CHURCH AND STATE NOTES by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 19, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 16.

CHURCH AND STATE NOTES.

By Editor

THE originator of, and leading spirit in, this Washington movement for the introduction of the teaching of the Ten Commandments and other religious matter into the public schools, “the Rev. Randolph H. McKim, D.D.,” rector of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, thinks “the public ought to look at the real issue involved in this whole discussion,” and in an interview one day this week has thus presented “the issue”:

The issue is simply this: Shall the children be taught the Ten Commandments? Shall they be taught to love God and to love their neighbors as themselves? Shall morality be taught by selected text-books? Shall an effort be made to secure a series of lessons from the Bible which Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Hebrews could all accept, instead of leaving the question to the individual teachers?

All the “religious teaching” asked for may be put into a few lines, to wit: “Thou shalt have none other gods before Me.” “Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image to adore it.” “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” “Thou shalt remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”

This is absolutely all that is asked in the way of “religious” instruction, unless the board see fit to adopt a brief exposition of the meaning of these four commandments.

The existing rule (No. 46) requires the inculcation of obedience to the commandments of God, without specifying what they are. It also requires the inculcation of the moral virtues by the teacher. No new principle, no innovation, is involved in the present proposals.

However much it may clarify the issue, it is certain that this statement will not lessen the issue any. This week, on the evening of March 21, the evening of the very day on which Dr. McKim made the above statement, there was a lecture on “Christian Education” at his church, the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, and one can but wonder if the Doctor was present. He should have been, for something was said that he needs very much to hear, and that was very pertinent to the movement he has inaugurated in Washington. The lecture was under the auspices of the Churchman’s League, and the speaker was Rev. Edward S. Drown, D.D., professor of Systematic Divinity at the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge, Mass. In the course of his earnest address the speaker made the following statements:

The one means that the church has by which to do its duty in the religious instruction of its children, and therefore to do its duty to the state, is the Sunday-school, and if the Sunday-school rises to the emergency and does its duty as it should be done, the religious education of the children can be provided.

When the churches really want good religious education they will be willing to pay something for it, and they will get it, not simply because they pay for it, but because their payment proves the earnestness of their desire.

If our laymen really want the religious education of their children, and take that want to heart, they will get it, and one of the signs of their wanting it will be their willingness to pay for it.

It would seem almost as if these statements were uttered in reproof of this movement that Dr. McKim is pushing. Dr. Drown, himself a leading Episcopalian, says that if the church really wants its children trained in religion, it will do it itself, and that it will pay for such instruction itself. To Dr. McKim’s cry that the children are not being trained in religion, and that the state should undertake the work, Dr. Drown answers, that, instead of such a demand from the church being an evidence that the church really cares to have the children instructed in religion, it is a demonstration that the church cares very little about the matter. And Dr. Drown is right. When churchmen propose that the state shall instruct the child in religion, they show a serious indifference to the real religious training of the child. It is an indication that they feel no real and proper responsibility in the matter.

The most noteworthy thing just at this time in connection with this religion-in-the-public-schools agitation in Washington is the expression in the subject made in a leading editorial to-day (March 24), by the Washington Post, the leading daily of the city and one of the leading newspapers of the East.

The editorial is headed “Public Schools and Religious Teaching,” and reads:

It is quite natural that the effort to introduce religious instruction in the public schools should have failed to arouse popular support. It was an agitation which, in the Post’s opinion, had no adequate basis. The public schools are not, and never will be, religious institutions. There are private sectarian schools which exist because they make religious teaching a feature of their curriculum, and there are Sunday-schools innumerable which are established for the very purpose of supplying religious education. If these are not sufficient, or if they do not reach a large number of people, the remedy is not to be found in altering the public school system. It is the duty of Christian people to enlarge the sphere of influence of their own institutions by inducing a larger attendance.

With all efforts which tend to spread the cause of religion the Post is heartily in sympathy, but these endeavors must follow appropriate channels. Their sphere of activity is well defined, and it does not include the public schools.

This editorial, especially at this stage of the matter, will hardly add to the joy of the promoters of this scheme for religious instruction in the schools.