This dissertation has microfilm ed exactly as recalved 67-16,262 BUCHANAN, Frederick Stewart, 1931- THE OLD PATHS: A STUDY OF THE AMISH RESPONSE TO PUBLIC SCHOOLING IN OHIO. The Ohio State University, Fh.D., 1967 Education, religion
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE OLD PATHS: A STUDY OF THE AMISH RESPONSE
TO PUBLIC SCHOOLING IN OHIO
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Frederick Stewart Buchanan, B.A., M.S.
******
The Ohio State University 1967
Approved by ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research reported herein was performed pursuant to a
contract with the United States Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare, Office of Education, under the provisions of the Cooperative
Research Program.
Appreciation is expressed to Dr. Robert E. Jewett for his advice
and for the freedom he afforded the w riter during the course of this
study. The comments of Dr. Robert B. Sutton have been relevant as have
those of Dr. Robert H. Bremner who suggested the topic o rig inally.
Dr. John A. Hostetler of Temple University has shared with the writer
his own extensive insights into Amish life and belief. Mr. M. Lawrence
Light gave timely suggestions in the preparation of the interview
schedu1e.
The writer has interviewed the public school superintendents of
three Ohio counties and numerous Ohio Amishmen; their frank expressions
have added immeasurably to an understanding of the Ohio Amish and their relationship to public education. A special debt of gratitude is due
the forty residents of an Ohio Amish settlement who gave freely of their time and opinions and who so warmly welcomed the w riter, his wife, and son during a two-week sojourn in the community.
The w riter's wife, Rama, has not only typed the manuscript with consummate s k ill, but has been a constant source of encouragement. The study has benefited from her keen insights and dedication. VITA
August 9, 1931 • • Born * Stevenston, Ayrshire, Scotland
1959 ...... B.A., University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
1959“ 1960 .... Research Fellowship, University of Utah, Salt Lake C ity, Utah
1960-1963 * • • • Teacher, History and English, Bountiful High School, Bountiful, Utah
1 9 6 1 . M.S., University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
I963 ...... Graduate Assistant, Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
196^-1967 • * • • Research Associate, Department of Education, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
PUBLICATIONS
In collaboration with Meno Lovenstein and Robert B. Ribble. "Economics Curricular Materials," in Lovenstein, et a i., Development of Economics Curricular Materials. Cooperative Research Project No. HS-082. Columbus: The Ohio State University Research Foundation, 1966.
In collaboration with Robert E. Jewett and Robert B. Ribble. 'The Relevance of the Project to the Social Studies Curriculum," in Meno Lovenstein, et a l., Development of Economics Curricular Materials. Cooperative Research Project No. HS-082. Columbus: The Ohio State University Research Foundation, 1966.
FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: Social Studies Education
Studies in Social Studies Education. Professor Robert E. Jewett
Studies in History of Education. Professors Bernard Mehl and Robert B. Sutton
Studies in History. Professors Mary E. Young and Robert H. Bremner
• • » 11 1 CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... ii
VITA ...... M i
LIST OF T A B L E S ...... vi
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCTION ...... I
The Problem ...... I The Origins of the A m ish ...... 2 Amish Separatism and Its Symbols ...... 10 Amish-Mennonite Views on Schooling ...... 1^ Amish Opposition to Public Schooling ...... 22
I I PUBLIC SCH00LS--THE GROWTH OF A THREAT ...... 26
Compulsory Education ...... 29 Centralization and Consolidation ...... 32 Minimum Standards ...... 37 Secular Versus Sectarian Schooling ...... 39
I I I CONFLICT AND DETENTE...... k2
Expanding Limits ...... kZ Unwanted Horizons ...... ^9 Deterring a T re n d ...... 58 Factors Provoking Conf1ict ...... 62 Verbal agreements ...... 6k Changes in personnel ...... 68 Local pressu res ...... 70 State Involvement ...... 76 Legal ambiguities ...... 80 Lack of sensitivity to Amish way of l i f e ...... 85 Amish intransigence ...... 90 Absence of d ia lo g u e ...... 9^ Resort to an I n j u n c t i o n ...... 98 Educational Innovations Among the Amish ...... 105
iv CONTENTS (Contd.)
CHAPTER Page
IV EDGEWOOD AMISH SCHOOL...... Ill
Woodland County Amish Schools ...... 112 Edgewood Amish School D is t r i c t ...... 11*+ The Emergence of Edgewood Amish School ...... 117 The Survey ...... 121 Specific objectives ...... 121 The interview schedule ...... 122 The s a m p le ...... 123 Discussion of Survey F in d in g s ...... 12*4 Public schools .... I ...... 12*+ Amish schools...... 131 Attitudes toward Amish elementary schools .... 131 Attitudes toward Amish secondary schools ...... l*+0 Amish school c u rric u lu m...... l*+2 The role of theAmish school in the community . . 1*+*+ Amish teacher preparation ...... 155 The impact of industrialism ...... 161 Summary of Survey Findings ...... 180
V IMPLICATIONS ...... 182
The Amish in the World ...... 182 Conformity in Education ...... 190 Non-Amish Critics of Education ...... 19*+
VI SUMMARY...... 202
APPENDIX...... 207
A Amish Interview Schedule ...... 208 B The Discipline of 1865 ...... 220 C Testimony of Uria R. B y le r ...... 223 D Minimum Standards for Amish Schools ...... 227 E Analysis of Amish Minimum School Standards ...... 23*+ F Facts Concerning the Amish Parochial Schools ...... 238 G Some Amish F e a rs ...... 2*+0 H Resolutions of Hardin County Board of Education .... 2*+l I Editorials ...... 2*+3 J L e t t e r s ...... 2*+8
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 265
v LIST OF TABLES
T a b le Page
1 Old Order Amish Population and Districts, 1905-67 ...... 9
2 Ages of Forty Amish R espondents ...... 12*+
3 What Is Your Personal A ttitu d e Toward Your Children Attending Public Elementary and Secondary Schools? . . . 125
*+ Why Have the Amish Chosen the Eighth Grade as the Limit of Their Children's Schooling? ...... 126
5 0o You Agree or Disagree That the Following Are Good Reasons for Not Allowing Amish Children to Attend Public Schools? ...... 129
6 What Was the A ttitu d e of Most Amish in Edgewood Area When the Establishment of Edgewood School Was Proposed in 1 9 6 * + ? ...... 132
7 What Was Your A ttitu d e Toward the Establishment of the Edgewood Amish School in 196*+? in 1 967? ...... 133
8 M anifest Reasons for E stablishing Edgewood Amish S c h o o l...... 13*+
9 Do You Agree That Amish Children Should Attend Public School During the Early Grades in Order to Get a Good Foundation in the Basic Three R 's ? ...... 138
10 Schools and Grades Attended by Seventy Amish C h i l d r e n ...... 139
11 What Is Your A ttitu d e Toward the Establishment of Amish Elementary Schools? Amish Secondary S c h o o ls ?...... 1*+1
12 A ttitu d e s Toward the Role of the Amish School in the Religious Education of Amish C h ild re n ...... l*+6
13 A Comparison of Attitudes Toward the Teacher's Role in the Intellectual and Religious Education of Amish C h i l d r e n ...... l*+7
v i LIST OF TABLES (C ontd.)
Table Page
\k What Personal Qualities Should the Amish School Help the Amish Child Develop? ...... 1^9
15 What Advantages Do You Think Amish Education Has Over Public Education? ...... 150
16 Do You Agree That if the Amish Don't Have Their Own Schools, the Amish Church Will Disappear? ...... 151
17 What Do You Think Would Happen to This Amish Community if There Were No Amish Schools and the Children Had to Attend Public Elementary School? ...... 152
18 What Improvements Do You Think Should Be Made in Amish Parochial Education? ...... 157
19 Most Desirable Characteristics of an Amish Teacher .... 158
20 What Do You Think of the Practice of Having Amish Teachers Receive Teacher Training at Mennonite C o lle g e s ? ...... 159
21 Why Do You Think So Many Amish Are Leaving Woodland C o u n ty ? ...... 162
22 A Comparison Between the Occupations of Heads of Families and Respondents' F a t h e r s ...... 166
23 If You Were Able to Choose Any Occupation You Wished to Pursue, What Would You Choose? ...... 168
2k What Kinds of Employment Should An Amishman Avoid? .... 170
25 Reasons for Avoiding Certain Kinds of Employment ...... 171
26 Do You Agree That the Amish Need More Than an Eighth Grade Education if They Are to Compete for Employment in Industry? ...... 173
27 Years of Formal Schooling Completed by Forty Amish Respondents and Their Parents ...... 175
vi i LIST OF TABLES (C o n td.)
T a b le Page
28 Do You Agree That as Modern Industrial Society Continues to Develop, the Amish in Woodland County W ill Eventually Disappear? ...... 176
vi i i CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The Problem
At the present time in the United States being a dropout is considered a lia b ilit y , and gaining a high school diploma is consid ered a prerequisite for social and economic success. Not a ll citizens, however, share these values. Among those who reject them are members of the Old Order Amish--a group of Anabaptists who follow a program of planned "dropouts" for th eir offspring and who believe that the dangers to th eir fa ith of gaining a high school diploma far outweigh any material benefits which it might bestow.
There are presently more Amish in Ohio than 1 i*i any other state; and since 191 , their resistance to compulsory eighth grade education, school consolidation, and minimum school standards has sparked dozens of emotional and legal confrontations with local and state school author i t i es.
The Ohio Amish accepted public elementary schooling (through the eighth grade) as long as the schools were rural in nature and did not depart too radically from Amish life patterns in their curriculum offer ings. In the 1950's, however, public schools became more science oriented and the consolidation of schools continued. The launching of
United States space explorations coincided closely with the launching of a massive Amish drive to remove their children from public school influences by establishing an Amish parochial school system in Ohio.
The Amish fear the public schools; they do not believe that their simple way of living needs "higher education"; they believe that maintenance of an Amish parochial school system w ill help preserve th e ir unique culture and faith.
In this study an attempt will be made to (1) describe the nature of the threat posed to the Amish by the continuous increase in state regulation of schools and educational programs in Ohio, (2) review the principal factors contributing to the open conflict between the Amish and the school a u th o ritie s , and (3) analyze one Amish school d is t r ic t in Ohio to determine its educational values and describe the reasons given by the Amish for developing and establishing "Edgewood"' Amish
School.
The Origins of the Amish
In the autumn of 1523, in the city of Zurich, Switzerland, a disputation took place between the Protestant reformer Ulrich Zwingli and his former associate Conrad Grebel. Zwingli, although agreeing that certain practices of his newly founded non-Catholic church should be changed to conform to the s c rip tu re s , also believed that it was the role of the city council to initiate such reforms. Grebel, on the other hand, maintained that the church, not the civil officials, should be responsible for the needed changes in do ctrin e and p ra c tic e .
'"Edgewood" is the f ic t it io u s name of the Amish settlem ent. This dispute crystallized the feelings and beliefs of a group of dissident Christians who had for some years prior to the controversy been searching for ways to not only reform the church, but restore it to its pristine purity and spirituality. These "Swiss Brethren" in their efforts to restore the original church rejected infant baptism as both unnecessary and invalid; and in spite of warnings against teaching this and other "heresies," they persisted in baptizing the adults who joined th e ir fellow ship. For this they gained the opprobrium of "Anabaptist" and became subject to an ancient law which decreed death for anyone practicing rebaptism--a charge that they denied, insisting that infant baptism was, in fact, no baptism! The power of both state and church combined against them, and they were eventually harried out of th e ir homeland. As one historian has commented:
Protestantism bears no stain more serious than the acquiescence and even encouragement of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin in the persecution of these innocent fellow Christians by the "sword" of the temporal authority.^
Not only were the Anabaptists viewed as a threat to religious orthodoxy, th e ir views and attitudes toward c iv il government were seen as potential threats to the very existence of the state itself.
While recognizing the legitimate function of government and its agents in regulating the affairs and promoting the welfare of the state, the Anabaptists, nevertheless, held firmly to a belief that the church
^Thomas Sanders, Protestant Concepts of Church and S ta te ; H istorical Backgrounds and Approaches for the Future (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1965 ), p. 83- For d e ta ils of early Anabaptist history the reader should see: John Horsch, Mennonites in Europe (Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 19^2), pp. 30-69; also Franklin L i t t e 11, The Anabaptist View of the Church (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958). 4 must be separated from the state and that the state must not intrude 3 upon the conscience of the members of the church. In matters of
religious belief and practice the state must have no influence. Like wise, the true disciples of Christ were expected to keep themselves free
from becoming entangled in the affairs of the world as represented by
the political state. This had been one of the main points of dissen
sion between Zwingli and Grebel o rig in ally , and it has since remained a basic source of fric tio n between the spiritual descendents of the
Anabaptists and the secular world.
Menno Simons, a Catholic priest who joined the Dutch Anabaptists
in 1535 and whose name was eventually given to the Anabaptist movement,
expressed in simple language the basic position of these reformed
reformers regarding the citizen's relation to the state when he said:
"Where a c iv il ruler would issue an order in contradiction with the w ill of God for his saints, Christians have no choice but to disobey the c iv il law." Needless to say, this was not arrived at by debate or
speculation. Simons had ample authority for his stand In the New
Testament Peter and his associates make the straightforward statement:
'Ve ought to obey God rather than men."^ The Anabaptists, known as
Mennonites after 1544, observed this to the letter even when it meant
persecution, torture, and death. To this very day the spiritual
3Sanders, op. c i t ., pp. 89-90.
^Cited in John Christian Wenger, Separated Unto God: A Plea for Christian Sim plicity of Life and for a Scriptural Nonconformity to the World (Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1952), p"! 248.
SActs 5:29. 5 descendents of these people find strength in the written accounts of the sufferings of their sixteenth century brethren, over 5,000 of whom perished for their beliefs. For many this is the greatest witness of the validity of their position.^
The years of persecution led to continual migrations of Dutch
Mennonites to northern Germany, Prussia, Russia, and eventually to the
United States. The Swiss Brethren, on the other hand, retreated into the mountains where they carried on an agrarian life and became "con servative islands of sectarianism."^ Bereft of their intellectual leadership and lacking much of the earlier Anabaptist creativity, they were ripe for the internal dispute which split them apart in the last
g decade of the seventeenth century.
In 1693, Jakob Ammann, a Mennonite elder of Erlenbach,
Switzerland, became involved in a dispute with his fellow Mennonites over questions of how often the communion should be held, the proper
^For an interesting, though biased, contemporary illu stratio n of some Amish attitudes toward persecution see Elizabeth M. M ille r, From the Fiery Stakes of Europe to the Federal Courts of America (New York: Vintage Press, 1963)- This author's view is certainly not shared by all Amish--one Amishman said he found M ille r's book "revolting." The work is based partly on the sixteenth century book by Thielman J. Van Braght, The Bloody Theater or Martyr's Mirror (Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1950), and a para 11e 1 is drawn between the persecutions suffered in Europe in the sixteenth century and the conflicts of the present day Amish with draft boards and school o ffic ia ls . Sanders claims the Anabaptists upheld a martyr theology and stressed the concept of the suffering church. See Sanders, op. c i t ., p. 355; and Ethelbert Stauffer, "The Anabaptist Theology of Martyrdom," Mennonite Quarterly Review, XIX (July, 19^5), pp. 179-21**.
7john A. Hostetler, Amish Society (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963), p. 27.
8 1 bid . , p. 29. % attitude toward those who sympathized with but did not join the
Anabaptist ranks, and the relations between church members and those who had been excommunicated. After a number of fu tile attempts to resolve the problem, Ammann excommunicated those who opposed his par ticular stand and established a "purified" Christian church which in time became known as Amish Mennonite. Ammann contended that the
Mennonite Church had become too worldly and had departed from the teachings of the New Testament church and from the fa ith of their fathers. To counteract this tendency, Ammann adopted policies which were meant initially to separate his followers from the world, but which eventually prevented social change from having any appreciable effect upon the group. Of his followers he required uniformity of dress, plainness of living, wearing of untrimmed beards, and a s tric t adherence to the ban on any social intercourse with any person excommunicated from the new Amish sect. Laying great stress upon the value of the family unit, Ammann succeeded in building into his followers a self-sustaining cohesiveness which combined with his policy of minimum contacts with the world to produce a distinctive culture which has survived in twen tieth century America, far removed from the Swiss cantons which gave it birth in 1693-^
^For a fu lle r account of the origins of the Amish sect, the reader should consult Harold S. Bender's a rtic le , "Amish Mennonites," in Mennonite Encyclopedia (Hillsboro: Mennonite Brethren Publishing House, 1955-1959), I, pp* 93-97; and Milton Gascho, 'The Amish Division of 1693-1697 *n Switzerland and Alsace." Mennonite Quarterly Review. XI (October, 1937). pp. 235-66. See also Charles H. Smith, The Mennonites: A Brief History of Their Origin and Later Development ?n Both Europe and America (Berne, Indiana: Mennonite Book Concern, 1920). The fir s t Amish settlers in North America came to Pennsylvania around 1720; and by the middle of the eighteenth century they had estab lished themselves in Berks, Chester, and Lancaster counties. In 1767 and the years following, they also established communities in Somerset
County; and it is from this county that the fir s t Amish came to settle in Ohio. Beginning in 1807, these Amish pioneers were among the fir s t white settlers in northeast Ohio; and eventually they expanded from the original Holmes County location into the neighboring counties of Wayne and Tuscarawas. Branches of the Holmes County group were established in Geauga County, Stark County, and Madison County, Ohio, in the 1880's.
While members of the Amish sect are currently located in fifteen Ohio counties, by far the largest number are found in the counties of Holmes and Wayne. ^ ®
The original Amish break with the Mennonite Church was based on ideological differences, and throughout the years the Amish have also experienced division based on differences of interpretation in regard to how a Christian should react to the modern world. Between 1862 and
1873, a series of Amish Ministers' Conferences was held in Ohio; and the sharp cleavage between the progressive wing of the Amish and their more conservative brethren was formally crystallized. The basic difference between the two groups was essentially that of accepting or rejecting certain modern innovations--the progressives accepting change in technology and the conservatives asserting that the ways of the
*^For a discussion of Amish settlements in other states, see Bender, op. c i t ., pp. 93-97; and Hostetler, Amish Society, pp. 70-79. fathers should be good enough for the children.** The conservatives
(or Old Order Amish) clung to the tradition of using private homes for worship services while the "new order" introduced the practice of building churches and the use of modern hymn books in place of the
traditional German Ausbund. Between 1927 and 1950, a group now known as the Beachy Amish broke o ff from the Old Order Amish, apparently because they regarded the Old Order approach to modern life unrealistic.
They have adopted modern conveniences such as e le c tric ity and auto mobiles but have retained the beard and dress as symbols of separation
from the world.
In spite of the emergence of splinter groups and the defection of individual members, the Old Order Amish have been able to retain their identity as a subculture because of their high birth rate (the average number of children per family is seven to nine, and families of ten and twelve are not uncommon) and their success in retaining a
large proportion of these children within the group. The total number of baptized members In the United States and Canada in 1967 has been estimated at 21,023, an increase of 597 since 1961. Using Hostetler's national ratio of 113*5 nonmember children to 100 baptized members, the total number of Amish stands at approximately 44,884. The spiritual, social, and to some extent the economic needs of these people are cared for in 19 states by 313 autonomous church d is tric ts each of which consists s of between 15 to 30 families or an average of 75 baptized members. As
'*For an example of some of the ideas and practices to which the conservatives objected in 1865, see "The Discipline of 1865" reproduced in Appendix B. 9 d istric ts become too large for the management of worship in private homes and effective interaction of the members, they are divided geo graphically; and the new d is tric t in time chooses by lot its own ecclesiastical leaders consisting of a bishop, two to four preachers, and a deacon. The number of d is tric ts and total number of Old Order
Amish in the United States has increased steadily over the years as 1 2 the following table indicates:
TABLE 1
OLD ORDER AMISH POPULATION AND DISTRICTS, 1905-67
Year 1905 1920 1930 1940 1950 I960 1967
Populat ion 8,200 13,900 18,500 25,800 33,000 1+3,300 1+4,888
Distr icts *+3 83 110 15* 197 258 313
In Ohio there are 96 Old Order Amish church d is tric ts , an increase of
16 since 1962, and approximately 7,442 baptized members, an increase of 582 since 1962. Using Hostetler's Ohio ratio of 147.5 nonmember children to 100 baptized members, the total number of Amish in Ohio may be calculated at approximately 18,419*^ Over half of the Amish church d istric ts in Ohio are clustered around the counties of Holmes,
Tuscarawas, and Wayne. Geauga County has 17, and the remainder are
*
^ H o ste tler, Amish Society, p. 80; Mennonite Yearbook and Directory, 1967 (Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1967); and Raber's Calendar, 1967.
^ S ta tis tic s derived from Mennonite Yearbook and Directory. 1967. PP* 95-97; and Hostetler, op. c it. . pp. 75-80. 10 distributed among Stark, Madison, Trumbull, Hardin, Defiance, Ashland, and Perry.
Amish Separatism and Its Symbols
In their efforts to retain their identity in a rapidly changing world, the Old Order Amish have chosen to resist or at least retard change in their way of life as much as possible. Believing that small changes eventually lead to major changes, they have continually been plagued with decisions regarding such issues as the length of hair which men should wear, the kind of suspenders that one may use, modern styles of underwear, rubber-tired buggies, whipsockets, musical instruments, tractors with or without tire s , central heating, indoor plumbing, and storm windows. The interpretations given these items by the local leadership have resulted in numerous divisions occurring within the Old
Order Amish group; for in the absence of a centralized board of control having authority over a ll Amish church d is tric ts , the autonomous local church d is tric t has become the reference point in any dispute over what should or should not be done to keep the group pure and undefiled by the world. Not only have they tended to retain the old ways, but there appears also to be some movement toward greater conservatism, as Hostetler notes:
The prescribed length of the haircut for men, for example, is longer today in some lo calities than it was f i f t y years ago. This phenomenon may be a kind of reactionary protest against change, which plays some part in cultural survival. I1*
l^John A. Hostetler, "Old Order Amish," Mennonite Encyclopedia, IV, p. kk. While it is an exaggeration to claim that the Amish have remained completely unchanged since the seventeenth century, they do make every e ffo rt to maintain a way of li f e which d iffe rs from the contemporary society. By so doing, they keep themselves apart from the world in those areas where they fear the world's impact most. Social and religious a ffilia tio n s w ith outsiders are kept to a bare minimum because the Amish fear that too much contact with the world may cause them to compromise their principles and the integrity of their Amish way of life. To this end the Reqel und Ordnung (rules and order) of each church d is tr ic t attempts to set up certain limitations on beliefs and actions which bound the group and its members and maintain the separateness of Amish lif e . While in no sense regarded as scripture, the Ordnung does have behind it the power of tradition and custom--a power not to be gainsaid among the Amish people. They reason that if any actions involve the possibility of compromising their beliefs and thereby-making them more worldly, such actions should be avoided. It is in this context that they oppose higher education which they interpret as education beyond the eighth grade. The„eighth grade has become for them a symbol of their separation from the world as have their beards, plain clothes, and buggies. ' ^
Among the more reactionary Old Order Amish in Ohio are the followers of Bishop Sam Swartzentruber who are located primarily in the
Holmes County region; and it is not surprising, therefore, that it is in
15john A. Hostetler, 'The Amish Use of Symbols and Their Function in Bounding the Community," The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. XCIV, Part I (l 963), pp. 11-22. this particular area that one finds the core of Amish resistance in Ohio to compulsory secondary education beyond the eighth grade. However, the opposition to "higher education" expressed by the "Swartzentruber" Amish is actually symptomatic of a general Amish attitude toward education in general— they fear that if their children become involved in education that is not directed by the home community, they w ill eventually lose their testimonies of the Amish way of life and will adopt the practices of the world. Not that the Amish are alone in this fear--the growth of religious educational institutions throughout the country is ample evidence of the concern which religious groups have with the impact of the secular world on their young.^
Unlike many churches which accept in general the secular society and accommodate themselves to prevailing societal patterns of life , the
Amish seek to detach themselves from the secular society and shun its values. Although living j_n the world they are most d'ecidedly not of the world. This pattern of exclusiveness in religion has been identi fied as a sect-type in contrast to a church-type Christianity. Both regard the nature of Christian fellowship from different vantage points: the church-type perceives it in institutional terms "not dependent on individualism, possessing a depositurn of absolute truths and wonderful sacramental powers." The sect-type, on the other hand, perceives
Christian fellowship as a comprehensive Christian society "whose life is constantly renewed by the deliberate allegiance and personal work of
^Herbert W. Schneider, Religion in 20th Century America (New York: Atheneum, 196*0, p. **8. 13
its individual members."'? Unlike the church which makes its appeal to the masses, the sect is comparatively small and aims at a close personal fellowship of believers.
Troeltsch succinctly delineates the general sociological charac teristics of the sect, in contrast to those of the church, by stating that the sect stresses
. . . lay C h ris tia n ity, personal achievement in ethics and in religion, the radical fellowship of love, religious equality and brotherly love, indifference towards the authority of the State and the ruling classes, dislike of technical law and of the oath, the separation of the religious life from the economic struggle by means of the ideal of poverty and frugality, or occasionally in a charity which becomes communism, the directness of the personal religious relationship, criticism of o ffic ia l s p iritu al guides and theologians, the appeal to the New Testament and to the Prim itive Church. The sociological point of contact, which here forms the starting-point for the growth of the re li gious community, d iffe rs clearly from that upon which the Church has been formed. Whereas the Church assumes the objective concrete holiness of the sacer dotal office, of Apostolic Succession, of the-Depps ? turn fide? and of the sacraments, and appeals to the exten sion of the Incarnation which takes place permanently through the priesthood, the sect, on the other hand, appeals to the ever new common performance of the moral demands, which, at bottom, are founded only upon the Law and the Example of C hrist. In th is , it must be admitted that they are in direct contact with the Teaching of Jesus.1®
With the exception of the "charity which becomes communism" (which the
Hutterites practice) the foregoing description is generally applicable to the Amish. They practice separation from the secular society and its
'?Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the Christian Church, trans. Olive Wyon (2 vols,; London: George Allen and Unwin L td ., 1931), I I , p. 461.
'^Troeltsch, op. c i t ., I, p. 336. values. Without thought of offending their neighbors, they are exclu sive in their attitudes toward non-Amish people and in the very make-up 19 of their social structure.
Of course, not all Amish groups are alike in their attitudes toward the authority of the state or technical law or even in their exclusiveness — they d iffe r among themselves as they do with the secular society--but most Amish groups share the foregoing characteristics to a greater or a lesser degree, and these sociological dimensions of Amish religious life lie at the root of the general Amish opposition to and fear of public schooling and higher education.
Amish-Mennonite Views on Schooling
The Amish are not alone among the Anabaptists in their opposi tion to "higher education." The Hutterites and the Dutch Mennonites have had similar attitudes, and present Amish attitudes are probably similar to the views held by many American Mennonites f if t y or sixty 20 years ago. This close parallel between the earlier Mennonites and more recent Amish attitudes was recognized at the Second Conference on
Mennonite Cultural Problems in 19*0 when an Amish statement of 1939,
'%homas F. O' Dea, The Sociology of Religion (Englewood C liffs : Prentice Hall, Inc., 1966), pp. 68-69.
2^See comments of Mennonite Bishop D. D. M ille r, "Bishop Gives Thoughts on School T i l t , " in Daily Record (Wooster), March 28, 1958. The Rev. Harvey Yoder, a Mennonite Pastor of Broadway, Virginia, asserts that "the difference between the Mennonite Amish and the Amish was not nearly so marked before the day of the automobile and other marks of modern change, and before the day of the Mennonite 'awakening1 in such areas as mission work, revival meetings, and higher education." Letter to F. S. Buchanan, December 19, 1966. describing education as a "system of seduction," was used to summarize 21 Mennonite educational attitudes until the nineteenth century. Gener a lly speaking, the Mennonites and th eir Amish cousins fe lt that a basic elementary education was all that was necessary for their way of life.
Higher education was inimical to their religion, and teachers and 22 preachers were both drawn from the elementary schools. Concerning
this early seventeenth and eighteenth century attitude, Hartzler has w ritten that any education beyond the elementary years "appeared to
them as full of worldliness, pride, boasting, as well as bigotry and 27 persecution." J
It should be remembered, however, that the main emphasis of elementary colonial schools was on character training and the a b ility to read the Bible. This was also the emphasis of Christopher Dock, a Mennonite school teacher, who wrote the f ir s t treatise on pedagogy
to be published in what is now the United States. His Schulordnung of 1770 and his lifelong devotion to teaching the three R's in a
Christian atmosphere of love and humility illustrate the early
Mennonite concern with religious rather than secular learning, and
^*Don E. Smucker, 'The Influence of Public Schools on Mennonite Ideals and Its Implications for the Future." Proceedings of Second Con ference on Mennonite Cultural Problems. Goshen, Indiana, July 22-23, 19*0 (North Newton, Kansas: Bethel College Press, 19*0), p. *t6. Amish statement was quoted from Report of Committee of Plain People (Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1939), p. 33. 22 “ John E. H artzler, Education Among the Mennonites of America (Danver: Central Mennonite l*ub I i cat ion Board, 192?), p. 113.
^ H a r tz le r , op. c i t . , p. *+2. 16
with elementary rather than higher education. As late as the 1900's,
there was s t ill a deep suspicion of education beyond the elementary
school on the part of many Mennonite leaders; and those who dared
support higher education were often criticized and misunderstood as to
their motives. According to Umble, this division of opinion set the
"school group" apart from the "church group"; and neither group entirely
trusted the o th e r.^ Why the Mennonites took the attitude they did
toward education is not entirely explained by simply attributing it to
their religious beliefs. The conditions, economic and social, under
which they lived no doubt had an impact upon their thinking. In the
United States, at least, they had been oriented to a way of life which
Hartzler characterizes as simple, industrious, rural, intolerant, and
unprogressive. In a scathing indictment he charged that:
'The Faith of Our Fathers," without alteration whatsoever in principle or method, was the slogan. The past had become for them a hitching post rather than a guide post. All revelation has been given; all the good things worth saying have been said. Any new idea or method in religion was placed under taboo. Education was "worldly wisdom" and must be avoided. In industry and money making Mennonites have always
^Quintus Leatherman, "Christopher Dock, Mennonite School master, 1718-1771," Mennonite (Quarter 1y Review, XVI (January, 19*4-2), pp. 32-4*4. Even at the college level Mennonites have been concerned lest secular values displace religious values as has happened in many church-related institutions. See Ernest E. Miller, "An Effective Christian Emphasis in Education," and Paul Mininger, "Best Methods of Attaining Our Mennonite Educational Objectives," Mennonite Quarterly Review. XVI (January, 1942), pp. 3-12 and 13-22 respectively.
^Roy H. Umble, "Mennonite Preaching: 186*4—1944" (Ph.D. dissertation, School of Speech, Northwestern University, 1948), p. 240. 17
been up to date; but in religion and education the tendency has been to lag behind.26
He was hopeful, however, that the more progressive spirit which had begun to take hold near the turn of the century would lead to a more positive attitude toward all levels of education. The multiplication of Mennonite schools of all kinds since Hartzler wrote (1925) is ample evidence of an increased "progressiveness" among the Mennonites in genera I .
Smucker reported in 19^3 that the Mennonites were deeply con cerned about education and had apparently accepted it as a good. There was only one significant Mennonite group which refused to follow the trend--the Amish--and of them Smucker says: "Only the perennially intransigent Amish have an unbroken record of essential non-cooperation with the fundamental educational currents of America during the past 27 200 years." Intransigent and uncooperative the Amish may have been; but, in accord with their belief in passive resistance, there was apparently very little overt Amish opposition to the initial founding of public schools. Apart from the close parallel which one may draw between Mennonite and Amish attitudes toward education, there are only a few documented references to Amish a ttitu d e s in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
£°Hartzler, op. c ? t . . p. 35. Hartzler was a liberal Mennonite which explains, in part, his fervent denunciation of the conservative element in his church.
^ S m ucker, OP. c i t . . p. kk. It is like ly that the Amish shared in the general rural attitude
28 that book learning was unnecessary for farming people. David B eiler, an Amish bishop, reported in his memoirs that around 1802 __
. . . one did not go to school every winter for months at a time. One was satisfied with learning to read and write. It was considered that for the humble state or for the common man more was not necessary. 29
Concerning the settlement of Amish in Butler County, Ohio, around 1819,
W. H. Grubb indicated that when some Hessian Mennonites were accepted into the congregation in 1832, a sp lit eventually developed between the two groups over the use of musical instruments and the wearing of modern clothing. Grubb adds that the Amish "emphasized plainness and wore hooks and eyes on their clothes instead of buttons while the
[Hessian Mennonites] permitted freedom in dress and encouraged educa t io n ." ^ The implication here seems to be that the Amish did not encourage education and tended to restrict the freedom of their members.
*°R. Freeman Butts and Lawrence A. Cremin assert that pressure for universal education, especially in rural areas "was weak or nil" during the early part of the nineteenth century. See their A History of Education in American Culture (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1959). pp. 195-96.
^9john Umble (ed. and tran s .), "Memoirs of an Amish Bishop," Mennonite Quarterly Review. XXII (April, 19^8), p. 102.
3°W. H. Grubb, History of the Mennonites of Butler County, Ohio (Trenton, Ohio, 1916), pp. 13-1^. Note: Grubb's statements should be taken in the context of his being a Mennonite minister and his natural desire to speak more favorably of his own people. The d iffic u lty of generalizing about Amish attitudes is further heightened by Nettie Glick's claim that the fir s t school ever built in the Holmes County region was built by the Amish on an Amish farm in 1815- See Nettie Glick, Historical Sketch of the V/alnut Creek, Ohio. Amish Mennonite Church (ScottdaIe: Mennonite Publishing House, 1933), p. In a reference to the "Swiss" congregation in Wayne County in the late
1870's, Ben Douglass reported that the
. . . older ones robustly oppose the introduction of books, incline to antagonize education and Indulge in habits wholly un-American. They introduced Jhe paint ing of doghouses and the manufacture of applejack in Sugar Creek township.3'
Kollmorgen reported in 1938 that the establishment of public schools was objected to by the Amish Mennonites of Pennsylvania in the I860's;32 and in 1882, a w riter to the Herold der Wahrheit expressed the fear that too many Amish Mennonites were accepting the public schools as satis factory places for their children to receive their schooling. "Such a viewpoint," he continued, "belongs to the m aterialistic s p irit of the present age."33
In I896, Amish leader Samuel D. Guengerich of Iowa took his fellow Amish to task for sending their children to public schools, say ing that:
The righteousness which counts before God is neither sought nor found in the public or free schools; they are intended only to impart worldly
3^Ben Douglass, History of Wayne County (Indianapolis: Robert Douglass, I 878), p. 8^9. Note: The term "Swiss" could include not only Amish and Mennonites but also other German settlers of the area. William I. Schreiber is of the opinion that the reference is to the Amish. See his Our Amish Neighbors (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 21. It is uncertain whether Douglass considers the un-American habits to be the painting of doghouses and the making of applejack or the opposition to education and books!
3^v/alter M. Kollmorgen, Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community The Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 19^2), p. (&.
33joseph S to ll, Who Shall Educate Our Children? (Alymer, Ontario: Pathway Publishing Corporation, 1965), pp. 1^-16. 20
knowledge, to ensure earthly success, and to make good citizens for the state.3^
In spite of these warnings and the latent opposition to public schools, it was not until 1925 that an effort was made to establish an
Amish parochial school at Dover, Delaware. It should be added that in
1903 and 1907 Abraham S. Yoder taught private German schools in Troy,
Geauga County, Ohio, and in Madison, Ohio; but none of these schools survived although they were closely allied to Amish aims and values.
For the great m ajority of Amish parents the public schools of rural
Ohio presented no direct threat to their way of life. Not until the compulsory public school age began to impinge on Amish children in th e ir middle teens did the Amish begin to re s is t the public schools overtly. In fact, in the early 1900’s at least two Amishmen are known to have attended normal schools in Iowa and Indiana and were certified to teach in the public schools. One of these teachers, D. S. Miller, passed the teacher's examination at Burton, Ohio, and was certified to teach in Geauga County schools in 1 9 0 3 .^
From the lack of evidence which indicates overt opposition to the public schools and from the existence of some Amish certified teachers, it appears likely that the Amish in general accepted public education as an opportunity for their children to get some basic school ing during the winter months they wanted it ; besides, the program was not compulsory {an important factor to a people who eschew force and
3^SamueI D. Guengerich, Deutsche Gemeinde Schulen (1897) cited in S to ll, op. c i t .. pp. 16-17.
35Geauga Leader, April 8, 1903; Hostetler, Amish Society, p. 287. legal compulsion), and the communities in the central and western states lacked the resources with which to build and maintain church schools even if they had wanted them. The few who opposed public schooling and advocated Amish parochial schools were strengthened in their conviction (that public schools were the complete antithesis of the Amish fa ith and values) by the compulsory features of the new laws, fir s t as these laws affected the age to which Amish children were required to attend school and then as they affected the kinds of schools which these Amish children were required to attend. This minority gained strength as public education became more and more alien to Amish society. Eventually their pleas for parochial schools were heard, and the Amish began to withdraw from public schools.
The Amish, it seems, have been successful in keeping public and private education a respectable distance from their children. They have retained to the present day the educational attitudes of e a rlie r
Mennonites and perhaps of rural nineteenth century America. They have also witnessed how the Mennonites and some Amish have "progressed" in education and religion and are apparently unimpressed by what they see.37
It is possible that the Mennonite model has made them more determined to maintain their cultural and educational lag. They believe that it
36stoll, op. cit., p. 1^.
37[joseph S to ll], "Fireside Chats Number 3— In Which Are Dis cussed Hogs and Highmindedness," The Blackboard B u lletin , X (February, 1967), pp. 1^1-M+. See also M ille r, op. c i t ., p. 22. This Amish w riter comments in reference to those Amish who have departed from these ways and have joined Mennonite and liberal Amish groups: they may claim "to be a 'Blessed of the Lord' group of people," but "the regular plain people cannot give them more than their best wishes." 22
serves the purpose of keeping them in the ways of their fathers— the
old, the trie d , and the true ways.
Amish Opposition to Public Schooling
in order to preserve the old ways, the Amish have tried to stem
the tide of encroaching secularism; and they have at one time or another
opposed the principle of compulsory education as an infringement upon
their religious beliefs and as a threat to the solidarity of the group.
Some attempts have been made to link their present attitudes toward
education to the persecution they suffered at the hands of the educated
clergy in Europe. Such explanations, while they may have some
v a lid ity , are not really necessary to understand why the Amish oppose
higher education today. For them at least, there is one explanation
which is a sufficient basis for their a ttitu d e — God does not require
higher education as prerequisite for salvation! In fact, the Amish
contend that the revealed word of God emphasizes that worldly knowledge
may indeed impair one's salvation. They agree with St. Paul that men of
God cannot rely on the language of worldly wisdom when preaching the
Gospel, and with him they would ask:
Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this w or1d ?3 9
3®Hartzler, op. c it., p. k).
39i Cor. 1:20. In a letter to the Daily Record. February 5, 1958, Amishman Joseph Keim cited this scripture and I Cor. 3:16-23; Titus 2:12; I John 2:15-17, John 5:39 to support his claim that the public schools teach contrary to the Bible. Note: Scriptural citations quoted in this dissertation are from the King James Version of the Bible. 23
The Amish claim that they are not opposed to education, but they
do admit to a fear of its misuse as a destroyer of faith and Amish life
and hence make every effort to avoid anything beyond the basic three R's.
(n this they follow Menno Simon's own example. When he was accused in
155^ of despising learning in order to "ensnare the untutored and simple
f o l k s h e rep 1i ed:
I honor learnedness whenever it is properly and reverently employed. But above a ll things do I praise the simple and virtuous wisdom that is from above; for it will never perish but abide in glorious honor with all the pious in eternal life. ®
Even in such activities as religious education the Amish tend to favor
"simple and virtuous wisdom" over worldly sophistication. This may
account, in part, for the "intense and bitter" opposition which the
Amish laymen expressed toward the establishment of Sunday Schools in
Logan and Champaign counties of Ohio in 1865-66. According to John S.
Umble, they feared, among other things, that Sunday School teachings would foster pride in the children by giving them a superior knowledge
i i 1 of the Bible than that possessed by their elders. If they feared, as
Umble claims, too much sophistication in religious knowledge among
people with whom they had much in common, it should be readily under
stood why they now fear the sophistication in secular knowledge which
students are supposed to attain in a school environment which is
^^John C. Wenger (e d .), Complete Writings of Menno Simons 1^96-1561 . translated from the Dutch by. Leonard Verduin (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1956), pp. 790-92.
^John S. Umble, Ohio Mennonite Sunday Schools (Goshen, Indiana: The Mennonite H isto rical Society, 1 9 ^ 0 , p. 28. 2k
generally alien to the Amish community. They visualize public educa
tion as an instrument for inducing changes in people's values and there
fore try to avoid its baneful effect upon their children by, in some
instances, refusing to send them to the public schools or by organizing
their own schools.
These attempts to reduce the influence of the secular society
upon their children have led to frequent encounters with agents of the
secular society. Like their forefathers in Europe, the Ohio Amish
believe that when the laws of God and the laws of man co n flict, they
have no choice but to obey the laws of God. For them at least, the
education of their children according to their religious beliefs in
personal humility, deference to God's w ill, and simplicity of life
means continuation of their traditional pattern of life. Education
based on secular rather than on religious standards was, in time,
recognized as a threat, even at the elementary level, to these very
tra its which the Amish depend on to set themselves apart from the world.
