The School Question in Washington
No Action as Yet by the Board of Education
UP to the time of closing the columns of this paper no decision had been announced by the Board of Education concerning the matter of religious instruction in the public schools of the District of Columbia, and there has been little agitation of the question during the last week. The responsibility of the family and the church for giving religious instruction was the subject of a sermon by Rev. L. D. Blakemore, of this city, which was reported in the Washington Times of May 1; and the Washington Post of the same date contained the following letter:— “EDITOR POST: The pastors of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, who presented a petition to the Board of Education against the introduction of religious instruction in the public schools of the District, urged that their plea was not given that publicity which would have shown the reasonableness of their position. The petition was, in part, as follows:— “We, the undersigned preachers, representing the Methodist Episcopal Church South in the District of Columbia, deplore the present unseemly agitation over the question of the proposed introduction of religious instruction into the public schools of the District, and respectfully submit our protest against the measure on the following grounds:— “We recognize the moral and religious crisis now imperiling the country, and are ready to co-operate in all legitimate efforts to uphold law and order, stay crime, and improve morals and religion, through education or otherwise, on the basis of the ‘golden rule’ and the guarantee of civil and religious freedom to all alike. We heartily sympathize with the laudable aim, but question seriously the means suggested in the proposed action. It would be a step backward, not forward; and, by arousing sectarian prejudices and animosities, would defeat the very end sought, impair the confidence of the people in the schools, and ultimately destroy the American common school, or lead to an established religion and the reunion of church and state, a result that will be relentlessly opposed by every loyal American citizen. “The proposed legislation proceeds upon these false premises: First, that the home and the church, set for the very work of imparting moral and religious instruction, recognized by all as necessary for American citizenship, have acknowledged failure; secondly, that since the regular agencies have failed, the state, in self-defense, is justified in assuming, and in duty bound to assume, the burden of the moral and religious instruction of her future citizens. In fact, the church and the home have not failed, nor has the American state any legal or moral right, under any circumstances whatever, to impart religious instruction in the slightest degree. . . . “We stand second to none in our loyalty to the Constitution and the established institutions of our country, chief among which is the American common school, established on non-sectarian principles of the separation of church and state. We deny absolutely the right or expediency of introducing religious instruction into the tax-supported school in the United States. We deny the principle that religious instruction, under any possible contingency, is a proper function of the American state, and brand all arguments and analogies drawn from the educational experience of European countries with a state church, as false and misleading for this country. We deny that the common school is responsible for the moral and religious crisis in the country, and protest against the proposed introduction of religious instruction into the public schools as reactionary, un-American, unconstitutional, illegal, subversive of civil and religious liberty, and, whether advocated wittingly or unwittingly of the vital principles involved, as inimical to the best interests of both church and state, and tending to aggravate rather than cure the ills of society. Such reactionary school legislation, we believe, would justly expose our honorable Board of Education and the citizens of the District of Columbia to the ridicule and contempt of leading educators and all fair-minded, liberty-loving American citizens the country over. “The Constitution of the United States expressly forbids such sectarian teaching of religion and morals in the tax-supported school as is generally conceded to be necessary for complete moral character and American citizenship. The American common school was never designed to give complete preparation for American citizenship. No objection is made to the teaching of such a body of commonly accepted principles of morality as might be agreed upon. But we oppose thrusting upon the common school the extra burden of the home, the Sunday-school, and the church, in addition to its legitimate work as a branch of the state, as confusing and destructive to all. Such an educational policy would be suicidal. . . . “We would respectfully call attention to the fact that this whole question of religious toleration in education was fought out by Thomas Jefferson and the framers of the Constitution in Virginia. The Bible and religion constituted the big end of the wedge in the colonial school. This was possible in New England, with a homogeneous population and one common religion. In Virginia, with the introduction of various nationalities and religious denominations, as well as in Massachusetts later, religious controversies began concerning education, and the secularizing trend set in that has gradually reduced the Bible and religion to a minimum in the tax-supported school. . . . “Slight appreciation has been shown so far in this discussion of the contemporary movements in American educational history, nor of the existence since February, 1903, of the Religious Education Association, organized by leading educators and ministers of the United States, now numbering many hundreds of members, for the express purpose of solving this greatest question that faces our country to-day; namely, of determining the proper places, respectively, of the church and the state, and of their right correlation with all other moral and religious forces in the vast work of the moral and religious education of the American people This great organization seeks the solution of the crisis in morals and religion now facing the country, not in senile involution and reactionary returns to the primitive matter and methods of our colonial ancestors, but in development, the proper correlation of the common school, the home, the Sunday-school, the church, and various other social factors, to the end that a proper and harmonious division of labor may be secured, and the adequate physical, mental, moral, and religious development be guaranteed to the rising generation of American citizens. “JOHN LEE BROOKS,
Emory Church;
WILLIAM F. LOCKE,
Mount Vernon Place Church;
D. L. BLAKEMORE,
Epworth Church;
W. H. BALLENGER,
West Washington Church;
J. C. HAWK,
Marvin Church.”