Religious Instruction in Public Schools
In Germany the State teaches religion in the public schools. What is the result? Last winter at Washington, Dr. Conrad, editor of the Lutheran Observer, said that an American family who had just returned from a three years’ stay in Germany said: “There is no real religion. Religion is turned over to the schoolmaster. The parents say, ‘The schoolmaster teaches religion, I am not responsible for that.’” This result is inevitable. The State settles what religion shall be taught. The parent can have nothing to say. Then the State has the selecting and appointing of the school-teachers. It is a State office. Teachers profess the religion to get the office. Then, having no religion themselves, yet being obliged to teach it, the baldest rationalism is taught. And the nation is filled with irreligious religionists. Let the American people think of this now, while the movement is being made to establish religious instruction in their public schools.