BIBLE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
The question is a live one, and the constant demand for it, oftentimes from secular papers, shows clearly the desperate feeling on the part of many over the moral condition of children generally. One California paper, in pleading for the Bible in the public schools, declares that “the only way some of the present generation would ever hear anything from its pages is to have it read to them in the public schools.” And this may be so; but the public school is not the place to teach it. The Tribune of this city has the following just comment upon this matter:— The Bible is not excluded from the schools because there is anything wrong in reading it, but because its presence there raises an issue of creeds and creates religious dissension. Which Bible shall be read? The Catholic version differs from the Protestant version. There is plenty of time to teach the Bible and inculcate other religious instruction in the churches and Sunday-schools, and around the family fireside, and parents who neglect their duties in this respect have no right to assume that the State should supply religious teaching, which must necessarily be sectarian and discriminatory. In moral grandeur the Bible surpasses all other books. It is the noblest literature in any tongue. But it can not be taught in the public schools, because people can not agree upon the letter or the meaning of its text, and because some dispute its sacerdotal character altogether. Some accept one-half and reject the other half. Still others have books that they consider more sacred and more of a revelation of the purposes of the Divine First Cause in dealing with man. Our government is founded on complete freedom of conscience, and the system of free education which embodies the spirit of our institutions is constructed on the broad Catholic theory that all sects and beliefs are equal before the law if not in the sight of heaven. When the law undertakes to define what is false and what is true, it then becomes the instrument of oppression and persecution. If our contemporaries would more carefully read and study at home the example and teaching of the Man of Galilee they would be less inclined to force Bible readings in the public schools. And all this is true as regards any religious dogma or institution.