While public schools were rural, locally controlled, and firmly wedded
to a general Protestant ethic, the Amish in general seemed quite con
tent to allow their children to attend these schools. Amish awareness
of the threat which the new schools posed grew as compulsory education
became universal, as consolidation and centralization triumphed over
one-room schools, and as the "old-fashioned" religious morality was
gradually crowded out by a secular morality based not on the Bible, but
on nonreligious philosophies of education. State efforts to standard
ize and upgrade the curriculum through minimum standards legislation 25
have, in recent years, placed the capstone on a system of public educa
tion whose influence the Amish have decided, perhaps belatedly, to offset
by establishing th e ir own system. The term "belatedly" is used because
one study of the Old Order Amish, H u tte rites, and Old Colony Mennonites
indicates that the degree to which a dissenting group survives is
dependent on the group's a b ility to control the educational process
and that, of the three groups studied, the Amish have had least control
and would, therefore, probably disintegrate first. In assessing the
Amish position the study observed that the Amish accepted
. . . the inevitability of the educational offen sive, but did not discover a means to control it for their own advantage. The parochial system was not s u ffic ie n t because (a) they could not con tro l it since they had no educational knowledge, (b) they were psychologically unfavorably disposed to exploiting i t . Minimal adaptation to the educa tional offensive was the defensive tack chosen by the Amish . ^
The study indicated that perhaps it is too late for the Amish to use
education as e ffe c tiv e ly as the H utterites or Old Order Mennonites have
done. Perhaps a future study may well substantiate this conclusion.
The Amish today, however, are making an e ffo rt to develop an educational
system which they hope w ill serve the purpose of preserving th eir way of
1 ife .
^2john A. Hostetler and Calvin Redekop, "Education and Assim ila tion in Three Ethnic Groups," Alberta Journal of Educational Research, V I I I , No. k (December, 1962). CHAPTER II
PUBLIC SCHOOLS--THE GROWTH OF A THREAT
In the years since Horace Mann's campaign to place upon the public schools the responsibility of fitting "the children of a
republic . . . for society as well as for them selvesthere has been
l i t t l e relaxing of the b e lie f that the American p o litic a l, economic, and social system is inextricably related to what goes on in the schools across the land. In recent years the emergence of the Soviet
Union as a challenger to United States supremacy in scientific tech nology seems to have added a note of urgency to the tra d itio n a l b e lie f
in more schooling as the panacea for national ills. The President's
Commission on National Goals in i 960 reflected this concern when it
reported that "education is essential not only to individual fulfil I- ment but to the vitality of national life"; and as evidence of the concern, one has only to consider the substantial increases in financial appropriations for education at the local, state, and especially the federal levels of government. Mann was concerned with providing some
rudimentary education for every child, and today his goals have been
*M. T. P. Mann, The L ife and Works of Horace Mann (Boston: Lee and Shepard, I 8 9I), IV, p. k.
Goals for Americans, A Report of the President's Commission on National Goals (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, I960), p. 81.
26 27 largely achieved. The problem today is not simply getting the children into school, but keeping them there until they are almost eighteen years of age. Just as the absence of basic education was viewed as a threat to the economic and social order in the 18^+01 s » so the "dropout" problem is viewed as a threat today; and over the past half century there has been an increasing emphasis on the role of state and federal government 3 agencies in providing for the educational "needs" of America's youth.
During this time, too, the emphasis has shifted from localized control of schools to state and, some fear, federal control. The extent of this federal control over the nation's schools is s t ill a moot question; the extent of state control is very real, however, and, in the minds of some, presents as much a threat to freedom as that posed by financial aid and curriculum development at the national level.
Of course, the involvement of the state governments in the formal schooling of children was not achieved with one legislative act.
Indeed, in spite of strong ideological commitments to public schools, the school laws adopted in Ohio during the fir s t half of the nineteenth century were permissive in nature, lacked compulsory features, and were I. generally viewed as guidelines for the benefit of local control groups.
M iller contends that the state government's participation in educational a ffa irs was limited to l i t t l e more than encouraging local e ffo rt by legally recognizing the schools but taking "no responsibility or
^David L. Angus, "The Dropout Problem, An Interpretative History" (Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1965).
^Edward A. M ille r, The History of Educational Legislation in Ohio from 1803 to 1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1920), p. ]]k. 28
initiative for establishing, supporting, or controlling such schools.
Citing Orth, Bossing claims that much of this opposition to centrali
zation of control stemmed from the heterogeneous nature of the inhabit
ants; isolated as they were in smaii communities the d iffe re n t groups
(such as Catholics, Presbyterians, Moravians, and Congregationa1ists)
tended to perpetuate in th e ir locale th e ir own trad itio n a l views of
education. The presence of these divergent views fostered two different
ideals of public education in the state--parochia1 and free school—and
also led to opposition in the legislature when public school needs were
considered.^ For a number of years
. . . the state catered to the foreign element, allowing the study of German in the public schools as a substitute for English; and parochial schools in some of these areas remained u n til the middle of the century the only schools open to the youth.^
In the rapidly expanding urban areas, however, attempts were
made over the years to give public schools more than a nominal place in
society; and as the United States rapidly changed from an agriculture to an industrial orientation, the public schools became an increasingly
* lb id . , p. 75.
^Nelson L. Bossing, "The History of Educational Legislation w* Ohio from 1851 to 1925," Ohio Archeological and Historical Society Pub 1icatio n s. XXXIX (1930J7 p. 86.
^Cited in Bossing, op. c ? t .. pp. 85-86. Similar conditions apparently existed in Pennsylvania; and in 1810, Nicholas Biddle advo cated that a comprehensive system of d is tr ic t schools be established for a ll children in order to appeal to German P ietists who might object to state-wide common education. See Rush Welter, Popular Education and Democratic Thought in America (New York: Columbus Press, 1962)", p. 3! • 29 8 integral part of the national scene. North indicates that the people who populated the western states in the years 1815-1860 put a high value
on educational investment; and because of this, they were able to take
advantage of the agricultural and industrial opportunities which the
West offered in the decade preceding the C iv il War. This investment in
“ s k ills , knowledge, and technology" in early years established a firm
base upon which the western economy could develop and come to fruition
in the post-Civil War decades.^
Compulsory Education
Although attempts were made before the Civil War to put a com
pulsory school law on the Ohio statute books, it was not until the
1870's that such a law was passed; and not until the 1890's was there
a law which could be adequately enforced. In 1857, the Ohio Commis
sioner of Schools advocated a compulsory school law; but a resolution
introduced into the legislature recommending such a law failed of
adoption. Another effort was made in 187*+, but once again the legisla
ture refused to pass the b i l l . The f ir s t compulsory school attendance
law was-enacted without any debate or public response in 1877, but it
remained largely inoperative and required only that children between
eight and fourteen years should attend school for twelve weeks of the
year (six of which had to be consecutive). The second compulsory
Q Bossing, op. c i t . . pp. 90-9*+; Lawrence A. Cremin, The Trans formation of the School; Progressivism in American Education 1876-1957 (New York: A lfred A. Knopf , 1961), pp. 12-1*+.
^Douglass C. North, The Economic Growth of the United States 1790-1860 (Englewood Cliffs; Prentice Hall, 1961), pp. 9, 153, 155. 30 school attendance law— passed in l889--was taken more seriously and was the first in a long series of legislative acts aimed at increasing the compulsory length of time children should spend in school.'® In fact, almost every session of the legislature from 1889 to 1925 dealt with some phase of compulsory school attendance. In 1910, for example, only those children who could pass a fifth-grade competence test were allowed to leave school; and in 1913 j the legal age for boys leaving school was raised from fourteen to fifte e n , and a year later the age for girls was raised from fifteen to sixteen. This gradual increase in the state's use of its power to compel attendance reached its apogee in 1921 when the Ohio General Assembly passed the Bing Act which raised the compulsory age of a ll children to eighteen and "thereby v irtu a lly required high school graduation of the average c h ild ." ''
There was apparently little public resentment over the new requirements of the Bing Act although the Association for Retrenchment in Public Expenditures campaigned against the law calling it "the most shameless piece of school g ra ft ever foisted on the people" and assert ing that the increase in the school age from fourteen to eighteen was a 12 device for giving employment to truant officers and teachers. Efforts to amend the law and reduce the age from eighteen to sixteen were defeated in 1927, and in the same year the Supreme Court of Ohio
'°Bossing, op. c 't . . pp. 135-^7.
" ib id .. p. li+7. 19 ^Excerpts from "Sanctified Squander" as quoted in "Attack on School Expenditures," The Elementary School Journal. XXVIII (December, 1927), pp. 250-51. 31 declared Ohio's compulsory education laws constitutional and so they
13 have remained. J
It has already been mentioned that industrial expansion was generally dependent upon an educated labor supply. This relationship, however, did not make industry an avid supporter of compulsory education.
In fact, for many years children were exploited by industrial society until labor leaders like Samuel Gompers and social c ritic s like Jane
Addams convinced the industrialists that the use of children in industry was in efficie n t. Beginning in 1886, the American Federation of Labor became a supporter of compulsory education for humanitarian as well as practical reasons and helped stimulate the climate of reform which led I/4. to the compulsory education laws and child labor laws of the 1920's.
For whatever reasons the people of Ohio accepted the new laws and apart from the instances cited above, it was accepted that the state had an obligation and a right to compel attendance at some school up to the age of eighteen. The pace at which compulsory high school educa tion became a mass institution after I 89O is dramatically portrayed by
Richard Hofstader:
Advocates of the public high school had strong moral and vocational arguments, and the legal basis for their proposals already existed in the common- school system. Shortsightedness and mean-spirited tax-consciousness stood in their way, but not for
^Paar v. S ta te , 117 Ohio State 23. The parents in this case objected to their child attending public school because of her ill health.
’‘•Welter, op. c?t . . pp. 187-88; Bernard Mehl, "Education in American History," in George F. Kneller (ed.), Foundations of Education (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1963), p. 23. 32
long. The number of public high schools began to rise with great and increasing rapidity after i860. From 1890 (when usable enrollment figures begin) to 19^0, the total enrollment of the high schools nearly doubled every decade. By 1910, th irty -fiv e per cent of the seventeen-year-olds were in school; today the figure has reached over seventy per cent. At this tempo the high school has become an institution which nearly a ll American youth enter, and from which about two thirds graduate.'5
Centralization and Consolidation
Almost parallel with the efforts to compel attendance at schools, there developed in Ohio an increased awareness of the need to make public school administration more efficient; and as early as 1853, legislative attempts were made to make the political township rather than the school district the unit of control. This early attempt at centralization was opposed as a measure which would give too much power to one man, and the legislature recast the act in favor of district control. Local autonomy was held sacred in Ohio as elsewhere in the
United States, and the local district remained the unit of control throughout most of the nineteenth century. A county and state system of schools remained an unrealized dream for a ll but a few educators 16 until the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century.
The large number of autonomous school d is tric ts lent weight to the argument in favor of centralized school units based on larger geographic units, just as the number of schools proliferating the Ohio rural land scape lent weight to the need for more e ffic ie n t and effective school
^Richard Hofstader, Anti- Intel1ectua1 ism in American Life (New York: Vintage Books, 1966), p* 325.
'^Bossing, op. c i t .. pp. 88- 89. 33 organization. Not until 1913* however, was there any attempt to come to grips with both problems on a state-wide basis. In that year emergency legislation was passed setting up an Ohio School Survey Commission whose duty was to gather information which would guide legislators in formula tion of new school laws. This survey was designed to cover 659 rural schools, 9,000 schoolrooms, and 395 school systems within the state of
Ohio and was needed, in the words of the act, for "the immediate preser vation of public health, safety and welfare."^ Governor James M. Cox approved the formation of the commission in March 1913, and the report became the basis of an extensive reorganization of Ohio public schools initiated by a special session of the legislature in 191**. The estab lishment of the county district with broad controlling and policy making powers and the p ra c tic a l e lim in a tio n o f s u b d is tric ts transformed the 18 sixty years' struggle over the control of the public schools.
Allied to the movement to centralize school control was the movement to consolidate and centralize the schools themselves. The
191^ commission recommended that whenever practicable one-room rural schools should be closed because the educational return from such schools was extremely meager and that they were too often characterized 1 Q by "monotony, dullness and lack of spirit." * In addition, the report indicated th a t the low pay and poor working conditions made it d i f f i c u l t
^Ohio S tate School Survey Commission, Report to the Governor of Ohio (Columbus: Ohio State School Survey Commission, 191*0 , F* xi i .
*®Bossing, op. c i t . . p. 110.
19 Ohio State School Survey Commission, op. c i t .. pp. 290, 299. 3^
to attract and keep capable teachers. In spite of this criticism,
however, the commission acknowledged that in some instances perhaps the
one-room school might be most appropriate, adding:
Wherever the one-room school is the most p racti cable, and this is often the case, it should be the best possible one-room school. A good one-room school may be made e ffic ie n t and is always better than a poor or fair graded school.^0
This reorganization of Ohio's schools was credited with moving
the state from a position of being noted nationally for its inadequate
one-room rural elementary schools and second and third rate rural high
schools to a position of national esteem for the way in which "good"
schools had been put within the reach of a ll children. According to
George M. Morris, the Rural School Supervisor, Ohio had 50 consoli
dated and centralized schools in 191^; and by 1925» this number had
increased to 598 consolidated and 425 centralized schools--a twenty
fold increase in the number of larger schools. In the same period the
one-room schools were reduced from a total of 9,489 to 5,522, which
meant that the one-room schools were being closed at the rate of a 21 l i t t l e more than one each day between 1914 and 1925. The 1925 report
noted that while some counties could be excused for not consolidating
their schools faster because of road conditions and lack of finances,
2QIb id ., p. 299.
2 i ^'George M. Morris, "Centra 1ization and Consolidation of Schools in Ohio" (Columbus: State Department of Education, July, 1925), pp* Note: A centralized school is defined as one which supplants a ll other schools of a school d is tric t and takes in all elementary and secondary pupils. A consolidated school is defined as any village or rural school which supplants one or a few of the schools in a d is tric t. 35
many of the counties were failing to consolidate for no good reason.
Among these latter were twenty-three counties including Wayne, Stark,
and Hoimes--counties with large Amish populations. It should not be
inferred, however, that the Amish alone were to blame for the slowness
of reorganization of the schools. Many counties with no Amish were
slow too; and Geauga, in spite of its large Amish settlement, was a
leader in meeting reorganization demands. It would appear that the
Amish simply reflected the typical bias of many rural Americans to the
process of consolidation and centra 1ization--rura1 prejudice against
innovation and contentment with the old ways were favorite targets of
22 consolidation and c e n traliza tio n conscious schoolmen.
In the years since 1925 the process of consolidation has con
tinued with the general tendency toward larger geographic school
districts and increased number of students in each district. Blackburn
in his study of the reorganization of Union County schools recommended
reducing the number of districts from fifteen to four and cited eight other studies dealing with school reorganization in Ohio, most of which
had as th e ir objectives the elim ination of one-room schools and the
upgrading of the offerings in high school. According to Blackburn, all of these studies reached the same general conclusion:
The reorganization of smaller schools into larger units provides better educational opportunities through an enlarged and broader curriculum, and a more econom ical ar.d e ffic ie n t system is possible.23
22A. B. Graham, "Centralized Schools in Ohio," The Agricultural College Extension Bulletin. IV (February, 1909), pp. 21-22.
23F rank M. Blackburn, "A Study of the Public Schools of Union County with Recommendations for Future Organization" (Master's thesis, The Ohio State U niversity, 1951), p. k. 36
In 1966, the Committee for Economic Development issued a report dealing with the problems involved in financing and administering the m u ltip lic ity of local government agencies in the United States. While
lauding the progress which had been made in reducing the number of school d is tric ts by 75 per cent since 19*+2, the report pointed to the fact that of the 25,000 independent school d is tric ts now in existence over 3,000 of them
. . . do not maintain schools, having no children of school age or sending th e ir few to other d is tric ts on a tuition basis. Such districts exist primarily to avoid or minimize school taxation. About half of all independent school d is tric ts have less than 50 pupils, but these small units account for only 1 per cent of public school en ro llm e n ts.^
Calling for a complete restructuring of traditional local government units, such as the creation of enlarged counties, the report recom mended that the trend in the consolidation of school d is tr ic ts should be continued until every unified school system has a student population o f at least 1,500 in grades 1 to 1 2 .^ In Ohio the trend is also toward fewer and larger administrative districts, although at a somewhat slower ra te — between 1 965 and 1966, the number of school d is tric ts in the state was reduced from 738 to 712. In 1966, the 106th General Assembly furthered the work of consolidation by authorizing the State Board of
Education to prepare a master plan for the reorganization of Ohio school districts. The plan called for an Administrative District of no
jL Committee for Economic Development, Modernizing Local Govern ment to Secure a Balanced Federalism (New York: Committee for Economic Development, 1966), p. 31•
251b id . . p. kl. 37
fewer than 3,500 pupils in grades 1 to 12 and an Area Education D istrict
which would serve as "an umbrella over a geographically or socio
economically related group of Administrative Districts with a base of 26 at least 35,000 pupils." The Area Education D istrict is seen as an
aid to the smaller units in providing special services to meet the needs 27 of "an increasingly urbanized, technological society." The committee
noted that in order for the schools to keep pace with the times,
. . . an adequate, soundly financed, efficiently organized and responsive operational unit is essential. We cannot expect a horse and buggy concept of school organization to succeed in a je t age. We must place at the disposal of our schools and our teachers the resources--both in pupils and funding— to design and make operational a comprehensive instructional program to prepare youth for effective citizenship and em ployability in our new age.28
Minimum Standards
The pressure to keep pace with the times seems also to have motivated the reorganization of Ohio's state education office in 1955.
In that year the voters of Ohio approved a constitutional amendment which made the Department of Education a separate agency and laid the basis
for the establishment of a State Board of Education whose main function would be to give "guidance and direction" to Ohio's schools. If the
state could compel attendance at schools, consolidate and centralize
^"Committee Report on the Master Plan" (Columbus: State Board of Education of Ohio, January 9, 1967), pp. 5-6.
2?lbid.
2^ lb id . The choice of the words "horse and buggy" is interest ing in view of the state's smouldering dispute with the "horse and buggy" Amish. 38 schools and districts, then it was a simple extension of these powers which gave the State Board of Education the authority to "formulate and prescribe minimum standards to be applied to all elementary and high schools in this state for the purpose of requiring a general education of high q u a lit y ." ^ These standards were meant to regulate not only the curricular offerings of the schools, but also teacher certification, school administration, and even guidance and custodial services.
The intent of the new code was to upgrade educational practices
in Ohio, but some people interpreted them as an insidious first step
toward the abo litio n of private schools in Ohio. This was the view of
Mark Fakkema, Educational Director of the National Association of
Christian Schools. Branding the state system of education as s o c ia lis - t ic— a foreign import from Prussia--Fakkema went on to charge that the present trend had been inspired by Russian Communist influences on such educators as George C o u n ts.^ For Fakkema the new code meant that unless a private school measured "up" to minimum standards established
by the public school board, it was not a school under Ohio law; and the parents could thus be prosecuted for refusing to send their children to
schoolOne principal of a small Christian school in Ohio complained
that the new code would make it impossible for her to maintain the
^ Q hio School Code. Section 3301 .07, Paragraph D.
■^Mark Fakkema, "Ohio Private Schools Confiscated by State," The Christian Teacher (May-September, 1957)* This series of three articles was later compiled as a booklet, "Pattern for Educational Dictatorship— Ohio Versus the Private Schools," and went through at least three p rin t ings under the auspices of Education Information, Inc., Fullerton, Calf forn i a .
^ * Ib id . , p. 11. 39
school. According to Fakkema, any concessions made to the private
schools were due to the influence of Roman Catholics, Seventh-Day
Adventists, and Lutherans who all had a stake in the new code's require
ments^ and saw them as a potential threat to their children's moral and
spiritual welfare.
In a speech at St. Paul, Minnesota, in September, 1955,
Cardinal Thomas McIntyre charged that the National Education Association
had as a primary goal the elimination of private schools and the
establishment of a state monopoly of education. While this might not
have been the actual intent of school* legislation, it is easy to see
why persons who are oriented toward a religious rather than a secular
interpretation of li f e might so construe i t . When school o ffic ia ls
adopt policy statements which assert that schools which are "inim ical to
the public interest" should be closed by state education departm ents,^
the immediate response of the re lig io n is t is to ask, "Inim ical by whose
standards?" For them it is inconceivable that a secular state should
set the minimum standards of a Christian's education: what he should
learn and how he should learn i t .
Secular Versus Sectarian Schooling
Each of the foregoing areas of school 1 eg islation--compulsory
education, consolidation, and minimum standards— have at one time or
* 3^Ib id . , pp. 3-*+.
330avid M. Knight, "State Regulation of Independent Schools," Amer i ca. X C III (June k, 1956), pp. 263-65- The statement alluded to was adopted as a tentative policy statement of the Study Commission of the Council of Chief State Officers meeting in San Antonio, Texas, November 29-December 3, 195*+. 40
another run counter to the value systems of individuals and groups. The
very idea of having public schools at all was even opposed as being
somehow antithetical to American individualism and free enterprise. It
seems to be the history of many innovations that while they are treated
with suspicion and caution at first, eventually they are accepted; and
far from being regarded as contrary to the American way of lif e , they
often become the norm, and any person or group challenging this newly
established norm becomes a subject of suspicion. Today, the majority of
Americans seem to agree with the general trend of American educational
developments outlined above; but there are some who remain unconvinced
that this trend toward centralization of education and standardization
of curriculum is a good thing. Roman Catholics have tried to offset the
all-pervading influence of public education by establishing an extensive
system of parochial schools and have felt that their activities are
important enough to the national welfare that they deserve some share 34 of federal education funds. Others have adopted a program of released
time from public schools for religious studies. In Utah and other western states the Mormons have established seminary buildings adjacent
to secondary public schools so that Mormon students may, if they wish,
study the Mormon fa ith each day as part of their schooling. Seventh-Day
^ F o r a summary and discussion of the religious aspects of federal aid to education see John W. Bennion, "The Formation of Federal Educational Policy in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965" (Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1 966), pp. 47-94. For a detailed treatment of the problems Involved in balancing the secular and sectarian claims in the realm of education see R. L. Osborn, "Patterns of Separation of Church and State in Relation to Education" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1961). Adventists, Missouri Synod Lutherans, and Mennonites have tended to follow the Catholic pattern and have established their own systems as countervailing forces opposed to the secular philosophy and methods of the public schools.
The opposition of these religious groups to public control of private schools rarely becomes enough of an issue to capture national headlines because they do not differ significantly in their way of life from the national norms. More attention is focused on groups which not only are opposed to the idea of public education, but who in practice run contrary to the national norms in dress, customs, occupations, and even language. Indeed, their whole pattern of life may be described as an institutionalized protest against the general society within which they exist. They exist within but make every e ffo rt to keep separate from that society. The Amish are such a group; and it is their very desire to remain separate, withdrawn, and exclusive which is at the heart of their oppositioh to the public schools. CHAPTER I I I
CONFLICT AND DETENTE
Expanding Limits
Although some Amish expressed fears of compulsory public educa tion from time to time during the la tte r part of the nineteenth century,
it was not until the second decade of the twentieth century that they began to actively oppose their children's attendance at public schools.
This opposition coincided in Ohio with the reorganization of Ohio public schools in I9IL as a result of the investigation conducted at the behest of Governor James Cox and the General Assembly.^ The earliest date known that can be assigned to an Amish dispute with public o ffic ia ls over school law requirements in Ohio is in the latter part of 191U when three Middlefield Amishmen were fined for keeping their children out of school. This incident was mentioned in a newspaper report of the case of another Amishman, Joe M ille r, who had refused to send his daughter
Mary to school in M iddlefield. M iller "after a b itte rly fought suit" was fined five dollars and costs. The newspaper commented:
M iddlefield Amishmen in great numbers were in attendance in this, their test case. They are very religious, and their belief that the earth is flat, based on the Bible which speaks of the four corners
^Supra., pp. 33-3^.
Ul ^3
of the earth, is being greatly interfered with by compulsory education. They regard their children as assets.^
As so often happens, the stress in this account was upon the strange
beliefs which the Amish supposedly had, not upon their basic desire to
be apart from the world (whether fla t or round). The fir s t superin
tendent of the newly organized county school system, Harold E. Ryder,
pushed the issue of Amish attendance at public school beyond the fourth
grade; and it was probably this which the Amish objected to more than
the modern geography lessons. Eleven years after this in itia l encounter,
Ryder wrote that until they were prosecuted (191^-15) the Amish would
not permit their children to attend beyond the fourth grade because of
religious beliefs; but, he added,
. . . after repeated arrests, their vision has expanded to include the eighth grade. It is hoped that they may be induced to expand their vision to embrace the legal limits now required for school at tendance. ^
With the passing of the Bing Act in 1921, whereby children were
compelled to attend school until they were sixteen and had completed the
seventh grade, the Amish again found themselves in conflict with the
^"Would Convince World Is Round," Geauga County Record, December 17, 1915, p. 1. This " fla t earth" belief may have been common among the Amish at one time, but the w riter observed world globes in many of the Amish schools that he visited! However, one Amish teacher, who surveyed the members of his school board on the question of whether to teach that the earth is round, reported that they responded with such statements as: " It reads that way in the geography but [you] don't need to d r ill it in." "Keep this idea adjustable." "You could mention what the Bible says to let you free." "That is what I have been taught." "Amish School Board Survey" (copy in possession of F. S. Buchanan).
^Harold E. Ryder, "The Problem of the Amish as Related to School Attendance," School and Society, XXIII (January 3, 1926), p. 17. hk
school laws. In 1922 and 1923, a number of Geauga County Amish were
involved in court proceedings over the school problem; and In February,
1923, Jonas B. Hostetler of Huntsburg was fined for keeping his son out
of school. Later that year a newspaper report mentioned that a few
Amish were leaving the county on account of the school problem.^ Some
families looked into the possibilities of relocating the Geauga Amish
in Mexico or Texas, but the climate and farming conditions in those
areas were found to be unsatisfactory and the families returned to Ohio.
The laws of the state requiring compulsory education up to the eighth
grade were accepted. To curtail the influence of the world, however,
the Amish settled in isolated areas where even if their children had to
attend public school, it would be in reality an Amish public school.^
Apparently, the Amish in Ohio compromised and sent their
children to school up to the eighth grade only a fter the public school
^Geauga Republican, February 7, 1923, p. 5-
^Geauga Leader. September 25, 1923. Note: The w riter is in debted to Mrs. Wayne Hosmer, Chagrin F alls, and Mr. James Douglass, curator of the Geauga County Historical Society, for help in locating these newspaper references. For other early comments regarding Amish in Geauga County see Geauga Leader. February 13, 1923, p. Geauga Repub Iican. October II , 1922, p. 5; December 20, 1922, p. 13.
^Pioneer and General History of Geauga County (Burton: The Geauga County Historical and Memorial Society, 1953), p. 8 9. The account of the Amish given in this work although generally fair and accurate con tains a number of factual errors, e.g., It says (p. 88) that a ll preaching at Amish services is done in high German and the children do not under stand it. In fact, the preaching is done in "Pennsylvania Dutch" or modified high German and English which the children know very w ell. The statement that after the preaching a discussion involving the whole con gregation ensues, is an error. After the preaching, testimonies to the sermon are given by other ministers; but there is no congregational dis cussion, except perhaps as part of a business meeting. bS authorities had forced the issue. Although they insist today that they have always wanted th eir children to get a basic education, they have lagged behind the general society in th e ir acceptance of eight grades as a minimum requirement. Increasingly, however, they have accepted more of the legal requirements. Whereas at the beginning of the century a few months' schooling each year and a mastery of the 7 three R's was seen as sufficient, today almost all Amish children 8 attend through the eighth grade. Although some feel that even this is too much, it has been accepted as essential for reasons of economic necessity and public good w ill if not because of a basic commitment to formal schooling. Yutzy has noted in his study of the Amish in the
Plain City area of Ohio that there has been an average increase of 2.k years in the formal schooling of these Amish since 1930; but in spite of this trend, they lag behind the rural Ohio farm population which has shown an increase of 3-6 years of formal schooling during the same g period. Another w rite r has commented that some day the Amish may accept automobiles, but only when everyone else has accepted other means
^Velma L. Leeper, "The H istory, Customs and Social L ife of the Amish of Ohio, with Special Reference to Holmes County" (Master's thesis, Kent State University, 1936), pp. 111-15; Lyle R. Fletcher, "The Amish People of Holmes County, Ohio: A Study in Human Geography" (Master's thesis, The Ohio State U niversity, 1932), p. 80. g Abbie G. E. Huntington, "Dove at the Window: A Study of an Old Order Amish Community in Ohio" (Ph.D. dissertatio n , Yale U niversity, 1957), pp. ¥+7-^8.
9 ''Daniel Yutzy, "The Changing Amish: An I ntergenerat ional Study" (Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1961), pp. 26-27. kS of locomotion!*^ Perhaps, too, the Amish in Ohio w ill accept education above the eighth grade when a thirteenth and fourteenth year of educa
tion is the general trend; they have moved somewhat in this direction with the establishment in 1958 of vocational high schools for those
Amish children who are not yet sixteen. (A few Amish have commented
that a fourth or fifth grade education might be sufficient for a farm boy, but most believe that an eighth grade education is essential to make a living today. Apparently, they have not completely escaped the contemporary tendency to equate one's success in employment with the amount of schooling received.) tn commenting upon the vocational school approach, Alma Kaufman, who was raised as an Amish g irl and is now a newspaper reporter, noted that the
. . . establishment of the schools represents a substantial concession on the part of the Amish. They have never before admitted that their children could use any formal schooling beyond grade school.^
In spite of this, all Amishmen are not yet ready to admit that their children should enroll in post-eighth grade schools--even when offered under their own auspices. The present Amish vocational high school program came into being in Ohio not because the Amish decided that such a program would be beneficial, but because the school authori ties in some counties refused to allow the Amish children to leave
lOjohn L. Nethers, "A Historical Study of the Amish People in the Holmes County Area of Ohio" (Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1959), p. 60.
**"New Amish Schools Are Serious Effort to Offer Training," Da ?ly Record, September 22, 1958; see also John Beaber, "Amish Open Door on New School Program," Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 23, 1958. *+7
school at the completion of the eighth grade while they were not yet
sixteen. In Wayne County, for instance, the practice was to have the
Amish children repeat the eighth grade until they were sixteen; but
when a local judge declared that he didn't think it was necessary to
repeat work if the children could do more advanced study, Amish parents
took this as a signal that they could leave school when the eighth grade 1 2 was completed. The result was the confrontation between public
officials and the Amish in the spring of 1958 leading to jail for some
Amish parents and also the establishment of the vocational program for 1 3 those who had completed the eighth grade. As soon as they become
sixteen years of age, the children leave the vocational program* At the
time of the 1958 controversy an Amish teacher recorded that
. . . the parents and church leaders involved in this issue have a firm b elie f that study above eighth grade is nonsense and definitely detrimental to moral and spiritual well being, especially if such school ing takes place in the usual secondary school envi ronment . ^
In Geauga County where the school authorities have allowed the
Amish to leave school at the completion of the eighth grade, no
'^"Excerpts from an Amish Teacher's Diary," February 1, 1958. (Copy in possession of F. S. Buchanan.) The w riter of this diary wished to remain anonymous.
'^interview with county superintendent, September 16, 1966. This superintendent felt that he was responsible for forcing the Amish to adopt the vocational high school program and that despite its inadequacy, it may be better than nothing. Note: Because of the contemporary nature of this problem and the fact that information was proffered in strictest confidence, the names of informants will be omitted in this dissertation.
^"Excerpts from an Amish Teacher's Diary," January 31, 1958. 1*8 vocational high schools have appeared; and very few of the Amish want
them.'5 Others have c r itic iz e d the lack of s p iritu al motivation behind
the vocational schools,'^ and some have suggested that perhaps th eir only real function is to circumvent the laws or as one Amishman expressed it , 'They may serve to pacify Amish-public school relations
to a certain extent."'^ (Of course, if the Amish now feel that more
than eight grades of schooling are necessary for vocational train in g ,
this in itself represents a great shift from their former position that
home is the best place to learn farming!)
Amish reluctance to adopt increased schooling requirements makes it d if f ic u lt to accept the contention that they have always believed "that the priesthood of all believers requires a literate and 18 well educated la it y ." H is to ric a lly the Amish have encouraged a
lite r a te membership, but the meanings they attach to " lite r a te " and to
"well educated" differ markedly from those ascribed to them by non-Amish.
The increase in years of formal education among the Amish is due more to th eir gradual acculturation than to a tra d itio n of a "well educated
la it y ." They have set d e fin ite boundaries around the term "well educated," and one of the signs of individual deviancy from the Amish
'5|nterviews with Amish, November, 1966, and February, 1967.
*^David Wagler makes this point in his Aylmer, Ontario, column in The Budget, November 2k, 1966. (The Budget is a q u as i-o ffic ia 1 Amish- Mennonite weekly newspaper published in Sugarcreek, Ohio.)
'^Interviews with Amish; le tte r from an Amishman to Mrs. W. C. Simonton, Covington, Tennessee, March 16, 1959*
^Franklin H. Littell, 'The State of Iowa Versus the Amish," Christian Century. XXCVIII (February 23, 1966), pp. 23^-35* U9 19 culture is the desire for more formal education which means in most
Amish communities simply a desire to attend a high school. At an
e a rlie r time those going beyond the fourth grade were perhaps thought
of as deviant, too.
Unwanted Horizor.s
The Amish have changed their attitudes toward formal schooling
over the past fif t y to sixty years; and they have come to accept, how
ever reluctantly, the public schools through the eighth grade. But when
new school regulations, which abolished the one-room schools and estab
lished larger consolidated schools, began to impinge directly upon the
Amish community, they once again found it necessary to draw new demarca
tion lines and to oppose the new trend.
This trend has systematically reduced the number of local school
d is tric ts and one-room schools and has led to fewer and larger d istricts
and larger consolidated schools. Ohio's local school districts numbered
1,765 in 1935; 10 years later they had been reduced to I ,*+23--a reduc
tion of approximately 20 per cent. In 1955, they had been further
reduced to l,0i+9--a reduction of approximately 25 per cent over the
previous decade. By 1966, they had been whittled down to kS5--a reduc
tion this time of almost 50 per cent over those existing in 1956. At
the same time, although the population of the elementary schools has
^ H o ste tle r, Amish Society, pp. 199-203. The writer has met an Amish bishop with an eleventh grade education, an Amish teacher with a Master's degree,and another who is an amateur cytologist with over 200 hours of college credits. The teacher with the Master's degree is well accepted by his community, but the other has had some d iffic u lty because of his pursuit of knowledge. 50
increased, the number of elementary schools has decreased. For instance,
in the decade 1956-66 the elementary school enrollment in Ohio increased from 1.3 million to 1.5 m illion, but the number of elementary schools 20 was reduced from 3,637 *n 1956 to 3,107 in 1966. It is this increas
ing tendency toward consolidation and, to them, impersonalization of the schools to which the Amish object. Nor are public school officials totally unaware of the problems which the Amish might present in the movement toward more consolidation; although the Amish are usually seen as a problem disrupting school plans, seldom, if ever, is consolidation viewed by public school authorities as a disruption of Amish life .
In 1936, a study of the organization and administration of Ohio's public schools was initiated; and in those reports dealing with the counties having large Amish populations (Holmes, Wayne, and Geauga), mention was made of the Amish as a factor which complicated the issue of the reorganization of the public school system. The Geauga County report indicated that Middlefield Township had the smallest percentage of youth enrolled in high school (6.2 per cent of students resident in township) and that this was due to Amish religious scruples against sending their children to high school. The report added that "any attempt to force these children in school causes the families to locate 21 where school attendance is not compulsory." Because of the presence of the Amish and an unwillingness on the part of the school authorities
201nformation supplied by the Ohio State Department of Education. 21 ‘' Ohio State Department of Education, A Study of the Public Schools of Geauga County with Recommendations for Their Future Organiza tion (Columbus:Ohio State Department of Education, 1937), p. 2b. 5! to force the issue, Middlefield Township was the only d istrict in the 22 county which had not been consolidated or centralized. The study
recommended further reorganization of the county leading to larger and more consolidated schools and specifically recommended that Middlefield
Township's schools be reorganized by having the three-teacher schools replace the two-teacher schools and by closing the one-room school in the northern part of the d is tric t. An alternative plan was to transport 23 all Amish children to a new eight-teacher school.
Similar problems were mentioned in the Wayne County report. In this county, however, two districts (Clinton and Salt Creek) fe ll far below the high school attendance averages of the county and the state.
In the district with few Amish (Clinton) this condition was blamed on
"poor plant fa c ilitie s or lack of enforcement of attendance laws," while
in Salt Creek (a heavily Amish populated d is tric t) it was seen as "no 2^ doubt caused by a religious factor." Significantly-, no mention was made of the Amish directly; and the report concluded with a recommenda tion that all the one-room schools in Salt Creek D istrict be closed and a large elementary school be constructed in the village in place of the 25 one-room fa c ilitie s .
221 bid. , p. 82.
23 |bid. , p p . 85-86.
24 Ohio State Department of Education, A Study of the Public Schools of Wayne County with Recommendations for Their Future Organiza tion (Columbus:Ohio State Department of Education, 1937), p. 26.
25lbid. , p. 93. 52
In the Holmes County study great emphasis was placed on the fact that the county had a large Amish population and that this fact would have to be considered in any reorganization of the county schools, 26 especially in the eastern part of the county. Generally, Holmes
County was recognized as slow in following the trend of school organi zation begun in 191 and had the same number of d istric ts in 1937 as in 27 1926. The extent to which Holmes County's consolidation efforts were opposed may be seen in the fact that out of a total of sixty-five 28 school buildings in use some fifty -fo u r were one-room schools.
Apart from vague expressions such as "religious customs" and
"religious reasons" none of the above reports apparently made any attempt to inquire as to the rationale behind these customs and reasons.
The Amish were seen as a "prob!em"--an obstacle to be overcome rather than as a group of people who differed significantly from the social norm and who needed to be understood on their own terms. Why do the
Amish then object to their children attending the public consolidated schools? Amishmen d iffe r among themselves on this question, and a more detailed treatment of their reasons will be given later in this study; but a few of the most common reasons for their attitudes might be mentioned now.
26 Ohio State Department of Education, A Study of the Public Schools of Holmes County with Recommendations for Their Future Organiza- t ion (Columbus: Ohio State Department of Education, 1937). p. 17.
27lb id . , p. 3*+.
2^lb id . . p. 47. In the early days of the consolidation movement Robert J. A lley,
State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana, said that
. . . one of the greatest factors in favor of the consolidated school is that it enlarges the neighbor hood. Instead of the old d is tric t unit of four square miles, it gives the larger unit of twenty or thirty square miles. By means of this larger unit, the petty jealousies and narrow prejudices of the old smaller unit are broken down. All the children of this larger unit become acquainted and thus enlarge their horizons.^9
The superintendent apparently failed to realize that what to him were
"petty jealousies and narrow prejudices" might involve cherished
beliefs and values to others. This statement expresses succinctly what
the Amish most fear about consolidated schools--they might enlarge the
Amish child's horizons, expand his contacts with non-Amish, and break
down his relationship with the small Amish community so that eventaully
he might not want to remain Amish. It must be borne in mind that the
Amish believe that their children's eternal salvation is at stake and
that to become non-Amish is viewed by many to be tantamount to being
lost not only to the Amish earthly culture, but to heaven as well.
The Amish believe that what parents do for their children "while they
are little boys and little girls may well influence their entire life 30 and determine where they will spend eternity." Parental influence,
the Amish believe, is lacking in public consolidated schools and is a
primary reason for Amish opposition to these schools. Huntington is of
29'The Consolidation of Schools," National Education Association Journal of Proceedings and Addresses (July 2-8, 1910), PP. 277-79.
^^The Budget, March 6, 1952. 5*+ the opinion that the Amish used the early one-room schools as places where their children would be exposed to a limited amount of the
"world,11 but where they would be concurrently surrounded by Amish friends and the influence of the Amish community in general. Thus, the
Amish could control, to some extent, the school a c tiv itie s and the 31 kinds of teachers to which their children might be exposed. Unlike their counterparts in the "world," Amish parents do not want to expand their children's horizons beyond what they feel is their God-ordained place in 1ife--membership in an Amish community.
The old style school was not only close to the heart of the geographic Amish community, it was also more in harmony with the intent and purpose of Amish rural life than the modern school. In the rural elementary schools which most Amish children attended until recently, the stress was on learning what they were told, not what they'd like to learn.
They learn what is before them and repeat it, even as their fathers learn the' Bible and repeat it in their sermons. Should the teacher be inclined to follow an interesting tangent, there is no time. The child is not encouraged to think or to develop his imagination; he is encouraged to follow instruc tions exactly and to learn what is placed in front of him. Often the subject matter has little mean ing to the child. He is learning to respect the authority of the teacher and is developing a disci plined character.by learning, without questioning, what he is told.
This approach is Jn stark contrast to modern theories of education which stress the child's involvement, c ritic a l thinking, and asking of
3lHunt ington, op. c ? t . , pp. *+31-35.
32lb?d., p. *+32. 55 questions.^ To teach an Amish child these kinds of skills strikes at the heart of the Amish belief in respect for authority. Lack of parental surveillance, removal from the cultural and geographic community, and the teaching of concepts which would be detrimental to the ch ild 's continuance as a member of the Amish community are the principal reasons for Amish resistance to consolidated schools. At stake, they believe, is their way of life--not just an abstract "religious belief" or "religious ■aL. custom." Perhaps an Ohio Mennonite bishop, D. D. Miller, came closest to expressing the Amish reasons for resisting modern public schools when he said that the Amish fear that the public schools will melt all men 35 into one and thereby destroy or fatally weaken the Amish Church.
That it is the desire of schoolmen to destroy the Amish is not claimed; however, whether by intent or accident, the public schools do function as a leveling force in society and have been used to imple ment n a tio n a lis tic p o lic ie s . For example, the Mennonftes who fled from Russia during the late nineteenth century were given an assurance by Canadian o ffic ia ls that if they settled in Canada, they would have complete freedom to educate their own children as they saw fit. This
^ S e e , for example, recent (1966-67) issues of Social Education, a publication of the National Council for the Social Studies, for articles on critical thinking and child involvement in the educative process.
^For other discussions of the references to Amish resistance to consolidated schools see Hostetler, Amish Society, pp. l**3-*+5; Elmer L. Smith, The Amish Today: An Analysis of Their B eliefs. Behavior. and Contemporary Problems (Allentown: SchIechters, 1961), pp. 213“ 1^; The Budget. December 8, 1966; Leeper, op. ci t .. p. 80.
