that does not discredit or interfere with, but prepares the way for, and indirectly aids, religion-during only four or six hours in the day, avowedly leaving religious instruction to other and better teachers, is palpably illogical and unfair.

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There may be a division of labor, and secular teaching may be the exclusive department of the day school, while religious teaching is provided in other and better ways.

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"Very little jealousy has been encountered with regard to religious influence in the common schools of New England."

After stating that ministers are often on school boards, and usually find no difficulty on their visits to the schools in giving religions instruction approved by their judgment, the writer goes on to say: "If there should be districts, as probably there would be a few, in which the members of different religious denominations, not satisfied with the teaching of the common Christianity, should insist on the teaching of their distinctive doctrines, even so let it be. Let each scholar read or study his own Bible and his own catechism. The pupils might, if it should be thought most convenient and wise, when the time for religious instruction arrived,

be classified for this purpose." And, naming six denominations for possible separate classes, he adds: "And if there should be other varieties let them be classed accordingly."

This article was reprinted in the Common School Journal of Massachusetts and issued in pamphlet form for gratuitous distribution at the expense of a friend of New England common free schools.

NOTED PERIODS OF DISCUSSION OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

In 1840 the effort of the Catholics to secure appropriations of public school money in the city of New York attracted some attention elsewhere, and there has been some continuous interest on the subjects of parochial schools and appropriations of public money for denominational schools. Two periods, however, are especially noticeable for general attention to these subjects. The first was that known for the so-called "Know-Nothing" movement, which had a distinctive existence long enough to elect some mayors of cities and some governors of States in the early fifties. The second period may be said to have begun about 1889, and it has not yet ended.

In 1854, M. J. Spalding, D. D. (Catholic), bishop of Louisville, discussing the subject of education, directed attention to the arrangement for separate schools existing in other countries: '

"In countries much less free than ours the common school system is so organized that Catholics and Protestants have separate schools. Austria, with all her alleged tyranny and with her triumphant Catholic majority of population, freely grants separate schools, supported out of the common fund, to the Protestant minority. England, with all her hereditary hatred of Catholicity, permits the Catholics to have their own separate schools; and this is not found to conflict in practice with her common-school system. Lower Canada, with its immense Catholic majority, freely concedes the privilege of separate schools to the small Protestant minority; and everyone who reads the public prints must be familiar with the controversy which is now carried on in Canada, and even in the Canadian Parliament, on the same equitable provision, extended, in all its privileges, to the Catholic minority of Upper Canada. Strange that Catholics, when in power, should be so liberal in granting a privilege which a Protestant majority is so slow to concede!"

Under the title, "Shall our common schools be destroyed," Joseph P. Thompson, D. D., pastor of Broadway Tabernacle, New York City, delivered an argument against perverting the school fund to sectarian uses (1870). Dr. Thompson was one of the original editors of the (New York) Independent, established as an organ of Congregational polity. He cites Judge Cooley:

"Mr. Cooley (Constitutional Limitations, p. 469) enumerates the following things concerning religion as not lawful under any of our State constitutions:

"1. Any law respecting an establishment of religion.

"2. Compulsory support by taxation, or otherwise, of religious instruction.

"3. Compulsory attendance upon religious worship.

"4. Restraints upon the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience.

"5. Restraints upon the expression of religious belief."

He embodies in his address a letter which he had written at the request of Richard Cobden in 1853, and which had been published by order of the British House of Commons. It is a token of the reciprocal action of English thought, as represented in the home country and in other English-speaking nations.

Dr. Thompson severely condemned the attempt "to secure the aid of the State directly to the support of a particular sect," and to divide the school fund among sects.

An address to the impartial public on the intolerant spirit of the times, p. 34.

2 A law allowing separate schools was passed in 1863.-J. H. B.

"We have no right to force any to receive their religious teaching from the State, nor does the State become atheistic by refusing to teach religion. Religion must be taught in the family. It will be taught in the Church. It will be taught in the Sunday school. Christians for whom I speak are content with these modes of teaching religion. Shall they who are not content with such modes, or do not feel that these will satisfy them, compel us to pay for teaching their religion in some other way? That is the question! Let the Roman Catholic Church teach her tenets in these and other lawful ways, but not tax you to pay for it."

In January, 1887, an article in the New Princeton Review, "Religion in the public schools,” by A. A. Hodge, D. D., insisted on religious instruction, advocating an agreement between Catholics and Protestants "with respect to a common basis of what is received as general Christianity especially in the literature and teaching of our public schools. The difficulties lie in the mutual ignorance and prejudice of both parties, and fully as much on the side of Protestants as of the Catholics. Then let the system of public schools be confined to the branches of simply commonschool education. Let these common schools be kept under the local control of the inhabitants of each district, so that the religious character of each school may conform in all variable accidents to the character of the majority of the inhabitants of each district. Let all centralizing tendencies be watchfully guarded against."

RECENT DISCUSSIONS.

