An Approaching Controversy
By L. A. S.
The New York Sun sees upon the political horizon of the future a “burning question,” which it states thus: “Shall the public schools remain secularized? or shall religion be introduced into them as a fundamental and essential part of their instruction?” Not only the Catholic Church, but a large element among Protestants, desire religious teaching in the schools. The Sun says:— In a chapter on “The Catholic Parochial Schools of the United States,” contributed to the report of the Federal Bureau of Education for last year, the Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, a Roman Catholic priest of Pennsylvania, brings together many expressions of opinion by prominent Protestant clergymen and teachers which agree with the Roman Catholic theory and principle that education apart from religion is a snare and a delusion, that secular and religious education can never be parted without moral results dangerous to the individual and the community. Public education in this country is at present almost wholly secularized. But “the Roman Catholic Church,” says the Sun, “has never insisted more strenuously and more uncompromisingly on its demand for religious education as the prime essential.” There are about four thousand Catholic parochial schools in the United States to-day, and the number is rapidly increasing. Of the teaching in these schools the Sun says:— In the course of study in a parochial school as much time is given to “Christian doctrine” as to any other branch of instruction except reading and arithmetic. Here is the scheme of religious instruction running through the years: Commandments, precepts, sacraments; explanation of principal feasts; prayers and approved pious practises; Deharbe’s Catechism; explanation of the mass, vestments, color, names, etc.; lives of saints; Bible history; history of the church. Catholics desire these parochial schools to be supported by public taxation, and here is what the Sun terms “a sore question,” which, “if it comes before the people as a question of practical politics,” as the Sun believes it may, “will give rise to a bitter agitation.” “The point is made by Father Sheedy, and generally by Catholic priests,” says the Sun, “that Roman Catholics by voluntary contributions for their own independent schools ‘are saving to non-Catholic taxpayers a vast sum, estimated at from twenty million dollars to twenty-five million dollars annually;’ or the cost of educating the children now in the parochial schools.” The question whether Roman Catholics shall continue to provide this vast sum, or whether Protestants shall be compelled to contribute to the support of the Catholic schools and the teaching of the Catholic religion, is one which will involve and stir up controversy in every section of the country. Catholics are now taxed like other citizens for the support of the secular schools, and they ask to be released from this taxation to the extent of the amount which they give for the support of their parochial schools, and thus “save to the Protestant taxpayer.” But the question of the maintenance of religious schools is a religious question, and of such questions the government of the United States, while it remains a secular government, can take no cognizance. It is a matter to be considered and provided for by the church. The system of public education is a part of the government, and is rightly maintained by the governmental resource of taxation. But to exempt Catholics from taxation by setting aside a portion of the public funds for the support of parochial schools would be to provide for the maintenance of such schools, and that is a matter with which the government can no more properly concern itself than it can with the maintenance of the Methodist or the Catholic Church. To support the parochial schools is, in fact, to support the Catholic Church; for the sole purpose of those schools, so far as their religious character is concerned, is to perpetuate the Catholic religion. The government of the United States is purely secular, and can not properly make provision for the perpetuating of any religion. When it does do this, war between the various Catholic and Protestant sects will be at once precipitated, and there will be fierce strife from one end of the land to the other. It was expressly to avoid such strife and its consequences that civil government and religion were separated from each other by those who laid the foundations of this republic. Seventh-day Adventists, like all true Protestants, must stand opposed to the teaching of religion in the public schools. The only religion which they indorse is Christianity, the true Teacher of which is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Scriptures being the only text-book. It is obvious that the divine agencies by which Christianity is propagated in the world are not amenable to the regulations and conditions set up in the public schools. They are not and can not be subject to the public school authorities. Christianity can be taught only in God’s school, by God’s agencies, and in God’s way.