^"Bishop Gives Views on School T i l t , " Da? ly Record. March 28, 1958. 56 they did, but only until Canadian nationalism became more vigorous; then
Mennonite educational autonomy came under direct attack. In 1918-20,
Manitoba's Mennonite schools were condemned; and th irty parents were
fined for refusing to send their children to public schools. When the
Mennonites offered to teach English and upgrade their schools, the public authorities refused to compromise and were apparently bent on destroying Mennonite private grade schools "once and for a l l . It was part of a consistent national policy aimed at the assimilation of ethnics to safeguard national unity and cultural uniformity."3^
While the Mennonites have not been subjected to such direct pressure in the United States, many of them have, over the years, adopted what the Amish believe to be worldly practices, including attendance at high school, and have suffered a concomitant loss of the traditional "sense of separation [which] was once the most characteristic
•3-7 feature of Mennonite attitudes but is now going or gone." Amishman
Joseph Stoll illustrates what he feels are fatal "liberalizing" tendencies among the Mennonites by noting that the coach at Eastern
Mennonite College had arranged a wrestling match with members of a local m ilitary academy. For a people professing a nonresistant and non- conforming fa ith , this action was viewed as inconsistent and as evidence of the detrimental influences which higher education can have on
^^Emerick K'. Francis, In Search of Utopia: The Mennonites in Manitoba (Glencoe: Free Press'] 1955), p. 186.
37S. F. Pannabecker, cited in Smucker, op. c i t ., p. 63. 57
Anabaptist principles.®® The Amish are well aware of the changes which have taken place in Mennonite life and do not wish to follow in their footsteps by introducing "higher education" into their way of life and have, therefore, resisted the consolidation movement as a step toward more unwanted formal schooling for their children and more exposure to the ways of the world.
As school d istric ts became larger and schools were further removed from the community, both geographically and in the curriculum offered to students, the Amish became just as convinced that to to l erate the public schools any longer might be detrimental to the con tinuance of the "Plain People" as a group apart from the world. The insistence that their children attend beyond the eighth grade was viewed by the Amish as one more attempt to restrict their religious freedom and destroy their way of life . One Amishman's perception of the
"progress" which has taken place in public education since the middle of the nineteenth century is illustrated in this excerpt from the Amish publication, The Blackboard B u lle tin :
About one hundred years ago the state took over the responsibility of furnishing an education, not only for its own children, but also for the children of the church. Public schools came into being and attendance was compulsory. At fir s t most of the teachers were fundamentally sound and afforded a certain amount of religious training. Text books were of the sol id kind that taught good morals and a deep respect for religion.
^®[Joseph S to ll], "Fireside Chats Number 3 — In Which Are Discussed Hogs and Hiqhmindedness," The Blackboard B u lletin , X (February, 1967), pp. l^l-l+l*; see also Robert Kneider, "Environmental Influences Affecting the Decisions of Mennonite Boys of Draft Age," Mennonite Quarterly Review, XVI (October, l9*+2), pp. 257-59. 58
As the years went by, these conditions gradually changed. A college education became essentia! for the teacher, and as the colleges deteriorated, so did the teachers. Text books became filled with foolish ness, the one-room country school with its personal touch gave way to the consolidated elementary and high schools with additional unfavorable elements. During the tender years of childhood, our children were allowed to receive their education and instruc tion in worldly schools from worldly teachers, yet it was expected that they should suffer no harm. Fortunately, the last decade has seen an awaken ing in many communities. Responsible leaders, ministers, and church-members have come to realize that if the spiritual welfare is more important than the material gains, then we must be willing to spend time and money for training our youth instead of leaving this to the w o r l d . 39
Deterring a Trend
The Amish response to the consolidation movement was in no sense a concerted effort--a sudden rising up against school officials and a mass withdrawal of Amish children from public schools: no s it-
ins, marchers, or pickets confronted the Ohio school authorities.
However, one very effective means of s tallin g consolidation proposals over the years has been the threat to vote against such measures; and according to the 1936 survey, the areas in Holmes, Wayne, and Geauga counties where consolidation was at a standstill were those largely populated by Amish people.**® Usually the Amish do not participate in
39pavid Wagler, "Education, a Grave Responsibility," The Black board Bui let in (January, 1963), in Joseph Stoll (ed .), The Cha11enge of the Child: Selections from "The Blackboard Bulletin" 1957-1966 (Aylmer, Ontario: Pathway Publishing Corporation"! 1967). pp. 65-66. The w riter has heard these sentiments expressed by other Amishmen and believes them to be typical of Amish thinking relative to public schools.
**°Supra. , pp. 35, 50-52. 59
electIons--most political issues do not involve them directly, and often they are so few in number that their vote would not influence election outcomes either way. However, when the issue does involve
them (as consolidation did) and they are a substantial part of the
electorate, they have used their franchise. In 1926, Ryder claimed
that the Amish in Geauga County were easily led by "the enemies of
progressive education" to vote down school issues; and the attempts of the Board of Education to consolidate Middlefield Village and Town
ship School D istricts in 192*t were n u llifie d by a "remonstrance"
received from the patrons of Middlefield School D is tric t--a d is tric t in
£ i I which the Amish outnumbered the non-Amish by a ratio of four to one.
In view of Amish reluctance to associate politically and socially with
"outsiders," it is doubtful that they were led by anyone but their own
leaders. They are quite capable of opposing certain issues on their own.
In 1959, for instance, the Salt Creek Township Board of Education
agreed to a State Department of Education recommendation that steps be
taken to reorganize the six elementary schools in the d is tric t so that
no more than two grades would be under the instruction of any one
teacher and thus satisfy, in part, Standard IIA of the Minimum Standards which required at least three teachers per school and no more than two
grades per classroom. The Amish parents in the d is tric t refused to
permit their children to be transported to a new school; and at a
^ R y d e r, op. c i t . . p. 17; see also Minutes of the Geauga County Board of Education, July 26, 192^+ (in the o ffice of the county superin tendent, Chardon, Ohio). 60 meeting on November 2, 1959, these "dissident parents" made it very clear that unless the board rescinded its agreement with the State
Department of Education, the parents would defeat a proposed operating
levy to be voted on the following day. On the basis of previous experience, the board members knew very well that the Amish parents could, if they wished, defeat the levy. The "dissidents" promised that
if the board would rescind the agreement, that they (the Amish) would support a bond issue to be used to add an additional room to the North
Mount Hope School so that it could meet state standards. The board yielded, the levy passed, and the school d is tric t lost state funds because of its failure to comply with state standards. Its appeal to the State Board of Education was rejected on the recommendation of a board-appointed referee on the grounds that their failure to comply was based on "nothing more than a refusal of a majority of the electorate within the d is tric t to take even rudimentary steps along the road to
fi 2 compliance.
From time to time newspaper accounts of the Amish conflict with school authorities in Ohio make mention of the Amish voting bloc as
if such voting by ethnic or racial groups was something unusual in
American politics. In voting en masse they are following a tradition in
American politics--a tradition which holds that if the group's best interests are threatened by government policies, then the use of a legal
iam A. C arroll, "Report of Referee" (Columbus: State Board of Education, February 23, i960). \ 43 franchise Is one way of protecting those interests. One reason given
for the lack of open conflict In Holmes County is the large Amish adult
vote In Holmes and a smaller in Wayne County where there has been more
co n flict. According to one report, the Holmes County Board of Educa
tion was afraid of the voting power of the Amish and preferred peace and
harmony to controversy even if some Amish were habitual truants. As the
County Prosecutor is reported to have said, "There are more Amish in kk Holmes and that is a very important practical matter."
In other counties where Amish voters are not such a significant
portion of the total county voting population, some local superintend ents have reported no pressure from the Amish at the polls although the
votes on bond issues are fewer in areas of Amish concentration. Accord
ing to one superintendent, the Amish "must be stirred up against *+5 someone" before they resort to voting. Another local superintendent
reported that while rumor had it that Amish were led in a campaign to
vote against an operating levy in by one man (non-Amish) who had been extremely bitter over recent consolidation moves, he personally believed that the Amish didn't vote negatIvely--they just didn't vote.^
Although they have voted in the past where they could have a bearing on
For accounts of Amish voting "pressure" see Columbus Dispatch, December 11, 19^2, p. 17; "Holmes County O fficial Says Vote W ill Prevent Attendance Act ion in Fal1," Daily Record, June 28, 1958; Huntington, op. c i t . , p. k06. ltl± Herb Michelson, "Holmes Haven for Amish--Jai1ed in One County, Freedom in Another," Akron Beacon Journal. March 16, 1958.
^-’Interview with county superintendent, Septem ber 16, 1966.
^Interview wi t h local superintendent, February 21, 1967. 62 results and some Amish have served on public school boards, the Amish appear to take l i t t l e interest in po litics generally; and even the act of voting in "self defense" has been criticized as being inconsistent with the Amish ideal of detachment from worldly a ffa ir s . ^
Factors Provoking Conflict
Beginning in 191*+ and continuing on until today, the Amish- public school controversy in Ohio has smouldered f it f u l Iy--sometimes bursting out into direct prosecution of the Amish for failure to comply with current school laws; much of the time, however, the public officials have "winked" at Amish intransigence either because they respected the
Amish beliefs or wanted to avoid controversy for personal or po litical reasons. Certainly in Ohio there has been no uniform method of handling the "Amish problem" among local schoolmen who often express the view that the state school office should have a specific law to resolve the situation; the state school office retorts that there are laws, but the
local authorities must see that they are enforced. Because of this
"local option" the Amish have found some counties to be virtual havens from prosecution while other counties have been centers of open
Ln 'Wagler, op. c i t .. p. 67. Hostetler notes that there has been a decrees i nq tendency among the Amish in general to vote in national and state elections while Huntington notes that among the central Ohio Amish there has been an i ncreas ? nq tendency to vote, especially in local elections. See Hostetler, Amish Society, p. 151; Huntington, op. c it., p. *+02. The former governor of Ohio, Senator Frank J. Lausche, claims that no group of people in Ohio have attempted to pressure the legis lature and governor less than the Amish (letter to F. S. Buchanan, August 2*4, 1966). 63 ho controversy. The difference in local attitudes toward the Amish is even reflected in scholarly studies of the problem: Ralph Ely's study of Wayne County Amish concluded that the Amish must be "democratized11 and compelled to attend according to the law. On the other hand, John
Wrentmore's study of Geauga County Amish concluded that the public schools d o n 't meet Amish needs and th at the program should not be fo rc e f u l l y imposed on th e m .^
While the controversy in each area has taken different forms as far as the details are concerned, a common strand runs through each confrontation. All of the disputes involved sincere Amish men and women who refused on religious grounds to obey state taws concerning their children's attendance at an "acceptable" school for the mandated number of years. They also involved sincere public school officials who felt obligated, on legal grounds, to enforce the school laws which the
Amish refused to obey. In addition, some seem to have been motivated by a genuine concern for the future well-being of the Amish children in terms of vocational opportunities. These were the two principal themes in the disputes, but there were contributing factors which should be considered in order to gain perspective on the "Amish problem" as it is
Lg Michelson, op. c i t . The superintendent of Hardin County believes that the prosecution of Amish in his county has had the appar ent effect of discouraging any new Amish moves into the area. Interview with county superintendent, August 27, 1966.
^^Ralph Ely, "A History of the Amish People of East Union Township, Wayne County, Ohio, with Special Emphasis on Educational Problems" (Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 19^+2); John Wrentmore, "A Proposed Program of Education for the Amish People of Middlefield Township, Geauga County, Ohio" (Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1939), p. 88. 6k
sometimes c alled . Each major confrontation seems to have been charac
terized by some of the following conditions:
1. The existence o f nonlegal verbal agreements between the Amish and some local schoolmen which the Amish accepted at face value and believed permanent.
2. The turnover in school personnel at both local and state levels of government.
3. Local pressures upon school authorities to enforce school laws indiscrim inately because of p o litic a l, economic, or personal considerations.
k. Increased involvement of the state in local school d is t r ic t s .
5. The lack of clear-cut legal guidelines for the implemen tation of state standards upon private schools.
6. A general lack of sensitivity on the part of school authorities to the Amish religion and pattern of life.
7. Intransigence on the part of the Amish even when no religious principles were involved.
8. The absence of dialogue between the Amish and the school author i t ies.
The above are among the principal ingredients of the Amish school con
troversy. Like almost every controversy over public policies and their
impact on the individual, it is impossible to explain this one in simple
black and white terms; but the following discussion of certain aspects
of the conflict may serve to illustrate the complexities involved in the
dispute between the Amish and public schooling.
Verbal agreements *
For many years the Amish-public school conflict has been actually
avoided in some areas of Ohio by the existence of verbal agreements
between Amish leaders and the school a u th o ritie s — agreements which allowed the Amish certain p rivileg es, such as retention of a one-room
country school, in return for Amish support of bond or consolidation
issues at the po lls. Such agreements, however, had no legal basis and
became extremely tenuous when the local school authorities were replaced.
They became even more d i f f i c u lt to uphold as the state of Ohio became
more involved in the financial affairs of local school districts and
local d is tric ts lost some measure of th eir previous autonomy. Indeed,
one might argue that the Amish conflict with public education (or visa
versa!) has increased in proportion as the local district's autonomy has
been decreased by the appearance of larger school d is tric ts and a vastly
expanded, and fin a n c ia lly more powerful, state school system.
Wrentmore in his 1939 survey of the practices of Ohio school
superintendents involved with the Amish noted that in the counties with
only small Amish populations (Trumbull, Stark, and Wayne) there was a
strict enforcement of school laws. The Amish children in these counties
had to complete the seventh grade and be sixteen years of age before
leaving school. In some instances (i.e., Trumbul1 and Stark) this
resulted in Amish youths attending high school for one year before dropping out. In Wayne County some Amish parents failed to enroll their children until they were almost seven years of age, thus assuring that
they would be almost sixteen years of age when they completed the eighth grade. Few ever attended beyond the eighth grade; and when they
5<>rhe state's unwillingness to give consideration to local conditions (i.e ., the Amish) is illu s tra te d in the Salt Creek Township incident. Supra.. pp. 59“60. 6 6 did, it was for on!y part of the year."** According to Wrentmore, in those lo c a litie s where the Amish controlled the elections (Holmes,
Tuscarawas, and Geauga) "the law plays little part and [Amish] children usually never attend high school, leaving school upon the completion of CO the eighth grade, regardless of age."^ In Holmes County, Superintend ent Joseph Deetz reported that the Amish agreed that "as soon as possible," the one-room schools would be replaced by two-room schools and 53 a ninth grade would be added to the curriculum. An agreement allowing the Amish to leave school a fte r they had completed the eighth grade on condition that they attended school regularly was also reached in Geauga
County. A local superintendent there has noted that some people feel that another condition should have been attached to the "agreement," namely that the Amish would support a ll public school bond issues in the future in return for the favor extended to them, while another schoolman in the same county asserted that an agreement was actually reached in
C/l which the Amish agreed to stay home on election days.
These "gentlemen’s agreements" although not binding in a court of law were nevertheless accepted by the Amish at face value. The
"Plain People" are not much given to legalistic agreements; their simple society is bound together by nonverbal agreements in business and
5'wrentmore, op. ci t .. pp. 72-73.
52lbid. . pp. 73-71*; see also Ely, op. c it.. pp. 33-3^i for account of what he ca lls "horse-trading" in Wayne County in 1936 between Amish and local school board.
53 I b id ., p. 7*+.
^ In te rv ie w s with county superintendents, November, 1966, and February, 1967. religious affairs--many church districts do not have a written Ordnunq-- and it is therefore easy to understand why they would accept agreements made in good fa ith between their leaders and the school authorities.
The problem involved with such agreements is that on the one hand the
Amish regard them as permanent solutions; on the other hand the school men regard them, at best, as only temporary expedients. One superin
tendent predicted in 19^*2 that these informal agreements would lead to
trouble if the State Department of Education insi-sted on the elimination 55 of the one-room schools at a future date; the prediction was borne out by the events of the following decade.
When Superintendent Ely of Wayne County told one Amishman that as superintendent he had a legal obligation to the state to enforce state school laws, the Amishman reportedly said, "But how's the state 56 gonna know we're breakin1 the law if a guy like you doesn't tell them."
To the Amish there is no wrong involved in a superintendent "winking" at
the le tte r of the school law because they believe that in so doing he is actually fulfilling a higher law--that of God. Through the centuries
the Amish and their Anabaptist forebears have been urged by their
leaders to respect and pray for the civ il authorities, but they have always reserved the right to peacefully dissent when they believe that fundamental issues are involved. They fa il to realize the need which
the bureaucratic structure has for s tric t adherence to rules and
^ E ly , op. cit.. p. 33.
^Ralph Stayer, "Ralph's a Scrappy Diplomat," Akron Beacon Journa1, February 23, 1958, p. 31. 68
regulations even though these may work to the detriment of individual needs. The bureaucracy is equally stymied by its fa ilu re to realize the religiously oriented group's dependence on the "law of God" even though such law may run counter to the smooth functioning of society . ^
Changes in personnel
In a number of instances the beginning of a new drive against the Amish has coincided with the appointment of a new superintendent or other responsible o ffic ia l, e.g ., Geauga, 191^-15; Wayne, 19^2;
Holmes, 1951; Hardin, 195*+; Wayne, 1957. The state became more involved with the Amish when a new State Department of Education was established
in 1956. As has been noted, the informal agreements between the Amish and the school authorities were actually only temporary expedients.
They could not, therefore, be the basis of an enduring and consistent policy toward the Amish and were especially vulnerable to changes in school personnel. Amish leaders have become sensitive to the problem which this turnover presents; and in areas where there has been re la tive peace, changes bring anxious inquiries regarding the continuance of the old policies.-’® Sometimes the old policies are continued, but often a new superintendent may be inclined to resolve the "Amish problem" by impartial application of the law as he is legally required to do.
57ft0bert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure {Glencoe; Free Press, 19^9), pp. 197- 200.
58| nterviews with Amish and public school o ffic ia ls , November, 1986, and February, 1967. See Superintendent D. Jividen's letter in Appendix J. In Hardin County, for example, the Amish b u ilt their own school
on the strength of an opinion from the Ohio Attorney General that no
permission was necessary and that a ll they had to maintain was an
"equivalent" education for the Amish children. The local school super
intendent was favorably disposed toward having the Amish s e ttle in his
county and encouraged their efforts to establish their own school, and
the local Board of Education gave them "permission" to establish a
school (legally such permission was unnecessary) under the provisions
mentioned by the Attorney General. The matter was further complicated
by the superintendent te llin g them that th eir teacher should be simply
"a person of some intelligence . . . more advanced in years than the
pupils and much more mature in judgment No attempt was made to
explain what "equivalent" education meant, but it is doubtful that the
Amish would ever have agreed if they had been told that it meant that
they must have the same instructional program as the public schools in
Hardin County. Apparently, the superintendent did not push them on this
point. They wanted to establish their school to get away from such worldly influences as the public school curriculum, and they had moved
from Wisconsin and Indiana in 1953 for this purpose. A new superintend
ent took office in 195*+; shortly thereafter at a special session of the
Hardin County Board of Education the resolution of August 6, 1953, was
rescinded,^® and the newly appointed school superintendent began
C Q -'-'Letter from Superintendent Frank C. Ransdell to Alvin Lambright, Kenton, Ohio, August 5, 1953*
^Resolution of Hardin County Board of Education, March 1, 1955. (A copy of this resolution and the one of August 6, 1953, are reproduced in Append ix H. 70
proceedings to force the Amish to comply with the school laws. The
children attending the Amish school were declared truant, and their
parents were arrested and fined for failure to send their children to
school! The school which the old superintendent had helped them
establish two years previously was no longer acceptable.
To a group who would rather not acknowledge that changes occur,
the reversal of the former superintendent's attitude and the rescinding
of the board's resolution of 1953 must have appeared as evidence of the
perversity of the non-Amish world. It takes years for the Amish to
change their pattern of culture, and perhaps this orientation makes
them particularly susceptible to misunderstanding the complexities of
the state of flux called "modern society." However that may be, one
aspect of the Amish conflict has been the involvement of new school
authorities who do not feel obligated to honor commitments made by
their predecessors, especially when the commitments are contrary to the
letter of the law or are depriving the district of state funds.
Local pressures
White non-Amish citizens who know the Amish often express admira
tion for their traits of honesty, self-reliance, and hard work, there is
also considerable criticism of the Amish for their use of children on
the farm, their clannishness and self-sufficiency, and their status as
conscientious objectors. These criticisms often come from people who
feel that they have reason to believe that they are suffering in some way because of the Amish: non-Amish boys fig h t in wars and are k ille d ,
Amish self-sufficiency adversely affects local business, Amish farms 71
squeeze out non-Amish farmers, and the Amish can get ahead fin an c ia lly
by using th e ir children as cheap la b o r.^ American history is replete with numerous instances of community pressure being exerted against
unpopular minorities whether they be Mormons, Catholics, Masons, Negroes,
or Jews. The reasons for such prejudice are d if f ic u lt to asce rtain --
they cut across a ll aspects of l i f e , social, economic, p o litic a l,
spiritual, and psychological. One historian in assessing the role of
the "nativist" in the anti-Mason, antI-Catholic, and anti-Mormon move
ments of the nineteenth century asserts that as he
. . . searched for p articip atio n in a noble cause, for unity in a group sanctioned by tradition and au th o rity, he professed a b e lie f in democracy and equal righ ts. Yet in his very zeal for freedom he curiously assumed many of the characteristics of the imagined enemy. By condemning the subversive's fanatical allegiance to an ideology, he affirmed a similarly uncritical acceptance of a different ideology; by attacking the subversive's intolerance of dissent, he worked to eliminate dissent and diversity of opinion; . . . by criticizing the sub versive's loyalty to an organization, he sought to prove his unconditional loyalty to the established o rd e r.^2
Perhaps some of these same tendencies existed in instances
where public pressure was brought to bear upon the Amish. C ertainly
Elizabeth Toohy, "Private School No. 1," The Nation, CLXXVI (January 31, 1953); Donald A. Erickson, "Showdown at an Amish School- house," background paper prepared for National In vitatio n al Conference on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, University of Chicago, March 28-29, 1967 (Chicago; The Conference, 1967), pp. 23-26. Toohy's article deals with criticisms leveled at Amish in Indiana; Erickson gives d e tails of dispute in Buchanan County, Iowa, in 1962. £0 David B. Davis, "Intergroup Conflict," in Edward N. Saveth (e d .), American History and the Social Sciences (Glencoe: Free Press, 196*0, p- 188. See also Gordon W'. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Garden C ity; Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958). one important factor in intergroup conflict is the extent to which the
minority group differs from accepted community norms. The Amish way of
life does d iffe r radically from that of the secular society. Indeed,
as Erickson points out, "th eir nonconformity is its e lf a mild insult 63 to the larger society.
When the Amish vote against bond issues or cause the community
schools to lose state funds, public resentment leads to pressure upon officials to take action against the Amish. One superintendent reported
that when a bond issue in a predominantly Amish d is tric t failed to gain approval on three different occasion's, a delegation of non-Amish citizens came to him and demanded that he "crack down" on the Amish whom they blamed for the fa ilu re of the bond issue. The superintendent,
however, refused to conclude that the Amish were solely to blame; he
personally conducted an examination of the poll books to ascertain the
facts in the case. The examination revealed that even if a ll the Amish 6*t had voted for the issue, it would s t ill have failed. If the Amish are lax in attending school or drop out before they complete eighth
grade, Irate parents complain to the school authorities that if the
Amish are allowed to do this, the non-Amish children w ill want the same privilege. Thus, the Amish become a threat to the community and, by extension, a threat to democracy its e lf.^ The superintendent of one
63Er ickson, op. ci t .. p. 23.
^ In te rv ie w with county superintendent, November, 1966.
^"Amish Clannishness Displeases Neighbors." Columbus C itiz e n . December 12, 19^2, p. 12. See also Ely, op. c i t .. p. 55; and tetters complaining of Amish nonattendance (in offices of county superintendent, 73 county has continued to allow the Amish the privilege of leaving at the completion of the eighth grade but admits that he never knows "when somebody is going to take me to court on a mandamus action saying that
1 must show cause as to why I am not following the letter of the law."^
In 195^-55. community pressures against the Hardin County Amish were intense; and when an Amish truancy case was tried, the defense lawyer asked for a change of venue because he contended that a conspiracy existed to drive the Amish out of Hardin County. He claimed that a petition had been circulated to get Amish out of the county; the Prose cuting Attorney had asked one Amishman, "How long w ill it take you to get out of the county?11; the sheriff of Hardin County had threatened to arrest the Amish if they didn't put rubber tire s on th eir buggies; one county commissioner had said the Amish were not good for the county and that the real estate broker who was selling farms to the Amish had been threatened with bodily harm and that cow manure had been spread on his premises.^ The request for a change of venue was denied, but it appears that enough evidence exists to indicate that some kind of concerted pressure (whether a conspiracy of not) was being brought to bear upon the Amish in the spring of 1955 and la te r in 1958. Some residents of the area put pressure on the school authorities to use the
Chardon, Ohio, and state superintendent, Columbus, Ohio). In 19^2 and 19^7, veterans' organizations spoke out against the Amish in Wayne County and in Geauga County respectively.
°°ln terview with county superintendent, November, 1966.
^ State v. Hershberger. Case #599, Record of Trial, pp. 13-1^ (in County Court House, Kenton, Ohio). substandard school situation as a lever to get the Amish out of the county because of the Amish practice of converting modern farms into prim itive farms by removing plumbing, heating, and electrical fittin g s .
This, opponents f e lt , lowered the property value of non-Amish farms in
(LQ the area. According to Mrs. Clarence Morrison, the community's Cq attitude toward the Amish in 1955 amounted to persecution.
Other public o ffic ia ls became involved in the controversy when the three county commissioners sent a le tte r to an Amishman informing him that the steel-wheeled rims of the Amish buggies and steel horse shoes were damaging the county road system. They described the problem as "a serious growing situation which we feel is demanding urgent correc tiv e action upon our part."^® The commissioners then announced that a fter March 1, I955» they intended to fu lly enforce the laws requiring lights and rubber-covered wheels on buggies. Perhaps it was coinciden t a l, but this was also the date on which the board rescinded its
"permission" for the Amish to have their own schools. The six Amish fathers involved in the truancy case were found guilty, fined, and their conviction was upheld in the Third D istrict Court. When they refused to pay the fines, their horses were seized. The Amish attorney paid the fines (anonymously), however, and the horses were returned.
^Interview with county superintendent, August 27, 1966.
^ C i rclevi 1 le Daily Herald, February 2,. 1959-
7®Letter f rom county commissioners to Bishop [sic] Lambright, February 17, 1955. The gap between the o ffic ia ls and the Amish is illustrated in this letter: the commissioners did not know Lambright's f ir s t name and erroneously addressed him as "Bishop," which he was not. 75
Occasionally, schoolmen and other public officials receive letters from Amish children asking that they be allowed to continue their schooling; or some "friend of education" writes to them drawing attention to the Amish problem and of how Amish children are being deprived of their right to have an education.^ Certainly, not all
Amish are opposed to public schooling; and there has been at least one instance in Ohio of an Amishman being excommunicated, ostensibly, for 72 sending his children to public school rather than to the Amish school.
One Amish girl wrote to a friend during one of the Ohio altercations and complained that she would have liked to have continued her school ing. She couldn't understand "why they couldn't [do] something to the other people [the Amish] before I was out of school." If the school authorities win their case, ". . . maybe some other children will start to school." She hoped "the English people will beat [the
Amish]. . . . They'll land in j a i l or some place or get a lot of fine to pay. . . . But [l] don't care it is just what they g e t." ^ One superintendent reported that at the height of his conflict with the
Amish one former member of the Old Order Amish came to him and congratu lated him for his courage in taking the Amish to task. This man com plained that he had been at a disadvantage a ll his working life because 7L, of his limited Amish education. An Amishman in Wayne County wrote
7^See le tte r from an Amish boy to Governor Michael DiSalle and letters pro and con Amish position in Appendix 3.
72,»0ecision Up to Judge in Amish School Case," Cleveland Plain Dealer. March 18, 1959-
7 3 C o p y of le tte r in possession of F. S. Buchanan.
^ In tervie w with county superintendent, September, 1966. that he was "sorry that so many Amish parents, who call themselves 75 Christians, neglect to send their children to school. The expressions of such sentiments, even though they might represent only a small m inority of the Amish, no doubt reinforced the non-Amish pressures upon the schoolmen and perhaps gave them a sense that the Amish should be freed from the lim itations of Amish schools and of Amtsh li f e in genera 1.
State involvement
The pressures from local sources were not the only ones in flu encing the actions of local school a u th o ritie s — Ohio's Department of
Education also became involved after 1955 when the state educational agency was reorganized by the General Assembly. The new State Board of
Education had wide-ranging powers to formulate and prescribe minimum standards for all Ohio elementary and public schools--both public and p rivate. The main purpose of the new minimum standards adopted in
February of 1957 was to upgrade the education of Ohio's children; but if they were put into effect, they would not only abolish the public elementary schools which a majority of the Amish still attended, they would also have an adverse effect on the few parochial schools which the Amish had begun to establish in the late 19^0's. The issue was not only attendance at s c h o o l--it was now attendance at a school which had been approved by the State Board of Education as being equivalent to the public schools in the same district! Needless to say, the Amish did
7^See "Facts," Appendix F. 77 not want to be equivalent to the general public schools--these were becoming far too modern for a simple farming people whose main goal was reaching heaven, not the moon.
The new standards were proposed and adopted at the beginning of the United States race into space with the Soviet Union. During this time America's education system was being turned inside out and c r i t i cized for its flabbiness and lack of serious purpose; as Cremin has so aptly observed, "A shocked and humbled nation embarked on a b itte r orgy 76 of pedagogical soul searching.' The state schoolmen were under pressure from national events, and it is understandable why the pleas of a few Amishmen went unheeded during the debate on the new standards.
One member of the State Board of Education, John W. Morrison, repre senting a section which included an Amish "county" did, however, invite a number of Amishmen to a public hearing in Columbus in December of
1956; and they were allowed to present their views. A number of super intendents from other Amish counties were also present and attacked the
Amish school system as "brainwashing at its worst" and charged that the 77 Amish had no regard for their children's education. The superintendent of Wayne County also circulated a fact sheet on Amish education among members of the State Board of Education. Although the heading of this sheet stated that it contained facts on Amish parochial schools "that we feel members of the State Board of Education should know before
76 Cremin, The Transformation of the School, p. 3^7-
7?Uria r . Byler, "Storm Clouds Over Ohio," The Blackboard Bui 1et i n (November, 1957) in The Challenge of the C h ild , pp. 117~19 - 78 making a decision about proposed elementary education standards," it seems quite apparent from the content of the eighteen "facts" that its real purpose was not to inform as much as it was to persuade the State
Board of Education that the Amish schools should not be allowed to operate.The minimum standards were adopted with only one dissenting vote, that of John W. Morrison; and they were proclaimed effective as of A p ri1, 1957-
Apparently aware of the d iffic u ltie s which the Amish might face, the outgoing Director of Education invited an Amish delegation to meet with board members and legislators at his office in Columbus in March,
1957- The Amish who attended fe lt that there was a frie n d lie r atmos phere in this meeting and were hopeful that perhaps some groundwork could be laid for a better understanding in the future. Once again, however, change overtook good intentions and personal relations. The new State Department of Education was not a party to the groundwork laid in March, and a new group of o ffic ia ls made plans to implement the minimum standards— standards which, if enforced, would "mean the death of the Amish school system in O h io ."^ In a le tte r to superin tendents having Amish populations the Director of Elementary and
Secondary Education, Glenn A. Rich, announced the State Department's position a few months after the standards became effective:
You may inform your Amish people that the Elemen tary Standards became effective on ApriJ 15. 1957, and that a ll schools, whether tax-supported or non-tax sup ported are obligated to meet the minimum standards.
78see "Facts," Appendix F.
^ B y le r, op. c ?t .. p. 117- 79
The proper procedure is for the County Superin tendent or the local board of education to bring suit against the parents of the children who attend a non tax supported school not meeting Minimum Elementary Standards. It is my opinion then, that the depart ment shall make an investigation and either substan tiate the findings of the local authorities or deny the findings of the p l a in t if f , from that point on, it should be up to the local courts to make a find ing. 80
Not only were Amish and other minority values ignored in this
particular piece of state legislation, but special local school circum
stances are still often ignored and local officials are seldom consulted
about new school legislation. The recent establishment of new standards
for the granting of an age and schooling certificate (requiring that
all persons leaving school before they are eighteen "complete a voca
tional education or special education program" adequate to prepare
them for an occupation) has been criticized on this score. Few counties
can presently provide such a program; but even if they could, who shall
decide what "adequate" preparation means? Some superintendents have
noted that this new leg islatio n (e ffec tiv e July, 1967) could spell
trouble for those Amish who are leaving school after completing their Q 1 own version of vocational education.
As was noted in the instance of the Salt Creek Local School
District, the state has an effective means of compelling local compliance
®^Letter to Superintendent F. R. Schofield, Chardon, Ohio, July 22, 1957- In a telephone conversation (March 7» 1967) with the writer, Mr. Rich stated that a similar notice was sent to other super intendents having Amish populations. Q 1 01 Interviews with superintendents, September and November, 1966. The new vocational education requirements are contained in Section 3331.01 of the Revised Code as amended by H. B. 950 (1966). 80
with state regulations--the withholding of state financial support.
When such pressure is applied to the local d istricts, it is natural for
the districts in turn to apply pressure locally for better attendance
because the state funds are apportioned on the basis of average daily QO attendance in the public schools. Every child not enrolled in public
school means a reduction in the d is tric t's share of school funds; and
when a d is tric t has a large Amish population of school-age children who
are not enrolled in the public schools, this may amount to a substantial
reduction in state aid. For instance, in Holmes County in i 960 the
public schools lost some $60,000 in state funds because the Amish had 83 withdrawn 370 pupils from the public schools. The involvement of the
State Department of Education directly or indirectly in the Amish
dispute has tended further to depersonalize the problem and has, at
times, made it an economic as well as a social and religious issue. In
addition, the Amish have very l i t t l e influence at the state level and
are apt to be more suspicious of the state school authorities leading
to further depersonalization and lack of understanding.
Legal ambiguities
Complicating the issue in Ohio has also been the lack of clear-
cut legal procedures and a lack of what, the Ohio Civil Liberties Union
^ Columbus Dispatch. December I I , 1942. This a rtic le stated that the Wayne County School Board had decided to enforce the school laws because they feared loss of state funds. Three Amish were jailed for refusing to send their children to Apple Creek High School.
^3pajIy Record. September 19, I960; December 15, I960. Huntington comments that "when it was discovered that there were not sufficient non-Amish children in a d is tric t to support a high school, some of the local judges started to compel the parents to send their children to school." Huntington, op. c i t ., p. 468. called "legal craftsmanshipn in handling some Amish cases. When the
Amish are "unlawfully tried , convicted and jailed without due process of law"®** or when a school board's attempt to close Amish schools is foiled because there are no laws which allow the state to close schools which do not meet legal requirements, the Amishman's almost inherent distrust of technical law is apt to be reinforced. These "technicali ties" have, of course, benefited the Amish in the long run; but they do l i t t l e to cla rify or resolve the problem posed by state school laws.
The State Board of Education can only set standards and withhold funds— the enforcing of the standards by prosecution of Amish parents is entirely in the hands of local authorities who have little discretionary power to interpret the state requirements in terms of local conditions.
Local enforcement is s t ill uneven, however; one superintendent does not believe parents should be arrested and does not know how to enforce the law, while another believes that the Amish schools should be closed and the parents jailed if they refuse to send their children to a
"proper" school.®'*
Even in the inspection of the Amtsh schools, however, the state o ffic ials supposedly erred by not following the procedures outlined in
®^See e d ito rial, "The Amish Must Go to School," in Appendix I. For a detailed discussion of the legal intricacies of the Wayne County dispute see James T. Haight, "The Amish School Controversy," Ohio State Bar Association Report, XXXI (October 6, 1958), pp. 8^6-59.
®^Minutes of Meeting, August 18, 19&0, Amish School Study Committee, Legislative Service Commission, Columbus, Ohio. One state school o ffic ia l suggested at this meeting that the Amish children could be kept in school until they were sixteen by raising the minimum school age to seven and keeping them in firs t grade for two years! The Amish were criticized for a similar practice in 1957. See Appendix F. 82
Chapter 119 of the Revised Code; and the State Attorney General declared 86 their procedure illegal 1 Later the board was told that it had not acted illegally in failing to hold hearings on the Amish schools. Such hearings were meant only for cases of schools seeking charters, and
8 7 the Amish were not interested in this. Joseph Dush, the attorney for the Amish during their Hardin County dispute, in his testimony before the Ohio Legislative Service Commission reiterated the lack of clear, legal guidelines in questions dealing with the inspection and
regulation of nonpublic schools. He believed that this lack of direc
tion a ll owed
. . . either the education people from the state or the county board to make any sort of examination they wish to make of any private or parochial school, make any findings they see fit to make, without any of the ordinary opportunities to be heard usually found when administrative procedures are undertaken.
And then he added:
Some have urged more stringent laws against the Amish. My duty here is to advise caution in that regard. The laws are already severe and open to deep seated questions and doubts. Much remains to be done before we know where our rights and our duties fit into this picture.®”
Understandably, the local officials resent being left to handle a situ ation which was created in the first place by the state. State school
®®"Amish School Inspection Is Ruled Ille g a l," Da i 1y Record, A pril 16, 1959-
®^"0hio Sends Amish School Cases Back to Holmes County," Da i 1y Record, May 12, 1959.
®®Joseph Dush, "Testimony," pp. 8-9 (in library of Legislative Service Commission, Columbus, Ohio). leaders, on the other hand, feel that if the "problem is to be solved, 89 more specific legislation will be required" --or In other words, more
state involvement w ill be necessary to enforce present state laws.
Additional legislation, however, must have as a primary goal
the c la rific a tio n of present laws and the setting up of procedural
guidelines which would protect the rights of nonpublic schools to pursue
objectives consistent with their own particular view of life and the
general welfare of the community at large. The absence of guidelines
is, in part, responsible for the enmity which has arisen between non
public schools and public school administrators in many states, for the
Ohio Amish are not alone in their challenge to the state's power to
regulate nonpublic schools and to prescribe the standards which the
schools must maintain. Their opposition is merely symptomatic of a
concern on the part of the sponsors of religious and nonreligious go private schools throughout the nation.
In Ohio some attempts were made to clarify the relationship of
the Amish to the state regulations when Representative B. A. Broughton
of Geauga County helped in itia te a study of the problem by the Legisla
tive Service Commission in 1959.^ The Commission's report of I960,
®^Letter from E. E. Holt, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, to Arthur Stevenson, Homerville, Ohio, June 28, 1962. The writer has noted a number of letters critical of the State Department's stance of " it 's up to local authorities to enforce present compulsory education laws" in the absence of detailed laws referring to minimum standards. See le tte r in Appendix J.
^^Donald E. Erickson, "On the Role of Nonpublic Schools," School Review. LXIX (Autumn, 1961), p. 338.
“^"Two O fficials Favor Helping the Amish in School Plan," Cleveland Plain Dealer. April 19* 1961. however, restricted its e lf to a documenting of various views (Amish and non-Amish) and made no concrete recommendations on how the controversy might be resolved although that had been one of the reasons for conduct-
92 ing the investigation.
John Elson suggests that statutes alone w ill not resolve problems arising out of state regulation of nonpublic schools and concludes:
A wide delegation of discretionary authority is needed in the fie ld of nonpublic school regulation, because the problems encountered are diverse and specialized and relate to a fie ld of thought which is in constant flu x. Safeguards against abuse of this discretion may be provided in administrative adjudication by certain judicial trial-type proce dures and in administrative rule-making by methods designed to promote exchanges of ideas between administrators and parties being regulated. The conflict between an effective delegation of adminis tra tiv e discretion and the provision of safeguards to prevent abuse of that discretion can be success fu lly resolved only when the nonpublic school sup porter respects the state's role of maintaining educational standards and the citizen respects the nonpublic school's role of providing an educational alternative to the public s c h o o l s . "
Such "discretionary authority" at local and state levels might have proved helpful in preventing the breakdown of communication between the Amish and the school authorities and the ensuing legal conflicts.
More basically, perhaps, such an approach as that suggested by Elson might have made room for the peculiar objectives of Amish schools in the
92"|_egis la tive Study Set Up on Ohio Amish Problems," Cleveland Plain Dealer. March 21, 1959; "State Might Call'for New Amish Study," Cleveland Plain Dealer. February 12, 1961.
^John Elson, "State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools: The Legal Framework," background paper prepared for National Invitational Confer ence on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, University of Chicago, March 28-29, 1967 (Chicago: The Conference, 1967), p. 33. 85 formulating of the school standards. Some Ohio legislators have in the past doubted the wisdom and le g ality of the state requiring the same standards of private and public schools and have questioned the appropriateness of Ohio school laws in the light of basic constitutional 9k gua rantees.
Lack of sensitivity to Amish way of life
Not only was there a misunderstanding of just how the Amish should be brought to "justice" during the 1950's, there was also a lack of understanding of the Amish way of life. During the investi gation conducted by the Legislative Service Commission in I960, one legislator asked a county superintendent to specify what points of Amish religion were in conflict with school laws. The superintendent replied that he did not understand th e ir relig io n , but he knew of one Amishman who had sent his children to public school and was "kicked out of the church.
From the writer's contacts with public officials it is apparent that l i t t l e e ffo rt has been expended to understand even the barest outline of what religion means to an Amishman. Few of the men involved
in prosecuting the Amish have ever attended an Amish worship service; and although most of them express admiration for Amish th rift, honesty, and industry, they fail to see that the Amishman's religion is not just
^"Two O ffic ia ls Favor Helping the Amish in School Plan," Cleveland Plain Oealer, April 19, I960; Minutes of Meeting, August 18, I960, Amish School Study Committee, Legislative Service Commission, Columbus, Ohio.