National Educational Association.-There have been recent notable debates upon the subject of moral and religious teaching in the public schools. At the meeting of the National Educational Association, July, 1889, Cardinal Gibbons and Bishop Keane presented the Catholic view, Edwin D. Mead and John Jay, other views. Cardinal Gibbons said: "It is not sufficient, therefore, to know how to read and write, to understand the rudiments of grammar and arithmetic. We want our children to receive an education that will make them not only learned, but pious men. We wish them to be not only men of the world, but, above all, The religious and secular education of our children can not

inen of God.

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be divorced from each other without inflicting a fatal wound upon the soul. The only efficient way to preserve the blessings of civil freedom within legitimate bounds is to inculcate on the mind of youth whilst at school the virtues of truth, justice, honesty, temperance, self-denial, and those other fundamental duties comprised in the Christian code of morals.

"The catechetical instructions given once a week in our Sunday schools, though productive of very beneficial results, are insufficient to supply the religious wants of our children. They should as far as possible breathe every day a healthy religious atmosphere in those schools in which not only is their mind enlightened, but the seeds of faith, piety, and sound morality are nourished and invigorated. This would be effected if the denominational system, such as obtains in Canada, were applied in our public schools.

"The combination of religious and secular education is easily accomplished in denominational schools. To what extent religion may be taught in the public schools without infringing the rights and wounding the conscience of some of the pupils is a grave problem, beset with difficulties and very hard to be solved, inasmuch as those schools are usually attended by children belonging to the various Christian denominations, by Jews also, and even by those who profess no religion whatever."

Bishop Keane said: "A distinguished orator of our day has truly declared that the civilization and prosperity of our country depend on its Christianity, and that its Christianity depends on education. But, alas, how illogically he concluded from these premises that therefore the welfare of our country was to be safeguarded by a system of education in which it is not permissible to teach Christianity. Look now at the people of our country and we see them divided into two classes. ED 95--52*

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On the one side the Catholic church emphatically declares for Christian education, and with us side all those non-Catholics, whatever may be their denomination, who believe in Christian schools, and in them are giving their children an education, leavened and animated by Christianity as they understand it. Can anyone in his senses hesitate which of these two sides is for the real welfare of our country?”

Mr. Edwin D. Mead said: "Whenever, therefore, the parochial school or any school accompanies its demand for place in America by a petition for public money or remission of taxes, by any claim that is opposed to the integrity of the public school system, we may say very plainly that it has not proper place in America.

"The Roman Catholic school, parochial or other, does properly have the same place in America (and this right must be firmly secured it) which the Episcopal school has, the Unitarian school, the Lutheran school, or any private school whatever-the right to open its doors, to make itself as attractive as it can, and to invite anybody it will. Like every other private school it must satisfy the standards of the State, but it has the same right as every other to resent all officious medaling.

“I have confined myself to the Catholic parochial school because no other raises any serious problem in our society.

"The public schools are the great moralizing institution in America to-day. This is shown by the simplest analysis of the discipline and essential methods of the schools-the training which they give in habits of punctuality, order, obedience, industry, courtesy, and respect for simple merit."

Mr. Jay deals with two points: (1) The exclusion of the Bible from the public schools; (2) the claim for public money for denominational schools. He speaks as if the Bible were generally used in the public schools, and quotes Judge Bennett, of Wisconsin, in the case of Weiss v. School Board of Edgerton, approvingly: "But the Bible remains, and it would seem like turning a good, true, and ever faithful friend and counselor out of doors to exclude it from the public schools of the State. And I have been unable to find any authority in the decisions of the courts for so doing."

Mr. Jay sees the present public schools as Christian schools:

"The Puritans of New England appreciated the necessity of public schools, and that feeling was shared by the Huguenots and the Hollanders, by the Walloons from Flanders, the Vaudois and Waldenses from the Italian Alps, Protestants from Germany and Scandinavia, by the followers of Huss from Bohemia and Zwinglius from Switzerland, by the United Brethren, the Moravian Brothers, the Salzburg exiles, with Christian reformers of every race and tongue who had contended at home, even to the death, for the open Bible as the true standard of Christianity, and the only sure foundation of civil and religious freedom. Touching the instruction given in our American schools during the colonial period, the teaching of Christian ethics was from the first an essential feature. #4

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"The movement for religious liberty by separating church and state began, nearly simultaneouly, in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania soon after the Declaration of Independence; but in separating church and state they were careful not to separate Christianity from the common law.

"The public school, if faithfully maintained, as established by our fathers, teaches not only the elements of education, but teaches personal responsibility, freedom of conscience and of thought, loyalty to American principles and constitutions, love of country, and duty to our fellow-men.

"The aim of the parochial school is to form a subject of the Pope and not an independent citizen of the American Republic, and the character of the education is admirably fitted for this purpose.

"As an American author who has studied the question well remarks: 'Roman

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin in the appeal from the circuit court, where Judge Bennett presided, reversed his decision and granted a mandamus to exclude the Bible. This is more fully noticed elsewhere, p. 1617.-J. H. B.

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