represented by numbers so inconsiderable as to be negligible now began to appear in an increasing volume. Hence laws and practices which had been applied without difficulty when unity of religious sentiment prevailed now became unworkable because that unity of sentiment had disappeared.

Coincident with the introduction of the new racial and religious elements which made the continued connection of church and state increasingly difficult there was a more and more widespread acceptance of the principle that the church and the state should be kept entirely distinct. This was in harmony with the prevailing tendency, as manifested in the expanding bills of rights of our early State constitutions, to enlarge that field of the individual's activity within which it was not considered to be legitimate for the State to interfere. Just as family rights, freedom of choice of a profession, freedom of contract and freedom of political action were guaranteed to the individual against encroachment by the government, so likewise his freedom in matters of religion came to be equally entitled to protection. The practical difficulty of acting upon the contrary principle in communities made up of diverse religious elements hastened the universal acceptance in all parts of America of the maxim that in matters of religious belief the individual should not be subject to public control.

With the growth of the feeling that there should be no connection between church and state, there has also been a change in the conception of the proper sphere which each should occupy. Several activities which for hundreds of years had been in the hands of ecclesiastical bodies were taken over by the state and treated as secular in their nature. The most important of these activities had to do with educational or humanitarian institutions.

Education had for centuries been regarded as peculiarly a function of the church. In fact in the disorganization which prevailed in Europe while the new kingdoms were growing up on the ruins of the Roman Empire there was no other authority to which men could look for enlightenment. The need of supplying training for its priests, who in turn should become the teachers of their successors, further stimulated the educational efforts of the church. As a result, the first schools established

in America all owed their origin to some branch of the church. The oldest school in the thirteen English colonies was that established in 1633 by the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam. This was followed by the Boston Latin School in 1635 or 1636. Earlier than either however were the schools established by the Franciscans in Florida and New Mexico.

If elementary education was to remain in the hands of schools established and controlled by the various churches, one of three results must follow. Either every church must maintain a school for its own children, or the children must attend a school of some other church, or they must remain without education. In many communities there were religious bodies which were not sufficiently strong in numbers and in property to maintain schools of their own. The children of families belonging to such churches must either attend schools where they would be subjected to religious teaching which their parents did not approve or go without formal training. This dilemma was removed by the establishment of the free public school.

Early in the nineteenth century, the country was swept by a wave of democracy which resulted in greatly extending the suffrage and in bringing practically all branches of the government under popular control. This movement was accompanied by the belief that the success of democracy depended primarily upon popular education, and hence that the state itself, as a means of self-protection, must create and maintain suitable schools. The religious and moral aims of education were not overlooked and were sometimes expressly set forth in the State constitutions. The statement in the Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory, "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged," has been incorporated in the organic law of several States. Many of them express in some form the duty of the State to provide for education, and contain mandatory provisions as to the duty of the legislature to establish a suitable system of schools. So thoroughly has the conception of education as a secular function been accepted that in many States the former dependence of society upon the church for mental training has been almost forgotten.

In the last hundred years there has been a great change in the view taken as to the duty of the state in matters of philanthropy. As in the field of education so also in the field of humanitarian endeavor, it was the church which was long the most active factor. In the care of the poor and helpless, in ministering to the sick, in the maintenance of institutions for those who need assistance and protection, the church in all its branches is more active to-day than ever before. But the state is not a passive spectator, and through its own agents and by means of public institutions it seeks to relieve the wants of its people who are in distress. Every State in the Union has made some sort of provision for the maintenance of charitable and correctional institutions in which it seeks to do the work which was formerly thought to be possible only when actuated by a religious motive and when under the control of an ecclesiastical organization.

As a result of this twofold movement, one toward the complete separation of church and state, and the other toward the assumption by the public of educational and philanthropic activities which had long been in the hands of the church, provisions have been inserted in many State constitutions establishing the principle of liberty in religion as a part of the fundamental law, and, as incidental thereto, regulating the use of the public funds for institutions, particularly educational institutions, which are under sectarian or private control. These States fall into the following groups:

1. Those which expressly forbid the use of public funds for institutions (sometimes schools only are specified) which are under sectarian control. These States, thirty-three in number, are Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.

2. Those which seem to intend to prevent the appropriation of public money to sectarian schools but which employ language in their Constitutions the meaning of which is not always clear. These States, thirteen in number, are Arkansas, Connecticut,

Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

3. Those which do not confine their prohibition to institutions under sectarian control, but forbid appropriations of public money to all institutions not under public control. These States, six in number, are Alabama (except by a vote of twothirds of all members elected to each house), Colorado, Louisiana (schools only), Montana, New Mexico (with exceptions) and Wyoming. All these States also appear in Group 1.1

II. THE RELATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IN MASSACHUSETTS. The close connection between church and state in Massachusetts, which began with the earliest settlement, is reflected in the laws regarding taxation. In 1638 it was enacted by the General Court that "every such inhabitant who shall not volentarily contribute, pportionably to his ability, with other freemen of the same towne, to all comon charges, as well for upholding the ordinances in the churches as otherwise, shallbee compelled thereto by assessment & distres to bee levied by the cunstable, or other officer of the towne as in other cases." 2 Six years later, in 1644, the Commissioners of the New England Colonies assembled at Hartford sent the following recommendation to the colonial legislatures of New England:

That those who are taught in the word in the seŭall plantacons be called together, that euery man voluntaryly set downe what he is willing to allow to that end & use. And if any man refuse to pay a meete pporcon, that then hee be rated by authoryty in some just & equall way. And if after this any man withhold or delay due payment, the ciuill power be exercised as in other just debts.3

It is obvious that such a method of compelling the support of the church would create antagonism whenever a dissenting minority appeared with sufficient strength to assert itself. The dominant Congregationalists realized this and sought to preserve peace and harmony by the banishment of their oppo

1 For constitutional provisions see Appendix A.

2 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, I., 240-241. * Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, I., 20.

nents. The most illustrious victim of this policy was Roger Williams. The immediate result of his banishment was the establishment for the first time in the history of Christendom of a civil community founded upon the principle of complete liberty in matters of religion. What had long been the vision of a few philosophers now became a concrete fact. The Puritan colony however continued its persecutions, and the pertinacious Quakers, who would neither conform nor submit to banishment, were subjected to the death penalty and several were hanged on Boston Common. Early in the eighteenth century, however, there began to be a recognition of the injustice of taxing men for the maintenance of a form of religion which they could not accept, and in consequence Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Universalists who could prove their connection with their own religious societies were exempted from the payment of taxes for the support of the Congregationalists. In Boston, what was known as the voluntary system, whereby each society was allowed to enforce contributions from its proprietors of pews, had long been applied, and in 1754 this privilege was extended to any religious society in the colony which chose to ask for it.

The right to be exempt from taxation for the support of the Congregational Church upon proof of membership in some other church did not satisfy the dissenters, and in the midst of the Revolution, when the right of the Parliament to tax colonists who were not represented therein was denied, the Baptists, that sect "which throughout its entire history preached the gospel of love, abhorred and abstained from persecution, and pre-eminently maintained the rights of conscience,"1 insisted that on the same principle men who were not Congregationalists should not be taxed for the support of that church even though they could not show membership in some other religious body. When the General Court in 1778 prepared a constitution for submission to the people, the Baptists endeavored to obtain the insertion in it of a declaration of rights by which they would be given the same legal standing as the Congregationalists. The failure to comply with this demand was one of the reasons for the rejection of the constitution by the people.

1 Oscar S. Straus, Roger Williams, the Pioneer of Religious Liberty, 107.