Religion in the Public Schools
By G. B. Thompson
THERE is, perhaps, no other place in the United States which has been so deeply stirred over the question of teaching religion in the public schools as the District of Columbia during the present agitation. And it is not without its significance that this matter is being urged upon the people here in Washington. This is the capital of the nation, and what is done here has a great influence upon other sections of the United States. In some form or other this same question will come up in other places. The thing will spread, as it has in it all the essential elements of a complete union of the church and the state. The following, taken from an editorial in the April number of the Pilgrim Teacher, shows something of the wide-spread attention this question is receiving elsewhere:— The most significant feature of the Sunday-school outlook at the present7time is the Religious Education Association. It is, in the first place, an organization with a great object,—to inspire the educational forces of the country with the religious ideal, and to inspire the religious forces with the educational ideal. Then, like the International Sunday-school Association, it is inter-denominational and non-sectarian, and includes in its membership Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews. It appointed a commission at Boston to undertake the difficult task of compiling a book of devotional readings which Protestants, Catholics, and Jews alike could approve for use in the public schools. It is thus emphasizing the points of agreement between the different denominations and faiths, rather than their differences. There is no weakening of the definite convictions of any, but there is a joining of hands of all the best elements in the country in the interest of the real religious education of its youth. It is an organization led by great men. On the Boston program were thirteen presidents of American colleges, seminaries, and universities. It included scores of the leading educators and Christian workers of the country. [Italics mine.] If the church would do her appointed work, there would be no call for religious teaching by the state. The demand for the state to do the work committed to the church, of instructing the children in religion, is an acknowledgment by the church that she has lost her power to do the work for which she is commissioned of the Lord. We have been warned that new controversies are to arise, and that the old and the new are to commingle. We know of no way this could more quickly be brought to pass than to introduce religious instruction into the public schools. What shall be taught, how it shall be taught, and by whom, would bring in endless complications, and arouse controversies which nobody could settle. Religious animosities and sectarian strife would be kindled, and confusion would reign everywhere. That we have entered upon interesting times is very evident.