p. 730 | Pantheism in the Schools by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 31, 1913

Pantheism in the Schools

By F. M. W.

If there should not be taught in the public schools the principles of the Christian religion, as many justly contend, ought antichristian principles or the religious beliefs of theosophy or Hinduism to be taught in the public schools? This is a question which has been causing some little discussion the last few weeks in Los Angeles, Cal. The Ministerial Association of that city felt that the superintendent of public instruction in his public addresses was giving expression to pantheistic views. The association made earnest protest to the board of education. This protest brought against the association the charge that the ministers desired to have sectarian religion taught in the public schools. Replying to this charge, Edwin P. Ryland, representing the executive committee of the church federation, addressed to the board the following letter, which was published in the Los Angeles Times of April 23:—

LOS ANGELES, CAL., April 22, 1913. To the Honorable Board of Education, LOS ANGELES, CAL.

DEAR SIRS: At your meeting on Thursday, April 17, you adopted resolutions, and individual members of your body are reported as having made certain statements, regarding the ministers of Los Angeles who have criticized the public-school system of our city.

I beg the privilege of suggesting that your honorable body is laboring under a radical misapprehension and of stating the situation as it appears to many of us.

The ministers of Los Angeles do not wish to have sectarian religions taught in the public schools. We are keenly alive to the fact that there are many different religious beliefs held by the citizens whose children attend these schools, and we sympathize with you in that you are confronted with this serious question. We do not ask for sectarian religions to be taught in our public schools; it is precisely at this point that we criticize and condemn your policy. It seems to us that you count only Christianity as sectarian, and while non-Christian teachings are winked at or commended, Christianity is allowed to be spoken of with indifference, if not with contempt.

We beg your honorable body to give due consideration to this contention, and to you and through you to our citizens at large we make appeal for the eliminating from the public-school system religious teachings that are non-Christian.

It has seemed to us that your effort has been confined solely to the eliminating of Christianity from our schools. We are asking you to save our schools from paganism. Yours is a most serious and sacred responsibility. Our child life is placed largely under your supervision. We count ourselves as having the right to demand that you guard the children most carefully against teachings that are non-Christian and may easily tend to immorality. To specify:—

The superintendent of schools in a public address in which he was discussing the policies and the future of our school system and the principles that should underly them, declared himself as holding to pantheistic ideas of the child's nature; to wit, that every child is God.

That statement strikes at the root of personality and personal responsibility. The child might logically argue from this as follows: “I am God. God is right. I am right, and what I do is right. If I lie, it is not a lie; for I am God, and God cannot lie. If I steal, it is not theft; for I am God, and God cannot steal. If I am lustful, it is not lust; for I am God, and God is not lustful.”

In the same address, the speaker wished to do away with every “Thou shalt not” in training children. In the same address, too, he complained of the prevalence of theft among our public-school children. The condition complained of is the logical result of the theories declared. If the speaker did not know that he was teaching pantheism, then he revealed unfitness. If he did know it, then he made it imperative for some of us to appeal to your honorable body and to ask relief from such dangerous and non-Christian teaching.

If you count it wrong because of a small minority of Hindus in our city to teach Christianity in the public schools, we count it doubly wrong to have pantheism or atheism declared as the theory on which our public-school system should be builded. For, after all, Christianity is dear to the American heart, and the seeds of paganism or atheism must not be sown in the minds of American children. We are not contending for sectarian religions in our schools; we are protesting against a seeming effort to destroy what we count dearer than our own lives. We do not wish the bringing in of religious prejudices into our schools; we are asking you to save us from such a condition by eliminating religious teachings that are non-Christian and dangerous.

Regarding the matter of dancing and the public schools, the position of very many of us is this: The modern round dances are so strong an appeal to the lower passions as to be a menace and the cause of the downfall of many children. The public dance-hall is the most dangerous institution in a city's life. To use five, or even one, of our schools for a dancing center is a very questionable practise. If you say it is an experiment, then we reply that our children are too precious material for such experiments. The presence of conditions in Los Angeles such as are being revealed ought to cause our public schools to be kept out of reach of the white-slaver as far as vigilance makes possible.

These two positions I am trying to make plain: We do not urge the teaching of any religion as a part of the public-school curriculum. We ask that you cause to be eliminated all antichristian teachings under the guise of philosophies and literature.

We oppose the use of our schools for public and promiscuous dancing, because of the danger attending such dancing through the coarse and lustful state of mind engendered.

I beg to subscribe myself, Your obedient servant, EDWIN P. RYLAND.

We consider the protest of the church federation of Los Angeles most timely and appropriate. Surely no reasonable mind can dissent from the principles above stated. The public schools were not established for the purpose of teaching the tenets of faith held by Methodists, Baptists, or any other religious denomination, nor even the principles of the Christian religion upon which all religious bodies might unite. Such teaching belongs to the church and to the home.

We are led, however, to wonder if the church federation would object as strenuously to the teaching of the Christian religion in the public schools as it now objects to the teaching of pantheism. The discussion of this side of the question is carefully avoided in the above letter. Such teaching would, of course, be as objectionable to the disciples of these pagan cults, as is the teaching of the principles of their belief to the federation. But as citizens and taxpayers they have equal rights with their Christian neighbors, and their convictions are to be as carefully considered, and their rights as faithfully safeguarded.

The public schools are established to teach mathematics, science, literature, and art. They should confine themselves to their legitimate sphere, leaving the teaching of all forms of religion, Christian, antichristian, and pagan to the home, the church, and the denominational school.

F. M. W.