The American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 23
“ALL crime against the State,” says Rev. W. J. Coleman, “is an open sin againstPage 1
“ALL crime against the State,” says Rev. W. J. Coleman, “is an open sin against God.” If this were true, it would follow that the State can require nothing wrong, and forbid nothing that is right. It would also follow that the three Hebrews who refused to fall down before the great image which Nebuchadnezzar set up, were guilty of sin; that Daniel sinned in praying to God when forbidden so to do by the king; and that the apostles and martyrs of Jesus also sinned when they chose to obey God rather than men. God has ordained civil government; he did this when he created men and placed them together in families and communities; and when governments confine themselves to their proper sphere it is sin to resist their authority; but when they enter the domain of morals and assume to rule in things pertaining to God, they put themselves in the place of God, and must be disobeyed by all who would remain loyal to God. It is this principle alone that justifies the martyrs; any other reduces them to the level of criminals who suffered justly, condemned alike by God and man. The Bennett Law.
By A. T. J.
THE Bennett law of Wisconsin has excited much discussion not only in that State but throughout the country. This law was enacted last year, going into effect April 18, 1889. The object of the law is to compel all the children between the ages of seven and fourteen years, to learn the English language. Every such child is compelled to attend school where the teaching is in English, “not less than twelve weeks in each year” under penalty of a fine of “not less than three dollars nor more than twenty dollars” for each offense; “and failure for each week or portion of a week on the part of any person to comply with the provisions of this act shall constitute a distinct offense.” Section 5 reads as follows:— No school shall be regarded as a school under this act, unless there shall be taught therein, as part of the elementary education of children, reading, writing, arithmetic, and United States History, in the English language. This law has incurred the open and determined opposition of the whole Lutheran body in the State, assisted by that portion of the Roman Catholics who speak German or other foreign tongues. The Lutherans seem to be the leaders in the contest. Illinois has a similar law, only worse if anything, and the Bennett-law contest in Wisconsin has awakened a much more active opposition to the Illinois law. The cause is one in both States. In several papers that have discussed this matter we have noticed a singular misapprehension of the question at issue, and a misstatement of the reasons of the opposition. 1. The opposition is not to the public school in any sense. The Lutherans maintain the perfect right of the public school to exist; and willingly pay their proportion of the public-school taxes. 2. The opposition is not to the use, nor the teaching, of the English language in the public schools. The Lutherans cheerfully admit the right of the public school to teach the English language. 3. The opposition is not to the English language itself, nor to its use. The opponents of the Bennett law do not prohibit their children from either learning or speaking the English language. They know full well that their children will learn English. They know that in the nature of things they cannot live very long in this country without learning it. They teach it in their schools, and speak it, and write it, upon occasion. While admitting all this, they deny that the public school may teach religion, much less the religion which they believe; and they maintain their own exclusive right to teach their own religion to their own children, in their own schools, at their own expense, in their own native language, if they choose. While maintaining the right of the public school to exist, they maintain likewise the right of the parochial school to exist. While cheerfully paying their proportion of taxes in support of the public school, they maintain their right to pay what they please for the support of their own private school. While they maintain the right of the State to use and to teach the English language in the State school, they maintain their own right to use and to teach the German, or any other language, in their own school. While they cheerfully admit the right of the public to establish and maintain the public school, they deny the178right of the public to turn their private schools into public schools. For that, in one sentence, is what the Bennett law means, and the Illinois law also. The Bennett law requires that every child between the ages of seven and fourteen years shall attend school such period of time, not less than twelve, nor more than twenty-four weeks, in each year, as “shall be fixed” “by the Board of Education, or Board of Directors of the city, town or district;” “and such Boards shall, at least ten days prior to the beginning of such periods publish the time or times of attendance.” The Illinois law requires that the children shall attend school “at least sixteen weeks,” with a penalty of not less than one dollar, nor more than twenty dollars “for every neglect.” “But if the person so neglecting, shall show to the satisfaction of the Board of Education or of Directors that such child has attended for a like period of time a private day school, approved by the Board of Education or Directors of the city, town, or district in which such child resides, etc., then such penalty shall not be incurred.” The only effect of these laws is to make every private school a public school. The use of the term “private school” in the sections quoted is a