95lbid. 86 a series of abstract statements or beliefs about God. For the faithful
Amish there is no division between their religion and their everyday
living: ploughing and praying, reaping and reading, sowing and singing, working and worshipping— a ll are one in the Amishman's lif e . Even his church service is a true community get-together, and after the three- hour long service the congregation stays at the home for a simple
lunch and an afternoon of v is itin g . When asked where his religious
life began and his everyday life ended, one Amishman replied that he had never ever thought of the two as being separate.
It is perhaps understandable that schoolmen accustomed to the secular emphasis of modern society should fa il to comprehend Amish religion--the Amish attitude is certainly an anachronism and an insult to the highly specialized, nonreligious, technical society of today.
The gap between the two ways of thinking is illustrated in the te s ti mony of one state official who said that although the Amish claim that their religious rights would be infringed on if they were forced to measure up to state standards, he had "not seen much evidence of r e li- 96 gious instruction in the Amish schools." He was probably referring to the fact that no religious pictures were present nor was there direct teaching of church doctrines apart from reading of the Bible
(usually in German). What he failed to realize is that most Amish believe that only parents or ministers should "teach" doctrinal aspects * of their religion in home or church and that the teacher does not have authority to so teach. 87
In a larger sense, however, the Amish schools, and to some extent the one-room public schools, in an Amish community do teach religion--the practice of patience, of waiting, of cooperation, of respect. These attributes are more important to the Amish than the book learning of secular schools and are germane to Amish religion and life . The surroundings are plain and unworldly. The singing the children engage in resembles the chant-like renditions heard in the
Sunday meeting. Of course, there are no discussions about politics or whether or not their parents understand them or criticism s of Amish community leaders; nor do they glorify "reason" as the ultimate authority. Such would be out of harmony with Amish b eliefs. By excluding these things the Amish are indeed teaching their children religion— in the most basic meaning of that word--a way of lif e based on their interpretation of God's will as revealed in the Bible.
Repeatedly the writer has been told that the Amish conflict has nothing to do with rel igion--the problem lies in how the word is defined.
For the non-Amishman the term "religion" has a much more restricted meaning than for the Amishman. Without intending to, one superintendent expressed the lack of sensitivity to Amish beliefs most succinctly when he said, . . it has been well established by the courts that there is no infringement of religious freedom in these cases. It is a way of life that is involved.To the Amish such a statement is con tradictory because any infringement on their way of life, especially
■^Letter from John Lea, Wooster, Ohio, to E. E. Holt, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, June 6, 1958. 88
where the rearing of their children is concerned, is indeed an infringe
ment on their religious freedom. They do not separate the two.
The secular orientation of many educators is a barrier to their
understanding of the Amish relationship to the world, although some are
aware of the fact that the Amish fear that they w ill lose their children
if they attend public schools. The schoolmen know this but do not
understand the distress which this loss may bring to an Amish parent.
For the parent it is not simply a matter of his children becoming
"Yankee" or "English"; it is a matter ultimately of whether these
children w ill spend eternity in heaven with their loved ones or in hell
as an outcast from not only Amish society, but from the Kingdom of God.
When Henry Hershberger tried to explain this fear of the world to the
State Board of Education in 1959, he quoted from the Bible and then 98 added shaking his head, "I don't think I can make you understand."
He couldn't, and the board voted to uphold local actions against the
Amish. This basic lack of sensitivity to Amish religious values was dramatically illustrated by one state official who described a visit
to an Amish "so-called school." He mentioned how most of the children were poorly clad and had manure on their shoes, and how the schoolroom stank when the furnace got going, and of how he waited for twenty 99 minutes while they sang that "God-awful music of th e irs ." School
98"State Rules Amish Study Inadequate," Da?1y Record. January 13, 1959* One superintendent told the writer that "it was a poor religion that couldn't stand to have educated followers." Interview with county superintendent, September 16, 1966.
^Interview with state school official, January, 1967. o ffic ia ls are entitled to personal opinions, but one wonders how conducive the foregoing attitude is to an atmosphere of good w ill and understanding--essential aspects of any attempt to resolve disagreements
in an open society.
This is not to say that public school o ffic ia ls are bent on
"persecuting" the Amish--indeed, some have tried to help the Amish resolve the problems amicably; and one Amish teacher has commented that his county superintendent had come a long way in compromising "when we measure his requests with state standards. It must be remembered that they are often caught on the horns of a dilemma and are under pressure at local and state levels to "do something." Nor should the foregoing lead to the impression that no Amish ever deviate from the norms of their own group. As schoolmen and "letters to the editor" in
local newspapers continually point out, the Amish are not p e r f e c t ; ^ but this state of affairs is no less reason for attempting to understand their religion and its ramifications for their everyday existence and 102 especially its relationship to the kind of schools they attend.
*®^lnterviews with county superintendents, September and November, 1966; "Excerpts from an Amish Teacher's Diary," January 31• 1957.
^ E l y comments in his study that the Amish are shrewd "and w ill not hesitate to take advantage of others in business transactions. A few of them w ill run up b ills which they never intend to pay . . . [there are] pariahs among the Amish as well as among other people." Ely, op. c i t . , p. 23. In the file s of one county school office the w riter noted a number of news items concerning youths with Amish names who had been charged with various infractions of the law. The items were underscored in red and the term "Amish" was written above!
1 07 ^Huntington observes in her study that seldom are the Amish given the benefit of the doubt~-a boy is absent, therefore he must be 90
Amish intransigence
The Amish would probably be among the firs t to agree that they
are not perfect; some Amish have suggested that perhaps they are guilty
of failing to cooperate with school officials as wholeheartedly as they
could--as some Amish expressed the idea, " It takes two to fight" and
the Amish "get your kind of people [non-Amish] mad at them."^^ Others
have mentioned stubbornness on both sides as a source of conflict; and
editorials and letters in the Amish school journal, The Blackboard
Bui let in, have from time to time taken issue with those Amish who fail
to cooperate with school o fficials in areas where no compromise of
religious principles was involved (e.g., sanitary toilets, mature 1 (& teachers, painted buildings). Criticized, too, has been the tendency
of some Amish to feel that what was good enough forty or fifty years ago
truant--in one case a boy so judged was found later to have been very i l l . Huntington, op. c i t . . pp. 71 -80. When the writer mentioned to one superintendent that the Amish seem to have a high rate of attendance at school according to the reports they send in, he retorted that the reports are not accurate and there is no way of checking them. Inter view with county superintendent, September 1^, 1966. The secretary in one county school office reported, however, that there seemed to be an inordinate number of illness excuses among Amish children until they become sixteen; and a number of Amish have expressed concern to the writer over the tendency of some Amish parents to be lax on attendance and allow their children to stay out of school for triv ia l reasons.
'^interviews with Amish, February, 1967.
'^Joseph S toll, "Cooperate? Most Certainly! Compromise? Never!" The Blackboard Bulletin (February, I960), in The Challenge of the Child, pp. 120-22; Uria R. Byler, "Half-way Measures Are Not Enough," in The Challenge of the Child, p. 126; "Excerpts from an Amish Teacher's Diary," January 29, 1957. Some Amish do feel, however, that if the children have fancy school buildings, they'll grow up expecting the same accommodations at home. Among the "Nebraska Amish" it is cus tomary to leave barns and sometimes houses unpainted, so even painting a school could have religious overtones to a few Amish. See Hostetler, Amish Society, p. 238. ( i . e . , a fourth and f if t h grade education) is good enough today and
that the Amish children don't need even an eighth grade education.
While the public authorities may be gu ilty of fa ilin g to understand
Amish values, the Amish themselves have often failed to understand the
importance of satisfying some minimum requirements such as having an
adequate physical plant and capable and mature individuals as teachers
in their schools.
One Amishman who had taught in an Amish school for six or seven
years was highly respected by the public school authorities; and the
superintendent felt that if all the Amish teachers were like this one,
there would have been very l i t t l e conflict.Because this man had
taken some college courses by correspondence he was suspect, however;
and the Amish did not u tiliz e his a b ilitie s as they might have done.
Indeed, at a tr ia l in Hardin County the prosecution asked the Ohio Amish
school representative why the other Amish teachers couldn't be like this
one. He replied that education didn't make a man a good teacher and
that this particular teacher was no better than the others; in fact,
he had not been hired again as a teacher because he couldn't keep 1 06 discip lin e in the classroom. According to the teacher, however, he
was asked to teach but refused, partly because of the lack of coopera
tion from the Amish commun i t y . In one instance he was asked to
^ 5 j nterview with county superintendent, September, 1966.
^Q^State of Ohio v. Perry G I?ck. Case #27884, Record of Trial (in Hardin County Court House, Kenton, Ohio).
1 07 /"Excerpts from an Amish Teacher's Diary," February 5, 1958. 92
recommend a man to the school authorities for a teaching responsibility which he f e lt the man could not measure up to, but "he is in quite good standing in the church, which I imagine is the main reason they want
himu- to * teach." * u ..108
While the Amish insist that education doesn't make the teacher, many of them are apt to feel that orthodoxy in belief does. Rigidity
in either position can be equally harmful and increases the likelihood of further misunderstanding with school authorities. Huntington asserts that the public school authorities have not yet learned how to work through the informal leaders in the Amish community in helping
the Amish to see the values of more education. Often they mistreat 109 these "educated" Amish, and education suffers a setback. While this
is probably an accurate observation, the Amish must also bear some
responsibility: they do not entirely trust their own informal leaders.
This is especially true in areas of extreme orthodoxy as among the
“Swartzentruber" Amish of Wayne County and Hardin County Amish s e ttle ments. The teacher referred to above expressed the feeling that the
Stark County Amish had had l i t t l e co n flict with school authorities because of th eir cooperative a ttitu d e , while in his estimation there had been no end of trouble in his own area because of too much
"Swartzentruber-type thinking.This is not to deny that the people who think this way, and reveal what others view as a stubborn streak, do
I b i d., January 31, 1958.
lO^Huntington, op. c?t . , pp. ^76- 7 8.
^°"Excerpts from an Amish Teacher's D iary," July 18, 1958. 93 so because of a sincere religious motivation. It is apparent, however,
that some Amish do not condone "intransigence" in things not d irectly affecting their lif e as members of a Christian community. As one
Amishman said in regard to school attendance, "Religion and religious conscience does not hold up as an excuse for illegal absences.'^
It must be added, nonetheless, that a large part of what on the exterior might appear to be intransigence or even d u plicity to the outsider is due to the Amish trad itio n of consensus. No major decisions are made in an Amish community without the consensus of the population, and their aversion to centralized control by one man or a board of directors makes it extremely difficult for any one person (no matter how respected) to speak for the Amish in dealing with school authorities.
This stress on the individual's opinion has given rise to numerous divisions among the Amish (according to one Amishman's estimation, there are some eight different kinds of Amish in Ohio-alone) and has also contributed to the general aura of misunderstanding surrounding
Amish-public school relations. For example, in 1958, Wayne County school o ffic ia ls announced an eleventh-hour agreement between the Amish and the school authorities which would provide some kind of post-eighth grade education for Amish children. The day following the meeting at which the "agreement" had been made, the local press contained the announcement that at the meeting the Amish had agreed to establish a ninth grade program:
In cooperation with the Amish Parochial School Board, the County School Office has worked out a
* ^ L e tte r from an Amishman to Denver Jividen, Chardon, Ohio, October 24, 1962- program of instruction beyond the eighth grade, which tf accepted and adhered to by the Amish Board, w ill be a s a tis fa c to ry school program for the balance of th is school year, for the six children now in the custody of the Welfare Board, and for any other children who have passed the eighth grade who may wish to avail themselves of the opportunity. The program will include mathematics, English, science, home economics, agriculture, and shop w o r k . 112
Perhaps the leaders had agreed to this, but it was obvious in the weeks that followed that other parties concerned (especially the six parents who were being charged with child neglect) had not been a party to the agreement; and the whole idea bogged down in a dispute over who said what: each side had a to ta lly d iffe r e n t concept of what the agreement meant--the Amish refused to accept the schoolmen's interpre- ta tio n --th e schoolmen refused to accept the Amish implementation of their suggestions.**^
Absence of dialogue
The incident just cited brings us to the final point in this discussion of conditions which aggravated Amish relations with the non-
Amish community and o f f ic ia Is --n e ith e r side could e ffe c tiv e ly communi cate with the other at a time when clear communication was essential for even a temporary resolution of the dispute. Conditions conducive to a dialogue broke down and each side continued its own monologue: the
**^"Amish to Use Own School," Da i 1y Record. January 31, 1958.
!13ucounty to Take Over Truant Amish Children," Dai1y Record. February l*t, 1958. A s im ilar problem of each side having a d iffe re n t concept of what had been agreed to was noted by Governor Harold E. Hughes of Iowa in a speech, "Humanitarian and P o litic a l R e a litie s ," at the National Invitational Conference on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, U niversity of Chicago, Chicago, I l lin o is , March 28, 1967. 95 schoolmen insisting that they had an obligation to enforce the school laws--the Amish insisting that such enforcement was an infringement of their right to be Amish and to practice their religion. Although both parties compromised to some extent and moved away from previously rigid positions regarding the issues, the Amish believed that any more con cessions on th e ir part might lead to further encroachments on their way of li f e while the school authorities d id n 't think the Amish had come even close to the minimum requirements the school laws demanded.
The Amish believed that the autho rities were not out simply to get the
Amish to accept a few alien ideas--the long-range intent was to have the
education of Amish children "upgraded" and on a par with non-Amish
children. The schoolmen wanted Amish education to be the "equivalent" of public education.''** To the Amish the word simply meant teaching
the children to read, write, and cypher. The public interpretation was
much more complex and included subjects and practices which if not
diametrically opposed to Amish religious beliefs, were considered
irrelevant to the needs of the average Amish child.
The inability of both sides in the dispute to understand each
other must be attributed in large measure to the culture gap which
separated them. It almost appears as if they spoke d iffe re n t languages-
and in a sense they did. The word "re lig io n " connotes an e n tire ly
nl+That this was the long-range intent of the public authorities can be seen by examining the verbatim testimonies given at the hearing held by the Legislative Service Commission in Columbus during the preparation of the Commission report, Amish Sectarian Education in Ohio. Research Report ffhh (Columbus: Ohio Legislative Service Commission, I960). The complete transcripts of testimonies are in the Commission's library. See Amish view of the long-range intent of school authorities in "Some Amish Fears," Appendix G. different set of practices to the Amishman than it does to the out- sider--the Amishman perceives it in very broad terms. Likewise,
"education" to the Amishman is much more than attendance at school and formal pedagogy--it is as large as life itself and depends, therefore, more on informal than on formal processes for its transmission. The non-Amishman seeks to come to terms with the world; the fa ith fu l Amish man does not believe that he has the same need. His real home is not earthly but heavenly; and his values are shaped accordingly as is his view of history, C h ristianity, and the world about him. The gap between the two and the recognition that they do speak different languages is illustrated by a statement in the Amish school standards: "The terms
's u ffic ie n t,1 'adequate,' and 'proper education' used in these standards shall be the interpretation of the authorities of the Amish school system."''^ The schoolmen insist that such a reservation on defini tions makes them unacceptable, and they imply that legislative defini- tions are somehow neutral and value free. Legislative definitions are, however, just as suspect from the Amish vantage point. Each is arguing from a different value base.
With each side professing a totally different We 1tanschauunq and speaking different ideological languages, neither side was able to contribute very effectively to conditions which might be conducive to a
^ ^ Minimum Standards for the Amish Parochial or Private Elemen tary Schools of the State of Ohio as a Form of Regulations (Apple Creek: compiled and approved by bishops, committeemen and others in conference, Henry J. Hershberger, Chairman [c.19583), [p. 3]• A copy of the Amish Minimum Standards is reproduced in Appendix D. For a detailed o ffic ia l critiqu e of these standards by the Ohio State Department of Education see AppendIx E. 97
dialogue between the Ohio Amish and the school authorities. Perhaps
the intense scriptural literalism and separatist tendencies of the
Amish and the le g a listic and secular orientation of the schoolmen pre
cluded any possibility of the development of a genuine dialogue. With
the authorities determined to make the Amish obey the compulsory educa
tion laws and the Amish equally determined to resist them, one might well conclude that a solution acceptable to both sides is impossible and that there w ill be continued tension between the two parties. But
then, tension is present in many areas of national 1ife--church-state
relations, censorship, dissent, and economic policies are hardly areas of tranquility; absolute solutions in all of these problem areas are not possible if diversity of thought and action are valued.
Perhaps the answer lies not so much in the elimination of problems (e.g., the Amish opposition to public schooling), but in the development of a climate which w ill allow free and open exchange of
ideas and give alt sides the opportunity to grapple with the issues
in an e ffo rt to find means of accommodating a variety of viable alternatives within the larger society. By its very nature, dialogue
is not so much a matter of convincing an opponent that one particular view is "right" or "wrong" as it is of assisting him to understand and perhaps appreciate the opposing view. When force is resorted to by either side, however, there can be no possibility of involvement in dialogue and little chance of arriving at even a mutually acceptable accommodat ion. Resort to an Injunction
Rather than describe in detail every Amish confrontation with public school o ffic ia ls in Ohio during the decade 1951*1961, the Intent of this discussion has been to focus attention upon the principal
factors involved in the general conflict over Amish reluctance to have
th e ir children attend schools which they believe might damage their
Amish fa ith . The series of legal confrontations began in Tuscarawas
County in 1951, and within eight years every county having Amish school- age children (with the exception of perhaps Stark and Geauga) had brought 116 some kind of court action against recalcitrant Amish parents. Prose cution of Amish parents in this manner did not solve the problem; a ll
it did was clog up the court calendar. In addition, the attempts to j a i l the parents for neglect (as had been done in V/ayne County) led
to criticism of the school authorities by Amish sympathizers in Ohio and elsewhere. State and local officials received dozens of letters, many of them abusive, protesting the manner in which the Amish were
being prosecuted. Some equated the legal actions with religious perse cution.^^ At the height of the Wayne County dispute in 1958, one local newspaper reported that the majority of the letters to the school
^ ^ ^ I T «r ±-_- T- t --T ■_ _l. s -
''^Huntington documents the e a rlie r period 1951*5^ in the Tuscarawas, Holmes, Coshocton area while Thomas B illin g s gives d e tails of the 1957*58 Wayne County dispute in his "The Old Order Amish Versus the Compulsory School Attendance Lav/s: An Analysis of the C onflict" (Ph.D. thesis, University of Oregon, 1961), pp. 5^*l^8. B illings approaches the problem from a philosophical point of view arguing that the state destroyed the conditions necessary for a dialogue between the contending parties by resorting to force.
»'7|_ett ers in office of county superintendent, Kenton, Hardin County; and Wooster, Wayne County. See examples in Appendix J. 99 officials and to the editor were critical of the local court actions and the local officials who instigated the proceedings. The newspaper commented that such c ritic is m was unjust because the Wayne County
Board of Education didn't make the 1aws--the state did, and that is 118 where the c ritic is m should be directed.
In an attempt to avoid the stance of appearing to be persecutors of the Amish, the Hardin County Board of Education decided to approach
the problem from a d iffe re n t directio n . On March 26, 1958, they passed a resolution authorizing the use of a court injunction to close the substandard Amish schools. When informed of this move, Ohio's Director of Elementary and Secondary Education responded that
. . . your anticipation of the use of an injunction is one which had not occurred to us or perhaps to county superintendents. I would appreciate your keeping this office informed relative to the prog ress you make. ^ 9
This recourse to an injunction was actually the culmination of
the state-wide controversy which had raged for several years. With new state laws requiring certain minimum standards it seemed logical that now something could be done to prevent substandard schools from operating. The suit to close the two Amish schools in Hardin County was filed in the fall of 1958. Although Judge Arthur Tudor criticized the prosecution's evidence regarding the Amish lack of a written state ment of policy and philosophy of education and the complaint that they used books with old copyright dates, he nevertheless granted the
^ ^Daily Record. February 2k, 1958.
^9|_ette r from Glenn Rich to Frank Blackburn, Kenton, Ohio, A pril k, 1958. 100 120 injunction to the Hardin County Board of Education in March, 1959.
To reporters at the tr ia l he commented that the Amish knew that their
schools did not meet state standards--they were challenging "the
constitutionality of the state's a b ility to make standards against 121 their religious convictions, which is the crux of the whole case."
Apparently, he fe lt that with the law as it was he had no choice but to
grant the injunction.
The Amish attorneys appealed the case to the Third District
Court of Appeals; and on April 14, I960, the lower court's judgment
was reversed on the grounds that there were no e x p licit laws in Ohio
which could be used to prevent the Amish from operating private schools,
even though such schools had been declared substandard under the pro
visions of another state statute! The school authorities, if they
wished to protect the Amish children from an inadequate education, had
only one recourse open to them--individual prosecution of parents under 1 the truancy statutes. The court was careful to point out, however,
that the decision was limited to the precise question of whether the
^Ojohn Beaber, "Ohio's Amish at the Crossroads," Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 15* 1958; "Science Lack Blocks Amish Schools OK," Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 17, 1959; State of Ohio v. Perry Glick. et a 1.. Hardin County Court of Common Pleas, Case #27884, Record of T r ia l, p. I l l (in County Court House, Kenton, Ohio). The school o ffic ia ls also complained that they had found dust on the desks and no to ile t tissue in the boys' to ile t. This last item led the defending lawyer to ask the state o ffic ia l if he thought that it was part of Amish educational philosophy to have tissue for the g irls and not for the boys. The state o fficer responded, "I do not know, s ir. I made no effort to determine that."
^^State ex rel. Chalfin v. G1 ick, 172 Ohio State, 249. 101 injunction was a legally admissible remedy; and the opinion concluded that the decision
. . . should not be construed in any way as upholding the right of the respondent parents to refuse to send th e ir children to a school which meets the compulsory educational laws of the state, or as relieving them from compliance with such laws.123
Meeting in a special session, the Hardin County Board of Educa tion responded to the dismissal of this injunction by approving a resolution which stated that the Amish were
. . . wholly unimpressed by [prosecution under the compulsory education laws] and have as a group, con tinued in their refusal to comply with the education laws of Ohio and that to attempt enforcement by such means would require the filin g and re filin g hundreds of such individual cases, requiring many months to try, and require extra juvenile judges to handle the case l o a d . m
Because of this and the ambiguity of the Ohio law the board instructed its attorneys to carry an appeal to the Supreme Court of Ohio to determine whether there was any effective machinery provided by the laws of Ohio for enforcement of the minimum standards requirements 125 set up by the State Board of Education. The Supreme Court of Ohio agreed to hear the appeal; and on May 10, 1961, it decided that an injunction was not the "proper remedy to compel obedience to the criminal or penal laws of the state" and that in order to justify an injunction the school board would have to prove that the public welfare
l2 3 lb id .
^^Resolution of the Hardin County Board of Education, April 18, I960.
,25|bid. 102 was endangered by the Amish or that th e ir children's rights were being denied to the extent of injuring them physically or morally. The court decision went on to assert that the evidence presented did not support either of these propositions:
What evidence there is in the record on this proposition tends to show that respondents are good farmers who desire to continue to lead a rural agrarian life, free from many of the trappings of modern materialistic society, and that their convic tions are based upon the tenets of their faith. They are simple harmless people. There is no e v i dence that the operation of these two schools by the respondents according to the tenets of their faith and their convictions has led to the commission of crime or to juvenile delinquency by their children or has been in any way injurious to society or to the private citizens with whom the respondents or their children have come in contact. Relators assert that the right of education is being denied to these children by th eir respondent parents. Relators do not assert, but perhaps have implied, that this injunction should be granted on the ground that our society is entitled to have all children educated to their highest potential, and that .the challenges, which we, as a nation, are being com pelled to meet now and w ill be compelled to meet in the future demand that the natipn have available the fu ll potential of the mental resources of our people. These are sound principles but not s u ffic ie n t in law, in the absence of specific statutory authority granted by the Legislature, to require the granting of the equitable remedy of injunction prayed for in this action.^26
The court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals in dismissing the injunction concluding that the General Assembly had not established
15 Ohio Opinions (2nd) **10. (Underlining added by w r ite r .) In discussing this particular decision with schoolmen in Hardin County, the writer was told that the Supreme Court had used the technicality regarding the injunction to keep themselves free of any charge that they were persecuting a religious minority. The content of the decision reveals what appears to be a profound sympathy for Amish li f e not found in educational c irc le s in Ohio. 103 any statutory law that could be used to close private schools which failed to measure up to the minimum standards established by the Board of Education--the only remedy at law was the compulsory attendance s ta t utes, and these the schoolmen had already found unwieldy and ineffective.
School authorities, state and local, felt that the only solution 127 to the Amish "problem" was for specific legislative action. Accord
ingly, the Association of Eastern and Northeastern Ohio County Superin tendents adopted a resolution on June 1, 1961, proposing a change in the Ohio school law (Section 3321-39, Revised Code) which would empower a court of appeals or a judge to issue an injunction to prevent the operation of substandard schools and against anyone "aiding, abetting, 128 or procuring the attendance of pupils at any such school." In the
104th Session of the General Assembly, Senator John W. Brown of Medina
introduced S. B. 576 which would have permitted the school authorities to use an injunction against substandard schools; however, consideration of the b ill was postponed indefinitely in Senator Ross Pepple's
"Education and Health Committee." According to one report, when a group of county school o ffic ia ls approached Senator Pepple in his Columbus office and urged passage of S. B. 576, he was less than affable with
them and told them to mind their own business and let the Amish run 129 their private schools as they wanted to.
l27john Beaber, "Statute Changes Held Need for Amish School Problem." Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 12, 1 9 61. 128 Letter from W. E. Inman to John Lea, Wooster, Ohio, June 5, 1961 .
^^Interview with county superintendent, September, 1 966- 104
In 1963, Representative Dennis Dannley, also of Medina, intro duced a similar bill (H. B. 933) into the House of Representatives.
The b ill was reported out of committee and was given a third reading in the House. The final vote on the measure was sixty-four in favor and forty-nine against; it thus fe ll short by four votes of receiving the required three-fifths majority. A change of vote on the part of the
representatives from Holmes, Geauga, Madison, and Trumbull (areas of
relatively l i t t l e open conflict between the Amish and the school authorities) would have been enough to insure the b ill's passage.
In September of 1964, the Superintendent of Public Instruction announced that the State Department of Education had no responsibility
for the Amish schools— it could only investigate and make reports to
local superintendents; after that it was the responsibility of local authorities to enforce the minimum standards set by the State Board of
Education, something which the state had found them very unwilling to d o .^ ' After more than a decade of controversy the Amish were s t ill no
closer to obeying the school laws than they were in 1S5T — if anything,
they were even further from complying with the le tte r of the statutes.
Without adequate powers of enforcement, local authorities have now
chosen to ignore the Amish. One state o ffic ia l has described the situ
ation in Ohio as a detente--the state can do nothing unless local
o ffic ia ls push the issue, and local o ffic ia ls w ill not do so because of
^30journa 1, Ohio House of Representatives, 105th General Assembly, CXXX (1963), p. 1440. The representatives from Wayne, Hardin, Ashland, Medina, and two of three from Stark voted in the affirm ative.
^ The Cleveland Press, September 15, 1964. 105 the h o s tility such action engenders in Amish sympathizers among the general public. Others have described it as a policy of "liv e and let
1iv e ." ’ 32
Educational Innovations Among the Amish
Although the years of controversy did not ameliorate the Amish situation in regard to public schooling, it did have a positive influ ence on the Amish. The number of Amish schools in Ohio increased from four in 1950 to over seventy in 1967; school teaching, which had not lately been considered an acceptable occupation for an Amish person became one by dint of sheer necessity; a national teachers' organiza tion developed, and yearly teachers' meetings for the exchange of ideas and methods were in itiate d ; the Amish teachers initiated an informal exchange of views on teaching in 1958, and within a short time a monthly teachers' journal, The Blackboard B u lle tin , was established.
The Amish in some areas of Ohio had also adopted a vocational program for children who had completed eight grades. In order to defend their
interests, the Ohio Amish in 1958 organized an Amish School Committee with Henry J. Hershberger of Apple Creek, Ohio, as chairman. This committee's responsibility was to coordinate parochial school efforts and act as a liaison between public authorities and Amish schools.
To the non-Amishman the foregoing developments may not appear sign ificant, and they are not if viewed only in the light of American society as a whole where high-level organization is accepted as a part
*321ntervtews with school o ffic ia ls , January and February, 1967. 106 of li f e . For the Amish, however, with th e ir extreme individualism , lack of a centralized hierarchy, and their informal approach to life, these innovations are significant departures from traditional ways.
They represent the attempts of a small separatist community to resist the encroachments of the larger society by paradoxically adopting some of the techniques of the latter. This is not to say that the Amish have adopted worldly ways--their teachers' journal is unsophisticated and reflects the "Plain People's" approach to life as well as to school.
As one of the magazine's founders has commented:
We started in a very modest way, and indeed, we're s t i l l quite "amateurish." But perhaps it is best so. If our paper were to become fancy and refined, many of the Amish would not accept it. As it is, we find it has been wholeheartedly accepted in almost all of the Amish communities, with the possible exception of the most conservative areas. 133
The annual teachers' meetings held in d iffe re n t Amish communities also
re fle c t the Amish antipathy for too much c e n tra liza tio n : the meetings
are largely unstructured, a circumstance which presents some problems
to those Amish leaders who would like to see a more organized approach
to the training of Amish teachers who, for the most part, have only an
eighth grade education. Although some teachers would like to see some
kind of summer training program organized, many appear to feel thatthe
informal and unplanned approach best fits the o ver-all Amish interpre
tation of education. (This Amish antipathy for organization and
agendas, so dear to the heart of modern man, is illustrated by one
Amishman's comment that the reason there had been trouble in Ohio in
*33i_ette r from Joseph S toll to F. S. Buchanan, July 29, 1966. 107
1958 was that the new State Board of Education met once a month for two or three hours; and they had to do something to ju s tify this so they
came up with the minimum standards prov i s ions I )
For th irty years the Amish in Ohio "tolerated11 the public elemen
tary schools; many "even felt a strong affection for their own specific
little school house."*^ All this changed rather rapidly in the late
19^+01 s and 1950's although it seems possible that had school authorities
been content to have the Amish children complete the eighth grade, the
Amish might have accepted the consolidated elementary grade school in
time just as they had accepted eighth grade schooling over the years
since they were fir s t compelled to attend beyond the fourth grade.
Many schoolmen were convinced of the need for the Amish to have more
than eight grades and refused to wink at the law any longer and conflict
ensued. However, with the dismissal in I960 of Hardin County's injunc
tion suit against the Amish near Kenton, the schoolmen have adopted a
"hands-off" policy. Today, pressure to build new Amish schools can be
attributed more to the steady growth of the Amish communities (leading
to overcrowded conditions in their one-room schools) and increased
parental dissatisfaction with the curriculum of the public schools
than it can to the direct pressure from the public school authorities.
The schoolmen must, however, be given some credit for stim ulating an
interest in parochial schools among the Amish and reinforcing the
demands of a small but vocal minority which had been urging the Amish
'^Interviews with Amish, February, 1967-
' 3^Hunt [ ngton , op. c i t . , p. *+93- 108 to establish their own schools for many years. Some superintendents have commented that it is only the most conservative Amish--the hard 136 core— who have opposed public schooling. This may have been so at one time, but the 1,400 per cent increase in the number of Amish schools
in Ohio since 1950 indicates that the opposition is no longer confined
to the most orthodox element within the Amish faith.
Of course, the Old Order Amish are not unique in their desire
to have their own schools. Their late entry into the area of education may be an indication that their separatist and isolationist tendencies
have prevented them from feeling the full impact of the secular society
as quickly as other more ''worldly1' churches. For many years the
Catholics have sponsored church-re 1ated schools (at present they are
responsible for 90 per cent of the national to t a l) ; but between 1937
and 1949, there was a greater proport ionate growth of sectarian schools
among Lutheran, Reformed, Seventh-Day Adventist, and Mennonite churches I ^ 7 than among Roman C atholics. It has been estimated that in 1937
there were 2,000 Protestant elementary schools in the United States
serving some 110,100 students; in 1952, the number was 3,000 schools
and 187,000 students; and in 1959, it had risen to 4,202 schools and
281,897 students.'^® While part of this growth may be attributed to
the natural population increase, some was no doubt a response to the
^^Interviews with county superintendents, September, 1966.
'^^Schneider, op. c i t . . p. 48. 1 1ft * Constant H. Jacquet, Jr. (ed.), Yearbook of American Churches 1967 (New York: National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U. S. A ., 1967), p. 224. 109
increasingly secular nature of modern schooling. The churches had also become aware of inadequacies of their own Sunday School programs as effective means of maintaining the boundaries between their youth and the world and began to view the church-sponsored school as one
1 T9 answer to the threat.
The Amish interest in parochial schools may then be viewed as part of a national trend. What is perhaps unique about the Amish school system, however, is the magnitude of the endeavor. With a total baptized membership of 21,023 (in the United States and Canada) they have now established approximately 170 Amish schools--! to every 123 members. In Ohio with 7»392 baptized members and 70 schools, the ratio is 1 school to every 105 members. The Amish school system is also unique in its purpose. While most other religious schools seem to aim at Christian character development and belief in "correct" doctrines, they teach these well within the framework of the general society. The Amish, on the other hand, are less bent on teaching theology than they are on transmitting to their youth a cultural herit age which is essentially at odds with the world. They not only want to
retain "correct" doctrines, they want to preserve and maintain an agrarian-based pattern of life.
Unintentionally, the pressures of the schoolmen have acted as a catalyst upon Amish thinking, transforming what at one time was a minority movement for private schools into an increasingly important sector of the Amish communities in Ohio and in the nation at large.
^ 39schne ider, op. c i t . , pp. 47-^8. 110
The fact that the Amish have accepted these innovations indicates that they are not as unchanging as they themselves would like to believe. |Ln They may "ask for the old paths . . . the good way, and walk therein"; but their way of life is changing at a slow voluntary rate, and " it is perhaps only a question of time and c iv iliz a tio n w ill have swept them lM into the main stream of American lif e ." In the thoughts of some
Amishmen, " if the Lord ta rrie s ," this may well be so.
1 t ^ Jer. 6:16. This caption appears on the stationery of the Amish publishing concern, Pathway Publishing Corporation, of Aylmer, Ontario, Canada.
l^John A. Hostetler in an open le tte r to the Des Moines Register (lowa), February, 1966. CHAPTER IV
EDGEWOOD AMISH SCHOOL
The preceding chapters described the general Amish response to school legislation in Ohio which they believe presented a threat to their very existence as a Christian people. Although they had compro mised on sending their children beyond the fourth grade and had, to some extent, accepted public elementary education, when the consolida tion trend was accelerated after World War I I and the schools became more unlike the old-type country schools, the Amish began to take more interest in Amish parochial schools. Minimum standards set up by the
State Board of Education under the direction of the General Assembly put further pressure on the Amish and called into question their own school system. In Chapter I I I an attempt was also made to describe the general climate in Ohio's Amish counties which precipitated an outright break between the Amish and the public schools and the emergence of a policy of noninterference on the part of public school authorities.
Chapter IV w ill focus on the specific factors and educa tional values within one Amish settlement which led to the establishment of Edgewood Amish School.* This particular settlement was chosen s because: (1) the Edgewood Amish School is only two years old, and the
*"Edgewood" and 'Voodland" are fic titio u s names.
1 1 I 112 parents are still familiar with the attitudes and procedures involved in the establishment of the school; (2) the Edgewood Amish settlement is composed of f a ir ly young Amish fam ilies and is representative of a new generation of Amish thinking with respect to schools, farming, and religious practices; (3) the Edgewood Amish were willing to cooperate in a survey of their attitudes toward education in general and paro chial schools in particular. Before entering into a detailed discussion of the Edgewood Amish School, brief consideration will be given to
Amish educational developments in Woodland County in general.
Woodland County Amish Schools
For many years Woodland County has been singularly free of open disputes partly because of the "verbal" agreement between the Amish and the superintendent which had been in effect for some thirty years, and partly because the superintendents have been highly respected by the
Amish and one man had been superintendent for over twenty years. The leniency and consistency of the county school board in allowing the
Amish to leave school at the completion of the eighth grade even though they were not sixteen, combined with the fact that some Amishmen had served as members of local public school boards, prevented a complete breakdown in dialogue between the two parties and the development of 2 "open wound" c o n flic ts .
In 19^7, the Mothers Club, Boosters Club, Firemans Club, and the board of a local school d is tr ic t had supported the action of the
^Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 17* I960. 113 local Veterans Club in calling the attention of the Woodland County
Board of Education to the fact that the Amish were not obeying the school laws. The County Prosecutor had also been consulted by the
Veterans Club and had given his opinion that the Amish were not con- 3 forming to the attendance law and could be proceeded against legally.
The county superintendent was asked to discuss the problem with the local boards, but no prosecutions of the Amish apparently followed the
Veterans Club's complaint.
in 19^9. however, the State Department of Education n o tified the local Board of Education that the small high school in the d is tr ic t should be closed because of a lack of enrollment. The response of the school board and local superintendent was to exert pressure on the
Amish, who were leaving the school system as soon as they had completed the eighth grade, to remain in school u n til they were sixteen. Solely to perpetuate the high school and prevent its closure, the superintend ent threatened court action against the Amish. Early in 1950, fifte e n residents of the school district attended a meeting of the Woodland
County Board of Education and supported the request of the local Board of Education that the county authorities apply school attendance laws to the Amish population. Four other residents, including a local m inister, supported the request in person; and the board agreed to direct the superintendent to meet with the Amish bishops and inform them s that attendance would be enforced when an official list of nonattenders
^Minutes of the County Board of Education, September 20, 19^7. I ]k was submitted by local school authorities. The immediate response to this pressure was the founding in 1950 of the fir s t Amish parochial school in the county and the realization of a hope which some Amish had held for years.** Since 1950, twelve additional Amish schools have been established in Woodland County enrolling over 600 Amish children in grades one through eight and involving twenty-two Amish school teachers (five males and seventeen females). The latest school to be established was in the Edgewood Amish Church D is tric t.
Edgewood Amish School D istric t
Edgewood Amish School is located approximately one mile from the v illa g e of Edgewood, which has a population of some 1,000 persons and contains a public high school and elementary school. A ll but three of the Amish parents who send their children to Edgewood Amish School are residents of the Edgewood Amish Church D is tric t, so the Amish school d is tr ic t is almost coterminous with their church d is tr ic t.
Eighteen of the thirty-two families live within a two-mrle radius of the school—more than one-third of the families and most of the students are located within easy walking distance. Those students who live out side of the immediate area of the school are transported by a horse- drawn school bus. A few of the boys ride their ponies (even in w inter),
^Minutes of the County Board of Education, January 21, 1950; interview with county superintendent, November,- 1966.
5Crist M. Hershberger, "Pioneer Amish Church School . . The Blackboard B ulletin (September, 1962), in The Challenge of the C h ild , pp. 102-103; Uria R. Byler, "The Bishop's Dream." The Blackboard Bui 1et in (October, 1962), in The Challenge of the Child, pp. 99-101. 115 and recently a small barn was b u ilt to accommodate the ponies and v is ito rs' horses. The close proximity of the school and the homes of
the Amish families makes the neighborhood v irtu a lly an Amish villag e.
Eighteen of the thirty-two heads of families living in Edgewood
Amish School D istrict are engaged in farming (mostly dairy farming), but of this number only three own their farms. The remainder rent from non-Amish owners, are farming on a share basis with a non-Amish person owning the plant and equipment and the Amishman owning part of the herd, or are paid by the month. Nine of the family heads are engaged in various aspects of the building trade (sawmill, carpentry, painting), and three are engaged in factory work. The reason for the large number of Amishmen who farm but do not own their farms may be explained by the
lack of capital in such a young group and the high in itia l cost of buying farm land in Woodland County. The expansion of a large metro politan area has caused an increase in farm land being bought for use as subdivisions, and property taxes are also high and mitigate against the purchase of new farms. Other factors may also be at work which prevent outright purchase of farms--the Amish prohibition against electric power, milking machines, and cooling tanks. If an Amishman owns his farm, he cannot use any of these devices and must, therefore, settle for a lower price for milk produced on his farm. In one instance this meant a reduction of $150 per month in milk receipts. One solution to £ this problem is to rent a farm which has these conveniences or go into farming on a share basis. The ideal of owning a farm is s t i l l strong, however; and many of the nonowners expressed a desire to some day have their own farms, even if they were smaller and less mechanized and were less profitable. This may be easier said than accomplished-- after years of modern farming there may be some reluctance to return to old ways, especially if the children become accustomed to the new.
Such economic factors are potential sources of change in the traditional Amish pattern of life . When an Amishman rents a home, the owners insist that the electric lighting be left intact and that modern heating methods be used because of insurance requirements.
Under these circumstances the Amish renters can use the otherwise forbidden conveniences, and it is not uncommon to find an electric floodlight illuminating the barnyard and a combination of oil lamps and electric lights within the home. Amishmen who live and are employed on a non-Amishman1s farm are often required by the owner to maintain a telephone for business or emergency purposes. Small though these innovations may be, they are likely to lead to further changes in the rules which regulate Amish society.
In this respect the Edgewood Amish are representative of a group of Amish who may be classified as being located ideologically between the traditional Old Order Amish community comprised of older families living in areas of high Amish density and the emerging com munity exemplified by the Beachy Amish who have modified their culture by the outright adoption of automobiles, electricity, and other modern devices and who are less apt to live in closed communities. How long the middle group can maintain its stance of being a marginal community caught between the values of conflicting cu!tures--is uncertain. They 117 may succeed in producing a d istin ctive culture separate from both traditional and Beachy orientation; or their children, noting some degree of parental inconsistency, may be tempted to go beyond even the
Beachy model and merge eventually with the non-Amish world. The high
interest in Amish schools among the Amish people of Edgewood is indica tive of their concern for the future of their families and the Amish community. The remainder of this chapter w ill deal specifically with some of these concerns and the Amish attitude toward public and parochial schools.
The Emergence of Edgewood Amish School
Up until 1964, a ll the Amish children in Edgewood area attended the Edgewood public elementary school through the eighth grade--the closest Amish school was over three miles distant. Interest in having their children attend a parochial school gained momentum after one
Amish boy became dissatisfied with the physical education classes at the public school and expressed a desire to attend the Amish school.
