The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-26
Religion and the Public Schools

Religion and the Public schools.
The question of religious education for
the public schools is interesting many
of our correspondents of to-day. Mr..
GREEN, one of the teachers, argues that
some sort of religious training is neces-
sary for the full development of child's
character; but what sort shall it be, asks
another correspondent, in community
of Christians and Jews, Catholics, Prot
estants and infidels? Still another queS-
lions if the actual results of the religious
teaching in the Catholic parochial schools
are as good as those in the public schools
The need of religious training for the
young generation in now engaging special
attention among the Jews. We made a
quotation the other day from paper
by Jew of the orthodox school, the
school in which are the great majority
of the Jews who have come to this coun-
try from eastern Europe during the last
twenty years-the Jews who inhabit the
East Side Ghetto, the most numerous
community Of that race in the world.
This jew lamentS that the American
Jews, even those of the strlctest orthodox
inheritance. are falling away from Juda-
ism as religion. Another Jew writes
to us to-day confirming his observation
Of that tendency, but glorying in it. He
rejoices to see the younger generation
emancipating themselves from bigoted
orthodoxy, as he calls it.
Both these writers seem to look on the
education the children are receiving as re-
sponsible for this new Jewish thought. y
The first finds a great danger y" in the
complete secularizing of the education Of
Jewish children. Even where there is
homeopathic dose Of religion, how
ever sufficient it may be for the nom
Jewish child" it is not enough for the
Jewish boy or girl, who needs Jewish
knowledge. il not faith, else the sap
ping of Jewish strength will go on.
THE task of the religionsts must be to
capture the younger generation" he
declares; and the same sentiment intiu-
ences Christians who are demanding
religious teaching in the public schools,
on the theory that the school should be
primarily training ground, nursery,
for the Church.
We are glad to observe however, that
this orthodox Jew does not make any
demand for the introduction of Judaism
into the public schools and does not find
r,,,It with than, haoouua IL in NOT tbo.o
He calls on the orthodox Jews themselves
to provide the religious teaching: and
for that reason he il an advocate of Zion
ism, or the establishment OF Jewish
State in which Judaism and Jewish prac-
tees should be preserved by legislation
from the gradual decay" which is
going on " in non-Jewish lands"
The Jew whose letter we print to-day
regards that decay as only hopeful. and
he seems to be representative of a senti-
ment which is steadily increasing among
his race in this country and, perhaps,
more especially, in this city. The Jews,
instead Of looking askance at the public
schools because they are assisting so
powerfully in bringing about this grad
ual decay" are eager to have their chill
dren enjoy the advantages of the public
school education, in the primary and
grammar schools, and in the colleges,
though, unqlestionably, ii is transform
ing their younger generation, 10 that
orthodoxy is now an affair of the
elders; young men are not religious"
according to the orthodox standard.
The Roman Catholic Church, which
looks on religious training of the young
az primary religious obligation, is
staggering under tremendous burden
of expense in order to maintain it's pa-
rochial schools, and among Protestants
there has always been demand that
the Bible should be read in the public
schools. But nobody has been able to
solve the problem Of a scheme of public
religious instruction which shall be
equitable and consistent with our prin-
ciple of government. Even if the Jews
are not now the most numerous of all
the races here, they soon will be. The
Roman Catholic population is at least
a third of the whole. n we are guided
at all by the church attendance as in
dcative of religious belief the majority
of the people of the town are infdels or
indifferent to religion. Actually, too.
the public schools without the religious
instruction Mr. GREEN wants, are
crowded and therefore are satisfactory
to parents, apparently. So great is the
steady increase in the demand for
school accommodations that the city is
taxed to the utmost to meet it. though