misnomer; because when the public fixes the time or times of attendance at the school, and fixes what shall be taught there and how; when what is done must be “to the satisfaction” of the public authorities, and must be “approved” by the public authorities, then such schools are no longer private in any proper or legal sense of the word. Yet these laws do not openly propose the abolition of the private schools, they only mildly propose to confiscate them—to turn them into public schools at private expense. These two States generously grant the right of the churches to establish church schools; but when the schools are once established, then the States merely assert the authority to turn them into State schools at the churches’ expense. The effect of these laws therefore is as clearly confiscation of property as need be. The State lays a public tax, collects it, and uses it under its own direction in the work of the public school. The people who hold church schools pay their proportion of the tax levied by the State. They pay all that the State asks. But besides this they as church members organize schools of their own in which to teach their own children the religion in which they believe, and whatever else they may choose; they use their own money to pay teachers, to build school-houses, etc. Then the State steps up and demands, “I must have all this too. These schools must be under my control; the teaching there must be to my satisfaction; in short they shall not be counted schools at all unless you teach there what I say shall be taught, and as I say it shall be taught. In other words, and to be plain about it, you must spend your money and teach your children as I choose and as I direct.” That is precisely what these laws mean. The confiscation of the money and property however is a very small item, as compared with the usurpation of the place, and the authority of the parent and the Church. These laws are identical in effect, and almost identical in word, with a bill introduced in the New York Legislature, January 16, 1890, which the Union League Club unanimously denounced as “a dangerous and vicious bill,” and “in the line of the most vicious class of legislation with which we are afflicted;” and which met the death it deserved, and which it is to be hoped is everlasting. Any private or church school that obeys these laws thereby consents to the State’s assumption of authority to control the school, and dictate in its affairs. And if the State can say what any church or association of parents shall teach to their own children, and how it shall be taught, then there is no longer any such thing as parental or church authority to teach anything except at the direction and dictation of the State. The State has no more right to say what shall be taught in a private school, than a private individual has to say that his private views shall be taught in the public school. The State has not a particle more right to say what shall be taught in a church school, than a church has to say what shall be taught in the public school. These are the grounds, and these the basic reasons, of the opposition to these laws in Wisconsin and Illinois. It is in defense of the American principle of the rights of the people, and of the Christian principle of religious liberty. These compulsory school laws of Wisconsin and Illinois have not a scintilla of justice to rest upon. The principle is that of absolutism, the laws are but the assertion of it, and the defense of the laws is but the defense of it. We have read everything we could get hold of on the subject, from the laws themselves and Governor Hoard’s speech, to whatever else we could find on either side of the question, and we have found the principle of the laws and the defense of them to be absolutism only; and in all that has been said in defense of them we have not yet found a single valid reason. As we have shown, the laws logically assert the right of the State to say that neither the parent nor the Church shall teach anything to the children except at the direction and dictation of the State, and so argue that the State is absolute. All the advocates of the laws have not asserted openly and in plain terms that this is so, but some of them have. The words of one such we give. The Chicago Tribune of April 8, 1890, gives the words of Mr. William C. Goudy, a well-known lawyer and political leader, as follows:— *The State has the power over its citizens. The State may even abolish the relations between parent179and child, though as to the result of such an act I do not care to speak. The fact is that the law does interfere with the custody of children. Time and again children are taken away from both father and mother.*
It is true enough that where parents maltreat a child, the State may, in fact it must, exercise its protective power in behalf of the child. Protection of the rights of the subject is what the State is for, and it must protect a child as well as a man. But it is only the assertion of the rightfulness of tyranny to argue from that the right of the State to abolish the relations between parent and child. It is a wicked spirit that turns the doing of a favor, into authority for an assertion of power—to make the exertion of a protective power in an exceptional case, the authority to assert a commanding or dictatorial power in all cases. Further it is gravely argued that it is necessary to “the peace and safety of the State” that the State shall compel all the German and other children of foreign tongues to learn the English language. And it is America that says it. Well now, if all the people of Illinois and Wisconsin both should speak German, or Latin, or even Choctaw, we should like to know what calamity could threaten the peace and safety of either of the States