The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-10-01


meeting and passing resolutions that
will lead to nothing.
The Rev. DIR. Geer's Significant Letter.
We print in an adjoining column a
notable. a very significant, letter from
the Rev. Dr. GEER, the distinguished
vicar Of st. Pauls Chapel of the great
Trinity parish of the Episcopal Church.
1t is an earnest and eloquent warning of
the dangers to our society and our polti-
cal institutions which he conceives to be
involved in our system of public educa-
ton conducted by the State.
Dr. GEER puts himself fatty on the
ground held by the Roman Catholic
Church as affording the only hope for
the future of our republic and of our
social organization-th ground that the
only true and safe basis for education,
either for the State or for the individual,
is religion. He takes, too, the position of
the hierarchy Of that Church, that the
school fund, or great part of it, should
be divided so as to provide support for
religious schools conducted in accordance
with the varying tenets and convictions
of the religious believers who make up
something like quarter Of the popula-
ton, if the attempts at their enumera-
ton are to be credited as authentic For
the remainder, described by DR.. GEER as
agnostics, indifferentists and atheists, he
would provide the purely secular educa-
ton they desire.
This is scheme which has been advo-
Gated generally by many Of our corre-
spondents, but almost wholly by Roman
Catholics. 1t could not be introduced
except by constitutional amendment,
the proposal OF which would be likely to
excite one Of the bitterest political con-
flicts in American history. DR.. GEER's
discussion, therefore, may be said to be
academic rather than Of practical or
even practicable question of politics.
It is not even to be assumed that Roman
Catholics would be united in the support
of so radical revolution of our American
school system as it exists and has existed
in the States generally, with the pas
sonate support Of many generations Of
Americans and as their proudest boast.
The argument of DR.. GEER proceeds on
| the assumption that in country like
this. with a mixed population, it is not
the right and not the duty nor the policy
| OF the State to educate In the full
sense of the term educate that may be
true; but the policy on which the public
school system is based is that, for self
| protection, the State must give to the
children to whom its government will be
| intrusted as citizens the instruction that
is necessary to fit them for that response
bility. The more mixed the population,
| therefore, literate and illiterate and of
| diverse races and inheritance Of political
conceptions and prejudices, the more
necessary is it that the State should ex-
ercise this function.
Never was this need so imperative as
| it is now, when this country is receiving
the greatest accession of foreigners of an
| alien speech in its history. First of all,
| the children of these newcomers must be
taught our language and something of
our history to fit them for the prime
| duty and privilege of citizenship to which
| they will attain on their reaching man.
hood. The State has no right to inter-
fere in the vexed problem of the religion
they shall profess, but, for its own pro-
| lection, it must give them elementary
secular instruction sufficient to save it
from the dangers of an illiterate elector-
ate. That is the ground on which State
support of public education is justifiable
and requisite.
This function of the State, says DR..
GEER, requires only "the simplest, most
| elemental kind of an education for those
| children who would otherwise be neg
lected." He raises the question--well
| worth debate whether education sup
ported by public taxation ought to go
| further than the merely elementary in
struction necessary to save the State
from the perils of an ignorant and illit-
crate electorate. As to providing this
instruction only for those whose educa-
! ton would be wholly neglected other
wise, may it not be said that already
that is done by the public school? So
long az children go to school the State
exercises no compulsion as to the char
acter of the schools they shall attend.
Many thousands of them in New York
are pupils Of the Roman Catholic paro-
chial schools, of schools provided by the
Jews, or are in private schools. The
State offers no interference with religious
education of any kind whatever and no
encouragement to it.
| DR.. GEER argues that our society, even
our whole political system, is going to the
devil, is becoming "paganized,' because
our children are growing up without
q religious education. Ought not the
churches and synagogues, then, to make it
their first duty to supply this omission?
They must provide it, the Constitution
directs, without support from the State;
and Ia the burden of cost too heavy? How
can it be too heavy il the obligation is to
COP? The churches are compelled to
support their worship by free will con-
tributions only, except so far as concerns
the help they get from the State in their
statutory exemption from taxation as
institutions exclusively for "the moral