Community interest was further reinforced when the Amish school
invited the parents to send some of their children to it for the next school year. Consequently, in the fa ll of \S6k a few of the Amish parents in Edgewood withdrew sixteen Amish children from the public school and hired a small bus to transport these children to the Amish school. This transfer was accomplished without any apparent ill will being generated between the Amish and the public schools. Most of the parents in Edgewood were s t ill sending their children to the public schools, however; and in March, 1965, it looked as if the sixteen Amish 118 students would have to return to the public schools. The host Amish school became overcrowded when new fam ilies moved into the d is tr ic t, and the parents of the sixteen children were told that next term the school would only be able to accommodate those children living within
its geographic bounds. Accompanying this information was a hint from the veteran teacher of the school that perhaps the Amish parents should consider establishing their own school district and building their own school.
An Amish m inister, who had recently moved into Edgewood Church
District on the invitation of the Amish members, took the lead in bring
ing the idea of a parochial school to fru itio n . A few years previously he had helped organize an Amish school in his former d is tr ic t and was well aware of procedures which should be followed in establishing a new school. The idea of sending th e ir children back to public school was unthinkable to him and to many other Amish parents who had already found the Amish school a valuable experience for th e ir children.
Accordingly, in April, 1965, the minister called a meeting to be held at his home to determine how much support there would be for the contemplated school.
This first school meeting was attended by 90 to 95 per cent of the parents who lived in the church district, and the same evening a president and Board of Education were chosen by secret ballot. Within a few weeks a s ite had been selected for the school; plans were approved by the Ohio Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Workshops and Factories; and a zoning permit was obtained from the local 119 authorities. An interesting insight into the informal nature of the
Amish community is seen in the method used to determine how much should be paid for the land--the members of the board each estimated how much the one and one-fourth acre plot was worth, the estimates were tallied, and an average was obtained. The owner of the land (an Amishman) accepted the average price of $ 1,275 and did not receive a note for it until almost one and one-half years lateri
By July, 1965» the school was under construction; and on
September 20, 1965, it opened its doors to aboutfi f t y Amish students.
The public school authorities donated some books, desks, and black boards; and a general s p ir it of cooperation existed between them and the Amish. Money to pay for the land, building supplies, and salaries was raised at bake sales, general sales, and through a system of assessment of each parent having children in the school. At present, fam ilies w ith scholars in school pay $17 per month--a‘ county-wide fund to which each church member contributes $1 per month is used to equalize the financial drain on poorer districts. Five districts do not cooperate in th is plan, mainly because they have a high percentage of cooperation from th e ir parents and do not need assistance. There is an Amish
Superintendent of Schools but no county-wide Amish Board of Education.
Like the church districts of which they have become an integral part, the Amish schools apparently abhore centralized control; and the super intendent gives suggestions and helps coordinate school activities, but he does not make policy decisions. The teachers are very much a part of this process, though; and there is a high degree of teacher, parent, 120 board cooperation. Monthly meetings of parents, teachers, and board members discuss problems as they come up. The bishops or other church
leaders do not, apparently, control the schools except as parents of
children who attend. Amish parochial schools, while established to
perpetuate the Amish way of life, are a separate and distinct entity and are not simply tools of the ecclesiastical leaders. As one bishop
said, "I have enough to do without getting involved in school business."
At the monthly meetings schools fees are also collected and the teacher
is paid (at present some $2^0 per month). Usually between 60 to 65 per cent of the parents attend these monthly meetings--a figure which led one Amishman to complain that the parents were not too cooperative at
t imes!
The Amish families in Edgewood Amish School D is tric t have their own school, are anxious to improve the educational opportunities within
the limits set by their religious values, and owe almost $ 5,000 on the
school. The public school ?s only a few minutes away by bus. Why did
they go to all this expenditure of time, energy, and scarce financial
resources? Why do they not turn over the schooling of their children to the schools which their taxes go to support? What is there about public schools that they do not like? What problems have parochial schools injected into the way of life of the "Plain People"? Is this just a passing phase or are Amish schools destined to become as much a part of these nonconforming Christians as their beards, their plain clothes, and their buggies? 121
The Survey
To gain an idea of how the Amish have wrestled with the issue of parochial and public schools and of how they have attempted to resolve these and other related problems, forty Amish men and women from Edgewood Amish School D is tric t were interviewed individually and th e ir responses noted to fifty -n in e questions. The research reported
in this chapter is based upon the results of these personal interviews.
Hopefully, the survey will give some insights into some of the educa
tional values held by the Amish of Edgewood Amish School D is tric t; and an attempt will be made to interpret these findings in the light of the
investigator's understanding of Amish society.
Specific objectives
The following objectives were used in the preparation of the
interview schedule:^
A . Pub Ii c Schoo1s
1. To determine the attitudes of the Amish toward the public schools. (Items 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
2. To describe the explicit Amish objections to the public schools. (Items 2, 4, 15-23)
B. Amish Schools
1. To determine the reported attitudes of the Amish toward the establishment of Edgewood Amish School in 196*+. (items 1, 3, 7)
2. To determine the present attitudes of the Amish toward Edgewood Amish School. (item 5)
3. To describe the e x p lic it reasons given by the Amish for favoring or opposing the establishment of the Edgewood Amish School. (Items 4, 6, 8 , 24, 25)
^See Amish Interview Schedule in Appendix A. 122
4. To determine Amish attitudes toward Amish secondary schools. (Items 32, 33)
5. To determine what the Amish believe the curriculum of their schools should be. (item 36)
6. To determine the Amish perception of the role of the parochial school in the community. (Items 9, 10, 14, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59)
C. Amish Teacher Preparation
1. To determine the Amish perception of the desirable character istics of an Amish teacher. (Item 11)
2. To determine the Amish perception of an adequate education for th e ir teachers. (Items 12, 13)
D. The Impact of Industrialism
1. To determine Amish occupational preferences. (items 43, 47, 48, 49)
2. To assess the Amish response to in d u s tria liza tio n . (items 44, 45, 46, 50, 51, 56, 57, 58)
The interview schedule
The information was obtained by personal interviews and partici
pant observations of Amish li f e during a two-week residence in and near
the Edgewood Amish settlement. An interview schedule was prepared and
pretested with a sample of twelve Amish people in a number of Ohio Amish
settlements. The schedule was revised on the basis of this pretesting--
some items were modified; others were discarded. The revised schedule was administered personally. Thirty of the items were answered by using a five-point scale of: strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, "
strongly disagree; three used a yes/no format; two were "forced choice"; and the remaining twenty-four were open-ended questions, the answers to which were later categorized by the researcher and another judge. In 123 most instances where the respondent gave more than one answer to a
question, the f ir s t choice was used as the "best" answer. The responses
to items 40, 4 l, and k2 were not included in the discussion of the
survey findings because of the investigator's belief that the items and
responses were ambiguous.
The sample
Of the forty-seven contacts made with the Amish people during
the course of the survey, one interview was discarded because of the
respondent's unwillingness to respond with anything but "undecided,"
four persons declined to be interviewed, and two could not be contacted
a fte r an appointment had been made. Four of the seven who were not
interviewed were young married males in their early twenties who had no
children in school, either public or parochial. The forty who responded
consisted of twenty-four males (heads of families) and sixteen females.
Of the total there were fourteen married couples (twenty-eight persons),
ten male heads of families, one married female, and one single female.
The respondents ranged in age from sixteen to sixty-seven with over
half ( 52.5 per cent) in the thirty-two to forty-four age category (see
Table 2).
Few difficulties were encountered in the interviewing—most
seemed willing to discuss Amish attitudes toward the schools but avoided
direct discussion of religious ideas, and some were obviously uncom
fo rtab le when talkin g about some of the problems which Amish society
faces in retaining its traditional characteristics and way of life in 124
TABLE 2
AGES OF FORTY AMISH RESPONDENTS
Age Number Percentage
1 6 - 2 5 1 2.5 26 - 28 8 20.0 29 - 31 0 0.0 32 - 34 5 12.5 35 - 37 6 15.0 38 - 4] 6 15.0 42 - 44 4 10.0 45 - 47 2 5.0 48 - 50 4 10.0 51 + 4 10.0
the highly industrialized and competitive society of twentieth century
Amer ica.
The discussion of the findings of this survey follows the out
line of the objectives given above.
Discussion of Survey Findings
Public schools
The personal responses of the Edgewood Amish to the proposition
regarding the attendance of their own children at a public elementary school illustrates the rigorous demarcation line which the Amish have drawn between secondary and elementary education (see Table 3).
The direction of the shift of 45 per cent in the strongly agreed category indicates that Amish attendance at secondary schools is, as one
Amishman expressed it, "a horse of a different color." This Amish com munity while it may, and does, tolerate Amish parents choosing between 125
TABLE 3
WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL ATTITUDE TOWARD YOUR CHILDREN ATTENDING EDGEWOOD PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS? (ITEMS 29, 3 D 7
Elementary Schools Secondary Schools
Response Number Percentage Number Percentage
Strongly Agree 0 0.0 0 0.0
Agree 6 15.0 2 5.0
Undec ided 4 10.0 1 2.5
D i sagree 19 47.5 8 20.0
Strongly Disagree 11 27.5 29 72.5
Total 1*0 100.0 40 100.0
public elementary schools and parochial elementary schools, forbids the
attendance of Amish children at a public high school. No one could
recollect that this had ever been discussed in church or elsewhere. It
has been lite r a lly unthinkable and v irtu a lly unthought of by the Amish
in this area. The two Amish respondents who agreed with attendance at
high school deviated from the norms of Edgewood Amish settlement In many other respects and did not share most of the settlement's religious and
social values.
7Note: Captions on almost a ll tables are modified versions of the questions used in the interview schedule. See complete interview schedule in Appendix A. Perhaps, as some Amish seem to believe, the time w ill come when their children will have to attend high school; but for the present they are opposed to such a trend. One might almost say that the eighth grade as a minimum/maximum education- for the Amish has been sanctified and be come part of the Amish framework of traditions. As is shown in Table h,
TABLE h
WHY HAVE THE AMISH CHOSEN THE EIGHTH GRADE AS THE LIMIT OF THEIR CHILDREN' S SCHOOLING? (ITEM 26)
Reasons Number Percentage
Eight grades are necessary for Amish to earn a living--more 25 62.5 than eight is unnecessary.
Amish adopted legal requirement 1 1 27.5 of public schools.
Other h 10.0
Total hO 100.0
over half of the respondents rep 1 ied to the question about why they draw the line at no more and no less than the eighth grade by saying thai a person needs eight grades of education in order to be a success in the kind of l i f e the Amish lead. One man admitted, however, that although a f i f t h grade education would be enough for a farm boy, s k ille d workers such as carpenters and masons might need more than five grades of schooling. High school was viewed by some as unnecessary for the Amish because it is geared to prepare students for college; others f e lt that 127 perhaps high school might be allowed for prospective school teachers and practical nurses. One man suggested that store keepers and office workers could use more education; but then as an afterthought he added,
“But God doesn't want the Amish to be involved in buying and selling."
If an Amishman gets involved in such activities, “they'll get after him."
The difference between the Amish way and that of the public schools was exemplified by one woman who told of how confused she became when a fte r being taught how to bake and cook at school using a modern stove and modern kitchen appliances, she tried the same things at home on the wood stove. Nothing she baked ever turned out the way it should!
She was taught how to make clothing in public school, but once again the instructions there simply didn't apply to the Amish way. Amish clothes are made with modesty and comfort in mind, not the latest New
York fashions. Another man commented that if the object in life is to get rich , then perhaps higher education might be necessary; but to earn a livin g as an Amish farmer or carpenter, eight grades are s u ffic ie n t.
Such comments as, “The best place to learn farming is on a farm,"
“ It is more important to teach them how to use what they know already than have them learn more," and "Children are not out of school when they leave school" all witness the Amish stress on practical learning through participation.
More than 25 per cent said that the Amish adopted the eighth grade as th e ir standard because that was what the law required. In actual fa c t, this j_s part of the informal agreement between the Amish and the public school o ffic ia ls in Woodland County; if they attend 128
regularly until they are through the eighth grade, they do not have to
remain in school until they are sixteen.
Apart from the general explanation that public school education has many elements which the Amish feel are unnecessary for their children, what other reasons can be adduced for keeping Amish children away from public schools? A group of propositions commonly given in
Amish literature and in interviews as reasons for keeping Amish children out of public school was presented to the respondents, and they were asked to agree or disagree as to whether they thought these propositions were good reasons for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools. The propositions and the responses are given in Table 5-
The teaching of evolution and the emphasis upon worldly success
in public school were overwhelmingly agreed upon as good reasons for keeping Amish children away from public schools. Next in order of choice as good reasons were: lack of parental control, the public schools' homework demands, the b e lie f that Amish attendance at public school is contrary to the Biblical ideal of separation from the world, and the
lack of Bible teaching in public schools. The difference in Amish responses to these propositions illu s tra te s that even the small com munity has a large measure of diversity within it, and the least in order of choice as good reasons (Biblical separation and Bible teaching)
is not as primary as one might have expected from a religiously oriented community-one man commented that the Amish would not expect the Bible to be taught in public school. From these responses one may conclude that a majority of the respondents expressed a fear of the 129
TABLE 5
DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE THAT THE FOLLOWING ARE GOOD REASONS FOR NOT ALLOWING AMISH CHILDREN TO ATTEND PUBLIC SCHOOLS? (ITEMS 15-23)
Percentage of Response (Number - 40) Reasons
SA A UN D SD
Evolution is taught in public 77.5 17.5 2.5 2.5 0.0 schools.
Public schools place a greater - emphasis upon worldly values *+0.0 ^7.5 5.0 7.5 0.0 than on spiritual values.
Parents have very little control over what is taught in the 17.5 52.5 17-5 12.5 0.0 public schools.
Public schools demand too much of the students' time for *t0.0 30.0 12.5 17.5 0.0 homework.
Having Amish children attend public school is contrary to 17.5 **7-5 10.0 25.0 0.0 what the Bible teaches about separation from the world.
The Bible is not taught in 25.0 ko.o 0.0 35.0 0.0 pub 1ic schoo1s .
The teachers in the public 7.5 2.5 15.0 67.5 7.5 schools are not Amish.
Fancy public school buildings make Amish children dissatis 2.5 10.0 22.5 57.5 7.5 fied with the simple Amish 1 ife .
The companions in a public school are not limited to 5.0 22.5 10.0 60.0 2.5 those of the Amish faith. 130
influence of the subjects taught in the public schools and the lack
of emphasis on general spiritual values more than they feared the
influence of non-Amish teachers and companions. The real fear here
concerns what j_s taught in the public school system rather than what is
not taught.
Six persons admitted frankly that they didn't know what evolu
tion was, and some others gave the impression of being against it but were not exactly certain why. The dangers of evolutionary teachings
are frequently mentioned in Amish publications, and it appears that the
theory of evolution has become for most Amish a symbol of what is wrong
with public education. As might have been expected in a farming com
munity, the main objection to homework was that it interfered with the
chores of the Amish children. One man commented that homework was
probably necessary for non-Amish children in order to keep them out of
mischief, but Amish children have always plenty of work to do. Some
felt that it was wrong to require children to stay up late and get up
early just to do homework. "Sometimes I wonder why they go to school with a ll the homework they have," commented one parent'. The Amish
school gives l i t t l e or no homework, partly because Amish children work
and learn at home under the supervision of their parents.
During the course of the interviews no criticism of public
school teachers per se was ever expressed. A few even mentioned that
the public school teachers had always acted very kindly toward the Amish
children who attended Edgewood Elementary School. The possible fear of
the influence of non-Amish companions in the upper grades is recognized 131
by the fact that many Amish parents send their children to the Amish
school after the fourth grade. They are not of one mind on this,
however; some believe that it 's good for th eir children to mix with
non-Amish--after all, Amish children "meet all kinds later on." One
parent was very relaxed on this issue and said that if the parochial
school were not handy, he'd send his children to public school. Another
parent commented that it was more important that the Amish religion
should be rooted in the home than it was to keep the children away from
contacts with non-Amish children. Isolation is not the complete answer
to maintaining the Amish faith according to more than half of the
parents of Edgewood Amish School D is tric t.
Amish schools
A ttitudes toward Amish elementary schools. --When the respondents were asked what th eir personal attitudes were when the school was f ir s t
proposed, th e ir answers reflected very closely (see Table 7) the a t t i
tudes which they had ascribed to "most 11 Amish parents liv in g in Edgewood
Amish School D is tric t (see Table 6). This might also be indicative of
a strong desire on the part of the Amish to be part of what was recog
nized as the majority consensus--unity and cohesion (even if only apparent) are important aspects of Amish community life, and for this
reason respondents might have been unwilling to reveal to an outsider any evidence of internal dissent. In general there was agreement that a school should be established ( 90-95 per cent of the parents attended
the f ir s t school m eeting!); but some, i f not completely disagreed, were
inclined to question specific aspects of the proposition--fear of 132 causing trouble with the public school authorities and fear that Amish schools would be lax in d is c ip iin e seemed to be primary reasons for questioning the wisdom of establishing an Amish school.
TABLE 6
WHAT WAS THE ATTITUDE OF MOST AMISH IN THE EDGEWOOD AREA WHEN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF EDGEWOOD SCHOOL WAS PROPOSED IN 1%*+? (ITEM I)
Response Number Percentage
Strongly Agree 22 56.5
Agree 16 41.0
Undec ided 0 0.0
D i sagree 1 2.5
Strongly Disagree 0 0.0
Total 39* 100.0
* One of the persons interviewed moved into the district after the school was b u ilt and declined to give his opinion about it .
When the respondents were asked why they favored having th eir own school, 21.4 per cent of those who personally agreed in general with the idea took the occasion to qualify th e ir agreement--they agreed only
)f the schools had adequate instructors and leadership. An even greater number ( 27*5 per cent) gave this q u a lific a tio n as th eir reason for at some time feelin g unfavorably disposed toward the parochial schools.
They feared that the parochial schools, no matter how much they were 133 spiritually motivated, might not give their children a sound basic education through the fir s t eight grades.
When the respondents' reported attitudes toward the establish ment of an Amish school in 1964 are compared with their reported attitudes now ( 19&7), it is apparent that some of the opposition to the school has abated (see Table 7).
TABLE 7
WHAT WAS YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EDGEWOOD AMISH SCHOOL IN 1964? (ITEM 3) IN 1967? (ITEM 5)
1964 1967
Response Number Percentage Number Percentage
Strongly Agree 22 56.5 30 75.0
Agree 13 33.5 8 20.0
Undec ided 1 2.5 1 2.5
Disagree 2 5.0 1 2.5
Strongly Disagree I 2.5 0 0.0
Total 39 100.0 40 100.0
Just over half reported that in 1964 they "strongly agreed" with the
idea; while in 1967, three-quarters of the parents claimed they now
strongly favor the school. A quarter of the respondents said that they
had changed their opinion over the past three years because they fe lt
that the Edgewood Amish School was accomplishing its purpose and that I3*t there had been a marked improvement in their children's behavior.
"Our children are not so rough," commented one man. Others reported that their children were quieter in demeanor now that they were away
from the exciting environment and fast pace of public schools; and one woman said that when her children were in public school, they were in a constant state of "go, go, go," but were now much more relaxed and at
ease.
The greatest single factor which seems to have influenced the
Amish decision to establish their own school was their unwillingness
to accept the curriculum of the public schools. This was followed by
the belief that an Amish school would be the best place to prepare Amish
children to be Amish adults by stressing simple rural Amish values of
plain living, plain dressing, and plain learning {see Table 8).
TABLE 8
MANIFEST REASONS FOR ESTABLISHING EDGEWOOD AMISH SCHOOL (ITEM 2)
Reasons Number Percentage
Amish disagreed with public 20 57.0 school curriculum.
Amish fe lt their own school would be a better place to 12 3 M teach Amish life and religion. CO
Public schools were crowded. 3 • s
Total 35* 100.0
Number r 35 due to nonapplicability to two persons, one person did not respond, and two disagreed. 135
Among some of the most objectionable features of the public schools the respondents mentioned most frequently such things as te le vision, movies, sports, dancing, and to a lesser extent flag saluting, evolution, gym, musical instruments, student photographs, and new math.
If school is for learning to read, w rite, and cypher, the Amish cannot comprehend why all these extra items are included in the curriculum; and they fear that they will have a detrimental effect upon their children.
If they learn to enjoy television, movies, and dancing when they are young and impressionable, the parents believe that th ey'll want these things when they grow up.^
Strangely enough, they do not believe that "fancy" school buildings will have an adverse influence upon their children as was seen in Table 5• This seeming inconsistency may be a result of Amish association with public schools (even of the "fancy" consolidated variety) In the past, whereas they have never been exposed until
recently to television and other curriculum innovations. The new and different is suspect--the old and familiar is more easily accepted. By drawing the line at "worldly" practices in school, the Amish are attempting to maintain inviolate the almost sacrosanct boundary between
Amish culture and the non-Amish world.
Some Amish recalled that the public schools have changed
radically since they attended them (during the 1930's and 1940's)
implying, perhaps, that they found the new expanded curriculum more
®For additional views on school curriculum see S to ll#, Who Sha 11 Educate Our Children?, pp. 44-46, 64-69. 136
incompatible with Amish ways than the older limited-type found in many
small country schools of twenty to th irty years ago. The curriculum
of the parochial school is limited by design; the Amish do not believe
in "stretching" their children's minds beyond the prescribed religious
bounds. According to the Amish view, a plain lif e with few f r i l l s and
a fervent dedication to a belief in God and the virtues of physical
labor does not need the elaborate educational system of the public
schools. As many of the respondents commented, such a curriculum is
simply unnecessary for Amish children. Learning for the sake of learn
ing has little place in Amish thinking. They are eminently practical
people and do not want any irrelevant features in the curriculum.
Although they want a simpler curriculum than that offered in
the public schools, the Amish of Edgewood do want their children to be
schooled in the things which do not conflict with their religious
values. A common cause for reservations about operating their own
school has been the fear that perhaps the quality of basic education
received in the parochial school might not be adequate and the discipline might be lax. Apparently, there were Amish schools in Woodland County where this was so; and some parents were cautious about setting up
schools which would do nothing more than keep the children away from
public schools. As one Amish school leader expressed it , ’Ve'd be
better with no schools than poor schools." Other fears were that the .
children might grow up and be shy of "Yankee people" if they only went
to a parochial school, and that the Amish wouldn't be able to bear the
financial burden of maintaining their own school. 137
When asked if they knew anyone in the area who thought that parochial schools were unnecessary, more than half said that they knew some Amish who felt this way-some estimated that probably only about
5 per cent in the school district had serious reservations (an estimate which coincides rather closely with the percentage of Amish persons who said they had disagreed with the establishment of the school).
The reasons for these reservations were given as a preference for public schools, financial cost, and lack of knowledge about what the school was doing. As parents become more acquainted with the purpose of the school and recognize that it is not simply a ruse to keep children away from public school but has a positive reason for existence— the educa tion of Amish children for Amish life--and as the "schools are improved and it is being demonstrated that these schools can be made a success, 9 these 'doubting Thomases' are becoming fewer."
In spite of this apparent conversion to the parochial school and the expressions of confidence that the school is accomplishing its purpose (" It works," said one parent when asked why he had changed his opinion) and that the Amish child behavior has improved, it should be noted that over half of the respondents agreed that Amish children should attend public school during the early grades in order to get a good foundation in the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic
(see Table 9)•
Of those parents (th ir ty ) having children of school age, 50 per cent were sending their children to the parochial school, 26.5 per cent
g ^Letter from an Amish school teacher to F. S. Buchanan, August 28, 1966. 138
TABLE 9
DO YOU AGREE THAT AMISH CHILDREN SHOULD ATTEND PUBLIC SCHOOL DURING THE EARLY GRADES IN ORDER TO GET A GOOD FOUNDATION IN THE BASIC THREE R'S? (ITEM 27)
Response Number Percentage
Strongly Agree 3 7.5
Agree 18 ^5-0
Undec i ded 5 12.5
D i sagree 10 25.0
Strongly Disagree 4 10.0
Tota 1 ko 100.0
were sending th e ir children to public school only, while 23-5 per cent
sent some children to parochial and some to public school. The d iffi
culty of transporting children to the parochial school was mentioned as
a reason for not sending them there; but in the opinion of one Amishman,
some Amish wouldn't even send their children If they lived right next
to the school. The percentage of Amish children in Edgewood Amish
School District attending parochial and public schools is seen in
Table 10.
Of the children now attending Edgewood Amish School, approxi
mately 30 per cent have attended, or are now attending, public school
kindergarten; and almost a ll (97 per cent) of the Amish children have
at some time or another during their school career attended one or more years of the local public school. It should be noted that most of 139
TABLE 10
SCHOOLS AND GRADES ATTENDED BY SEVENTY AMISH CHILDREN
Parochial Pub Iic
Grade Number Percentage Number Percentage
Ki ndergarten ------b 6.0
One - Four 21 30.0 15 21 A
Five - Eight 25 35.6 5 7.0
Tota 1 k6 65.6 2b 3b.b
the twenty-four children who do attend public school live on the geo
graphic periphery of the community, and travel to the Amish school might be difficult (especially in winter). At least two of the students c la s sifie d as in public school attend a special county- school for handi capped children. As Amish children get older, there is a marked
tendency for parents to transfer them to the Amish school--only 7 per cent of the total school-age population were attending the four upper grades in contrast to 2~jM per cent who attend the lower grades and
kindergarten. It appears that in view of this pattern, the parents of
Edgewood Amish School District do not take lightly their responsibility of providing for their children a Christian-oriented education.
Most of those attending public school were in the lower grades
(or kindergarten), lending support to the idea that the Amish feel that the parochial schools for their older children are more necessary than \ko for their younger who are more susceptible to maternal influences and
less apt to be influenced by the world. The paradox--feeling so strongly about parochial schools while sending their children to public schools—
is heightened further by parental anxiety that their children learn to speak English w ell. Some feel this is better accomplished In the public school. If the children learn English early, however, especially in the context of the public school, the parents are unwittingly helping to destroy one of the most effective means of boundary maintenance that
the small community has--difference in language. In Edgewood a variant of Pennsylvania Dutch is used in the home, and most Amish children do not know English when they begin school. The earlier they learn it and the more communication they have with the outside, the greater w ill be th e ir tendency to be influenced by the outside world in the long run.
On the basis of the foregoing it may be said that the Amish of
Edgewood are committed, albeit with some reservations; to the elemen tary Amish schools. in their mind, at least, It is a necessary, if not completely sufficient, means of keeping their children Amish.
A ttitudes toward Amish secondary schools. --The establishment of secondary parochial schools is an entirely different proposition from that concerning elementary parochial schools as can be seen in Table II.
Although 15 per cent have expressed the belief that perhaps the day will come when the Amish may, as one Amishman said, "have to ro ll with the punch and go a little further than the eighth grade," the great majority are opposed to this development unless they are compelled to make a choice between attendance a: a public school beyond the eighth grade or 1*4 I
TABLE 11
WHAT IS YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AMISH ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS? (ITEM 2) AMISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS? (ITEM 32)
Elementary Schools Secondary Schools
Response Number Percentage Number Percentage
Strongly Agree 30 75.0 3 7.5
Agree 8 20.0 3 7.5
Undec ided 1 2.5 6 15.0
D i sagree 1 2.5 19 ^7-5
Strongly Disagree 0 0.0 9 22.5
Total k O 100.0 k O 100.0
the establishment of their own post-eighth grade schools. More than an eighth grade education is seen as completely unnecessary given the present Amish way of l i f e - - i t is even more of a f r i l l than the public school curriculum up to the eighth grade! None of the respondents knew of any Amish who had ever attended a public high school in this county; and it appears likely that unless the present county school adminis trators force the issue, the Amish in this area w ill continue to avoid the establishment of a secondary school system even of the simple vocational high school variety found in other Ohio counties. There,
Amish children attend a class three hours per week and have practical education on the farm and in the home the remainder of the time (twenty hours per week). ]h2
Amish school curricu1um.--As might be expected, basic public school subjects such as English and arithmetic received wholehearted endorsement as being a necessary part of the Amish school curriculum; and while geography and history were approved often with the caution
"a l i t t l e bit" or "not too much," they, along with German ("a few hours each week"), were viewed as f i t subjects for the Amish school. Several
researchers have noted the decrease in the use of German or its variants among the A m is h ,a n d many Amish parents in Edgewood encourage the
speaking of English at home and at school. Because of its part in Amish worship, however, the Amish want their children to know the "mother
tongue." The Amish teacher in Edgewood told the parents that if they wanted their children to learn German in school, they would have to
assist him. The parents agreed, and every Friday afternoon three or
four parents come to the school and teach classes in reading and speak
ing German. It is doubtful that this brief exposure to the German
language w ill guarantee its place in Amish life . Perhaps as the Amish
schools develop, German language instruction w ill occupy a more
important place in the curriculum than it does now.
Algebra was rejected because most Amish would never need to use
it. One man, a carpenter, expressed the feeling that he often wished
he had had more algebra for his trade work; but recently he purchased
a book which helped him work construction problems without using
algebra. {He is a partner in a highly successful construction company.)
A high percentage also rejected sex education--that is viewed as a
,0Yutzy, op. c i t .. pp. 28-29; Nethers, op. c it. . pp. 26-27. I *+3 home resp onsib ility; and as one man commented, "They'll learn that soon enough!" Fewer than 15 per cent f e lt that under the proper con ditions some sex instruction might be acceptable in an Amish school.
Unexpectedly, there was a rather large minority (*+0 per cent) who favored the teaching of some science--"ChiIdren should know their relationship to the world of nature." 'True" science which can be backed up with evidence was mentioned as being more acceptable than theoretical science, which they apparently believe is not backed up with evidence which they can accept. Natural science of a basically descr i pti ve nature has more appeal to them than science which asks questions and challenges traditional beliefs. Scientific knowledge which can be applied d ire c tly to th e ir farm work is more acceptable than theoretical knowledge. Any innovation, no matter how ju s tifie d theoretically, must work before the Amish will accept it. The local agricultural agent mentioned that attempts had been made to get the
Amish farmers to use p lastic tubes to collect sap from th e ir maple trees and make the operation more efficient. The first attempts to do this encountered some technical problems, and the Amish have been wary , . .11 of it ever since.
Although the Amish do not use part singing in their church services--"Lots do not agree with it" considering it wor!dly--half of the group favored the inclusion of part singing in the school cur- * riculum. Some agreed that it "sounds nice" but is not necessary. A common comment during the interviews was, "It might be OK if it doesn't
^Interview with County Extension Agent, February, 1967- 144 detract from essentials" (three R's), illustrating once again the
Amish orientation toward practicality and basic skills rather than extra " frills .11 That such a large number agreed that part singing would be acceptable, indicates a degree of flexibility which may augur well for the future of the Amish schools. They are not completely opposed to change--it depends on what the nature of the change is.
This characteristic is further evidenced by the 47.5 per cent agreement with the inclusion of a typing course in the schooI--it was felt that it might benefit some students, especially those who want to be teachers. (n re a lity , of course, given the limited physical plant of the Amish school, a typing class would be almost impossible. If it were possible to have such a course, however, and if time were a v a il able, the Amish might be inclined to accept it if its practical value to potential teachers could be demonstrated. It would then be no longer a " f r i l l . " In the instance of typing or part singing, these subjects would not present such a direct threat to Amish beliefs as courses in biology, chemistry, or physics would. Subjects such as astronomy and instrumental music were almost unanimously rejected as having no place in the Amish school curriculum. Even Bible study was conditioned by such statements as "if there is time" and "if it doesn't take away from the other essential subjects." School is perceived in terms of reading, w riting, and arithmetic; and the Amish teacher and his assistant (a girl * of sixteen) are continuously involved in teaching these basics.
The role of the Amish school in the community.— The absence of any direct teaching pf formal religious doctrines in the Amish school 145 sometimes causes the casual observer to conclude that Amish schools are not parochial schools but private schools used to circumvent state
laws in the name of religion. The Amish reluctance to use their schools
in a catechistical sense stems from th e ir b e lie f that the teaching of doctrines and the explanation of fine doctrinal points belongs only to
the parents or to God's chosen ministers. For a teacher to become
involved in teaching religion (thus defined) would be contrary to
scriptural authority because "no man takes this honor unto himself but 1 2 he that is called of God." Most of the interviewed Amish were not yet willing to place school teachers on a par with their religious
teachers or the parents. Rather than cause community dissension and misunderstandings through one man giving his personal interpretation of the Amish religion to a captive audience, religious instruction is generally limited to the reading of the German Bible (without comment) and the singing of hymns. In this way the teacher's power is limited, and he is kept from introducing any ideas which might not be acceptable
to the community as a whole or to particular groups within it. The controversial nature of this problem is illu s tra te d in Table 12.
The responses indicate a lack of consensus on this question.
Eventually, the desire of the less traditionally oriented groups to
include formal religious instruction may lead to serious fractures in
the apparently united Woodland County Amish community. This would be only one factor, of course; but combined with economic dislocation, personal religious convictions, and the separatist and individualistic
,2Heb. 5:4. 146
TABLE 12
ATTITUDES TOWARD THE ROLE OF THE AMISH SCHOOL IN THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF AMISH CHILDREN (ITEMS 10, 34, 52)
Percentage of Response
Statement SA A UN D SD
Spiritual and religious instruc tion should not be given in 10.0 20.0 5.0 45.0 20.0 school but should be reserved for home and church. (item 10)
The main objective of the Amish o o
parochial school should be to 20.0 25.0 5.0 50.0 * teach children to have faith in God. (item 34)
The main objective of the Amish parochial school should be to 0.0 42.5 2.5 52.5 2.5 teach children the basic three R's. (Item 52)
tendencies of the Amish, insistence on us i ng the schools to convert children could precipitate such a crisis. One man commented that he knew a neighbor who had gone crazy over religion and that like every thing else it could be overdone. Another commented that he thought religious instruction should be included because "we a ll have the same b e lie f or are supposed to ." The problem is that the Amish, like any other group, have many different interpretations about what their reli gion means; and they want to avoid any of the splits and animosities which characterized some Amish communities in Pennsylvania and Ohio in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The question of religious instruction in Amish schools was discussed in Woodland County in the 147 summer of 1966, but no decision was reached; and in Edgewood the teacher, although he is an ordained minister, does not use his religious office to preach formally to the Amish children. His religious worship ser vices each morning do have the approval of the congregation, however.
The variety of responses indicated in Table 13 reflects the difference of opinion on this particular question.
TABLE 13
A COMPARISON OF ATTITUDES TOWARD THE TEACHER'S ROLE IN THE INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF AMISH CHILDREN (ITEMS 14, 37)
Percentage of Response Statement Regarding Teacher's ______Role in an Amish School SA A UN D SD
The teacher's most important responsibility is the salva 15.0 17.5 12.5 45.0 10.0 tion of the child's soul. (Item 1*0
The teacher's most important responsibility is the devel 7.5 42.5 10.0 32.5 7.5 opment of the child's mind. (Item 37)
Although almost everyone agreed that the Bible should be studied
in the Amish school, when pressed to say what they meant by "study,"
70 per cent defined it as "reading only" while 25 per cent said they thought some discussion of the Bible reading should be included. Lack
ing a central church authority who can give an "infallible interpreta tio n," the Amish have steered clear of this area of controversy by li+8
excluding intensive Bible study from their school curriculum. Even
outside of school, p riv a te study groups are frowned upon; and a few
years ago one such group had a part in the establishment of a Beachy
Amish Fellowship in the area. This group was dissatisfied with the
emphasis upon tr a d itio n among the Old Order Amish and the lack of what
they felt was scriptural warrant for many Old Order Amish practices.
The thing the Edgewood Amish are trying to avoid is the multiplicity
of personal interpretations which has fractured historic Protestantism
since its inception. In view of their emphasis upon individual con
science, it is hard to see how they can avoid such fra c tu re s . The
p ractice of endogamy among the Amish means that when s p lits do occur
and excommunication and banning follow, whole families are split
asunder; and for the Amishman with his heightened sense of kinship and
familial relationships, such division is tragic on earth .and in heaven.
If then the Amish do not place a primary emphasis upon formal
religious instruction in their schools, how will these schools serve the
purpose of keeping their children within the bounds of the Amish faith?
The answer, it seems, must be sought in the Amish d e fin itio n of
religion--it is not just a statement of abstract beliefs; it is a set
of practices and traditions which have been integrated into the totality
of Amish l i f e . There is no dichotomy between Amish l i f e and Amish
r e lig io n .
The stress revealed in Table ] k upon qualities essential for
the smooth functioning of intergroup relations is a particularly impor
tant aspect of the Amish school and reflects a characteristic of much li+9 primitive group life where the existence of the group as a cultural entity is dependent upon cooperative rather than competitive endeavor.
TABLE 11+
WHAT PERSONAL QUALITIES SHOULD THE AMISH SCHOOL HELP THE AMISH CHILD DEVELOP? (ITEM 9)
Personal Qualities Number Percentage
Cooperation with others 16 1+0.0
Obedience to authority and 6 15.0 pr inc i pies
Good manners 5 12.5
Independence and self-reliance 2 5-0
No response 11 27.5
Total 1+0 100.0
For years Amish family life has reinforced this ideal informally and transmitted to the child the importance of consensus, obedience, deference to authority, and cooperation. The fact that they now lay great stress on the importance of the Amish school may be indicative that even the close-knit Amish family is feeling the impact of the disintegrating effect of modern society. A few Amish in Edgewood men tioned that some families in the county are having a difficult time holding their young people within the Amish community, and perhaps the
Amish school is seen by some as one means of perpetuating group values and attitudes if family influence fails. Their schools reflect and 150 reinforce Amish cultural values in a way that no formal instruction in
Amish religion could. They teach religion as_ life , not j ust religion j n 1i fe.
TABLE 15
WHAT ADVANTAGES DO YOU THINK AMISH EDUCATION HAS OVER PUBLIC EDUCATION? (ITEM 38)
Advantages Number Percentage
Environment of parochial school conducive to Amish lif e and 25 62.5 religion
Keeps Amish children away from 5 12.5 worldly influences
Better cooperation between 3 7.5 school and community
School year fits Amish farm needs 3 7.5
Don 11 know k 10.0
Total ko 100.0
As can be seen in Table 15, the greatest advantage which the parochial school has over the public school is that it creates an atmosphere conducive to teaching by example the values which the Amish cherish most: modesty and plainness of a ttir e , the unadorned chant like singing, the spirit of helpful cooperation rather than aggressive competition, the learning of patience and self-control, the oneness of fa ith and worship; a ll these and the fact that the teacher has a beard, is dressed like the Amish children's fathers, and is addressed using 151 his first name, help reinforce the belief that Amish society is where the children belong, not in the alien and fashionable world.
Time alone will tell whether this Amish return to the small, familiar country school will successfully combat the inroads of an aggressive technologically refined civilization; but it appears that the
Amish are not pinning all hopes for survival on their schools (Table 16).
TABLE 16
00 YOU AGREE THAT IF THE AMISH DON'T HAVE THEIR OWN SCHOOLS, THE AMISH CHURCH WILL DISAPPEAR? (ITEM 35)
Response Number Percentage
Strongly Agree 2 5.0
Agree 6 15.0
Undec i ded 13 32.5
D i sagree 15 37.5
Strongly Disagree k 10.0
Total 40 100.0
Some Amish believe that the home is a fa r greater shaper of religious attitu d e s than the school and that if the Amish disappear as a group,
it will be because of a deterioration in home life and personal con viction rather than the lack of a school. The large number (one-third) of "undecided" suggests, moreover, that the exact role of the school in
the preservation of Amish li f e is s t i l l somewhat ambiguous. It has not yet achieved a settled status among the Amish, at least in terms of its being viewed as an essential factor in the survival of the Amish re li gion in general.
When the respondents were asked what might happen to the
Edgewood Amish settlement if there were no Amish school and the children had to attend public school, a somewhat different attitude was revealed.
The responses have been categorized in Table 17.
TABLE 17
WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN TO THIS AMISH COMMUNITY IF THERE WERE NO AMISH SCHOOLS AND THE CHILDREN HAD TO ATTEND PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL? (ITEM 59)
Response Number Percentage
Amish would move to a location where parochial school was 13 32.5 a 11owed
There would be an increased tendency for Amish children ]k 35.0 to leave the fa ith
Wouldn't a ffect Old Order Amish 10 25.0 too much
Don' t know 3 7.5
Total *+0 100.0
In this instance the problem was' perhaps brought closer to the everyday lives of the Amish peop1e--their homes and personal relationships were involved, not just the Amish Church in general. Over two-thirds felt that if there were no Amish school, the settlement would be adversely affected by fam ilies moving away and children fa llin g away. One man 153 said that the Amish would rather face ja il than give up their school; some commented that the Amish religion "would gradually fade away" from the area and that "eventually there wouldn't be any Amish if younger children learn public school ways." Among those who fe lt there would be no serious effect, some expressed the belief that the home was the deciding factor, not the school--"Even if they go to parochial school and get no home teaching, they won't grow up to fear God." One man suggested that if the Amish children attended public schools, the schools would have to be enlarged; this would necessitate more taxes, and this in turn would bankrupt the Amish. Perhaps, as one Amishman expressed it , the Amish are doomed whichever way they turn. Some of the Amish in Edgewood pointed to the fact that many of those who attend parochial school still fall away from the faith and that there
is no significant difference in faithfulness between those who attend public school and those who attend parochial school. Scripturally minded Amish counter this argument by saying that the problem lies in there being no real religious instruction in the Amish schools-- without this, how can the youth know the correct Amish way of life?
Those who support a more rigorous program of formal religious
instruction believe that it would be an important deterrent to teen age deviancy and worldliness among the Amish youth. (Youth problems are not much in evidence in the Edgewood area because most of the children are under seventeen, but in more heavily populated areas
there are problems of deviation from societal and Amish norms.) Such a program would perhaps make the Amish school a much more powerful agent 15** of religious orthodoxy and, paradoxically, of cultural change than it is now. For the Amish this represents a dilemma: they can choose to indoctrinate their children formally in their schools and run the risk of increased dissension within the community, or they can continue to preach the Amish way of li f e informally in school and at home and hope the children will be sufficiently shielded from worldly influence thereby and grow up as fa ith fu l Amish men and women.
