Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-267_1an2.pdf
Page Number: 17

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

Prayer  in  “[i]nterludes[,]  play[s,]  song[s,]  r[h]ymes,  or  by 
other open [w]ord[s].”  Ibid.  A 1559 law contained similar 
prohibitions.  See Act of Uniformity, 1 Eliz., ch. 2.

After the Restoration, Parliament enacted a new law with 
a similar aim.  Ministers and “Lecturer[s]” were required to
pledge “unfeigned assent and consent” to the Book of Com-
mon Prayer, and all schoolmasters, private tutors, and uni-
versity professors were required to “conforme to the Liturgy 
of  the  Church  of  England”  and  not  “to  endeavour  any
change  or  alteration”  of  the  church.  Act  of  Uniformity,
1662, 14 Car. 2, ch. 4. 

British law continued to impose religious restrictions on
education in the 18th century and past the time of the adop-
tion of the First Amendment.  The Schism or Established 
Church Act of 1714, 13 Ann., ch. 7, required that schoolmas-
ters  and  tutors  be  licensed  by  a  bishop.    Non-conforming
Protestants, as well as Catholics and Jews, could not teach 
at or attend the two universities, and as Blackstone wrote, 
“[p]ersons professing the popish religion [could] not keep or
teach any school under pain of perpetual imprisonment.”  4 
W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 55 
(8th ed. 1778).  The law also imposed penalties on “any per-
son [who] sen[t] another abroad to be educated in the popish
religion  . . .  or  [who]  contribute[d]  to  their  maintenance 
when there.”  Id., at 55–56. 

British  colonies  in  North  America  similarly  controlled 
both  the  appointment  of  clergy,  see  Hosanna-Tabor,  565 
U. S., at 183, and the teaching of students.  A Maryland law
“prohibited any Catholic priest or lay person from keeping
school, or taking upon himself the education of youth.”  2 T. 
Hughes, History of the Society of Jesus in North America: 
Colonial and Federal 443–444 (1917).  In 1771, the Gover-
nor of New York was instructed to require that all school-
masters  arriving  from  England  obtain  a  license  from  the
Bishop of London.  3 C. Lincoln, The Constitutional History 
of New York 485, 745 (1906).  New York law also required