Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-03-26
THE SCHOOLS AND RELIGIOUS TEACH
iNGS

1ueTe Is no TSai utStlnCtlOn between
the Protestant zealots who insist upon
reading the Bible in the schools, and
the Catholic zealots who insist upon re-
ligious teaching in the free schools. Both
would work eFil in effect to system that
is purely political, and that has nothing
whatever to do with the spiritual. The
New York Times well says that the
Protestants who insist upon making the
schools PROSECUTING instruments really aid
the assaults of those Catholics who de-
nounce the schools as ungodly.
These latter support their parochial schools
avowedly as instruments of proselytism
these at their own expense, but their demand
for a division of the school-fund would be
plausible if the public schools were made places
OF seetarian instruction.
The logicof this statement is undeniable.
So long as Catholics object to reading the
scriptures in the schools, their protest
must be respected, since it is on the same
basis as the objection to the introduction
of religious teachings in the schools, or the
division of the school funds among Sec
tarians. In Wisconsin there is class of
unreasoning people who cannot, or will
not, see that this is simple truth. They
have insisted upon reading in the schools
a version of the Bible, approved by one
sect and disapproved and pronounced not
authoritative by another sect.
Tn, ono J;rt.;ot ~
text book by the Trustees against the re-
monstrances of the Catholics, and on this
issue case went to the Supreme Court.
The Constitution of the State forbids sec
tartan teachings in the schools. The
question was: SIS reading, without COM
ment, from the st. James version of the
Bible, sectarian teaching?" The Supreme
Court replies in the affirmative, because
the version used is denied as authority by
the citizens who brought the action The
denial involves questions of teaching
therefore, and of sectarian belief. One
party insists that the version is authority.
correct and right-guiding; the other that
1t is misleading, unauthorized and teaches
false doctrine. The Court certainly was
justified, on the joining of such an issue, in
holding that the reading of the disputed
Bible in the schools was in violation of
the Constitution prohibiting sectarian
teaching. As has been said by critics of
the controversy, it would be possible to
compile from the Bible a code of moral
expressions and lessons that all would
agree upon as not sectarian, and as bene-
fetal to be read in the school. But the
moment that is done, it is on the plane
of the selection OF good reading from
any source that will have benefcent in
tiuence upon the scholars of the schools.
Clearly the only way to comply with
the spirit of Americanism that demands
the separation of church and State, and
church and schools, is to confine public in
struction strictly and wholly to the i'm
parting of information in the usual English
and mathematical and other branches
essential to the education of the citizen.
not the churchman, nor the embryo
churchman. The Supreme Court of Wis
consin in deciding the case referred to, re-
marked that where the scriptures are read
is place Of worship; their introduction
into the public schools, therefore, makes
the school-house place of worship, which
is forbidden by the Constitution OF the
State. Evidently the people of Wisconsin,
in framing their organic law, we're espe-
cially solicitous to keep religion out of the
schools, and to separate church and State
as widely as possible. They intended that
instruction in the common schools should
be wholly secular; in 50 deciding, they
acted wisely, since the slightest departure
from 1t means the involvement of the sys-
tenn IN the issues of sectarianism