The ambivalence among the Amish over the exact role which the schools should play is quite the opposite of their perceived role in two other Anabaptist groups--Hutterites and Old Colony Mennonites.
These la tte r groups have used schools for their own ends and have resisted change and attrition to a much greater degree than the Amish.
Only in the last ten to fifteen years have the Amish taken seriously the role which the school may play in their cultural survival. Their early schools came into being as the result of a reflexive reaction to public school pressures, not as a result of long-range planning on the part of Amish leaders. It is s t i l l too early to assess whether the experiment of having their own schools will pay off the dividend they hope for--perpetuation of the distinctive Amish pattern of 1ife— a lt hough the s in c e rity and devotion which the newly emergent "teacher class" expresses for th e ir work would seem to augur well for the futu re, if they build on what has already been done and do not stop when public pressure upon them relaxes. Statements from two veteran
Ohio Amish teachers exemplify this desire:
Here in [Woodland County], as well as else where in the state, there is a continual effort 155
made to improve the standards of our schools. This is mainly in the field of better qualified teachers, equipment, buildings and textbooks. Although still not on the level of public schools, we are trying to demonstrate that we are capable of educating our children adequately for our way of 1i fe.
Our schools are not perfect, as anyone can see, but we try to get as good an education into the children as possible, for our way of living. In our opinion there are many other important things to teach besides book learning.*3
Amish teacher preparation
One of the reasons given by those Amish who opposed the estab- lishment of parochial schools was the fear that untrained and uncerti fied Amish teachers would not be able to teach as effectively as the public school teachers. The fact that at present a large percentage feel that it is a good practice to send their children to public school for the first three or four grades is evidence of the continu ance of this fear among some Amish parents. Given the trad itio nal
Amish adherence to farm and farm-related tasks and their dependence on public school teachers for almost a century, their reticence at turning the basic education of their children over to persons inexperienced In classroom teaching seems understandable. The practice of some Amish schools in employing young g irls as teachers partly because of th e ir availability or the lack of sufficient funds to hire older, more experienced persons did not ease the anxieties of the Amish of Edgewood as they contemplated establishing their own school. These parents did
^ L e tte rs to F. S. Buchanan, August 28, 1^66; January 2, 1 967. 156 not want to put young Amish g irls in charge of their school and have always had a mature male as principal teacher, and many expressed agreement and pleasure at the success which the Amish teacher is having with their children. Some have been "converted" to the school because of his performance and that of his assistant, an Amish g irl of sixteen.
As in other walks of lif e , performance is the key to the Amish measure of a successful teacher; and if Lheir children are learning to read, to w rite , and to do arithm etic and also seem to be growing up as Amish boys and girls, then the majority of Amish would say that a teacher is performing satisfactorily. They do hot attempt to define a "good"
teacher in terms of college credits—some said they have known college educated teachers who were not good teachers, i. e . , they did not perform well and could not teach. The qualifications and duties of the
Amish teacher are described in the Amish "Minimum Standards":
it is recognized that the teacher is the hub on which the entire school revolves. Therefore it is highly essential great care and good judgment is exercised in selecting teachers. Realizing that the school teacher is very influential in molding the lif e of a child, it is of great importance that the teacher possess, fir s t of a l l , good Christian char acter. Equal in importance is good educational background and a desire to further improve that education. Specifically the education shall consist of an eighth grade elementary education. Other characteristics a teacher should possess are: the ability to "get along" with children, willingness to co-operate with parents and school board, and a sincere attachment to the teaching profession.!^
^Minimum Standards for the Amish Parochial or Private Elementary Schools of the State of Ohio as a Form of Regulations (Apple Creek: compiled and approved by bishops, committeemen and others in conference, Henry J. Hershberger, Chairman [c.1958]), [p. 4]. 157
The foremost concern of many Amish parents is s t ill the prepara tion and competence of teachers. When asked to name the improvements which they thought needed to be made in Amish parochial education (in general, not Edgewood d is tric t alone), almost half seemed satisfied and said they knew of no needed improvements. Of the remainder, some
¥+ per cent made comments related to the improvement of the teaching s taff through improved training and increased salaries. The large number (^7-5 per cent) who did not know of any needed, improvements may be a natural result of reticence to criticize their own institution before a non-Amish person (see Table 18).
TABLE 18
WHAT IMPROVEMENTS DO YOU THINK SHOULD BE MADE IN AMISH PAROCHIAL EDUCATION? (ITEM 39)
Suggest ions Number Percentage
Expanded and improved curriculum 7 17.5
Better prepared and more mature 5 12.5 teachers
Increased teachers' salaries k 10.0
Other 5 12.5
Don 11 know 19 ^7.5
Total 40 100.0
While one might expect the religious attitudes of the teacher to have a bearing on his acceptability, this particular group of Amish 158 favored general intelligence as the most desirable characteristic of an
Amish teacher (see Table 19). This should not be interpreted to mean that the religious or spiritual factor is absent--it is an indication that many of these people consider some aspects of the Ordnunq to be based too much on trad itio n and not enough on scripture. One person con ditioned his choice of Ordnunq by saying, " If it's based on the Word."
TABLE 19
MOST DESIRABLE CHARACTERISTICS OF AN AMISH TEACHER (ITEM 11)
Percentage Choosing Characteristic Number Characteristic as First Choice
General intelligence 19 47.5
Strictness in discipline 10 25.0
Faithfulness to the Ordnunq 9 22.5
All are equally desirable 2 5.0
Tota I 40 100.0
The large number who stressed general intelligence indicates that these
Amish parents are interested in the "academic" quality of the teacher as well as in his religious orientation. This interest is further evi denced in the responses given to questions concerning how much formal education an Amish teacher should have (see Table 20). The relatively
large group who agreed and were undecided and the absence of a majority
in the strongly disagreed category suggests that the Amish are not as 159 strongly opposed to some college education for special circumstances
(e .g ., teachers) as one might suppose. It should be added, however, that not all Mennonite colleges would be considered a proper environ ment. Host have become too worldly In the eyes of the Amish.
TABLE 20
WHAT 00 YOU THINK OF THE PRACTICE OF HAVING AMISH TEACHERS RECEIVE TEACHER TRAINING AT MENNONITE COLLEGES? (ITEM 12)
Response Number Percentage
Strongly Agree 1 2.5
Agree 8 20.0
Undec ided 10 25-0
D i sagree 15 37-5
Strongly Disagree 6 15-0
Total 40 100.0
Of those who disagreed with the idea of attending a Mennonite college, 42.5 per cent felt that an eighth grade education was suffi cient, 20 per cent felt that eighth grade plus correspondence courses, and 12.5 per cent were in favor of prospective Amish teachers attending high school. Some believed that college education in certain subjects
(e.g., English) would be more acceptable than work in science; others felt that attendance in an institution of higher learning might be acceptable, but it would depend on why the teacher wanted to attend.
Recognizing the practicality of the situation, one perceptive Amishman 160 commented thatif an Amish person attended a Mennonite college, he would not want to return to the low-paying Amish school so in the long run it would not benefit the Amish schools.
The Amish are v ita lly interested in improving th e ir teachers' effectiveness but are undecided on how this can best be done. There is no formal program of teacher train in g , although the Amish teachers of Woodland County meet once each month to discuss common teaching problems and share th e ir teaching experiences. As elsewhere in Amish life, informality and a certain antipathy for organization inhibits e ffo rts to form alize a teacher train in g program. However, the Amish stress upon cooperation and "on-the-job training" may help compensate for the lack of a formal program. Nevertheless, there are some Amish who favor the establishment of a program of special summer schools for
Amish teachers; and as more Amish teachers receive their education in
Amish schools, the need for such a program may become’ more acute.
At present most Amish teachers have been educated in the public schools, and whether or not the Amish schools themselves can produce a cadre of e ffe c tiv e teachers remains to be seen. In the long run, th e ir a b ility to produce school teachers for th e ir way of lif e may spell the difference between the success or fa ilu re of the Amish school system.
The nature of Amish society will continue to change at a gradual pace, and th e ir schools cannot lag behind if they are to be used to help preserve the best features and values of Amish life. The impact of industrialism
Traditionally the Amish are farmers, and that occupation has an almost sacerdotal quality about it. The Amishman believes that farming is more natural work than other pursuits, and it is what God means His people to be engaged in. In his wanderings in the United
States the Amishman has settled in areas where land was cheap and plentiful and where he would be assured of enough land for his sons to continue in his footsteps as tillers of the soil.
Recent years, however, have v/itnessed a drastic decline in the number of small family farms (the kind the Amish have); and as c itie s burgeon outward, as taxes increase, as the small general farmer finds himself being displaced by large highly mechanized and specialized farms, the Amishman finds himself faced not only with a society whose religious and social values are foreign to him, but a society whose economic system is becoming increasingly more d iffic u lt for him to relate to. Although religion is of primary importance in the Amish community, the Amish are re a lis tic enough to realize that the community cannot endure unless it has a sound economic base.
The Amish in Woodland County are being pressured from a ll sides, and industrial life has made serious and perhaps fatal inroads into the traditional Amish emphasis upon farming. Some church d istric ts in the county have large percentages of their youths employed in rubber factories, and some families have fathers and sons who have never farmed; even a few Amish girls are employed in the factories. The over crowded farm conditions and high taxes have led to a continuous flow of 162
Amish families out of the area to other states, especially Wisconsin.
In a two-week period in February, 1967, six Amish families le ft the
county for "greener pastures"; and the continuous spread of the large metropolis to the west of the Amish settlements makes it appear lik e ly
that many emigrations will follow in the years ahead. The Amish per-
ception of why many of their coreligionists are moving is seen in Table
21.
TABLE 21
WHY DO YOU THINK SO MANY AMISH ARE LEAVING WOODLAND COUNTY? (ITEM 51)
Reasons Number Percentage
Area is overcrowded 23 57.5
Taxes and land prices are too 1 1 27.5 high
Religious reasons 5 12.5
Don 11 know 1 2.5
Total ko 100.0
Pressure from public schools is certainly not an apparent factor
causing removal in Woodland County--economic dislocation is given as the
principal reason for moving. It should be noted, however, that the
reasons listed in Table 21 are based on f ir s t choices made by respondents.
A ctually, over h alf of the respondents mentioned the religious factor
as one of the reasons why many Amish are leaving the county. Many 163 commented that some Amish are leaving because they believe that the
Ordnunq is not s tric t enough (e.g., allowing Amish farmers to use modern machinery if they don't own the farm), while others are leaving because the Ordnunq is too s tric t (e .g ., not allowing the use of modern machinery). One man commented that he'd favor some modification of the rules rather than see Amish boys working in the factories. Another asserted that many of the Amish churches in the county are slowly d r i f t
ing and that there is not the closeness between the d istric ts that there ought to be. The fact that so few mentioned the religious factor as the
primary reason may be indicative of some reluctance to recognize the differences of religious opinions which appear to be developing in
Woodland County. As was noted e a rlie r, these differences are reflected
in attitudes toward the schools with the older, more trad itio nally oriented d istric ts being less inclined to give enthusiastic support
to the schools than the newer, more sp iritu ally oriented d is tric ts .
High taxes, the scarcity of land, or religious disagreements are
not the only factors which are forcing changes in the traditional Amish
life or causing removal to other states. A few years ago the milk
marketing board of the nearby metropolis decreed that milk sold to its
dairies must be cooled in tanks on the farms, and certain standards were
set up for barns and the handling of the milk. Since most of these
standards were related in some way to modernization and e le c tric ity ,
which the Amish are forbidden to have, the net result was a loss in milk
revenues. The Amish responded by organizing a Swiss cheese factory as
an outlet for their milk. Even though they get much less for the milk, \6h it was a solution to the dilemma of either moving or modernizing.
Recent actions by regulatory bodies of state and federal government concerning the conditions under which cheese is produced may present another d iffic u lt decision for local Amish farmers who wish to remain in the county.
Attempts to fo restall an exodus of Amish from the county include the setting up of a Feeder Pig Improvement Association (consisting principally of Amish farmers) allowing them the opportunity of selling their animals to buyers who would not otherwise be inclined to deal with individual farmers. Some nurserymen from a nearby county have also expressed an interest in training Amish boys in the nursery trade. This would enable the Amish to cultivate their smal1-holdings intensively rather than extensively, and effectively utilize the many hands avail able in the average Amish fam ily.^
The acceptance of a program of farming apprenticeships for
Amish boys might be one way in which the Amish could retain and preserve their agricultural orientation. The dangers are also quite apparent.
Such a program might remove their youth from a reliance on prim itive farming methods; and in the minds of many Amish, the old ways in farming are coterminous with the old ways of re lig io n . Economic necessity seems, however, to be an opening wedge in the modification of certain restrictions on the use of modern farm machinery such as milk cooling tanks or tractors. One Ohio Amishman claims that the unprogressive attitude toward new farming techniques on the part of Amish leadership
'^Interview with County Extension Agent, February, 1967. 165 often backfires and forces Amishmen into nonfarm occupations or induces them to migrate to other more progressive areas.
A small group of Amish who moved from Woodland County to Perry
County in 1965 reportedly make use of tractors in their fie ld work so that they can compete with non-Amish farmers.'^ Their ostensible
reason for leaving Woodland County was the growing industrialization of
the area; but according to some Amish in Edgewood, they were motivated by a desire to practice a more spiritual life. It is difficult to always ascertain which is the more basic motivation, industrialization, economics, or religion. In Amish communities, as elsewhere, there are
also personal animosities and power struggles; and these sometimes
underlie the overt "scriptural11 reasons for disagreeing or moving.
According to one Amishman, an excessive adherence to the Ordnunq against modern farm equipment may reinforce feelings of jealousy among the
Amish; and that t r a it , in his opinion, was more to be feared than a mi 1king machine.
Paradoxically, those who claim more scriptural than traditional warrant for their practices are more likely to introduce modern "con
veniences" such as tractors and other changes into the traditional
pattern of life . Moving away from the older community is perhaps the
only way in which such drastic changes can take place without disrupt
ing the relationship between the church d is tric ts . However, although * change is more d iffic u lt in the older communities, it is s t ill possible
'^"Perry County Warms to Amish Families," Columbus Dispatch, July 10, 1966. 166 and continues to occur at an almost imperceptible pace, especially under the impact of modern industrialization.
The occupations of the heads of the Amish families in Edgewood, in contrast with the occupations of the fathers of all respondents, illustrates to some degree the changes which have taken place (see
Table 22). Changes have occurred, but farming is s till the ideal occu pation. The desire on the part of these Amishmen to continue in the way of their fathers is evidenced by the fact that while only 64 per cent of the men in Edgewood were presently engaged in farming, over 76 per cent said that they would like to be engaged in it.
TABLE 22
A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE OCCUPATIONS OF HEADS OF FAMILIES AND RESPONDENTS' FATHERS
Heads of Families Respondents' Fathers
Occupat i on Number Percentage Number Percentage
Farmi ng 16 64.0 33 82.5
Building trades 6 24.0 5 12.5
Other 3 12.0 2 5.0
Total 25 100.0 40 100.0
When the sons of these men were asked which occupation they preferred, more than 75 per cent chose farming. One ten-year-old boy said that he would "like to have about twenty-five cows. And also 1 167 would like to have about one hundred acres to farm on. Then I would wish that I could make out good on farming." Another commented that he wanted to farm because "I like to milk cows and do a ll farm chores.
I like to drive a tractor with a wagon on it, to go out in the field to drive hay." A fourteen-year-old Amish boy reflected the Amish occupational ideal when he said, "1 want to be a dairy farmer and have about 15 cows. I would want to have a farm around 100 acres and do work by horses. I would want a sugar bush so I could make maple surip [sic] on my farm for an extra income." Another boy summed up his preference for farming by saying, "1 like to live on a farm, 1
like to do chores, 1 like farming. Farming is fun." Those who did not choose farming chose building trades, and one boy said he'd like to be a missionary and "do what God wants me to be." It appears that farming is s t ill an important aspect of Amish life for old and young.
Almost one-third of the fathers said that they liked to farm because
it strengthened their family ties , while others claimed that it made them feel closer to God.
Of the fifteen Amish females interviewed 33 per cent said that they would have liked to have been school teachers. Others choices
included practical nursing and, of course, mother, housewife, baker, and cook. Of the Amish girls who responded to the question about what they would like to be, over half said they would like to be teachers.
One girl reported that she'd "like to be a teacher in an Amish school and try to teach the f ir s t , second, third, and fourth graders, Reading,
W riting, English, Phoenix [sic] and Arithm etic." Another commented that 168
"to live and work around children, 1 think, would be swell." Apparently, some may view a teaching career as one way of acquiring additional educa tion as one g irl who said, " It would help me learn more than just going through the eight grades." In addition to teaching, the g irls chose being a mother, a housewife, a nurse, a storekeeper, and a librarian.
Being a mother was one g irl's choice because she "loved children very much and because I like to wash dishes, floors and clothes. But it really isn't my will, it's God's w ill," she said. With the exception of teaching, there is no professionalization among Amish women. They are s t ill basically committed to a role of mother and housewife. As one
Amish mother expressed it , "The Bible teaches us that we should be keepers at home."
TABLE 23
IF YOU WERE ABLE TO CHOOSE ANY OCCUPATION YOU WISHED TO PURSUE, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE? (ITEM 43)
Occupation Number Percentage
Men
Farming 19 47.5
Building trades 6 15*0
Women
Housewife 4 10.0
Teacher 4 10.0
Other 7 17-5
T o ta l 40 100.0 169
The occupational preferences of the adults indicated in
Table 23, the preferences of the children, and the occupational pattern actually followed in the Edgewood settlement indicate the extent of the
Amish commitment to a nontechnical life of farm or farm-related tasks. This commitment is further evidenced by the responses to the question: "If an Amish father is faced with the prospect of his children growing up and taking work in fa c to rie s, what should he do?"
Eighty per cent suggested that he should move to another location, if possible, and engage in farm work. Some felt that the eight-hour day spoils the child's work habits and that once he gets used to it, he'll never want to farm and that the atmosphere of the factory is not con ducive to a spiritual life. A few who felt factory work was acceptable said that the Amish can do good in the factories and win souls for
Christ by setting a Christian example. One man asserted that if the children don't like farming, perhaps factory work might be best while another expressed the belief that although sometimes economic conditions necessitate factory work, it was better to stay away from factories if at all possible. This strong antipathy for employment which is not related to farming is seen in Table 2h, The employment categories in this table were derived from a longer list involving some twenty-three kinds of work including tavern employee, lawyer, physician, businessman, s c ie n tific researcher, policeman, televisio n and radio repairman, and musical performer. Also included in the lis t of forbidden employment were any kinds of work which required a uniform or absence from home in the evenings. 170
TABLE 24
WHAT KINDS OF EMPLOYMENT SHOULD AN AMISHMAN AVOID? (ITEM 48)
Employment Number Percentage
Work in shops and factories 13 32.5
Work requiring higher education 6 15.0
Work requiring trade union 6 15.0 membershi p
Truck driving 5 12.5
Work involving war products 3 7.5
Other 7 17.5
Total 40 100.0
The reasons for opposing the kinds of work mentioned above have been categorized in Table 25. Of the specific reasons given , the most common was the work's inconsistency with Amish li f e —once again Amish religion overlaps other aspects of living. Some felt that when an
Amishman takes employment in a factory, he is not being a "lig ht to the world"; and a number expressed concern with the fact that in many factories men and women worked together. This was seen as presenting too many temptations and as a contributing factor to divorce and separation of married couples. One man mentioned that in the factories too many "Yankee women get after Amish men." Opposition to involvement
in trade unions was based on the Amish belief that such organizations deprive men of their individual freedom. (The Amish willingness to work 171
TABLE 25
REASONS FOR AVOIDING CERTAIN KINDS OF EMPLOYMENT (ITEM 1+9)
Reasons Number Percentage
Not consistent with Amish way 21+ 60.0 of 1i fe
Too many temptations 8 20.0
Loss of individual freedom 6 15.0
Other 2 5.0
• Tota 1 1+0 100.0
at nonunion rates no doubt makes Woodland County an a ttra c tiv e area
for small-scale industry.) The fear that working with unbelievers might
degrade one's own fa ith , that work in a rubber factory might be con
tributing to war, and that a forty-hour week gives a person too much
spare time were also mentioned as reasons for avoiding nonfarm employ
ment. A few, while agreeing that there were certain kinds of work an
Amishman should not engage in, also fe lt that it depended e n tire ly upon
the person involved, and that it is possible for an Amishman to be a witness for Christ even in a factory.
No doubt these are Amish ideals--in practice many are employed
in facto ries or work as construction workers away from the Amish com-
munity. The fact that only 30 per cent strongly agree with the idea
that certain employment opportunities should be avoided by Amishmen
indicates that perhaps the remaining 70 per cent, who simply agreed, 172 may have had some reservations about religious restrictions on employ ment .
One may well ask what all this has to do with education and
Amish schools. The Amish are practical people and want only the educa tion which will fit their children for Amish life. This is their ideal.
As one woman expressed it, the Amish parents do not want their children to be better off than they are; they want them to lead the same simple life which generations of Amish have lived. It follows that if this is the main purpose (and the Amish criterion of a successful lif e ) , then an eighth grade education w ill be sufficient formal preparation for success so defined. This may be an incorrect assumption on the part of the Amish, but it is part of their Weitanschauunq, and it appears to have motivated their educational practices. They prefer farming, they are rooted in an agrarian tradition, and their fondest hopes appear to be that their children will follow in their footsteps. All this must be considered when one attempts to understand Amish educa tional values.
Some schoolmen have argued that the Amish need more education because they are leaving the farms, and that the highly technical work of today requires high school preparation; in other words, they claim that there is a direct positive correlation between what a youth learns in high school and his success in his life 's work. The Amish response to this is seen in Table 26.
The Amish are apparently unconvinced that attendance at a high school w ill enhance their a b ilitie s as workers even if they do have to 173
TABLE 26
DO YOU AGREE THAT THE AMISH NEED MORE THAN AN EIGHTH GRADE EDUCATION IF THEY ARE TO COMPETE FOR EMPLOYMENT IN INDUSTRY? (ITEM kk)
Response Number Percentage
Strongly Agree 2 5.0
Agree 8 20.0
Undec i ded 3 7.5
D i sagree 2k 60.0
Strongly Disagree 3 7.5
Total Ito 100.0
abandon their traditional farm orientation. While acknowledging that changes are occurring, many expressed the feeling that there was very little that couldn't be learned on the job, which for the Amishman is a mych more effective and sensible approach to industrial education than book learning. They point with some pride to the'fact that one
Amishman, who has worked in one of the rubber manufacturing plants for th irty to forty years and has only a sixth grade education, was recently called out of the state to "trouble shoot" in one of the firm's other plants. He solved the problem because of his vast experience while more educated men stood by, helpless. Another man noted that in
Woodland County there were more workers than jobs and that plans are afoot to attrac t to the area more work which the Amish can engage in.
None of the firms in the area has ever made education a requirement for 174 employment, apparently; and until these firms become convinced that a high school education makes better workers, then there will continue to be an outlet for competent, though unschooled, nonfarming Amishmen, th e ir sons, and th e ir daughters. The Amish do not claim that they are qu alified by virtue of their eighth grade education to take any kind of employment; they do believe, though, that there are s t i l l enough jobs available which do not actually require formal “higher education." The practice of many large industries in training and retraining their employees for particular jobs is a forceful argument in favor of the
Ami sh pos i t ion.
The impact of industrial society has already made even Amish farm life more complex than that of their fathers. Undoubtedly, the
Amish w ill change in time and accept more of what at one time was con sidered unacceptable, both in terms of the kinds of farms they have, the nonfarm employment they engage in, and the amount and kinds of schooling they receive. The number of grades completed by the respond ents and their parents is indicative of change in the direction of more formal schooling for the younger generation (see Table 27). The respondents received on an average 1.56 years of schooling more than th e ir fathers, 1.14 years more than th e ir mothers, and 1.35 years more than the average of both parents. Not only have the respondents been exposed to more years of formal schooling, they have been exposed to * a wider range of school experiences. While over 90 per cent of their parents' schooling took place in one-room schools, only 30 per cent of the respondents received their schooling in a one-room school. 175
TABLE 27
YEARS OF FORMAL SCHOOLING COMPLETED BY FORTY AMISH RESPONDENTS AND THEIR PARENTS
Years 3 k 5 6 7 8 9
Father Ave.=6.02 years
N I 10 6 3 1 13 1 35*
% 2.8 28.6 17.1 8.6 2.9 37.0 2.9 100.0
Mother Ave. =6.*+*+ years
N 3 3 5 4 3 16 0 3*+*
% 8.8 8.8 l*+.7 11.8 8.8 *+7.0 0 100.0
Respondent Ave.=7-58 years
N 0 2 1 2 2 33 0 *10
% 0.0 5.0 2.5 5.0 5.0 82.5 0.0 100.0
* N = 35 and 3** because some respondents did not know how many years of schooling their parents had completed. Total percentage rounded to 100.
Although it is difficult to determine exactly how these added years of
schooling have influenced the Amish d ire c tly , the exposure to non-Amish
life has at least increased the possibility of the younger generation
being more susceptible to external influences and more amenable to
accepting new ideas and practices. Even their own schools have intro
duced changes, the effects of which cannot yet be ascertained. 176
Although the long-term d rift appears to be away from the tra d i tional Amish patterns, there is wide disagreement concerning the effect modern industrial society has on the Amish in Woodland County (see
Table 28).
TABLE 28
DO YOU AGREE THAT AS MODERN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY CONTINUES TO DEVELOP, THE AMISH IN WOODLAND COUNTY WILL EVENTUALLY DISAPPEAR? (ITEM 56)
Response Number Percentage
Strongly Agree 2 5.0
Agree 16 40.0
Undec i ded 6 15.0
D isagree 13 32.5
Strongly Disagree 3 7.5
Tota 1 ko 100.0
Of those agreeing in general with the adverse effect which society may have on the Amish in this county, some 72 per cent said that nothing could be done to stop the decline; and the remaining 28 per cent fe lt that perhaps modification of the Ordnunq (allowing modernization of farms for instance) might stop the decline. One man suggested that perhaps the decline would be less rapid in the "gravel road" areas of the county where the people are "solid Amish," while another fe lt that perhaps the decline would only be stopped by a sign from heaven "lik e an earthquake." 177
Those who disagreed that the Amish would decline in the county gave as th e ir reason: changes may occur, but there is enough fa ith in the Old Order Amish for them to hold out until the end. While the Amish are not mi 11ennialists, they do firmly believe that some day Christ will come again and that the pace of modern life and all its “evils" is but a sign of the last days. They believe that before the world overcomes the Amish, Christ w ill have overcome the world; and no amount of school
ing or industrial expertise can prepare an Amishman for such an event or forestall its certainly.
The foregoing discussion has attempted to illustrate and delineate some of the problems which one Amish settlement faced in its efforts to preserve Amish cultural values in its young people. The extent to which the Edgewood Amish are typical Amish is d iffic u lt to judge. As was indicated at the beginning of this chapter, they may be representative of a group of newer Amish settlements which lie ,
ideologically, between the traditionally oriented Amish and the Beachy
Amish. They d iffe r from the trad itio nal group in such things as their opposition to the use of tobacco and liquor (in the traditional settlements some fathers have been known to encourage their boys to smoke in an e ffo rt to keep them in the old group). They d iffe r from the Beachy Amish in such things as their retention of buggies for trans portation. There are numerous other differences, but these two are perhaps the most apparent of the differences between these three Amish divisions in Woodland County. The trad itio nal community frowns on missionary activity; the Beachy Amish actively favor it; the Edgewood 178
Amish seem once again to be in a middle position--favoring and support ing missionary a c tiv ity , but not actively engaging in it . One man cited John Horsch's The Mennonites in Europe, though, as evidence that early Anabaptists were not opposed to missionary work.
The large number of Edgewood Amish who farm land that they do not own and can, therefore, use modern farm machinery may also be indicative of the marginal nature of the Edgewood settlement. They are caught not only between the City of God and the City of Man, but between different conceptions of what the City of God is. Tradition means something to them only if it can be supported by scripture; and they claim that they wear beards and plain clothes not because these are the old ways, but because they can better witness to the world their acceptance of Christ.
The latent controversy over the role of the Amish school is another source of potential friction between differing interpretations of Amish lif e . Nor has it been resolved within the Edgewood Amish
School D is tric t. The presence of fr ic tio n in any small closely knit group is almost always disruptive of the s ta b ility of the group, and changes occur as the group seeks s ta b ility and some measure of inner consistency, even if it means withdrawing from the larger community.
This has been the history of the Amish since Jakob Ammann sought to restore the church to its p ris tin e purity in 1693, and it w ill like ly continue to be so while Amish individualism takes precedence over highly centralized authority.
One Amishman in Edgewood commented that he thought it was a good thing when any church could change practices which were "wrong," 179 and another stated that there was no written Ordnung In the area because changes were occurring so rapidly that a w ritte n Ordnung would soon be out of date. Others remarked that many Amish practices were actually only traditions which could very well be dispensed with without damaging those Amish religious beliefs which are based on scripture. Such state ments indicate that change, if not actively encouraged, is accepted.
What the more progressive Amish may fa il to re a lize is that change in one aspect of the Amish community (economic, religious, educational, or social) inexorably leads to changes in related aspects of Amish com- muni ty lif e .
All Amish groups, whether "traditional" or "scriptural" in their emphasis, are under pressure from the external world to change their way of life; in addition, there are internal pressures from the Amish community which also create stresses and strains. "In the world" as
they are, the Amish cannot to ta lly prevent th e ir culture from being
influenced by the larger society and by individuals and movements within Amish society. They know intuitively that they are struggling
against heavy odds to survive as a distinct culture. In the Amish
school they have glimpsed the p o ss ib ility of arresting the changes and
preserving what they believe is most basic to Amish life — their faith
in God and their simple way of life. Some object to being viewed only
as a unique culture and feel that the inner faith of the Amishman is more important than his occupation and external appearance. They are
interrelated, of course; and It is difficult to see how the Amish can
survive as Amish without being different in looks as well as in beliefs. 180
Summary of Survey Findings
The foregoing survey of an Amish school d is tr ic t leads to a number of statements about the Edgewood Amish and th e ir educational va1ues:
A. Public Schools
1. The Amish object more to the content of the public elementary schools than they do to the principle of public schooling.
2. The Amish draw a cleai—cut distinction between elementary and secondary education--the first is necessary for Amish children; the second is not.
3. The Amish fear that if their children attend public elementary schools, especially in the upper grades, they may be lost to the Amish f a it h .
B. Amish Schools
1. The Amish are seriously committed to the proposition that attendance at an Amish elementary school is an essential part of keeping their children Amish.
2. The Amish will not establish a program of secondary schooling for their children unless they are prevailed upon by public pressure to attend school beyond the eighth grade.
3. The Amish believe that only the-most basic and necessary sub jects should be taught in the Amish school.
4. The Amish regard practical work on the farm and in the home as necessary in preparing their children for adult life. It is more relevant and efficient for them, they believe, than formal secondary schooling.
5. The Amish are uncertain about the precise role which the Amish school should have in the formal religious education of th e ir chi 1dren.
6. The Amish school is a potential agent of change in the Amish commun i t y .
C. Amish Teacher Preparation
1. The Amish are seriously concerned that th e ir teachers be adequate to the task of teaching their children and do not always equate being trad itio n a lly orthodox in religion with being a "good11 teacher.
2. The Amish believe that their teachers should continually improve their "academic" standing, but most believe that the eighth grade should be the lim it of formal teacher preparation. More important to the Amish teachers than specific courses is the interaction they have with other experienced Amish teachers.
Impact of Industrialism
1. The Amish are aware of the encroachments which modern industri alization is making on their society; but rather than compromise on basic religious essentials, they will relocate in more rural areas.
2. The Amish believe that a willingness to learn and practical experience are more important to Amish occupational success than years of formal schooling.
3. The Amish believe that even with their eighth grade limit on formal schooling they can readily adapt to the occupational demands of modern industry in the event that they do not follow the farming trad itio n.
*+. The Amish view farming and farm-related tasks as themost appropriate employment for Amish people and as being more con sistent with the Amish religious values than work in industry. CHAPTER V
IMPLICATIONS
The Amish in the World
There are no Amish in Europe today. Those who chose to stay
rather than emigrate have long since been assimilated and acculturized.
Through adopting the language of other nations, and through inter marriage and close association with Mennonites, they lost their distinc tiveness in dress, practice, and belief. Those who came to the United
States found a haven from government restrictions on religious freedom and also a land large enough, geographically and s p iritu a lly , where they could follow their pattern of community lif e unmolested.
Because of their agrarian orientation the Amish had no d iffi culty fitting into the American scene while the nation was similarly oriented. However, with the rapid growth of industrialization after
i860 the Amish were more and more compelled to build walls of separa tion between themselves and the non-Amish industrial sector so that they could preserve their way of lif e . It is perhaps significant that the major splits in the Amish group occurred during those periods when the
industrial order began to impinge more drastically on rural life. In the l860's, a series of conferences was held in Ohio to try and recon-- c ile the contending Amish factions, i.e ., those who favored a more
182 183 progressive attitude and the adapting of the new technology to Amish requirements and those who were completely opposed to any innovation or compromise with the "world." The progressive group eventually merged with the Mennonites (a lesson not lost on those who opposed innovation), while the Old Order Amish attempted to halt change by adopting a stricter interpretation of the concept of separation from the world.
As more pressure is brought to bear on the Amish by the external and secular society, the process of adaption, absorption, and retrench ment has continued. The appearance of the automobile led (in 1928) to the establishment of a group known as the Beachy Amish who, while holding to what they f e lt were basic Amish b elie fs and practices, con tended that automobile ownership was not s in fu l. Another Ohio group, the Swartzentruber Amish, retrenched themselves more firm ly in their beliefs and customs by widening the brim of the hat, lengthening the
■ ^ * hair, and generally opposing the use of motorized farming implements.
Between the two extremes are those who might be characterized as main body Old Order Amish. These have sought to preserve, as much as possible, the Amish way of life without either becoming progressive or reactionary, although the process of division and change continues even w ith them.
Fearful that their way of life is doomed if they once admit com promise with the encroaching society, most of the Amish have used their dress, their language, and their buggies as barriers to the alien world. When the public schools seemed to become more effective instru ments of socialization and acculturation into the larger industrial 184 society in the second decade of the twentieth century, the Amish attempted to stave o ff these encroachments by setting an upper lim it to the amount of schooling their children could have. This limit gradually increased from the fourth grade before 1914 up to the seventh and eighth grades in the early 1920's. When e ffo rts were made to force the Amish into the ninth grade, the Amish reacted by establishing their own ninth grade vocational schools and eventually developed their own
Amish school system. A lt these developments were responses to a threat--the threat of extinction of their old way of life.
Some may question the school's ability to mold the child, insist ing that the home and general society is a much more pervasive influ ence. However, the school's e x p lic it in ten t, to make students "good" citizens of the state, is enough for the Amish. Whether the public school succeeds or not (and they believe it does), it s t i l l presents a potential threat which they would rather avoid.
The continual emigration of the Amish to areas where the school laws are less rigid and their establishment of a costly (to them) private school system illu s tr a te how the public school has become iden tif ie d in the Amish mind with the world, which they are under covenant to avoid as much as possible. Indeed, the school problem is seen by some as simply a continuation of the persecution leveled against the
Anabaptists from th eir beginning in the sixteenth century. Then they were willing to uproot themselves from home and country in order to avoid such things as military service and attendance at state churches.
Now many of them are willing to do the same in face of increasing 185 in d u s tria liza tio n and compulsory public school attendance. The estab lishment of th e ir own school system may be seen as a kind of m igration, too--away from contact with the wortd--a withdrawal into an environment of their own choice and shaping. Their greatest desire is to perpetuate the ways of their fathers through maintaining family-sized farms and keeping their children close to home in schools of their choice. The effectiveness of their schools in doing this has yet to be demonstrated.
The two problems of in d u s tria liza tio n and schooling are closely related and present the Amish with a d i f f i c u lt dilemma. If they live close to a large urban center, the land prices eventually make it
impossible for th e ir children to engage in farm work. They may decide to remain, establish their own school system, and allow their children to work in local fa c to rie s. They face in the short run, however,
increasing contact with the larger society which they wish to avoid; and
in the long run their schools may prove inadequate as their youth become more enmeshed in industry and the technical aspects of modern lif e . In this event they may be forced to upgrade their schools in order to pro vide a more adequate education in technical skills. Nonfarm work and
"higher education" are unacceptable to many Amish, and often the only recourse open is to migrate to an area where rural values and the agrarian life as they know it are still predominant. Failing this, they may In time become members of a progressive group within the framework of Amish * i values (e.g., Beachy Amish) or attach themselves to a Mennonite group.
*The process of moving from the tra d itio n a l to the more liberal branches of the Mennonite faith is described in Karl Baehr, "Seculariza tion Among the Mennonites of Elkhart County, Indiana," Mennon i te Q.uar- terly Review. XVI (July, 1962), pp. 131-60. 186
The Amish are seriously committed to their schools and have apparently accepted the changes which have resulted from the introduc tion of schools and professional Amish teachers into the Amish com munity's pattern of living. At one time the schoolhouse was peripheral to the Amish community; today it has become, for many, an important focus of community involvement. For a time the Amish were apathetic about establishing their own schools and some even resisted the notion; today the schools seem to be accepted as part of Amish values almost as much as beards, buggies, and plain clothes.
The Amish have changed since Jacob Ammann's attempt in 1693 to restore the Christian Church to its pristine purity, and they continue to change today. They could not have persisted without allowing some modification of practices and beliefs. Modification has come slowly and almost imperceptibly, but it has come. In a former age when general social change was slow, the Amish changed with Iittle.disco m fort or dis-
location--true, they lagged behind the "progressive" element in society, but so did a large proportion of rural America. The Amish were not the only small family farmers on the land. Since the end of World War I I , however, the pace of change has caught up almost every segment of society, including the rural. The Amish do not want to be in the main stream of c iv iliz a tio n ; but whether they want to or not, " c iv iliz a tion" is making inroads upon them.
The simple fact of an automobile's being introduced into an
Amish youth's life gives him greater contact with the outside world.
This exposure can lead to the adoption of some of the occupational 187
values of "the world," and the youth may become dissatisfied with the
old ways. The desire for non farm work in turn may lead to a need for
more formal education which produces less to leratio n for Amish adult
values; and eventually the Amish boy is alienated from his origins and,
in the eyes of his parents and kin, from the possibilities of salvation.
This process is a continual thing among the Amish--the introduction of
a new practice, idea, or machine invariably leads to other changes
because of the interrelatedness of Amish society's "mutually dependent
parts." In the long run, unless they can isolate themselves almost
completely from general society, as the Hutterites have done, the Amish
w ill be assim ilated. The cliche "one thing leads to another" is as true
for the Amish as for the rest of society, but there is a vast difference
between d i s i ntegrat ion of a culture over a short period of time and
j ntegrat i on over a longer period. The latter is a result of the normal
"wear and tear" of contact with the general society; the former is often
precipitated by the application of pressure from a source outside of and
foreign to the small culture. The process may be diagrammed as follows:
D i srupti ve External ____ _ Internal pressures on Disintegration pressure ------r ig id ity ------►young to ------► o f community m 3 conform to the long run old ways
The threat from the outside actually strengthens the group's old norms--
norms which otherwise might have been abandoned. Rather than being
2 Donald E. Erickson, "How to Exterminate the Amish Without Really Trying" (University of Chicago, 1965), pp. 2-3. (Mimeographed.) 188 3 acculturated and integrated, the group will revive traditional ways.
In contrast, the absence of external pressures may be diagrammed thus:
Lack of .^1 Atmosphere Integration . Internal T, , .. external ______► amenable ______of community in ^ f 1 exibi1 11 y . , _, , 1 pressure 1 to change the long run
Commenting on the above phenomenon among the Amish, Erickson says that "when overt attacks from outside cease, many of the settle ments appear to strike a more realistic balance between rigidity and l± c a p itu la tio n ." This seems to be the case in Ohio and is especially noticeable where school superintendents have realized the nature of
Amish values. One superintendent frankly admitted that in twenty years of teaching among the Amish he had not noticeably changed th e ir views on education and added that he was not God that he could te ll the Amish what was right for them.^ He might not have changed them, but the county of which he is superintendent is one of the leaders among the
Amish school systems and the clim ate and atmosphere amenable to change appear to be there.
Repeatedly the Amish have said, in e ffe c t, "Leave us alone; give £ us time to work out our problems." Unless they are allowed to do th is ,
they may become more re c a lc itra n t; and more disintegration w ill ensue
^Francis, op. c ?t . , p. 217-
^Erickson, op. c i t ., p. 3.
5 Interview w ith county superintendent, November, 1966.
^Uria R. Byler, "Storm Clouds Over Ohio," The Blackboard Bui let in (November, 1957), in The Challenge of the C h ild , p. 119; interviews with Amish, February, 1967. 189 with its accompanying blight on human feelings and relationships. The
Amish have roots, they have a sense of community, they know who they are and who their neighbor is. They have no desire to share in the pattern of alienation which is so much a part of modern urban society.^
By gradually adapting to their environment the Amish may be able to preserve some of their community values; if change is forced upon them, they may be led to destroy, inadvertently, the very community values which make life meaningful to them.
Since change is inevitable, mechanisms for adjustment to change would seem to be a require ment for the survival of religious institutions. Rigidity of religious definition has been known to hold a group together temporarily even when its staying together and maintaining its way of life may lead to the destruction of the group.®
Prosecution and overt pressure to conform may intensify a group's rigidity and mitigate against the creation of a permissive social atmosphere which might allow change to take place. Given the strong in-group qualities of Amish life, it would appear that there are sound sociological and psychological grounds for allowing them to change at their own rate. There are also other grounds for not pressuring the
Amish directly on the issue of the limit they place on their children's schooling, their use of uncertified teachers, and the "substandard" curriculum of their schools.