from that source. Is every person necessarily a thief, or a murderer, or an outlaw who does not speak the English language? Is the peace or safety of States or communities never disturbed or threatened by people who speak English? But if it is necessary to the peace and safety of the State that all the children of foreign tongues shall learn to read and write and speak English, why is it not necessary that the parents shall learn it also? Why jeopardize the peace and safety of the State all these years till all the parents die who do not speak English, and all the children learn to speak, read, and write English? Why is it not necessary, yea, much more necessary, that the parents be compelled to learn English as well as the children? Or is it a fact that the peace and safety of the State are endangered only by the children, and by such of them only as are between the ages of seven and fourteen years? Besides, upon the theory of these laws that English can be learned only in school, not to compel the parents to use English is to continue the greatest possible hindrance to the children’s learning to use it. So long as the parents are suffered to use German in the home, in the shop, in the field, everywhere, it will be almost an interminable task, successfully to get the children to learn it. Why then do not Wisconsin and Illinois go about this work in the right way? Why not adopt the plan that will positively assure speedy and certain, and permanent results? Why does not each of these States enact a law—doubtless Mr. Bennett for Wisconsin,180and America for Illinois, could easily frame the laws—declaring that after a certain time, say three or six months, everybody in the State shall use the English language exclusively, or else have his tongue cut out? That will bring the result, and speedily, which these present laws aim to secure. We know it will, for it has been tried with perfect success. Some years ago a certain province of Turkey spoke another than the Turkish language. This was deemed not to be good for the State. Therefore a decree went forth that after a certain time whoever should speak any language but the Turkish should have his tongue cut out. And we have it from a person who was there that the thing worked splendidly. It is true some of the people lost their tongues, but what was that, in view of the immense result accomplished—the peace and safety of the State! And just now, even in this present month, that most excellent ruler, that father of his country, the Czar of all the Russias, has issued an edict, abolishing the Finnish tongue and establishing the Russian only, in all the schools in Finland. We are not informed what penalties are attached to the law, but undoubtedly the mildness of temper that is characteristic of this model ruler will be expressed in penalties at the most no heavier than are those of these kindred laws in Wisconsin and Illinois. The opponents of the Bennett law in Wisconsin and its counterpart in Illinois are in the right. It is the same old contest of justice against despotic power, of private rights against public wrongs, of the freedom of the individual against the despotism of the State. They are in the right, and we wish them unbounded success. Will the people of these two splendid States come back to the place of enlightenment and American civilization? Will they redeem themselves from the reproach of Russian and Turkish despotism? We earnestly hope they will. A. T. J. Those who insist that some species of religious instruction shall be incorporated into our public-school system, may not intend the result; yet they are taking just the course most likely to destroy the system altogether, since they demand of it what it cannot consistently do. Secular instruction is the utmost limit to which the system can be reasonably extended.—Independent. THE home and the church are the proper places for moral and religious training, not the State free schools. These schools are for secular training, to prepare for intelligent citizenship, heroic manhood, and for life work. The State educates for its own support and protection, not for the future of man or boy after death; not to make Christians, Jews, or Mormons, but to make good citizens, noble patriots, and wise men.—Commercial Gazette, Baltimore, Maryland. Senator Blair’s Educational Bill.
SENATOR BLAIR is attempting some very dangerous experiments, in the name of learning and religion. His Educational Bill is of doubtful utility, and of more than doubtful expediency. There is no evidence that education will be permanently benefited by putting the Federal Government in control of it, and aiding it for a fixed term of years out of the Federal treasury. The people should sustain popular education for its own sake. Our Government rests upon the intelligence of the masses, but it is a voluntary intelligence. The fitness of the people for self-government lies in their voluntary enlightenment. When they reach a point at which the Government has to force them to fit themselves for self-government, there will be danger abroad that larger statesmanship than Blair’s will have to deal with. His measure tends to reduce the spirit of self help amongst the people, to turn their faces toward Washington, and look to the Federal Government for that which they should do for themselves. In this sense the help he intends to give to popular education will hurt it more than it has ever been hurt before. Education is as much the personal concern of every American as is obedience to the laws which all have made. Pride in himself, in his citizenship, in his country, is the proper motive for supporting public schools and general culture, and for this Mr. Blair’s aims will be a sorry substitute. —San Francisco Alta. The Public-School Question.
