Untitled article | AdventAI

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

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 23

Simple Tyranny.

THE public-school system, existing in the several States of the Union, is directly the creation of State authority, and is maintained and enforced by compulsory taxation. The object is to meet a great practical want in the way of popular education that otherwise would not be adequately met. There can be no doubt either as to the necessity or as to the wisdom of the system considered with reference to the end had in view. The question whether the education, thus provided for, shall be simply secular, or shall, in addition thereto, include some element or elements of religious teaching, is the vexed question that has for years been the bone of contention in our public-school system, and that now really constitutes its greatest peril.

We have never had but one opinion on this subject, and have given full expression thereto, as occasion has called for it. We do not believe it to be the legitimate province of any State, as such, to engage in any species of religious propagandism, whether in the public school or elsewhere. A State, in order to do this, must first have a State religion, and, of course, must authoritatively determine what it shall be, and what it shall embrace; and having proceeded thus far, it must then, in order to give the idea a practicable form, compel the people through a tax levy to pay the expense of teaching the religion, whether they believe in its truth or not. The mere statement of the idea ought to be sufficient to refute it with the American people.

An American State cannot consistently extend its public-school system, supported by general taxation, and regulated by law, beyond the purely secular field of education; and those who demand that it shall do more than this are making war upon the only system that comes within the province of the State. Our public-school system must be purely secular in its instruction, or be abandoned altogether, unless the people are prepared to have the State in its organic power become a religious propagandist.

We desire to preserve and perpetuate the system on the only basis that is practicable, and hence utterly dissent alike from those Catholics and those Protestants who would use the public schools for religious purposes. Not a dollar of the public money should be thus expended. No man should be required by law to pay a solitary penny for religious propagandism. Such a requirement is simply tyranny.—The Independent.