^Eric and Mary Josephson (eds.), Man Alone: Alienation in Modern Society (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1962); John A. Hostetler, "The Amish, Citizens of Heaven and America," Pennsylvania Folklore. X (Spring, 1959), pp. 33-37-
®Glenn M. Vernon, Sociology of Religion (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), p. 90. 190
Conformity in Education
Each new relig io n is viewed by its founders and members (most often by the latter) as the religion to end all religions--the final answer to the problems which perplex mankind. Much of the driving force behind new movements is their utter conviction that they have access to Truth denied other peoples and faiths--they are, in Eric
Hoffer's words, "the true believers." When a religious majority, or even a powerful minority, becomes imbued with this notion of its own
superiority and invincibility, it has often led to the persecution and death of individual dissenters, mass pogroms, and wars of extermination.
The necessity to comply with Christ's command that his followers "come
to a unity of the faith" has been used to justify frequent incursions against dissident minorities.
Religious conviction, however, is not the only source of pressures upon m inorities to conform to the Truth. Secular society has at different times also felt constrained to enforce political or social
unity by insisting that a particular standard of values be upheld by all citizens. Those who choose to deviate from the norms of behavior
prescribed by the spokesmen of the power groups w ithin the larger
society are viewed as a threat to the general welfare of the city, state, or nation; and as such they must be made to conform to the social,
political, or educational norms.
An e ffic ie n t educational system is one of the principal instru ments of acculturation and the chief means of ensuring a "steady state" 191 q through the production of conforming individuals. The dissident and nonconforming minority endanger the balanced status of society and hence must be neutralized or nationalized through the processes of formal compulsory education which are based on the following assump tions: (I) Everyone, regardless of religion or ethnic group, desires or needs the kind of education prescribed by the state. (2) When education is dispensed with freely, democracy (or some other ideology) w ill prevail, regardless of the consequences for small groups who happen to disagree with the larger society's values. (3) A particular nation's "way of life " should be the sought-after goal of everyone in that nation.*® The efforts of the state's educational program are directed toward the eventual breakdown of the value systems and patterns of life of ethnic minorities. There must be unity of the faith or all wilt perish!
It was this need to preserve unity during World War II which motivated the West Virginia Board of Education to require the flag salute of all public school students. The refusal of a group of
Jehovah's Witnesses to participate in such patriotic exercises, because they believed that saluting a flag was contrary to the law of God, culminated in an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. In
^JuJes Henry made this point in a speech, "In View of Culture, Is Education Possible?" at the National Invitational Conference on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illin o is , March 28, 1967*
*®Hostetler and Redekop, "Education and Assimilation in Three Ethnic Groups," Alberta Journal of Educational Research, V III (December, 1962 ). 192 upholding the right of the Jehovah's Witnesses to refuse to salute, the Court recalled historical attempts to subdue and quell nonconformists and claimed that
. . . no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing. . . . Those who begin coercive elimina tion of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard. . . . We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to d iffe r is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to d iffe r as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.*1
In Ohio one superintendent admitted that it was the intent of public schooling in his county to change the Amish people. Referring to the breakdown in Mennonite belief and practices in Putnam County,
Ohio, he said that the Putnam County Mennonites "were at one time as backward as the Amish," but through education and broader cultural contacts they have been changed; "in time the same result could be achieved among the Amish if the compulsory attendance laws were s tric tly enforced, and their children were compelled to attend high
^ ^West Vi rqin?a v. Barnette. 319 U. S. 62k (19^+3) - * 193 1 7 school." The same official reportedly felt that if the Amish were not compelled to attend public high school, then the future of the 13 schools, "the keystone of democracy," would be at stake. J Others believe that by compelling the Amish to attend high school they w ill be "better spellers, better English speakers, and better citizens," and w ill be freed from the restrictions which Amish life imposes on
them .^
Now the schoolmen may be right; perhaps if ethnic differences could be and were erased, the nation would benefit--divisiveness and an extreme lack of social cohesion could be disastrous to national goals and national security--perhaps. But who is to say that because a child attends a public school he w i11 be a better citizen than the one who attends a parochial, private, or no school at all? Who will take the
responsibility of defining goodness, rightness, and justice for all of the nation's "true believers"? Some philosophers and educators have shied away from the idea of setting up one absolute standard, especially when they recognize that it contains some of their own personal value judgments; they are troubled by the fact that they might not be right.
Those who formulate school policies for all of the people are apparently untroubled by the possibility that their particular prescriptions, while
^Ely, op. c it., p. 55; see also Kaj Anton Kolthoff, "Culture Factors of the Putnam County Mennonites" (Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1937)-
^"Amish Clannishness Displeases Neighbors," Columbus C itizen . December 12, 19^2, p. 12.
^Interview s with county superintendents, September, 1966. 19^ suitable for some, may not be suitable or appropriate for others. Few would deny that some framework of laws is necessary and that there must be a common means of dealing with social and educational issues; how ever, the problem lies in what Robert Merton describes as "bureaucratic over-conformity," the tendency of rules and regulations to become rig ld tfie d and sanctified so that, although the rules promote general efficiency, they produce inefficiency in particular and specific
instances. L ittle personal consideration can be given to problems which do not f i t the neat categorical prescriptions of the bureaucracy. Rules meant as means to an end become, in time, ends in themselves; and school regulations which are meant to be instrumental in raising the potential of children become the means, in the instance of the Ohio
Amish, of causing some educational regression by removing the Amish from the domain of the public schools almost completely. Such over conformity leads to "technicism" and a lack of awareness of the human and emotional dimension of problem situations.'^
Non-Amish C ritics of Education
Not only does there seem to be a tendency toward bureaucratic over-conformity in public education, there is also the distinct possi b ilit y that perhaps educators and those responsible for drawing up and
implementing educational policies do not know as much about what con stitutes "good" teaching, "appropriate" curricula, and "effective"
learning as they suppose. The debate is as old or older than Socrates
15 Merton, op. c i t .. pp. 197-200. 195 and goes on w ith now one idea coming to the fo re , now another, as the answer to the classroom teacher's needs.
In the area of preparing school administrators one scholar has suggested that the weight of the evidence on the subject indicates that
. . . most programs for the preparation of school administrators create a trained incapacity for the job. Several studies show an inverse relationship between the number of courses taken in administra tion and supervision and effectiveness as variously ra te d . Of the best scholars in th is se cto r, I know o f none who w ill not admit we simply do not know what is the best way to prepare people to run school s .16
Perhaps if schoolmen were as equally uncertain about what can and should
be done in public and private schools, there would not develop the
crises which have occurred when the "stubborn" Amish refuse to acknowl
edge as ultimate truth ideas and practices which are s till yet very
much in the experimental stage.
The golden age which many early advocates of compulsory free edu
cation foresaw has not yet been ushered in; and the present dislocation
and social turmoil, in large urban centers especially, make it appear
unlikely that it will begin soon. Serious doubts, in fact, are being
expressed about the efficacy and relevance of much of the standardized
compulsory educational program for all children in a mass society.^
I^Oonald E. Erickson, "Freedom's Two Educational Imperatives," a paper presented at the National Invitational Conference on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, University of Chicago, March 29, 1967 (Chicago: The Conference, 1967), pp- 7-8.
I^See, for instance, Edgar Z. Friedenberg, Comi nq of Age i n America: Growth and Acquiescence (New York: Random House, ^96 3); Earl C. Kelley, In Defense of Youth (New York: Prentice Hall, 1963; 196
Critics can, of course, be dispensed with by branding them as "icono clasts" and by saying that they don't appreciate how much public school
ing has contributed to progress in the United States. It is not the
intent of this study to prove or disprove all of the statements made by such critics as Goodman and Freidenburg; their criticisms should,
however, raise questions about the notion that a standardized program of education has of necessity relevance for a l1 young people. The dropout is a problem to himself and to society precisely because formal
schooling is irrelevant to his life and even to the lives of many who
do not drop out o f f ic ia lly but who have long since lost whatever
interest they had in school. They see little relationship between what occurs within the classroom and living in twentieth century
America.
Referring to the present compulsory school system as "The
Universal Trap," Goodman contends that the usefulness of compulsory
education must be continually reviewed: "Is it the only means of educa
tion? Isn't it unlikely that any single type of social institution 18 could fit almost every youngster up to age 16 and beyond?" Claiming
that there is no necessary relationship between the "complicated a r t i
fact of a school system" and a good education, Goodman notes that for
many American youths formal schooling is the only allowable way of grow
ing up, and that "ju s t as our American society as a whole is more and
Paul Goodman, Compulsory Miseducation (New York: Horizon Press, 1964); Jules Henry, Culture Against Man (New York: Random House, 1963).
*®Goodman, op. c ? t . . p. 20. 197 more tig h tly organized, so its school system is more and more regi- 19 mented as part of that organization."
As one way in which the trend toward more impersonal schooling can be stopped and increased impetus be given to making the schooling relevant to the child's present and future needs, Goodman suggests a program of decentralization of urban schools into small units. It might even be worthwhile, he believes,
. . . to give the L ittle Red Schoolhouse a spin under modern urban conditions and see how it works out: that is, combine all the ages in a little room for 25-30, rather than grade by age.20
Reference to Goodman's criticism s does not mean that he would endorse
Amish educational objectives, although the qualities of community education favored by the Amish would no doubt appeal to him. The point is that the Amish are not alone in questioning the relevance of modern education for their children. The secular critics are advocating a fle x ib le approach to "solving" some educational problems and believe that perhaps there is more than one way to do so.
One anthropologist has suggested that certain aspects of the public school program may actually contradict the stated objectives.
For instance, although the home economics course in high school is meant to prepare girls for a woman's role in the home, the girls are removed by law from the home during the hours when the everyday work of the home is taking place. Dorothy Lee points out this contradiction.
19lb id . . p. 22.
20lbid. , p. 41. 198
The mother, well taught, has learned to wash dishes, clean the house, make beds, bathe and sun the baby, market, and even start dinner, before the daughter returns from school. Homework--whether given to the student by way of involving the parents in her schooling, or by way of keeping her occupied and out of mischief, contributes to this cutting off from the li f e of the home. In rural areas where schools are consolidated, the child may be absent from home for ten or eleven hours d a ily . Clubs in the school encourage the student to further absent herself from the home and its life .21
With the strong Amish emphasis upon home and family li f e , it should be readily understood why they would oppose such a program for th e ir c h ild re n .
Another educator has expressed the belief that the drive to consolidate rural schools wcs pushed by city people who did not under stand that in rural surroundings the school is a focus of local interest and a center for community action. Opposition to consolidation was often based on a “ parental fear that when the school is gone there w ill no longer be a community, or that they w ill be absorbed into a larger 22 community of which they do not feel a p a rt." Woodring might very well have been c itin g the reasons for Amish opposition to centralized schools. Although .he predicted a continual decline in one-room schools, he also believed that where consolidation is im practical, the school a u th o ritie s should help the one-room schools become better schools.
^Dorothy Lee, "Discrepancies in the Teaching of American Culture," in George D. Spindler (ed.), Education and Culture (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), p. 175.
^Paul Woodring, "One-Room School," in Paul Woodring and John Scanlon (eds.), American Education Today (New York: McGraw H ill, 1963), p. 152. 199
The small one-room school, in his opinion, is not necessarily a "bad" school
Donald Erickson, in his study of school legislation which makes a state's public school the educational model for its private schools, points out that such prescriptions actually limit diversity because private schools may not innovate if the innovation makes their program "unequivalent" to that of the public schools. In Ohio, for example, if a local public school d is tric t decided to have year-round school sessions, the private schools In the same d is tric t must follow suit even if no evidence were available to support such an innovation.
The public school has thus become the arbiter of the minimum educational program which a ll children must pursue. For a majority, the public school program may be satisfactory--although some c ritic s have serious doubts--but for a minority, including the Amish, it is unsatisfactory both from a religious and an occupational point of view.
One of the complaints brought against the Amish by Ohio's schoolmen is that they lack a written philosophy of education; such a statement must be filed with the State Superintendent of Public Instruc tion in observance of the minimum standards requirements. This com plaint underscores the gap which separates the two ways of thinking and
Ibid. , pp. 152-53- See also a discussion of the merits of retaining community schools in order to accommodate the values of rural society in George W. Parkyn's study of New Zealand schools, The Consoli- dation of Rural Schools (New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd., 1952), p. l^Off. Oh iMDonald E. Erickson, "The Plain People Versus the Common Schools," Saturday Review. XLIX (November 19, 19^6), pp. 85- 8 7. 200 living. The Amishman does not need to write a philosophy of education; he believes it has already been written for him in such statements as:
"And be not conformed to this world.Il2^ Informally, his philosophy is written into the everyday life of the Amish community. Amish school buildings, texts, curriculum, teachers, companions, and their future employment are a ll related to their basic desire to be apart from the world. From one's own particular vantage point one may criticize their choice of values, but to deny them the right of making it runs counter to the fundamental values of democratic society. The Amish and their schools are not a threat to the welfare of the society unless, of course, diversity is. As one perceptive observer has noted:
These Amish people must be considered as being of unique worth. They must be accepted with their strange customs and manners, realizing that they are honest, respectable, God-fearing citizens. Democratic society must not expect to impose its culture upon them against their w ill. Rather, it must discover what knowledges and s k ills w ill help them most in meeting their present and future needs. The way must be opened up, by means of reasonable procedures, for them to do better the things that they are going to do anyway.2°
The Amish have been allowed to object, on the grounds of r e l i
gion, to service in the armed forces and have been excused by the federal
government from the necessity of paying Social Security taxes because of
their religious scruples against insurance. Some Ohio counties have
constructed an extra berm on their roads to accommodate Amish buggies
4 so that they w ill not slow down motorized vehicles. Is it too much to
^^Romans 12:2.
26k rentmore, op. c i t ., p. 88. 201 ask that the educational highways also be bu ilt to accommodate more than one approach to education and schooling?
There is more than one way to be human, to be happy, to be educated—or even to be Amish. Diversity with a ll the problems it may create is fu lly compatible with a democratic c iv iliz a tio n . It is a prime cultural value which should not only be preserved, but should be positively encouraged in education and in other facets of life. CHAPTER VI
SUMMARY
Chapter I
At the root of Amish resistance to public schooling in Ohio is their belief that as a community of Christians, they should maintain a boundary between themselves and the secular world. They fear that public schooling will dissolve the boundary and ultimately destroy the
Amish community.
Chapter I I
In Ohio, school le g is la tio n has gone through three main phases since the 1870's: laws setting up compulsory education requirements, laws encouraging and requiring consolidation of school districts and schools, and laws regulating minimum standards for public and private schools.
Chapter III
A. The Amish have opposed those school laws which they believe threaten their right to rear their children as members of the Amish fa ith . To some extent, however, they stretched the boundaries of their religious beliefs and accepted the public school requirements. After a number of legal disputes they accepted education beyond the fourth
202 203 grade, but most drew the line at the eighth although some attended ninth grade and a few have gone through the eleventh grade.
B. Increased pressures on local districts to consolidate meant the decline of one-room schools which many Amish attended. The more centralized public education became, the more unwilling the Amish were to accept it.
C. The c o n flic t between the Amish and the public school authorities has been aggravated in part by:
t. The existence of nonlegal verbal agreements between the Amish and some local schoolmen which the Amish accepted at face value and believed permanent.
2. The turnover in school personnel at both local and state levels of government.
3. Local pressures upon school authorities to enforce school laws indiscriminately because of political, economic, or personal considerations.
b. Increased involvement of the state in local school d is tr ic ts .
5. The lack of clear-cut legal guidelines for the imple mentation of state standards upon private schools.
6. A general lack of sensitivity on the part of school authorities to the Amish religion and pattern of life.
7. Intransigence on the part of the Amish even when no re lig io u s principles were involved.
8. The absence of dialogue between the Amish and the school a u th o rities.
0. Public school pressure on the Amish led to a strengthening * of the position of an Amish minority who have for many years advocated
Amish parochial schools. The number of these schools in Ohio increased from four in 1950 to over seventy in 1967. The establishment of a 20k
parochial school system led to the development of a new occupation among
the Amish, that of school teaching. This teaching group has stimulated
the establishment of a monthly Amish teachers' jo urnal, The Blackboard
Bu11et i n; an Amish publishing corporation; and the inauguration of
national and regional Amish teacher conferences. These innovations will undoubtedly have side effects on Amish life as a whole and may
lead to further changes in Amish educational and religious values.
Chapter IV
Education among the Amish has as its principal goal the main
tenance of boundaries between the ways of the Amish and the ways of the world. From the cradle to the grave the Amish person is surrounded
by continual reminders that he is not (or should not be) part of this
present world. The vast proportion of Amish education takes place not
in the schoolroom, but at home, in church, and in the social life of
the community. The Amish struggle with the world may be viewed as a
continuous e ffo rt to keep the world out of the community.
The survey of Edgewood Amish School D is tric t illu s tra te s some
Amish educational values and the concerns and problems which they face
in their experiment with their own schools.
A. Public Schools
1. The Amish object more to the content of the public elementary schools than they do to the p rin cip le of public schooling.
2. The Amish draw a clear-cut d istin ctio n between elemen tary and secondary education— the f ir s t is necessary for Amish children; the second is not. 205
3. The Amish fear that if their children attend public elementary schools, especially in the upper grades, they may be lost to the Amish fa ith .
B. Amish Schools
1. The Amish are seriously committed to the proposition that attendance at an Amish elementary school is an essential part of keeping their children Amish.
2. The Amish w ill not establish a program of secondary schooling for their children unless they are pre vailed upon by public pressure to attend school beyond the eighth grade.
3- The Amish believe that only the most basic and neces sary subjects should be taught in the Amish school.
k. The Amish regard practical work on the farm and in the home as necessary in preparing their children for adult life. It is more relevant and efficient for them, they believe, than formal secondary schooling.
5. The Amish are uncertain about the precise role which the Amish school should have in the formal religious education of their children.
6. The Amish school is a potential agent of change in the Amish community.
C. Amish Teacher Preparation
1. The Amish are seriously concerned that th e ir teachers be adequate to the task of teaching their children and do not always equate being traditionally orthodox in religion with being a "good" teacher.
2. The Amish believe that their teachers should continually improve th e ir "academic" standing, but most believe that the eighth grade should be the lim it of formal teacher preparation. More important to the Amish teachers than specific courses is the interaction they have with other experienced Amish teachers.
D. Impact of Industrialism
1. The Amish are av/are of the encroachments which modern industrialization is making on their society; but rather than compromise on basic religious essentials, they will relocate in more rural areas. 206
2. The Amish believe that a willingness to learn and practical experience are more important to Amish occupational success than years of formal schooling.
3. The Amish believe that even with their eighth grade lim it on formal schooling they can readily adapt to the occupational demands of modern industry in the event that they do not follow the farming tradition.
4. The Amish view farming and farm-related tasks as the most appropriate employment for Amish people and as being more consistent with the Amish religious values than work in industry.
Chapter V
The Amish have always chosen to dissent from the ways of the majority when their religious beliefs have been threatened. Their schools represent a positive dissent from the conventional wisdom of public education--they do not believe that it is either necessary or desirable for their children to attend public schools. Nor are they alone in their belief that the public school curriculum is largely irrelevant to their needs--many secular c ritic s have also questioned the a p p licab ility of much of the public- school program to non-Amish chiIdren.
Attempts to force public schooling upon the Amish are apt to make them more conservative and less w illin g to accept changes. In order to prevent rapid disintegration of the Amish communities and their unique value system, the Amish should be allowed to rear their children according to their traditional pattern of life. State regulation of Amish schools must be tempered with a commitment to the pluralism inherent in the larger American culture. APPENDIX*
Original wording, spelling, and punctuation retained throughout.
0 APPENDIX A
AHISH INTERVIEW SCHEDULE
I am engaged in a study of the development of Amish parochial schools and would like to ask you a few short questions. Please be assured that your answers w ill be held in s tric te s t confidence and your name w ill never appear with or without your answers. If a question is not clear, please ask to have it c la rifie d .
1. The fir s t Amish elementary school was established in Dover, Delaware, in 1925. Since then and especially in the last ten years, there has been a rapid increase in the number of these schools. What was the attitude of most Amish in this area when the establishment of "Edgewood" Amish School was fir s t proposed? Did they
Strongly Agree Agree Undecided Disagree Strongly Disagree
2. Why did they feel this way? ______
3. What was your attitude toward the establishment of the school? Did you
SA A UN D SD
4. Why did you feel this way?
5. What is your attitude now toward the "Edgewood" Amish School? Do you
SA A UN D SD
6. ( If respondent's opinion has changed, ask him): Why has your opinion changed?
208
0 209
7. Have you always favored having Amish parochial schools?
Yes ______N o______
8, ( I f respondent answers no to question seven, ask): Why?
9. We all know that children are supposed to learn how to read, to write and to do arithmetic in school. Apart from these basic things, what personal qualities should the school help the child develop?
10. Some parents believe that spiritual and religious instruction should not be given in school but should be reserved for home and church. Do you
SA A UN D SD
11. Among the desirable characteristics of an Amish teacher the follow ing have been mentioned most frequently: (Give respondent card.)
Faithfulness to the Ordnunq ______General intelligence ______Strictness in discipline ______
a. Which do you consider the most important?
b. Which do you consider second most important?
12. Some Amish people have gone to Mennonite colleges and received tra in ing as teachers. What do you think of this practice? Do you
SA A UN D SD
13. ( I f respondent disagrees with question twelve, ask): How much formal education do you think an Amish teacher should have?
Eighth grade only ______Eighth grade 4- correspondence courses ______High school ______Other 210
14. Some people believe that the teacher’s most important responsibility is the salvation of a ch ild 's soul, not the development of his mind. Do you
SA A UN D SD
Many reasons have been given why Amish children should not attend public schools. Here are some of the most common (15 - 23):
15- Having Amish children attend public school is contrary to what the Bible teaches about separation from the world. Do you agree or disagree that this is a good reason for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools?
SA A UN D SD
16. The companions in a public school are not limited to those of the Amish faith. Do you agree or disagree that this is a good reason for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools?
SA A UN D SD
17* Public schools place a greater emphasis upon worldly values than on spiritual values. Do you agree or disagree that this is a good reason for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools?
SA A UN D SD
18. Evolution is taught in public schools. Do you agree or disagree that this is a good reason for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools?
SA A UN D SD
19* The Bible is not taught in public schools. Do you agree or disagree that this is a good reason for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools?
SA A UN D SD
20. The teachers in the public schools are not Amish. Do you agree or disagree that this is a good reason for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools?
SA A UN D SD 211
21. Parents have very l i t t l e control over what is taught in the public schools. Do you agree or disagree that this is a good reason for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools?
SA A UN D SD
22. Fancy public school buildings make Amish children dissatisfied with the simple Amish life . Do you agree or disagree that this is a good reason for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools?
SA A UN D SD
23* Public schools demand too much of the students' time for homework. Do you agree or disagree that this is a good reason for not allowing Amish children to attend public schools?
SA A UN D SD
2k. Do you know of any Amish in this area who feel that Amish parochial schools are unnecessary?
Yes ______No______
25- If you know of such persons, why do you think they feel this way?
26. At one time the Amish in this area did not want their children to go to school beyond the fourth grade. Today they have set the eighth grade as the lim it. Why have they chosen the eighth grade as the lim it instead of, for example, the f if t h , sixth, or tenth grade?
27. Some Amish parents feel that their children should attend public school during the early grades in order to get a good foundation in the basic three R's. Do you
SA A UN 0 SD 212
28. What do you think is the attitude of most Amish parents in "Edgewood" toward their children attending the "Edgewood" public elementary schools? Do they
SA A UN D SD
29. What is your personal attitude? Do you
SA A UN D SD
30. What is the attitude of most Amish parents in "Edgewood" toward their children attending public high schools? Do they
SA A UN D SD
31. What is your personal attitude? Do you
SA A UN D SD
32. Some people think that the Amish should establish their own parochial high schools in this county. Do you
SA A UN D SD
33. Why do you feel this way?
3*+. Some Amish believe that the main objective of the Amish parochial schools should be to teach children to have faith in God? Do you
SA A UN D SD
35. Some people feel that if the Amish don't have their own schools, the Amish Church w ill eventually disappear. Do you
SA A UN D SD 213
36. Please tell me which of the following subjects you think should (4 -) be taught in the Amish school and which should not ( — ) be taught:
Comments
a. English (Read, write, spell) ______
b. Bible study ______
c. U. S. History ______
d. Sex education ______
e. Science _____
f . World Geography ______
g. Instrumental music ______
h. Astronomy ______
i. Arithmetic ______
j . World History ._____
k. German ______'______
1. Health . ______
m. U. S. Geography ______
n. Algebra ______
o. Part singing ______
p. Art ______
q. Typing ______
r . •______
s.
37. Some people believe that the teacher's most important responsibility is the development of the c h ild ’ s mind, not the salvation of his soul. Do you
SA A UN D SD 21*+
38. What do you think are some of the advantages which Amish parochial education has over public education?
39- What improvements do you think should be made in Amish parochial education as it is now?
1+0. Some people feel that the attempts of the school authorities to force the Amish into public schools is an indication that we are heading for a dictatorship in the United States. Oo you
SA A UN D SO
*♦1. Why do you think there has been less school trouble in this county than in other areas of Ohio?
1+2. Why do you think the public school authorities in some counties want the Amish children to attend public schools?
1+3- If you were able to choose any occupation you wished to pursue, what would you choose?
a. First choice ______Why? .______
b. Second choice ______Why?______215
44. The opinion has been expressed that with the land prices continually increasing in this county those Amish who wish to remain here w ill have to have education beyond the eighth grade if they are to com pete for jobs in industry. Do you
SA A UN D SD
45. (if respondent disagrees with question forty-four, ask): Why?
46. If an Amish father is faced with the prospect of his children grow ing up and taking work in facto ries, what should he do?
47. Some Amishmen believe that there are certain kinds of work that an Amishman cannot engage in for religious reasons. Do you
SA A UN D SD
48. ( I f respondent agrees w ith question forty-seven, ask): What specific kinds of work should an Amishman avoid?
49. Why avoid these p a rtic u la r kinds of work?
% 216
50. Many Amish have le ft this area over the past few years and have settled in other states. What do you think of this policy of moving? Do you
SA A UN D SD
51. Why do you think they are moving?
52. Some Amish believe that the main objective of the Amish parochial school should be to teach the basic three R's. Do you
SA A UN D SD
53- (If respondent disagrees with question fifty-two, ask): What do you think the main objective of the Amish parochial school should be?
5^. Do you know of any instances in which Amish children who did not attend high school have left the Amish faith?
Yes No ______
55. (If respondent answers yes to question fifty-four, ask) What do you think caused them to leave the Amish faith?
56. Some people believe that as modern society continues to develop, the Old Order Amish in this county will eventually disappear. What do you think?
SA A UN D SD 1 217
57. ( if respondent agrees with question f if t y - s ix , ask): Are there any steps that might be taken to stop this decline?
58. ( if respondent disagrees with question f if t y - s ix , ask): What makes you think the Amish w ill survive?
59. What do you think would happen to this Amish community if there were no Amish schools and the children had to attend public elementary school?
# 218
Demographic Classification (Ask AJ1 Respondents.)
60. Sex: Male Female ______
61. Age: ______
62. What kind of work do you do? ______
63- What kind of school did you attend?
Amish parochial ______Public one-room ______Public consolidated or centralized ______
What grade did you complete?
3 k 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
65- What kind of work did your father do?
General farming ______
66. What kind of school did your father attend?
Amish parochial ______Public one-room ______Public consolidated or centralized ______
67* What grade did your father complete?
3 k 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
68. What kind of school did your mother attend?
Amish parochial ______Public one-room ______Public consolidated or centralized
I 219
6 9. What grade did your mother complete?
3 k 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
70. Schools attended, grades completed, and present status of children:
School and Grades Completed
Parochial Present Children Age Sex Public Other Than "Edgewood" Status 1'Edgewood'‘
1.
2.
3. if.
5.
6.
2.
8.
0.
1.
2.
I APPENDIX B
THE DISCIPLINE OF 1865*
Holmes County, Ohio, June 1, 1865
My dear brethren and sisters in the Lord, I would wish that the dear Lord may direct us by his good and holy s p ir it, that we may hold fast in the truth which we have accepted unto a blessed end, that we may not do that which is harmful to our salvation ("Seeligkeit") and contrary to the word of the Lord, and may help to uproot every plant which the heavenly father has not planted. However, in the present time there is becoming manifest a spirit which tries to give the impression that this or that is of no importance and has no value for good or for bad. It is for us to consider whether this s p irit is from God, or whether it is a s p irit of error. So we and the ministers named below were gathered together in the name of the Lord and became agreed on the following points.
F irs t: When such things become manifest which we recognize to lead to pride and display and lead away from God, and are harmful to the church, they are to be rooted out, and are not to be tolerated in the church.
Next: Decided not to allow attendance at worldly conventions, or fairs, or yearly fairs, or to take part in them, or to enroll our material possessions in companies (insurance?), or to put up lightning rods on our buildings. Likewise, decided not to allow gayly-colored ("scheckich"), striped, or flowered clothing made according to the fashions of the world, or parting the hair of man or woman after the worldly styles, or cutting the beard according to worldly styles, or carrying hidden on one's person photographic pictures of human lik e nesses or hanging them on the wall to look at in our houses. Likewise it is not allowed to wear overcoats made of oilcloth or rubber or other overcoats made according to the worldly styles, likewise false shirt- bosoms, likewise merchandising after the worldly fashion, for the Saviour drove such out of the temple. Likewise, luxurious vehicles according to the world's pride and vanity.
* Bender, Harold S. (ed. and tran s.), excerpted from "Some Early American Amish Mennonite Disciplines." The Mennonite Quarterly Review. V III (April, 193*0, pp. 95-98.
*220 221
Also it is considered altogether improper to hold the council of the congregation with open doors, and permit outside persons to sit in the council, but council is only to be held with the members of the church. Also it is considered good that the ministers go into the council room ("Abrath") before the meeting, as our forefathers did, and we are not satisfied when it is omitted. The apostle says, "Remember your teachers, who proclaimed to you the gospel." We also consider that spiritual songs and spiritual tunes are to be used in the worship in the congregations and not notes, or fast tunes ("Spring-Weisen") which belong to the world.
Also we consider it to be improper for a C hristian to mix the creatures of God, such as horse and donkey, by which mules arise, because the Lord God did not create such in the beginning. Likewise we do not consider it edifying for members of the church to occupy worldly offices, especially those in which force is used, and military positions, or criminal o ffic e s . Also, it is considered improper to decorate the houses with a ll sorts of unnecessary and luxurious things such as gayly-colored ("scheckich") walls, window curtains and large mirrors, and pictures and such things.
The above-mentioned points we consider to be right and good and in accordance with the word of the Lord and our confession of faith, and as we have been taught and instructed by our forefath ers, and we intend to stay by the same as we promised when we were received into the church by baptism. And a ll those who confess the same with us, and work together, and manifest the same by deeds, we are willing and ready to recognize as brethren and sisters and to give them the hand and kiss of fellowship, and to serve with them in word and teaching, and to main tain s p iritu a l unity with them. For the Saviour says 'Whoever doeth the will of my father in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." And the gate is pictured to us as strait and the road as narrow, but is not therefore ever closed, but stands open for all repent ant souls, and as it says in Luke I**,33, "No one who is not w illin g to deny everything can be my disciple."
Decided and signed by us, as follows:
Holmes County. Ohio Middletown (Ohio)
Levi M ille r Moses J . Mi 11er Noah M ille r Christian D. Yoder Moses Bitsche Moses H. Mi 1le r El ias Mi Ile r Solomon Mi 1ler C hristian Schlabach 222
Dauti Creek Sugar Creek (Holmes Co., Ohio) (Holmes Co., Ohio)
David A. Troyer Moses Wenger Daniel D. Mi Ile r Peter Bitsche Shem J. Mi H er Jacob J. Mi 1ler Jeremiah Mi 1ler David D. Troyer
Peru, Indiana Upper Canada (Waterloo Co., Ont.) Johannes Schmucker Moses Hershberger Johan Jantzi Johan Bender Johan Gascho Bremen. Marshall Co., Ind.
David H. Hochstetler G lade Johannes J. Schlabach (Somerset Co., Pa.)
Abner Yoder M artin’ s Creek (Holmes Co., Ohio) Wayne Co., Ohio Jacob Yoder Immanuel Hochstetler
Casselman's River (Somerset Co., Pa.) Barns (Berntz) (Elkhart, Ind.) Joel Bitsche Daniel Hershberger Johannes L. M iller Joseph Hochstetler
Lagrange (Indiana)
Joseph Mi 11er Tobias Yoder David D. M iller
I APPENDIX C
TESTIMONY OF UR IA R. BYLER BEFORE THE
OHIO LEGISLATIVE SERVICE COMMISSION
"AMISH SCHOOL STUDY COMMITTEE"
November 22, i 960
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee:
In the first hearing on this so-called "Amish School Problem," held before this Committee on June 27, I960, the Amish side was pre sented as factually and accurately as possible. We were impressed by this Committee's unbiased sincere interest in this problem, both in this first hearing and also the second hearing, held on August 18th.
We were somewhat less impressed by some of the rather inflam matory and prejudiced testimony that was presented to this Committee at the last hearing. These educators and officials may also have been sincere in their beliefs, and we like to believe they were. However, we feel some misstatements were made by these educators and it is our intention to make corrections.
F irs t, the charge was made that many Amish children have a desire to continue their education through high school and perhaps college. This was cited as a breach of individual rights, and there fore unccnstitutional.
In my fifte e n years as a member of both public and private school boards at various times, and in recent years as a teacher in an Amish school, I have never seen, nor heard of such an instance. Much more, these children, as they are graduated from elementary schools, are eager to continue their education in farming, in home- making, in carpentry, and in other occupations in which they more often than not follow their parents' footsteps.
This is no denial that there may have been cases where a child preferred to continue in school for certain reasons, to which the parents were opposed to because of their traditional religious beliefs. In such cases we should realize that a fourteen-year-old child is of an immature age, and the parents, with their deep concern for the
' 223 22k
spiritual welfare of their children, certainly should have the right to provide guidance as befits their conscientious beliefs.
In my opinion if we contend it is unconstitutional for an Amish parent to provide guidance to his child, then parents of the Catholic faith would have no right to object if their child wanted to attend a Baptist Sunday School instead of mass, or if a g irl of Protestant parents wanted to enter a convent and study to become a Catholic nun, this girl's parents would be infringing on her constitutional rights if they would oppose such an idea.
It is our opinion that parents, regardless of religion, regard less of color or creed, do have the right to train their children as they see f i t , providing it is within the realm of God-fearing and law- abiding citizenship.
Second, the question was raised whether or not the Amish can afford to provide an adequate education. Here it is a question of the meaning of the word "adequate education." If the author of this state ment means that each child must be educated under the present minimum standards of the public schools of Ohio in order to be "adequately" educated, then he is right. The Amish cannot afford to build and main tain large consolidated schools, where money is spent to prepare a child to be a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer, where money is spent on extra-curricular activities, where for instance, five thousand dollars alone may be spent on installing lights on a football fie ld .
Let me make it plain that we have no quarrel with a school of this type, nor are we saying this as being c ritic a l toward public schools of today. The fact is that the Amish simply cannot affordto finance schools of the type which do not f i t their way of life .
But if he thinks as we do, that "adequate education" is a broad term and not limited to only one single type of a school system, then the person who said the Amish cannot afford an adequate school system is definately wrong. Under the Amish school standards, which we think are sufficient to prepare our children adequately for our way of life , we can well afford this expense. Again let us emphasize that the term "adequate education" is not a narrow term, under which a ll the American children must be educated to become useful citizens.
Third; much was said about the fact that the minimum standards of the private schools do not come near to comparing with those of the public school standards.
This statement is true. When these standards were formulated, there was no intention of the Amish to duplicate the public standards. If this were the case, there would be no need for separate standards, nor separate schools. The minimum standards of the public schools were formulated to f i t the needs of the public schools. We believe that 225 these standards w ill admirably f i t just what they were intended to, which was to provide the Non-Amish community of Ohio with an adequate educat ion.
On the other hand, the Amish minimum standards were also formulated with that same object in mind; to provide instruction to the Amish community of Ohio that would prepare the Amish child for its particular way of life. It is absurd to insist that there is only one system that can produce an adequate education, regardless of religion, creed, or occupation.
There is one fact that we must recognize, first and foremost, as we examine this idea of only one school system, and anyone who is acquainted with the Amish can well understand it . That fact is that the Amish living standard d iffers greatly from non-Amish, and has for hundreds of years, ever since they fir s t came to these shores in search of religious lib e rty . They have lived comfortably and w ell, completely independent from any government handouts, and they have prospered, even though their living standard is fa r d iffere n t from others.
Fourth; doubt was expressed by one educator that the Amish motive for establishing schools was purely on religious grounds.
In answer to this assertion let us ask if anyone can conceive of any other reason for undertaking a project as expensive as estab lishing and maintaining a school if it were not the powers of religious conscience? Many people with only limited incomes are now paying over one hundred dollars annually for tuition alone, plus taxes on public schools. Surely, only religious convictions can be the reason for accepting the financial sacrifices that many of the Amish parents are making today.
Mention was made by the spokesman of the Legislative Service Commission that an investigation was made concerning Amish schools in other states, and what the situation is in regards to these schools. Evidently the findings were rather inconclusive.
We could enlighten the Committee on this question. New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Indiana, and Missouri, all have Amish private schools. Most of these states have a high national rating as pro gressive school systems. Yet the Amish schools, which very closely resemble those of Ohio in standards and a ll respects, operate free and unhindered from any unreasonable restrictio ns. These states have recognized the need for two different types of school standards. There is no "school problem" in these states that we are aware of.
Let me emphasize that this statement is offered only in an attempt to make corrections to some testimony that was presented by public school officials at the hearing of August 18th. We have no 2 2 6 personal quarrel with any of these o ffic ia ls and we respect their right to express their opinions. During my tenure as a public school board member and in other activities with public officials since, I have found that most of these officials are well intentioned and sincere in their convictions.
For this reason 1 am confident that this problem w ill someday be recognized for what it is: a matter of religious conscience on the part of the Amish in which we sincerely believe that we can train our children for our way of lif e , better in our schools than in any other school.
Our goals and objectives are described in the booklet, "Minimum Standards for the Amish Parochial Schools of the State of- Ohio". In this booklet is outlined the graded course of study and other informa tion concerning the administration of the Amish private schools. The principle that is embodied in these standards is as v ita l to the interests of the Amish as the public school standards are to them. Let us repeat; our goal is to produce honest, upright, and God-fearing citizens. This is the highest goal man can asspire to, morally or other wise. And the matter of religion, race, creed, color, or the question of under which set of school standards he was educated, is secondary.
This Amish school system is not a passing fad, but a solid, growing, progressive institution. New schools are being established to meet the needs of a growing Amish population in different states. Ten years ago there were perhaps a half a dozen or so of these schools in Ohio. Today there are over forty.
Not only are the Amish schools increasing in numbers, but also in quality. Every e ffo rt is being made to improve these schools to bring them up to our minimum standards. Better qualified teachers, better teaching equipment, better attendance are things that are constantly being stressed.
May God grant that we will have the opportunity to continue this progress.
Thank You APPENDIX D
MINIMUM STANDARDS FOR AMISH SCHOOLS*
Foreword
The question of an adequate education is a much discussed subject in recent years. There is a wide disagreement among educators, school officials, and common citizens on what actually constitutes sufficient education for a child.
However, very few can deny that if the child has received the instruction that will enable it to earn an honest living and lead a Christian life , then that child has been "adequately" educated. The Amish schools of Ohio have been set up with that principle as their objective.
Any person even remotely acquainted with the Amish sect knows that their way of living differs greatly from others. It is one of the oldest religious groups in the United States, and their forefathers came to these shores several centuries ago to seek religious liberty which was denied them in Europe. Tradition to them i$ a sacred trust, and it is a part of their religion to uphold and adhere to the ideals of their forefathers.
To maintain these principles in the future is of vital impor tance to the Amish. This has beenthe overriding reason for the establishment of the Amish schools in the United States during the last decade. As public school instruction moves into the fields of "modern progressive education" i.e., audio-visual training, sex education, etc., so is the need for an educational program that Is apart from the public school system and based on the words of Paul: "And be not conformed to the world, etc." (Romans 12:2).
Obviously then, if a separate system of instruction is required, so also is there a need for separate standards. No school, public, private or parochial, can operate e ffic ie n tly without standards to
* Minimum Standards for the Amish Parochial or Private Elementary Schools of the State of Ohio as a Form of Regulations (Apple Creek: compiled and approved by bishops, committeemen and others in conference, Henry J. Hershberger, Chairman [c.?958]).
' 2 2 7 2 2 8 serve as guideposts along their respective pathways of learning. It is the purpose of this statement of policy and standards to present, in plain form, an outline of the character of Amish private schools of Ohio and their curriculum.
It is also the fervent hope of the Amish school officials, that if these standards are followed to the best of the a b ility of parents, teachers, and school authorities, and if ways are constantly sought to improve upon them as stated in Standard I, the words of Solomon may ring true. "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he w ill not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)
Introduct i on
The following is a list of standards applying to the Amish private and parochial schools of the state of Ohio. These standards have been approved by the members of the boards of education of these schools, and by the bishops and church leaders of the d is tric ts wherein these schools have been established.
The terms "su ffic ie n t", "adequate", and "proper education" used in these standards shall be the interpretation of the authorities of the Amish school system.
STANDARD 1 NEEDS, METHODS AND OBJECTIVES
The goal of the school shall be to prepare the child for the Amish way of living and the responsibilities of adulthood. In short, these standards are designed in an e ffo rt to establish the foundations of a society of useful, God-fearing, and law-abiding citizens. It is recognized that these standards are not in flexible, and as conditions warrant, these standards may be changed, modified, or supplemented, if so required to meet the aforementioned goal. This shall be done only by the proper authorities of the Amish private schools and within the scope of the Amish school principles.
STANDARD 2 THE SCHOOL DISTRICT
(a) The School D is trict shall include the area within a radius of a distance of the school building where it is possible to establish a creditable attendance record without relying on tax-supported means of transportat ion.