The common schools are our national idol. Like all idols this American tutelary genius exercises a peculiar spell over its votaries and has the faculty of stupefying and stultifying them ad libitum. A most glaring instance of over-zeal and folly in this noble cause is the recent legislation of Wisconsin and Illinois against the parochial schools which abound in those States. These two States have an immense Lutheran population, which has come mostly from Germany and northern Europe. They are people of enlightened and earnest religious convictions, many of them having come here to enjoy, unhampered by statecraft and uncorrupted by rationalism, their pure, evangelical, Protestant faith. To inculcate this precious faith in their children is with them one of the primary functions of the Christian Church, a duty to which she cannot be derelict. Hence they maintain at great expense in every congregation, a parish school in which for the first hour of every day the children receive instruction in the Christian religion. They have no hostility to our common schools. They laud them as one of the noblest products and supports of the State. They are perfectly willing to be taxed for their maintenance, although deriving little direct profit from them. They are accustomed to send such of their children as can prosecute a further course of study, to the higher grades of the public schools, where their primary training is found quite equal to that furnished by the public school. They have not in a single instance asked for a portion of the school fund. In cities where, by co-operation with the Romanists, they could easily have succeeded in getting exemption from school taxes, or securing a fair portion of the fund, they have repelled with scorn the proposal for united action, protesting that in this matter they had nothing in common with Roman Catholics. But while in the fullest accord with the American school system, they recognize that it is purely and necessarily secular, that the all-important element of true education is absolutely excluded. Hence they propose to supplement State education with Christian education; and very properly this supplement comes first in order, since all admit that the earliest religious impressions become the deepest and most abiding. The hearts and minds of the children are filled with the knowledge of divine truth, and then the State may take charge of their further instruction. All this, it must be acknowledged, is at once accordant with the purest patriotism, and the best type of Christianity. And so far, the State could have no possible pretext for breaking up these parish schools. But a pretext is offered on the score of language. Many of these people have not been long enough in this country to have acquired the English language. And some communities are so exclusively made up of Germans or Scandinavians that the vernacular which they brought with them to this country still prevails, and it is said that there are even natives who cannot read, write, or understand English. There is, again, no opposition to the use of English. Dear as is the mother tongue which embalms the hallowed traditions and associations of a people, the hymns and the prayers of their religion, these new comers are sufficiently intelligent to understand the significance of their American citizenship to their children—and that to contend with others in the race of life, they must master the language of the country. And whoever saw a young German or Scandinavian that was not eager to speak English, no matter how much amusement was caused by his broken efforts? Whenever it is practicable, the parish schools teach some of the branches in English. In many of them it is the medium of instruction for half the day, and the children outside the school room speak almost exclusively English. Yet as large bodies of emigrants continue to arrive, forming new communities and churches, cases continue to arise where a suitable teacher who can use English as the medium of instruction cannot be found, or where the children are as yet so absolutely ignorant of English, that to use that language as the medium of instruction would be the height of absurdity. You might as well make Greek the vehicle of instruction in our primary schools. Yet this is just what these political wiseacres say must be done—the elementary branches must be taught in English, whether the children can understand a word of it or not, whether the teacher is capable of using it, or whether he is not. The police are to drag the children out of the Christian schools, where there is no English taught, and force them into the schools of the State, even though they understand not a word that is uttered there.180 If only an amendment had been added requiring these statesmen to do the teaching under these conditions for the first year, there would soon have followed a call for an extra session of the Legislature to abolish this crude and hasty measure. The American people are as sensible and just as they are practical, and one may confidently predict that such enactments, when properly understood, will not have the sanction of a sober public opinion. Apart from the impossibility of instructing children through the vehicle of an unknown tongue, such an expedient is doomed to failure even as a means of making them English. The results may be seen in half the counties of Pennsylvania, where English has been the language of instruction for fifty years, and where persons can be found whose parents and grandparents were born in this country, and who are still unable to speak, write, or understand English. They attended the English schools, but not understanding what was taught they never learned English or anything else. Though not among our worst elements, could they have had the instruction of parish schools in their vernacular, they would be far more intelligent than they are. If Americans could for a moment put themselves in the place of these pious foreigners, who by common consent constitute a most peaceable, intelligent and thrifty class, they must look upon this legislation as a wanton and cruel invasion of their sacred