New Britain herald., 1928-10-19
No Pace h Schools For Church Or Politics, Rabbi Wise States
Nsw Ysrk EccIesiast Asks Teachers to Help Young Chargss Become Better Citizsas of U. &

Neither politics nor the church has any place in education, Rabbi stephen q Wise Of New York told about 800 members of the New Brit ain Teachess' club last evening at the annual banquet of that organ. nation at the Burritt hotel. Tt ls the business of the school board to keep politics out of education and education out of politics" Rabbi Wise declared. There is grave danger that considerations which have nothing. 70 do with education are allowed to interfere with it's principles and its methods. But l would like to get little education into politics" he said in . half-jest- ing, half-serious way.
 '.Thcre is no room in American schools for the church," Rabbi Wise csatinued. There is for religion but not the church. They are not quite interchangeable terms. The church is often the instrumentality of relision but sometimes it is not" !"
 Purposes of Education
 Proceeding them to his main theme regarding the fundamentals and purposes of education. Rabbi Wise quoted John Milton's defini- tien: ''The office of education is to train the man and the citizen. This is the truest definition" the sneaker asserted. Education can not be taught or imparted. as was once conceived, as if it were some- thing tangible and semi-visible to be handed out in packages. It deals with training and guiding, not simple imparting of knowledge. he explained.
 Ut touches the nascent, growing spirit of young people. Its office is to lead or help . child to think for itself. to seek after truth. to ex- ercise its own physical. intellectual. and eventually moral and spiritual powers"
 'The danger of democracy" Rab- bi Wise warned, 'is that the people will think alike, for then they VIII think ss masses and not as indiVld- uals. The two greatest onlces o1 education are to make people think apart and, paradoxically. act to- gsther, not think together and act apart, Education should help pre- vent the duplication of personality This duplication can be avoided oy training the child to welcome every new ray of light on . subject ana to think his own thoughts and i've his own life.
 Judgment by Prejudice
 zone of the most lamentable things in American life is the at- tempt to bind people together by their prejudices," the speaker said while not actually mentioning the case by name, he referred by men tion of the date and of "a neigh boring commonwealth to the Sac ce.yanzetti affair. saying that ne feared 1t had been an example or prejudice, of judgment in advance of the testimony. (which is no Judg- ment at. ail," he asserted. "Judg- ment should wait until all the ob- tainable evidence is in and has been weighed and tested. It is the finest thing in the world to appeal to peo- ple to fudge with their minds and not with their prejudices."
 The term, foreign born" was se- verely condemned by the rabbi, who said it was . new phrase of con- tempt and prejudice. You can make 1t very difficult for foreign born children in your classes" he told the teachers, merely by the way you accent tho word foreign" He quoted Israel zanswili's defini- tion of prejudice as "disl.ke of the unlike," and said it was . teachers business not to appeal to prejudices but to train children as citizerfs- not to train them that they might 70 to college. but that they might become good citizens.
 Politics Guided by Prejudice
 ''Thh whole political campaign is saddening and dispiriting." he said, flor 1t is guided by prejudices. We want one kind of a man or do not want another kind, and we are giv- ing little attention to the real is- sues"
 Truth Is not . flnality," Rabbi Wise warned. ''It must be explored and reexplored from day to day and from generation to generation. Don't let children imagine that truth can be done up in little bundle and handed down to the next generation. Make them seek it. Don't be superior and contemptu- ous, but humble and understanding. for that will help them be the same, and humility is necessary for truth h-seeking.
 "Do you think this state and