THE BIBLE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
By Editor
The Supreme Court of Nebraska has decided that the reading of the Bible and the singing of religious hymns in the public schools is forbidden by the Constitution of that State. We are not surprised; we are not grieved. The decision pleases us and we believe it to be good law and in the interest of both justice and religion. Our readers know perfectly well that we hold that in public schools supported by Christians, Jews, and infidels, men of all faiths and no faith, and attended by their children, it is unfair and unwise to have any sort of religion selected and inculcated. We believe that it is the business of the church and not of the State to teach religion; and for the church to confess its incompetency and to ask the State, through such miscellaneous teachers as we have, to supplement its lack of service, is humiliating and shameful. We will trust and ask no tax-paid haphazard teachers to do the work of parents and the church. The evil of this perfunctory religious teaching is positive as well as negative. We know of a multitude of public schools in our cities where a large majority of the pupils are Jews, and yet they have been required to sing Christmas carols in December, purely Christian songs, to the indignation of their parents. Such a requirement makes people foes to the public school system. In the time of Archbishop Hughes there was carried on a great conflict between Protestants and Catholics in this country, the Catholics protesting against the reading of the Protestant Bible as a required exercise. They were told that this is a Protestant country, and that if they did not like it they might stay away. That is precisely what they did. They started their parochial schools, which grew to a great system, which seriously antagonize our public schools. And yet the great principle which separates the secular function of the State from the religious function of the State is only blindly seen by many good people. The summer school of the South, meeting in Knoxville last July, passed this resolution:— “Conscious of our dependence upon the God of our fathers, and believing that the highest and truest civilization can be attained only by following the precepts of the great Teacher, Jesus Christ, we favor the recognition of the Bible in our public schools.” Our American doctrine of utter separation of Church and State is, however, now usually accepted, at least in theory, and it is generally agreed that the reading of the Bible and religious exercises do not belong to the free public school. But some of those who wish us would lead the Bible out by the front door with all honor, ask us to open the postern gate to let it creep in again unobserved. They tell us—and we hear it from college presidents and from teachers’ conventions—that the Bible, banished as religion, must be brought back as literature. The Bible, they tell us, is the best and choicest of literature, and that it will never do to let children grow up ignorant of it; and before they have the word literature well out of their mouths they begin to talk about the importance of the Bible to teach the elements of religion and morals. The International Sunday School Convention at its late meeting in Denver passed this resolution:— “WHEREAS, The Bible is not only the inspired word of God, but also the world’s greatest treasury of literature, and its reading is now excluded from most of the public schools of America. “Resolved, That the Executive Committee is instructed to appoint a Standing Committee, whose duty it shall be to consider what means should be taken in the various States and provinces to secure the reading of the Bible, without comment, in the public schools of our land.” Here the religious purpose is confessed, while the literary pretense is put forward. It is only the latter which the National Educational Association presented in its Declaration of Principles at Minneapolis: “We hope and ask for such a change of public sentiment in this regard as will permit and encourage the English Bible, now honored by name in many schools, laws, and State institutions, to be read and studied as a literary work of the highest and purest type, side by side with the poetry and prose which it has inspired and in large part formed.” Well, which is it, literature or religion? If it is religion, we will have none of it. There is a curse upon State religion. It makes men hate the church. That is the persistent trouble in Italy, in Spain, in France, and now in England. Give us a free church in a free State, and let their scope be kept absolutely distinct. Trust no State to teach your children religion, and do not think to impose your New Testament Bible and your Lord’s Prayer on Old Testament Jews. Is it really literature and not religion that these gentlemen want? We do not believe it. It is not the literary charm, not the interesting stories, not the grandeur or the wit that they are thinking of, but the sacred character of the Book, that is, its religiousness. Indeed, we do not hear of any such anxiety to have the “Iliad” read, or “Paradise Lost,” or even Shakespeare, until we come into the higher schools in which literature is a special study. But it is not as literature that we chiefly value the Bible. It is degrading to it to lower it to that level and make it a lesson of style or story. It is not the Beautiful Bible but the Holy Bible. It is impossible to put it on any other basis. Call it literature if you will, but it will be considered and treated as a religious book, and that will be the real reason for introducing and teaching it. We do not want to smuggle the Bible into the public schools under a false pretense. It is our one great Book of religion and as such let it be treated, the church’s sacred Book.—N. Y. Independent, Oct. 16, 1902.