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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 5, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 23

The Public-School Question.

The common schools are our national idol. Like all idols this American tutelary genius exercises a peculiar spell over its votaries and has the faculty of stupefying and stultifying them ad libitum. A most glaring instance of over-zeal and folly in this noble cause is the recent legislation of Wisconsin and Illinois against the parochial schools which abound in those States.

These two States have an immense Lutheran population, which has come mostly from Germany and northern Europe. They are people of enlightened and earnest religious convictions, many of them having come here to enjoy, unhampered by statecraft and uncorrupted by rationalism, their pure, evangelical, Protestant faith. To inculcate this precious faith in their children is with them one of the primary functions of the Christian Church, a duty to which she cannot be derelict. Hence they maintain at great expense in every congregation, a parish school in which for the first hour of every day the children receive instruction in the Christian religion.

They have no hostility to our common schools. They laud them as one of the noblest products and supports of the State. They are perfectly willing to be taxed for their maintenance, although deriving little direct profit from them. They are accustomed to send such of their children as can prosecute a further course of study, to the higher grades of the public schools, where their primary training is found quite equal to that furnished by the public school. They have not in a single instance asked for a portion of the school fund. In cities where, by co-operation with the Romanists, they could easily have succeeded in getting exemption from school taxes, or securing a fair portion of the fund, they have repelled with scorn the proposal for united action, protesting that in this matter they had nothing in common with Roman Catholics. But while in the fullest accord with the American school system, they recognize that it is purely and necessarily secular, that the all-important element of true education is absolutely excluded. Hence they propose to supplement State education with Christian education; and very properly this supplement comes first in order, since all admit that the earliest religious impressions become the deepest and most abiding. The hearts and minds of the children are filled with the knowledge of divine truth, and then the State may take charge of their further instruction.

All this, it must be acknowledged, is at once accordant with the purest patriotism, and the best type of Christianity. And so far, the State could have no possible pretext for breaking up these parish schools. But a pretext is offered on the score of language. Many of these people have not been long enough in this country to have acquired the English language. And some communities are so exclusively made up of Germans or Scandinavians that the vernacular which they brought with them to this country still prevails, and it is said that there are even natives who cannot read, write, or understand English. There is, again, no opposition to the use of English. Dear as is the mother tongue which embalms the hallowed traditions and associations of a people, the hymns and the prayers of their religion, these new comers are sufficiently intelligent to understand the significance of their American citizenship to their children—and that to contend with others in the race of life, they must master the language of the country. And whoever saw a young German or Scandinavian that was not eager to speak English, no matter how much amusement was caused by his broken efforts?

Whenever it is practicable, the parish schools teach some of the branches in English. In many of them it is the medium of instruction for half the day, and the children outside the school room speak almost exclusively English. Yet as large bodies of emigrants continue to arrive, forming new communities and churches, cases continue to arise where a suitable teacher who can use English as the medium of instruction cannot be found, or where the children are as yet so absolutely ignorant of English, that to use that language as the medium of instruction would be the height of absurdity. You might as well make Greek the vehicle of instruction in our primary schools.

Yet this is just what these political wiseacres say must be done—the elementary branches must be taught in English, whether the children can understand a word of it or not, whether the teacher is capable of using it, or whether he is not. The police are to drag the children out of the Christian schools, where there is no English taught, and force them into the schools of the State, even though they understand not a word that is uttered there.

If only an amendment had been added requiring these statesmen to do the teaching under these conditions for the first year, there would soon have followed a call for an extra session of the Legislature to abolish this crude and hasty measure.

The American people are as sensible and just as they are practical, and one may confidently predict that such enactments, when properly understood, will not have the sanction of a sober public opinion. Apart from the impossibility of instructing children through the vehicle of an unknown tongue, such an expedient is doomed to failure even as a means of making them English. The results may be seen in half the counties of Pennsylvania, where English has been the language of instruction for fifty years, and where persons can be found whose parents and grandparents were born in this country, and who are still unable to speak, write, or understand English. They attended the English schools, but not understanding what was taught they never learned English or anything else. Though not among our worst elements, could they have had the instruction of parish schools in their vernacular, they would be far more intelligent than they are.

If Americans could for a moment put themselves in the place of these pious foreigners, who by common consent constitute a most peaceable, intelligent and thrifty class, they must look upon this legislation as a wanton and cruel invasion of their sacred right to educate their offspring in the best manner possible under the abnormal and temporary conditions. No American community would submit for one hour to such an outrage.

Some of these Germans have probably fled from the intolerance of Russia, which forces the Russian tongue into the schools of the Baltic Provinces. Invited to this country as offering the fullest civil and religious liberty, how bitter must be the disappointment which finds here the same spirit, the same politics, the same heartless disregard of circumstances and of rights.

But the saddest aspect of these laws is the revelation they make of the godless spirit that rules the State. The beliefs and the morals of Christianity, we have heard times without number, are the palladium of our free institutions. Here now are evangelical churches providing a thorough Christian culture for their children, infusing into their minds the eternal principles of private and public virtue, and the State with iron hand breaks in the door and demands to know what is being taught in these schools. The answer is, “The doctrines of the gospel, and whatever besides will help to make good citizens.” “In what language are you doing it?” “In the only language at our command.” “OUT WITH THIS BUSINESS! This is an English country, and unless you teach English your school must stop.”

And so we are going! Whither, O whither, tell me where? We are fain to speak of this as a Christian country. We hear often that Christianity is the common law of the land. We are even now passing a bill in the national Legislature to enforce the observance of “the Christian Sabbath.” To some well-meaning people only one thing is lacking to make this in form as it already is in fact a Christian Nation, and that is to write the name of Jesus Christ across the national Constitution.—Prof. E. J. Wolf, in Christian at Work.