right to educate their offspring in the best manner possible under the abnormal and temporary conditions. No American community would submit for one hour to such an outrage. Some of these Germans have probably fled from the intolerance of Russia, which forces the Russian tongue into the schools of the Baltic Provinces. Invited to this country as offering the fullest civil and religious liberty, how bitter must be the disappointment which finds here the same spirit, the same politics, the same heartless disregard of circumstances and of rights. But the saddest aspect of these laws is the revelation they make of the godless spirit that rules the State. The beliefs and the morals of Christianity, we have heard times without number, are the palladium of our free institutions. Here now are evangelical churches providing a thorough Christian culture for their children, infusing into their minds the eternal principles of private and public virtue, and the State with iron hand breaks in the door and demands to know what is being taught in these schools. The answer is, “The doctrines of the gospel, and whatever besides will help to make good citizens.” “In what language are you doing it?” “In the only language at our command.” “OUT WITH THIS BUSINESS! This is an English country, and unless you teach English your school must stop.” And so we are going! Whither, O whither, tell me where? We are fain to speak of this as a Christian country. We hear often that Christianity is the common law of the land. We are even now passing a bill in the national Legislature to enforce the observance of “the Christian Sabbath.” To some well-meaning people only one thing is lacking to make this in form as it already is in fact a Christian Nation, and that is to write the name of Jesus Christ across the national Constitution.—Prof. E. J. Wolf, in Christian at Work. THE public-school system, existing in the several States of the Union, is directly the creation of State authority, and is maintained and enforced by compulsory taxation. The object is to meet a great practical want in the way of popular education that otherwise would not be adequately met. There can be no doubt either as to the necessity or as to the wisdom of the system considered with reference to the end had in view. The question whether the education, thus provided for, shall be simply secular, or shall, in addition thereto, include some element or elements of religious teaching, is the vexed question that has for years been the bone of contention in our public-school system, and that now really constitutes its greatest peril. We have never had but one opinion on this subject, and have given full expression thereto, as occasion has called for it. We do not believe it to be the legitimate province of any State, as such, to engage in any species of religious propagandism, whether in the public school or elsewhere. A State, in order to do this, must first have a State religion, and, of course, must authoritatively determine what it shall be, and what it shall embrace; and having proceeded thus far, it must then, in order to give the idea a practicable form, compel the people through a tax levy to pay the expense of teaching the religion, whether they believe in its truth or not. The mere statement of the idea ought to be sufficient to refute it with the American people. An American State cannot consistently extend its public-school system, supported by general taxation, and regulated by law, beyond the purely secular field of education; and those who demand that it shall do more than this are making war upon the only system that comes within the province of the State. Our public-school system must be purely secular in its instruction, or be abandoned altogether, unless the people are prepared to have the State in its organic power become a religious propagandist. We desire to preserve and perpetuate the system on the only basis that is practicable, and hence utterly dissent alike from those Catholics and those Protestants who would use the public schools for religious purposes. Not a dollar of the public money should be thus expended. No man should be required by law to pay a solitary penny for religious propagandism. Such a requirement is simply tyranny.—The Independent. Where the Difficulty Lies.
By Alonzo T. Jones
PROFESSOR BLAISDELL, of Beloit College, Wisconsin, in The Christian Union of May 8, criticises the decision of the Supreme Court of that State on the Bible in the schools. He raises the same cry as other enemies of the public school, that the public school is thus made godless, and says:— There are multitudes of thoughtful people in Wisconsin who will say, If information about a Supreme Being, and addressed to the highest and most productive sentiments in the school training of my children is to be ruled out of our schools so that they become godless and morally colorless, we will have our parish schools. Very well, such persons had better have their parish schools than to have the public school turned into a parish school. They had better teach their own children the religion which they want them to be taught, at their own expense, than to undertake to do it at other people's expense. To talk about the public schools being thus made morally colorless is another piece of sophistry, because those very persons claim that the religion to be taught shall not be dogmatic, nor sectarian. It must be of such a kind as that all may receive it with equal favor. And to demand that in a community where there are many different views, and where every man is free to think for himself, is only to demand that the teaching shall be morally colorless. The objection that the public schools are made godless and morally colorless, is a fraud. There is not a particle of fairness in it, and those who make it must know it, because it is difficult to conceive how men who can write as intelligently as these, can be so dull as not to detect the sophistry of their own argument. The Professor next objects to the decision because if it is sound, then the State cannot teach religion in its asylums, for the blind, the deaf and the insane. Then