The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-02-15
A CRISIS IN PRUSSIA.


| eral popular revolt in Prussia against the
government sectarian primary education
| bill. The popular revolt is headed by the
municipal authorities of Berlin and by a
congress of the professors of the great
university towns of Berlin, Halle, Bonn
| and Gottingen. Three members of the
! Prussian cabinet resigned on the intro
| duction of the measure rather than sup
port it. This obnoxious education bill is
pet measure of Emperor William; its pur-
pose is to fully conciliate the Prussian
Catholics who desire their children to be
educated in schools where they will re-
ceive instruction in the Catholic religion
Under the famous Falk laws, enacted
under the rule of Bismarck, the Catholics
charge that their children not only are not
instructed in their own faith. but are sub
jected to teachings Of an agnostic and
skeptical tendency. The new bill now be-
fore the Prussian landtas expresses the de-
termination of Emperor William that
every Prussian subject who is not Catho-
lie shall be a Protestant. belonging to one
or another of certain designated sects;
that is, Emperor William proposes in the
last decade of the nineteenth century to
stamp out by Statute all skepticism and
agnosticism, and to enforce Christianity
by act of parliament--an absurd return to
the religious absolutism of the last GEN.
fury. The bill is, of course. favored by the
! Clerical party and by the Conservative or
| government party, and is violently OPP
| posed by the Liberals of all shades of
opinion and by the Socialists. The Social
lists, who cast million and half of votes
at general election for the reichstag, are
skeptics, and the German Liberals are
generally agnostics. At least a third of
the adult male population of Germany
never enter a church or profess any form
OF religion. These non-church-goers in
ciude not only the workingmen of the
cities, but great majority of the profess
slonai classes and of the graduates of the
universities and classical schools. EN-
peror William knows that these nom
ehurch-going classes, from the revolution
OF ISIS 10 the present date, have steadily
iabored TO substitute representative for
arbitrary government, and he hopes by
the passage of the pending educational bill
to educate the rising generation into ortho-
dox Christians and monarchists.
The pending measure provides that the
parents of any child, if they hold one of
certain specified religious beliefs, NAV in
sist that the child shall be taught their be-
lief at school by specially qualified in
structor. If thirty parents belonging to
one Of the designated religious bodies de-
mapd separate school. 1t may be built for
them at the discretion of the authorities:
and if the demand come from sixty
parents, compliance with it is obligatory.
In schools belonging to religious con-
iesSion the teachers must oil belong to
that confession, and the clergy are to have
the right not only 10 be present, bu, 10 ex-
anime the children and admonish the teach
ers if they find the religious instruction
unsatisfactory. Under the proposed law
children not belonging to any of the des-
| iguated religious bodies may be forced TO
attend religious instruction If not ex-
empted by the president of the province.
and II they are SO exempted they must 10
privately educated in the parents peculiar
tencis.
The president Of the province, as a cres.
ture Of the crown, is certain not 10 gran,
any exemptions dispieasing 10 the en-.
peror. so the non-ehurch-goers and free
thinkers will not be able 70 or.
| ganize separate schools The skcptics
and sguostics, who compose the Liberia!
and Soeialis, opposition 10 this, bill do no;
want separate schools. bat wish to perpe,u,
ate the existing system, which is based on
q more or less complete recognition of the
principles FIRST. that education belongs 70
the state, and secondly, thar It should be e1,
clusively secular, a. it is in the United
States, and in the French Republic. The
| general election takes place in autumn and
the opposition TO the bill are confident
that the bulk Of the Prussian electoral vote
Will be agains; the government
The government, in this attempt At re-
ugious coercion. Is threatened with defeat.
and the emperor IS growing unpopular.
Should the government be defeated Bis
marcS might possibly 10 recalled to sc.
tive political prominence II not 10 the
leadership Of the snti-clerical opposition.
} for it was under Bismarek's administrs.