TEACHING RELIGION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
By J. O. C.
Is It a Correct Principle? — The Agitation in Favor of It — If the State May Teach Religion, What Need Is there of the Church?
THE National Educational Association of America has lately closed its annual session for 1914 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Among other questions discussed was the growing demand for religion to be taught in the public schools. To this point Mr. Henry F. Cope, of Chicago, who is secretary of the Religious Education Association, is reported to have addressed himself thus: "The present agitation for the teaching of religion in the public schools is based on three misapprehensions: first, that the state may properly teach religion; second, that religion can be taught as mathematics, or other like subjects; and third, that teaching religion would solve all the problems of youthful delinquency and the general public apathy to educational affairs." Space forbids reviewing the three misconceptions here stated, in their order. What follows must be of a general nature, in reference to them all. However, in view of the strenuous efforts made, through church influence, to have religious teaching a part of the public school curriculum, it is gratifying to note that even the secretary of the widely extended Religious Education Association sees inconsistency in such an attempt. IF THE STATE DOES IT, WHAT USE IS THE CHURCH?
The first mistake to which attention is here called, that of the province of the state to teach religion, is certainly worth considering carefully. The logic of the proposition is this: To maintain506that the state should provide for teaching religion, would be to overthrow the very object sought in the contention; for it must be clear to all, that if the state's duty includes the teaching of religion, then the necessity for church administration is by that statute superseded, and church relationship abrogated. CAN THE STATE REALLY PROVIDE IT?
But further: If such condition should prevail, what effect would that have on religion itself? Could the state provide, through public school teaching, for the development of pure and undefiled religion, which we are authoritatively told includes visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction (James 1: 27)? If so, by what method would it be done? In reply to this query, one may say that to demonstrate the practical side of religion is not the intent of the suggestion, but simply to teach the theory, or the doctrine, of religion. The statement of such a design, however, leads up to another important inquiry, which is: If pure and undefiled religion is summed up in visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and keeping oneself unspotted from the world, how can a mere theory of this statement be demonstrated, like an example in mathematics, and kindred subjects? IS A MATTER OF THE INDIVIDUAL HEART
The advocates of this theory must certainly overlook the important truth that religion is a matter of the heart, more than of the head, and that the memorizing of certain abstract principles does not meet the object of religious teaching. There are some things in this world that can be taught only by personal action, such, for instance, as the love of God for humanity. To the uninitiated, words alone could not possibly make this subject clear. It could be made clear only through that love incarnated in flesh, and there permitted to reveal itself by living activity, as it was by the Son of God. The bare theory of love, that essential attribute of Jehovah, and the foundation of Christian virtue, could not, at the opening of the Christian era, nor can it now, be made comprehensible to minds darkened by sin, except by open demonstration in personal action. This being true, whoever attempts to teach religion, to any profit except to himself, must first have been initiated into the mysteries of Spirit promptings, and so be prepared to lead other minds into the higher realms of life — into actual association with God and Christ, through heaven's comfort throbbings in the inner man. HOW WOULD TEACHERS BE SELECTED?
But under such a standard, what law would govern the selection of teachers? Could a secular state rule determine, with any degree of accuracy whatever, the inward fitness of an applicant for such responsibility? — Of course not, and no one really believes that it could. Then why urge the teaching of religion by the public school, when God has ordained that it shall be done primarily in the family, with the supplemental indoctrination and guidance of the church? And further, why should children, for whose moral training parents are held accountable, be brought into the world, and given over, at a tender age, to the religious instruction of those whose code of morals is uncertain and unreliable? The issue is frequently avoided by saying, in reply to these questions, that they misrepresent the thing desired. We do not ask, say the advocates of religious instruction in the public schools, that these deep things of God shall be taught in public school work, but merely surface morals, such as may be taught in class, without any distinct probe of life evidence to follow. But even in this event — the results of which would be extremely questionable — by what standard would accuracy in study be determined? Every teacher knows that some fixed gage of merit must settle the standing of pupils in each study, and this one could not in fairness be made an exception to the rule. STANDARD RELIGIOUS TEXT-BOOKS REQUIRED
Besides, to secure uniformity of effort, the state would have to set the standard in its text-books, and require teachers to conform to it. But if some would-be teacher should not, perchance, maintain the same moral ideals that are set in the school text-books, he must either fail in his state examination for school work, or else be permitted to teach such a code of morals as best suits himself. To say nothing of the neighborhood differences this course would generate, they could be no greater than if the text-book standard were followed; for each neighbor, in every school district, naturally has his peculiar notions of religious belief, and would probably object to his child's being taught a digest of religion antagonistic to that which, in family teaching, he had assured the child was the only true religious belief. In that event there would be but one course open to the parent, since the state would be regulating religious teaching in the public school, and also requiring all children to attend some school a certain portion of each year. That course would be to send his child to a private school, paying tuition for the same, notwithstanding he had already paid the state-required school tax for his child's education. THE PARENT WITH A DEFINITE FAITH
It must be admitted that this would be a hardship. But it may be asked, What difference can it make as to what form of religion is taught the child? — It makes every kind of difference, as the design of the advocates of public school religious teaching testifies. Were there no difference to be noted, these promoters would not so strongly urge their case. Any parent who has a settled religious faith, believing that to be the only true one, and desiring his child to walk with him in the light of that one cherished form of dogma, will go far toward leading his child in the same path he has chosen for himself. This is but the outworking of parental responsibility which God has placed on all parents; and for the state to deny them the right to prescribe the form of religion their children must be taught, is no less than following in the steps of papal Rome during the terrible Dark Ages. TENDENCY TO DOMINATE THE CHILD'S MIND
The present tendency to dominate the mind of the child in these lines, on the part of those above him, as an educational effort, received attention by Mr. J. H. Francis, superintendent of the Los Angeles public schools, when he was reported to have classed it as the sign of a decaying institution. He declared, it was said, that every child has a right to freedom in the pursuit of normal development, and should not be coerced into the belief of occult theories, in school studies. But to many persons, the strange part of this whole question is, why the advocates of religious teaching in public schools can not see that it is a veritable union of church and state, and therefore a return to that hateful system which was the destruction of human happiness in the generations of long ago. If one would have the blessed Bible read at the opening of each school day, and passed by without comment, willing to let the Spirit of God accompanying that Word make its own impressions upon the children present, no one could well combat that. But when those of every stripe of religious or irreligious belief, as schoolteachers, attempt to put their own one-sided ideas of the Bible into the minds of their pupils, every parent has the right to object, and properly so, on the ground of human equity to be sustained.