he begins to beg his question by appealing to the sympathies of the people for these unfortunates. But that is no objection to the decision. If the State has the right to teach religion in its asylums and in the penitentiaries, then it has a right to teach it in the public schools. If it is right to teach it in the public schools, it is right to teach it everywhere else. The trouble is that those who argue this way miss the whole point, and that is, that it is impossible for the State to teach religion. Before the State can teach religion, it has to have a religion to be taught. And as the Supreme Court of Ohio justly said:—181Properly speaking, there is no such thing as religion of the State. What we mean by that phrase is the religion of some individual or set of individuals taught or enforced by the State. The State can have no religious opinions, and if it undertakes to enforce the teaching of such opinions, they must be the opinions of some natural person or class of persons. If it embarks in this business, whose opinion shall it adopt? All that the State ever can do is to give a certain class of persons the power to force their views in religion upon others at the public expense. But the State had a good deal better let that be done at the expense of those who want to teach that doctrine. It is clear that the State cannot do it without at once making a distinction between its citizens and establishing a preference in religious things, which is only to establish a certain religion. To the parent and the Church is committed by the Lord the task of teaching religion. It is the place and the duty of the Church to carry to the unfortunate the consolations of religion, and even to criminals the hope of being made righteous. But the Professor argues that especially in the asylums for the deaf and blind, “young children are gathered for four, six, eight, or ten years in the forming period of life.” The idea is that these young children need careful training in religion and as the State has assumed charge of them, that therefore if they get such training, the State must give it. We are willing to admit that these young children, blind or deaf, should be taught religion and should be trained in righteousness, but, as it is only the parent and the Church to whom this work has ever been committed, it is they only who can do it. If the parents fail to do it, then it is the place of the Church to do it. If the Church fails to do it, then it goes undone because the State cannot do it. The difficulty in this whole matter is that the Church in this and a good many other things, has proved recreant to her trust, and has deplorably failed to do the very work which belongs to her, which God has committed to her, and which the failure to do is a disgrace to her. And having done this, it is a poor plea for the Church to stand up and insist that the State shall teach religion to the children, and that the State shall not leave them godless when she herself, through the failure to teach them the religion of Christ has left them godless. Next the Professor mentions the reform school and the penitentiary, and of the latter says:— There is a penitentiary at Waupun, in the heart of our beautiful State, whither go up under sentence of these courts, and amid the deep solicitude of our people, five hundred vigorous young men annually to be recovered to citizenship, a problem concerning which the perhaps most successful and experienced criminal officer in America says, “I know of nothing which will solve the problem of penal discipline but the religion of Jesus Christ.” This decision, if it means anything, hazards the banishment of the religion not only of Jesus Christ, but of any religion whatever from that prison. To be sure it does, so far as any teaching by the State is concerned. But it does not preclude the Church from doing her work, that which is committed to her, of teaching these persons the religion of Christ. By the way, does Professor Blaisdell mean hereby to intimate that “any religion whatever” should be taught to anybody, but the religion of Jesus Christ? If so, what religion should it be? and how much would they be bettered? But, aside from this, these people do not go to the penitentiary to be reformed; they are not sent there for that purpose. They are sent there in punishment for the crimes they have committed, and that their fellow citizens may be protected from their further depredations. It is a false theory—this mawkish sentimentalism—that the criminal is unfortunate, and that it is misfortune that overtakes him when he is convicted of his crime and sentenced to the penitentiary to pay the penalty. He is not unfortunate, he is bad. It is not misfortune, but justice that has overtaken him. It will not do to give the criminal to understand, as this theory does, that his conviction and the infliction of the penalty is a misfortune. It will not do for the State to undermine its own authority, destroy respect for its own laws, and put a premium upon crime, by counting justice a misfortune. We admit that the religion of Jesus Christ will solve the problem, not only of penal discipline, but of parental and every other kind of discipline; but it is impossible for the State to apply it either in the penal institutions or anywhere else. Besides if the State is to apply this remedy in penal institutions, why shall the State not apply it outside? If the State is to teach the religion of Jesus Christ to people in the penitentiary to make them good while they are there, and to keep them out when they get out, why shall not the State teach that religion to the people before they get into the penitentiary, and in order that they may not get in there? And if the State shall do this, then what is there for the Church to do, and what is the Church for? Thus, and so surely, does the State become a Church, and a Church the State, by every theory that would have the State undertake to the slightest extent the work of teaching religion. And every plea that the State shall do so is a confession that the Church either has no place in the world, or else has forgotten her place.