Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County, Ga.) 1921-1964, 1925-06-04
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

When the General Assembly of Georgia meets
the latter part of this month various organza-
films whose activities are along religion and edu-
,ationql lines will make fight to further circum-
scribe the boundaries OF instruction IN the state
The Tattnal Square Baptist church, and other
churches will seek to press again the measure de-
signed to prohibit the teaching OF evolution, or
the theory of evolution in the schools supported
bv the State while the Parcnt-Tcacher association
is pressing a measure that goes beyond the Bible
reading law already on the statute books and calls
for 4 period of instruction in addition to the sim
nlc reading each day of at least one chapter Of
the Bible.
he measure designed to suppress the teach
inc Of the theory of evolution will fail we believe,
because it should fail. 1t was pushed once unsuc-
cessfully before the Legislature and Tennessee's
experience with will our Legislators to shy
off from it, if nothing else will AS The Telegraph
,,ontcd out some time ago the measure is futile
because it could not be enforced. 1T would only
give rise to a new crop of mental hootegging.
Every library in tie State would have a run upon
books on evolution. There would be disscmina-
ton of the doctrine that cnrid nor be achieved by
teaching 7 he measure is not only futile but it is
contrary to the States bill If rights which guar
antees religious freedom Those Who are pressing
it are :hc IL scendants ancestors who fought in
rcinia End in other colonies establish a mans
freedom, t. ,vorshin a he rcascs Evolution in
itself is not religious question: but it has been
made religious question by those who oppose
its teaching There can be no full freedom of
thought no untrammelled freedom Of the exercise
OF conscience and of reason, if such measures go
on our books.
The Telegraph believes also that the teaching
Of the Bible in public schools is wrong. 1t tends
lack to the union OF church and state principle
we long ago recognized to be wrong. State gov
crnments should have relation to religious in
stitutons We have Sunday schools supported by
the voluntary contributions of the same people
who pay taxes, for that purpose If the Sunday
schools are not fulfilling their missions, if they
are not making themselves sufficiently attractive
to the young mind, If they are failing to give the
measure of religious education that religious
leaders conceive to be necessary, it is time to
organize the Sunday schools and to reform them.
The remedy does not lie in trotting to the State
government and imploring it to its authority
and its established system to force the teaching
of the Bible
There are those who argue that the reading OF
the Bible and its Interpretation in the schools
build character and moral backbone. No matter
bow much Scripture is pumped into a child in the
school. unless he gets the inspiration from his en-
vironment. unless his teachers themselves repre-
sent the highest ideals. unless-and this is the
most important considcraton-his parents
stimulate in him the best mental and moral reac-
tons the Scriptures has done him no good The
Devil quote Scri pture
When we begin to take a little off here and add
a little there to what should be taught in the pub
lie schools we begin to strip education of its use
fulncss and leave it skeleton that is not in real
itv education at all---Macon Telegraph.