(b) Ownership of School. The school shall be the property of, and sponsored by the church or its respective d is tric t. 229
(c) Eligibility of Attendance. All children living within the school district shall be eligible to admittance provided the parents are willing to co-operate with the teacher and school officials in securing for it an adequate education. No child shall be refused admit tance because of the in a b ility of parents or guardian to pay tu itio n expenses. In such cases church and school authorities shall investigate and take proper action.
STANDARD 3 ADMINISTRATION OF SCHOOL
(a) Each school d is tr ic t shall be administered by a school board composed of fiv e (5) or three (3) members. This board may include the clerk of the board and have equal board status. If preferred, clerk may be a non-board member and shall have no voting power. In e ith er case, the clerk's duties shall be to record business transactions as enacted by the board. The records shall be open to inspection at all t imes. (b) The length of the board member's term is optional and decided on by each district. Eligible voters for school offices shall be the members of the church of the respective school district. (c) The duties of the school boards shall be the hiring of teachers, maintenance of school buildings, administration of funds, purchasing of any material and supplies used by the school. (d) It is recommended that school boards shall hold meetings at regular intervals, preferably monthly. (e) There shall be a superintendent elected by the school boards, who shall act as an advisor for the Amish parochial schools. (f) Each school district shall appoint or elect an attendance officer who is responsible to report attendance records to the school board of the respective district.
STANDARD h TEACHERS: QUALIFICATIONS AND DUTIES
It is recognized that the teacher is the hub on which the e n tire school revolves. Therefore it is highly essential great care and good judgment is exercised in selecting teachers. Realizing that the school teacher is very in flu e n tial in molding the l i f e of a ch ild , it is of great importance that the teacher possess, f ir s t of a l l , good C hristian character. Equal in importance is good educational background and a desire to further improve that education. Specifically the educa tion shall consist of an eighth grade elementary education. Other characteristics a teacher should possess are: the ability to "get along" with children, willingness to co-operate with parents and school board, and a sincere attachment to the teaching profession. 2 3 0
STANDARD 5 DISCIPLINE
It is recommended that the teacher's attitude shall be one favoring strict discipline. No school can be successful if discipline is lax. The teacher shati have the authority to discipline a child as seen f i t . This shall be done, not in a s p ir it of vengeance, but one of love and understanding. In case a pupil becomes unruly to the extent that the teacher is not able to control it and becomes a menace to the welfare of the school, the board of education shall take prompt action for correction of said problem.
STANDARD 6 ATTENDANCE
(a) The school term shall number a minimum of 160 days open for class instruction. (b) The school day shall have a minimum of fiv e hours of classroom study. (c) The teacher shall submit monthly attendance reports to the proper authorities. (d) A child may enter its first year of learning at the age of six or within sixty days of its sixth birthday, and shall be excused from further elementary classroom education upon the completion of the eighth grade. (e) Excuse from attending school instruction as provided in part D of Standard 6 shall be granted only by illness, death in family, or other similar emergencies. Habitual school absence for manual labor shall not be considered a legitim ate excuse for non-attendance. (f) A written excuse signed by the parent or guardian shall accompany any absence. (g) The enforcement of attendance is the responsibility of the board of education of the respective school d is tr ic t. No unnecessary absence shall be tolerated. (h) Habitual tardiness shall not be tolerated.
STANDARD 7 THE EDUCATION PROGRAM
The graded course of study shall consist of the following subjects: (a) The language arts including reading, w ritin g , spelling and English. (b) Mathematics. (c) Geography and H istory. (d) Health and safety rules. (e) German writing, reading and spelling. (f) Vocal music. (g) The English language should be spoken at a ll times by the teacher and pupils while school is in session, except in German classes. 231
Other Standards Pending
CONSIDERATION AND RECOMMENDATION
1. Where possible, the maximum number of pupils shall not exceed thi r t y - f ive. 2. The school building and premises shall be kept in good repair, neat and sanitary. 3. Every effort shall be made to promote and maintain good relations between the public authorities and those of the private schools. In case where pupils may transfer from private to public schools or vice versa, notice should be given where necessary for continued attendance. k. Authorities of the Amish private schools shall at a ll times co operate with the public officials in cases of truancy and any other case where its religious beliefs and not infringed on.
In terpretative and Explanatory Material for The Standards of the Amish Private and Parochial Schools of Ohio
STANDARD 1 NEEDS, METHODS AND OBJECTIVES
STANDARD 2 THE SCHOOL DISTRICT
(a) The School D is tric t as defined in Standard 2 embraces what may best be described as the area within a radius a reasonable walking distance of the school. Where the distance is greater, and other means of transportation is used, the problem of transportation rests with the parents. (b) Ownership of School; (c) Eligibility of Attendance.
STANDARD 3 ADMINISTRATION OF SCHOOL
(a) It is recommended that in a school d is tric t where twelve or more families are represented, a board of five members is required. In smaller districts three woifld be sufficient. (b) The school board member should be w illin g to sacrifice personal gain to work for the good of the school. He should be recep tive to advice and take suggestions from the teacher and parents, and be on the a le rt at a ll times to seek improvements in the school system. (c) A teacher must have the proper equipment to do the job right. A sufficient supply of good workbooks and a duplicator are very essential to good teaching. To avoid accepting unsuitable teachers, they should be hired at the earliest date possible. 2 3 2
(d) The school board has the sole authority in the financing of the school. The school funds should be used wisely and to the best advantage, and no transaction in funds should be made without the knowledge of the e n tire board, except in certain cases. It is also the function of the school beard to set the tu itio n fee, levy or assess additional school taxes as the conditions may requ i re . The monthly meeting shall be open to the parents, and they should always feel free to attend these meetings and express th e ir gr ievances. (e) It is the duty of the superintendent to consult with the school boards and teachers, and search for the best books available and suitable for the Amish parochial schools. He should also supply a ll necessary report papers required by the State.
STANDARD 4 TEACHERS QUALIFICATIONS AND DUTIES
(a) This subject is described in detail and incorporated in the standards. However, other suggestions may be h e lp fu l. It is the opinion of Amish school officials that a teacher should have natural talent, and be able to teach, with no other obligations to interfere with teaching. (b) The term, "an eighth grade education" in this standard, Part (a), will bear further explanation. A teacher would be well advised to use the vacation period as an opportune time to give further study to the subjects included in the graded course of study of the school. While the formal education of a teacher need not be carried further than the eighth grade, a self-imposed course of research in the school's accepted subjects is necessary to provide and maintain that "margin of knowledge." (c) There shall be regular tests to enable the teacher to determine the progress of the pupils. These records should be on f i l e at the school.
STANDARD 5 DISCIPLINE
(a) No teacher, regardless of his or her other qualifications can be considered a successful teacher if discipline is lacking and the school allowed to become disorderly. Therefore, the saying of Solomon, "Spare the rod, and spoil the child", should apply to all teachers.
* STANDARD 6 ATTENDANCE
(e) The term "illn e s s " in this paragraph shall not be confused with a long-term sickness where a doctor's certificate is required. Under these circumstances it may be necessary for the teacher or parents to provide home instruction if possible. 233
(g) The average attendance percentage may be expected to be from 90% to 95% unless an epidemic invades a school. Any figure lower than 90% should be cause for concern and investigation. Poor attend ance imposes a hardship on both the teacher and the pupil. (h) The same may be said on tardiness and it should be emphasized that manual labor at home should never interfere with the school studies of the pupil.
STANDARD 7 THE EDUCATION PROGRAM
(a) In this category are placed in order: reading, writing, spelling and English. Reading is recognized as one of the most important subjects in our schools today, and should be stressed as such in our private schools. Phonics should be used as an aid to the young ch ild , and a b ility to pronounce words should be continued through the first grades. Writing and spelling are also very important, and these three subjects should be a daily requirement. English is recommended as a requirement from grades four through eight. (b) Mathematics: There is no subject that the child of the Amish schools w ill use more extensively in adult years than this one. The first steps, addition and subtraction, must be learned in the early years, followed by multiplication and division, and in the upper grades, measurements and dimensions. These subjects shall be stressed daily and to the full extent from grade one through eight. (c) No parents or guardians shall be obligated to have their children caught the elements in these subjects that are conscientiously opposed.
Other Standards Pending
CONSIDERATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The figure (35) is not a hard and fast one. There are cases where at least temporarily, pupils may exceed that number. But it is important to recognize the importance of not overburdening the teacher with more pupils than can be adequately instructed.
Pupils of the seventh or eighth grades who have good marks can be of great help to the teacher by assisting with the lower grades or other work which they are capable of doing. This serves a twofold pur pose: It may also serve as experience for future teachers.
0 APPENDIX E
ANALYSIS OF AMISH MINIMUM SCHOOL STANDARDS BY THE
STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION STAFF*
Analysis of the proposed minimum standards for Amish private or parochial elementary schools in Ohio with notations of violations of sections of the Revised Code and the Minimum Standards for Elementary Schools as adopted by the State Board of Education.
INTRODUCTION
The terms "sufficient," "adequate," and "proper education" have in part been defined by Section 3313.60 of the Revised Code and in the Elementary Standards adopted by the State Board of Education. This seems to indicate the intent of the Amish, by interpretation, to assume the right to either partially evade or completely ignore certain sections of the law or the provisions of the Elementary Standards.
STANDARD 1 NEEDS, METHODS AND OBJECTIVES
Section 3301.07, paragraph D, of the Revised Code provides for consideration of the particular needs, methods, and objectives of private and parochial schools so long as the provision for these particular needs, methods, and objectives does not conflict with the provisions for a general education of high quality.
Section 3313.60 of the Revised Code and the Elementary Standards as adopted by the State Board of Education outline those minimum pro visions which are considered necessary for a general education of high quality. It is noted that in a later Standard, (Standard V II) , a ll of the provisions of Section 3313.60 (House Bill No. 76) are not included in the proposed educational program.
* Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Amish Sectarian Education in Ohio. Research Report No. kk (Columbus^- Ohio Legislative Service Commission, I960), pp. 3*+-35.
23*+
0 235
STANDARD 2 THE SCHOOL DISTRICT
The proposed school d is tr ic t cle a rly would not provide pupil population to meet the requirements of no less than 3 teachers and not more than 2 grades per teacher. This is in direct c o n flic t with the provisions of Standard I I of the adopted Elementary Standards which become effective with the 1959-60 school year.
STANDARD 3 ADMINISTRATION OF SCHOOL
No provision is made for submitting Form 21 which requires a report of the annual enrollment to the State Department of Education in October of each year.
No provision has been made for reporting to the clerk of the city, exempted village, or local school district in which the private or parochial school is located (Form 21-A).
STANDARD k TEACHERS: QUALIFICATIONS AND DUTIES
This violates Standard VI-D of the adopted Elementary Standards which requires all teachers to possess either a standard certificate or to have 2 years of training in a recognized college o^ university or to qualify for a temporary certificate. No provision has been made for teachers to possess by the school year 1959-60 a certificate issued by a teacher trainin g in s titu tio n , a regular public school c e rtific a te issued by the State Department of Education, or a c e rtific a te acquired under Section 3301.071 (House Bill No. 903).
STANDARD 5 DISCIPLINE
This is a statement of purpose. There is no violation with the probably exception that no provision is indicated which would place this pupil in another school whether it is private, parochial, or public. The Compulsory Attendance Law could be ignored unless this pupil is placed in another school.
STANDARD 6 ATTENDANCE
This standard violates Section 3321.07 of the Revised Code. This section requires that the hours and term of attendance shall be equivalent to that required of pupils attending the public school of the district. This proposed standard implies the possibility of viola tions of Section 3321.01 (Compulsory School Age), Section 3321.03 (Age and Schooling Certificates), Section 3321.0^ (Compulsory Attendance), and Section 3321.19 (Notification of Attendance Officer). It appears 236 that the intent is not to notify the attendance officer of the public school in the district. The intent to remove the responsibility for attendance from the attendance officer of the public school district is c 1 ea r .
Standard 111-C of the adopted Elementary Standards is violated in that there are no written policies for assigning and promoting pupils.
STANDARD 7 THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
The proposed graded course of study violates the provisions of Section 3313-60 of the Revised Code and the adopted Elementary Standards by the omission of oral and written English and literature; history of the United States and of Ohio; national, state, and local government in the United States; physical education, including instruction in the harmful effects of narcotics and their illegal use and instruction in the effects of the use of alcoholic beverages; the fine arts; natural science and conservation; first aid; fire prevention; and the require ment of a I year's course in American History for promotion from the 8th grade to the 9th grade.
No provision has been made nor is there any statement concerning the approximation of time for the teaching of the various subject areas in the elementary school.
STANDARD 8 THE SCHOOL LIBRARY
This standard provides no guarantee that the provisions of Standard IX of the adopted Elementary Standards w ill be met. The following are not stipulated; Number of books, d ic tio n a rie s , encyclo pedias, amount of reference material, or the expenditure of a minimum of $1.00 for each elementary pupil. There is nothing in this standard which indicates the condition or quality of the books which will be placed in the school lib rary .
OTHER STANDARDS PENDING
(1) There is no indication of the number of grades per teacher or the number of teachers in the elementary school as is required in Standard I I of the adopted Elementary Standards.
(2) Safety factors ?re ignored.
(3) The proper public school official is not indicated.
(k) Fails to indicate procedures for reporting to the proper public school o f f ic ia ls . 237
The statement, "Any other case where its religious beliefs are not infringed on" gives no guarantee that it is the intent to comply with the laws of the State of Ohio or the Minimum Standards for Elementary Schools as adopted by the State Board of Education.
Ohio Elementary Standards not included
Standard I. Philosophy and Objectives Standard IV. Records and Reports Standard V II. In-Service Education Standard V III. 1nstruct ion Standard IX. Guidance Standard X. C i t izensh i p
Ohio Elementary Standards Violated
Standard I I . Organization Standard I I I . Administrative Policies Standard V. The Educational Program Standard VI. Teachers, Supervisors, Principals and Administrators Standard X I. Instructional Materials Standard X II. Library Standard X I I I . The School Building and Grounds Standard XIV. Custodial Service
Sections of Law not fu lly complied with
Section 3301.07 Section 3313.60 Section 3301.071 Section 3321.07 (Attendance at other than a public school) Section 3321.01 (Compulsory Age) Section 3321.03 (Attendance) Section 3321.04 (Compulsory Attendance) Section 3321.19 (Truancy) APPENDIX F
FACTS
Facts concerning the Amish Parochial Schools in Wayne County that we feel members of the State Board of Education should know before making a decision about proposed elementary standards. [1956]
1 . THEY HAVE VERY POOR TEACHERS. NONE OF THE TEACHERS HAVE GONE FARTHER THAN THE EIGHTH GRADE.
2. They do not like to send their children to school, and will keep them home to work for many days during the school year.
3. There have been cases where parents hide their children in neighboring counties with other Amish families to avoid the compulsory school attendance law.
U. The real old order of Amish are the worst offenders in trying to evade sending their children to school, and most of these people are very stubborn and uncooperative.
5. In a few cases they refuse to give the enumerators the proper information, and some lie about the age of the six year olds in order to keep them out of school another year, the result being some are 8 years old before starting to school.
6. They do not want their children to get too much education with the result that in most cases the Amish, as a whole, are a very poorly educated group of people.
7. Seventh and eighth graders are usually dismissed early in the afternoon for home instruction.
8. Classrooms are very autocratic with very little participa tion by members of the class.
9. Much evidence of memorization without understanding and apprec iat ion.
10. In many of the schools, Social Studies is not being taught.
238 11. Reading is by rote with very l i t t l e comprehension.
12. Because of the number of grades per school, not enough time is spent on each subject.
13- A ll classrooms are very poorly lighted and equipped. Teachers do not make rooms attractive and conducive to learning.
14. There is no use made of the wealth of visual material that is available.
15- One school uses a 1908 vintage reading series.
16. Health habits and instruction is not taught.
17. One Amishman told the county attendance o ffic e r, Ml went to Parochial Schools 2 years and received nothing from it and I had better been home farming."
18. Quotation in letter from Amish person, "I am sorry that so many Amish parents, who call themselves Christian, neglect to send their children to school."
WAYNE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Ralph Ely, County Superintendent
Roy Burlingame, Elementary Supervisor
Raymond C. Sidle, Attendance Officer APPENDIX G
SOME AMISH FEARS*
Such a thing as a separate school for 9th grade by next term is a very important point to Amish people in this controversy in that they feel certain if they give a bit now there will be another "bit" to give next term and so on until a ll Amish children are in public school, or the equivalent, up to sixteen years old, then the age lim it w ill perhaps be moved up to seventeen or eighteen years, resulting in a mass production type of "standardized" training for Amish youth during the highly formative years of adolescence. The school environment and the subjects taught, both qualitatively and quantatively, would be dictated largely by educators far removed from adequate sympathy and understand ing of the actual needs of Amish youths in training or preparation for the unique way of lif e they w ill live as adults. Under these circum stances the opportunity for continuous, and essential, parental instruc tion and supervision of the children from early adolescence to adult hood in preparation for a simple, contented, Christian way of life within the Amish faith would be lost, or neutralized to a prohibitive extent. As the present day version of pub 1ic-school higher education for Amish youth comes in, the Amish fa ith religion and the Amish way of life as we know it today will go out. There are other influences, also, which have the same detrimental effect.
JL "Excerpts from an Amish Teacher's Diary," February ht 1958. APPENDIX H
RESOLUTION OF THE HARDIN COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
August 6, 1953
WHEREAS, a sect of the Orthodox Amish Mennonites have moved into Hardin County and WHEREAS, an opinion had been received from R. M. Garrison, Director, Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, State Department of Education, Columbus, Ohio. It reads in part as follows:
'There are two features in the law governing the establishment of a private school. One says that the length of the school term, the length of the school day and the instruction must be equivalent to that of the public school of the d is tric t in which the private school is located. The other requires that the teacher in charge of the private school report to the Attendance Officer the names and ages of the pupils enrolled and report any changes as they might occur.'
BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the privilege to establish a school by the Amish settlement be granted; that the school day, the school month, and the school year conform to the Ohio general code with regard to these matters; that regular reports be required in order to determine the kind of work the school is doing; that the work be directly under the super vision of the County Attendance Officer; that the children be required to attend school regularly as if they were in the public school BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the school be held in a place other than a residence and be suitable for school purposes; that the school be subject to the County Health Department, its commissioner and nurse, and their rules and regulations BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that one copy of this resolution be sent to the leader of the Amish sect, one copy to the County Department of Health, and another to the State Department of Education.
Roll call on the above motion as follows:
Glen Hanson, yes T. D. Sidener, yes Paul R. S eiler, yes J. P. Siemon, yes 2h2
RESOLUTION
March I , 1955
BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of Education of Hardin County, that:
1. The resolution of the Board of Education of Hardin County passed August 6, 1953* with reference to the privilege of the Amish establishing a private school for Amish children, be and the same is hereby rescinded.
2. The County Superintendent of Schools, as clerk of his board, inform the leader or leaders of said Amish sect that permission to have such Amish school has been rescinded; and that any children attending such Amish (private) school will be deemed truant from the public school of the district in which such child resides, and the parent of such child, its guardian, or other person having its care will be held legally responsible for failure to cause such child to be instructed in accordance with the compulsory education laws of the State of Ohio, because of the fact that such school as it is now operating does not provide instruction equivalent to the instruction given children of tike age and advancement in the public school of the districts in which such children reside, and in other respects does not comply with compulsory education laws of the State of Ohio.
3- The attendance o ffic e r, employed by the Hardin County Board of Education, and his assistants be, and they are hereby directed to investigate a ll cases of supposed truancy from the public school of the local school d is tric ts of Hardin County, and to take such legal action and make such complaint in a court competent ju risd iction against the parents, guardian, or other persons having care of such child of compulsory school age as is required by law in such case.
it was moved by Hanson and seconded by Seiler that the resolution
be adopted. Upon ro ll call the vote resulted as follows:
Glenn Hanson, yes Paul S eiler, yes J. P. Siemon, yes John K raft, yes J. E. Simpson, yes
There upon the motion was declared carried and the said resolution was adopted. APPENDIX THE EDITOR'S CORNER*
Wayne county authorities who took Amish children from their homes and placed them in the county Children's Home because their parents failed to send them to school after they had passed the eighth grade were within their legal rights but we wonder if such a procedure was really justified. Surely there must be a better way of settling the matter.
As the present law stands, a ll children must attend school until they reach the age of 18 years. It is provided, however, that when a child has satisfactorily passed the seventh grade in the elemen tary schools and attained the age of sixteen he may obtain a "working permit" and be excused from further attendance.
In an edito rial in last week's Millersburg Farmer-Hub, Judge Hoy L. Russell said, "Many persons believe that the best approach to the entire problem would be a revision of the statutes to permit any child to withdraw from school upon having successfully passed the Eighth Grade, whether he be 16 or younger so long as he has the con sent of his parents to such withdrawal. At the same time there should be a simple revision of the statutes governing the employment of minors so that such children could obtain jobs where they could learn trades or s k ills whereby to make a living. There is l i t t l e to be gained from turning a child out of school to loaf on the street corners.
'Ve believe that the sixteen-years rule should be eliminated and the eighth grade substituted for the seventh as a standard. This would, we think, meet with the principal objections of the Amish people and s t ill permit those who seek the "higher education" to continue their schooling."
That sounds downright sensible to us.
Other newspapers in the state, including the Marion Star, have expressed dissatisfaction with the present compulsory school attendance law as a result of the Wayne County case. So, however much it may be deplored, the action of the officials there may have the beneficial effect of focusing the attention of the public on the school laws to the extent that a satisfactory compromise can be reached.
* E d ito ria l, The Budget. February 20, 1958. 245
THE AMISH MUST GO TO SCHOOL*
The Akron chapter of the Civil Liberties Union has performed a public service by its thorough and dispassionate study of the issues involved in the Amish school controversy in Wayne County.
Emotion and prejudice so beclouded the day-by-day events in March and April that many persons were confused as to what rights were involved.
After careful study, the conclusions of the CLU's special com m ittee, approved Saturday by the Ohio C ivil Liberties Union, were that:
1--THE STATE does have the power to compel children to attend school, even though their parents have contrary religious convictions.
2--THE CONSTITUTIONAL right of freedom of religion does not provide immunity from reasonable educational standards imposed by the state.
3 - THE PARENTS of the three Amish children who did not attend school were unlawfully trie d , convicted and ja ile d without due process of law.
Discussing the ja ilin g of the parents, the committee took much the same view as the Ninth D is tric t Court of Appeals, which issued the order freeing them.
It blamed the "entire unhappy legal wrangle" on "poor legal craftsmanship."
But as to the original issue--whether the state can compel children to attend school despite the parents' religious b e lie fs --th e committee found that preponderant judicial opinion was clear-cut. _ * * In addition to quotations from rulings by the courts of various states, the report cited this opinion by the United States Supreme Court in a case upholding convictions of Mormons for practicing polygamy:
"Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, they may with practices ..."
* E d ito ria l, Akron Beacon Journal, June 9, 1958. 2k6
(THE AMISH MUST GO TO SCHOOL - C o n td .)
The civil liberties group offered its own conclusion in these words:
“It follows that the state may promulgate reason able educational standards, as well as compulsory school attendance laws, in the interest of public welfare. The constitutional rights of freedom of worship and of separation of church and state do not provide immunity from compliance with those standards and regulations."
As a means of softening the c o llisio n between the school laws and the religious b e lie fs of the Amish in Wayne County, the committee recommends that the Ohio Board of Education consider postponing new minimum standards of instruction which are to be effective with the beginning of the new school term in the Fall.
This, in our opinion, would sacrific e the welfare of thousands of other school children in Ohio in an attempt to mollify a few obsti nate individuals who aren't inclined to make any changes in their back ward educational customs.
Unfortunately, there are apt to be more clashes with the Amish over school attendance, under old regulations or under new ones.
We much prefei— in fact, we heartily endorse--the CLU recom mendation that the statutes "be evenly and fairly enforced in the future, but utilizing proper penalty provisions under the law, rather than other procedures depriving parents of their basic right of due process." 2 4 7
THE AMISH SCHOOL PROBLEM*
It is time that the state does something practical to solve the Amish school problem.
As the law stands, everyone has to be in school until he is 16. The Amish do not want their children to attend consolidated high schools. They want them to come home and go to work after the fir s t eight years of elementary training. Part of the fear of the Amish is that of losing their children to modern society should they go too long to public high schools. They believe in their way of life. They want their children to continue it.
We are inclined to have a great amount of sympathy for the Amish, but we do not believe a whole group of people should be permit ted to violate the law. For that reason we believe the law should be changed.
The number of years in school is no criterian of what a child learns. Some children are perfectly capable of doing the fir s t six years in four. And yet under the present system this would not be poss ible.
We are inclined to believe that the Amish should be told that if they can achieve a certain standard of education it doesn't matter- too much how they achieve it. In other words what's wrong with a state examination--a fair one--testing proficiency in English, arith metic, spelling, natural science, and history. Why should we care how these children achieve this proficiency as long as they achieve it?
The reason for compulsory education is to prepare an able citizenry to cope with the problems of se lf government and s e lf- discipline.
If the Amish can prepare at home or by reading in a library to pass proficiency tests there is no reason, in our opinion, to require that they be in school for a set period of time.
Time in school doesn't always produce good students. Some pupils waste their time the last two or three years they are in school. They would be better o ff working—doing something they can stand.
* E d ito ria l, Da 11v Record (Wooster), May 10, 1961. % APPENDIX J Zks
STATE OF OHIO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION COLUMBUS 15
February 18, 1958
Mr. Crist Miller, President Board of Education Beach Grove Amish Parochial School R. R. # 2 Dalton, Ohio
Dear Mr. Mi 1le r :
The cooperation of Mr. Troyer during our visitation of the Beach Grove School January 27, 1958 was very much appreciated.
The boys and girls were cooperative and most of them showed a desire to learn. However, much time was wasted, particularly by the younger children, because the teacher was kept busy hearing recitations and there was not time to give them the direction and help needed.
Our evaluation of the total school visitation showed that the Minimum Standards for the Elementary Schools in Ohio are not being met. Thus, it appears that a general education of high quality for the boys and girls in attendance as required by Section 3301.07 of the Revised Code is not beingprovided.
1. The eight months school term is less than the minimum provided in Section 3321.12 of the Revised Code (Standard I I I , e ) .
2. The number of subjects taught does not meet the require ments of Amended Substitute House B ill No. 76 (Standard V, a). While the language arts, arithmetic, and health are taught and there is some singing, there is no pro vision for the teaching of the following subjects:
a. Geography, the history of the United States and Ohio, and national, state, and local government.
b. Natural science including conservation.
c. Fine arts.
d. First aid, safety, and fire prevention. % 2 5 0
Mr. Crist M iller -2- February 18, 1958
3. Lessons proceeded in a routine fashion, and during our observation no effort was made to use activities or materials that would help pupils understand or use what was read in a meaningful way (Standard V III, a, b, c).
k. Instructional materials and teaching aids for the various subjects were limited or lacking entirely. There is a serious need for library books, manipulative materials, supplementary books, audio visual equipment, and materials (Standards XI, c, d and X II, a, b).
5. While the building seems in good condition, lighting, ventilation, and general cleanliness of the building are not satisfactory. Sanitation facilities leave much to be desired.
In general, Minimum Standards of the State of Ohio which are not being met are as follows:
Standard Sect ion
I a, b, c
I I a
III a, b, c, d, e, f (No written policies)
IV a, c, d, e, f
V a, b, c
VI d, e
V II a, b
V III a, b, c, d
IX a
X a, b, c
XI a, b, c, d
X II a, b
X III a, b, c, d
XIV 'a (No wri tten policies) 251
Mr. C ris t M ille r -3 - February 18, 1958
Your atten tio n is directed to Standard I I of the Minimum Standards for the Elementary Schools of the State of Ohio relative to the number of fu ll-tim e teachers in each school and the number of grades which w ill be permitted in the same classroom commencing with the school year 1959-60.
Sincerely yours,
Glenn A. Rich Di rector
Phi la Humphreys School Supervisor
H. G. Jones School Supervisor
GAR:B8 cc: A ttle e Troyer 2 5 2
Sterling, 0. Feb 18 1958
Mr- John R. Lea Wooster, Ohio
Dear Sir:
Probably you have received many letters pro and con on the Amish situation.
My version is that a ll young people should be in school according to school laws.
How do you expect our children to be interested in staying in school, if some other districts are allowed to go about breaking of school laws.
If you can break one law, why can't you break any law?
They do come from good clean homes, But if these parents real 1v loved their children they would want them to abide by our 1 aws.
As far as the "Religion Angle." If they are so sure that their views are so perfect They could and wouId trust their young folks anywhere.
If they s t i l l can not trust them with other young people, Let them move away to some h ills where they can grow up ignorant. Please, they do not need to stay here to teach our young people to break laws.
Interested
(S igned)
[Name withheld]
% 253
Canton, Ohio Feb. 21, 1958
Dear Sir
Who is responsible for stirring up this trouble with the Amish, some busy body who wanted to get his name in the paper.
I for one think the Amish are solid citizens of Amerca. I have raised a famaly of 7 childeren and c.an say our trouble started when the children started to High School
If some busy body isnt s tirrin g up trouble in the South with the Colored then it is here with the Amish.
Do you think this is good for the Welfare of those Children to be taken from there homes. Well I don't
Some n it wit - Educated Fool has to take it onto himself to see that some Law is Obeyed, as if that is the only Law that is not obeyed these Days.
A Reader
[Anonymous] 25**
Rd 1 Nova Ohio Feb 28 1958
Wayne County Board of Education Mr. President.
Dear S ir,
I have been asked by our womans club to w rite this le tte r to you, In regards to the situation involving the Amish people in your v ic in ity .
We as a group of mothers, are very much against taking these children from their parents.
It has always been their solemn belief that it is not necessary to have a higher education. It isn't something new they have just come up with.
We think they have so far done a good job of raising their families. They are good religious upright citizens.
We are a ll mothers with children in school ranging from 1st grade to senior in college and all belong to P.T.A. Vfe certainly are not against education but we do think you are very unjust to these people, who are so sincere in their religion and beliefs.
Yours truly.
(Signed)
Marie Ritter, Sec. Ruggles Country Culture Club 255
156^ Gasche S t ., Wooster, 0. Apr. 2, 1958
The Ohio State Board of Education, Columbus, 0.
The Wayne Co. Board of Education, Wooster, 0.
Gent 1emen:
I am addressing this letter regarding the attempts made to punish the Amish parents for refusing to send their children to High Schools in Wayne Co. to both of you. I do not know who is most respon s ible for the program or who would have power to work out a reasonable compromise but I am sure that it lays within the power of one of the two Boards.
I am sure that a large majority of the people of Wayne County and the State of Ohio are opposed to the methods used in this case. When the Dept, of Welfare of our state is making strenuous efforts to get children out of institutions and into homes where they can enjoy more love and security in order to make better citizens of them that the court should take children out of homes where there is no question about love and security and place them in an institution makes no sense at a l l . That the children should be punished for the acts of their parents also does not make sense and certainly being sentenced to the Childrens' Home is punishment for them. To take the six parents from their job of providing for their families and themselves and putting them in j a i l and th e ir children in the Home at the taxpayers' expense does not make sense.
I realize that the punishment meted out was the decision of the Court and not of eith er of your Boards. However most of the reasons advanced for s tartin g the action do not make much more sense. For instance it is argued that it had to be done to comply with the com pulsory school law. 1 have not read the law but 1 assume that certain powers of discretion are given to the Boards of Education. At least dozens of courses have been approved for High School c red it which have less social or intellectual value than learning to farm or keep house from experts in the f ie ld . It is argued that it is necessary in order to fit these children to be citizens. It is ironical that the same issue of the Record that carried the news of the sentence of the Amish parents also carried the story of the arrest of a product of our local schools in Detroit for attempted murder. When it comes to a matter of obeying the laws, or accepting responsibility or contributing to the 256
The Ohio State Board of Education The Wayne Co. Board of Education Page 2 Apr. 2, 1958 general welfare I am sure that you w ill agree with me that the average product of Amish education compares favorably with the average product of the public schools. It seems like a particularly poor time to advance this argument at this time when there is such wide spread criticism of our educational program. It is my guess that the average Amish graduate of the 8th grade is more proficient in reading, writing and arithmetic than the average High School graduate in Wayne Co. It is argued that it must be done that some especially gifted child might not be lost to society. The c itie s around here have many gifted citizens who have come from Amish homes. Any that are interested in intellectual develop ment always find a way to attain it. One of Wooster's best loved citizens, granted an Honorary Degree by the College of Wooster a number of years ago for his intellectual and social contributions to the city of Wooster, came from an Amish home and had an Amish education as a child. 1 think that there is general agreement that the public schools are not meeting the needs of the gifted child, so this argument seems besides the point.
1 believe that a common sense compromise can be worked out that w ill induce them to improve their parochial schools and serve the general welfare without getting their backs up. Otherwise we may find ourselves with our jails full of Amish and our children' homes full of their children. After all their communities are found in nineteen of our states and only in Ohio are they being ja ile d .
Very truly yours
(Signed)
H. C. Yoder 257
Dundee, Ohio April 11-1958
Hr. E. E. Holt Director of Education State Office Bldg. Columbus, Ohio
Dear Mr. Holt,
The enclosure is a clipping from the Wooster Daily Record of Wed. April 9th which has its special interest to me.
Especially did paragraph (5) give me encouragement inasmuch as the "Principal's Association" has also learned of the hunger for education among a part of our Amish people.
The possibilities to which they refer in par (7) give me real concern. As you know from our conversation last Tuesday morning, my inclinations, and therefore my efforts shall be so directed that the legislature shall never see f i t to change the laws, so that eager-to-learn Amish boys and girls need not suffer defeat at the stubborn insistence of an unlearned Bishopric.
An illite r a te citizenship becomes a real danger to a democracy, and since these Amish people exercise only the privilege of voting (and refuse to perform th eir other obligations of citizenship), it becomes the more important—both morally and politically--to insist upon the secondary education.
My gracious thanks to you for the courtesies and time extended me at your o ffic e last Tuesday morning.
Sincerely yours
(S igned)
[Name withheld] 258
WAYNE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS OFFICE: \k<. E. LARWILL ST, WOOSTER, OHIO
June 6, 1958
Mr. E. E. Holt State Superintendent of Public Instruction State Department of Education Columbus 15> Ohio
Dear Mr. Holt:
You are well aware of the Amish attendance problem in Wayne County, and no doubt you have received some letters of protests from sympathizers with the Amish, p a rtic u la rly from people who do not know e ith er the Amish people or the school laws. However, I would point out that the people who liv e in "Amish t e r r ito r y ," where I have lived for over 25 years, are in e n tire accord with our attempts to enforce school laws.
Every county superintendent in Wayne County for over 30 years has had difficulty in enforcing school attendance laws, so far as the Amish are concerned. Mr. Gibbens, Mr. Hathaway, Mr. Ely, e tc ., believed, as I do, that the attendance laws were to be impartially enforced, and public officials should not be expected to "wink" at the law in the case of any group.
There are over 800 Amish pupils in the Southeast Local District alone. Of these, approximately 280 are in six one room parochial schools, about 2*t0 in seven one room public schools, and the remainder in the four village elementary schools.
One of these Amish parochial schools this year had 56 pupils in all eight grades, taught by a young man with an eighth grade education. He was not teaching any geography, science, history, health, civics, literature, government--it was purely reading, writing, arithmetic, and spelling. There were almost no reference books of any kind, no encyclopedia, one small dictionary, no maps, etc.
Not only do some of the more conservative Amish quit school at the end of the eighth grade, regardless of age, but they closed all six of th e ir parochial schools at the end of eight months, despite the inspection report of Mr. Rich, Miss Humphreys, and Mr. Jones, which called attention to the fact that eight months did not meet State requirements. 259
Page 2 - E .E .H o lt
Also, the Amish have told the Southeast Local Board of Education that, if the seven one room public schools are closed after next school year, they w ill simply open more parochial schools. These would be one room schools, with uncertified teachers, and with eight months of school, and would fall far short of meeting any standards, if we may judge by their present parochial schools.
The Amish are a taw unto themselves, so far as the schools are concerned. We have many of the most conservative, most unprogressive, in Wayne County and they feel strong enough in numbers and that they have enough public sympathy whenever brought into court, that they can do pretty much as they please.
I have a lot of respect for freedom of religion, but it has been well established by the courts that there is no infringement of religious freedom in these cases. It is a way of life that is involved.
I understand that there is some possibility of the State Board adopting new regulations to soften the school laws, so far as the Amish are concerned. Some new regulations might (?) help to solve the attendance problem, but there is also the question of the Minimum Standards, requiring at least three teachers per school, teachers with certification, more than eight months school, etc.? I do not believe that the State Board can make regulations lenient enough to satisfy some of the Amish. And with the possibility of over 500 Amish in one local d is tric t in these one room parochial schools after next school year, we shall have a real problem on our hands. We shall need better means of enforcement, by legislative action, or the situation would seem to be almost hopeless.
Sincerely yours,
(Signed)
John R. Lea County Superintendent of Schools
JRL:ps Enel. 260
S ept. 1, 1959
[Governor Michael DiSaUe Columbus Ohio]
Dear Governor:
My name is ______. I am 14 years old. My birthday is on ______.
My parents are Amish. About this time last year some Amish people got together and decided to start a different kind of school. This school is for Amish children through the eighth grade, but not sixteen years old. The way this school works is this: Monday thru Friday, from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 and from 1:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M. I would stay at home and work. Every evening I would down what I did between 9:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Once every week these children get together for a few hours to have school. Between 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 P.M. you are supposed to be at home and work for your parents. The idea is that the home is the school. You are supposed to get your schooling at home. But the Amish people are farmers, and a ll I learn at home is how to farm. When I grow up I don't want to farm. The reason 1 am w riting to you is because 1 am worried about getting a job in the future. If I go to this (stay-at-home-school) 1 probably won't be able to get a good job in the future.
The school i went to up to the eighth grade is: ______. Ohio. This school starts on Sept. 8, 1959. I would like to go to this school but my father doesn't want me to there. 1 would like very much for you to do something so that my father would have to let me go to High School. I would like to be the fir s t day, so the sooner you do something about it the better. I ' l l be satisfied.
Thank you very much.
Yours very tru ly,
[Name w ithheld]
P.S. My father does not know I am sending this. 261
August k, 196t
Mr. E. E. Holt Supt. of Public Instruction State of Ohio Dept, of Education Columbus 15, Ohio
Dear Mr. Holt:
The Board of Education of the Kenton City Schools have acquired part of the responsibility in Hardin County of dealing with the Amish schools since a rural area surrounding Kenton has become a part of the City School District.
I'm sure you are aware of the decision of the State Supreme Court last May 11th., when an injunction was denied toclose theschools on the basis of their schools not meeting the minimum Standards and for other reasons.
The Board here doesn't Intend to develop a fresh set of ulcers because these kids can't be forced into the public schools, if we are the only folks in the State who are concerned about the problem. However, if the State Board wishes to have these Amish people continuously made aware of our school laws by having them arrested and placed in j a i l , we w ill follow through on it if there is anything to be gained from the State level.
I'm certain these Amish folks, after the action of the Supreme Court, feel they can't be touched since they refused to supply the information we requested when the school enumeration was taken this past Spring.
I think I know your personal feelings on the matter but you can let me know if the State has a point it wants to hold fast on.
S incerely,
(S igned)
Paul L. Oaklief Supt. of Schools
PLO: ms 262
STATE OF OHIO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION COLUMBUS 15
August 29, 1961
Mr. Paul L. Oaklief Superintendent of Schools Oriental Street Kenton, Ohio
Dear Mr. O aklief:
Your le tte r of August 4 reached my o ffic e while I was on vacation.
The only position which the State Board of Education and the Department of Education can take concerning the compulsory school attendance law is that they should be enforced. However, the fu ll resp onsib ility for the enforcement of compulsory school attendance laws rests In the hands of local school o ffic ia ls . The only responsibility assigned to the Department of Education is to deter mine whether non-public as well as public schools meet the standards established by the State Board of Education.
We recognize, as you do, that this is a difficult problem.
Sincerely yours,
(S i gned)
E. E. Holt Superintendent of Public Instruction eeh:fk 263
HomervTile, Ohio June 15, 1962
Mr. E. E. Holt, Supt. of Public Instruction, Ohio Dept, of Education,
Dear S ir:
I am w ritin g to you concerning a problem that exists in Ohio education and it is getting larger as time goes on because there seems to be nothing done about i t . It is the problem of the Amish people con structing one room buildings within the state that they use to house th eir children during school time so that the children are denied the opportunity of attending our public schools and getting a needed educa tion. Within the last few years there have been several built and used in this part of Ohio, and new ones are being built and others contem plated for the future. Other states are requiring the Amish to attend the public schools or furnish standard education for the children. Ohio, it seems will permit this disgrace to Ohio education and therefor many from other states are coming to Ohio because the education authorities there are enforcing good education laws. We are in Ohio getting Amish from Indiana, Penna, Iowa, Delaware, Tenessee, and other states. I think this is a bad condition.
To me, it looks like a State of Ohio problem. L i t t l e or nothing can be done at the local level and the same at the county level. Hence a state problem.
In this modern day and age, the il l i t e r a t e has no place in our society. We try to do a good job of educating our youth for the prob lems of to-day and to-morrow but this one class of people are negative thinking and are a detriment to society. True, they are a small class but when a group moves into a community, the community suffers. I see it in our own community.
If the State Dept, of Education and the State Board of Education can help solve this problem, I'm sure county and local boards w ill be thankful and will cooperate when necessary.
I know you are busy with many problems but I wanted to bring this to your attention and the attention of the State Board of Educa tio n .
Very truly yours,
(S igned)
Arthur Stevenson [Former school board member] 26^
October 31* 1962
Dear Mr.
Since becoming county superintendent I have been asked several times by, Amish friends, if there would be any change in the policy of this office toward the Amish?
1 would like to assure you that there w ill be absolutely no change, on my part, of the previous policy. I have no intention of even considering any change in the previous agreements Involving the Amish and their way of life .
I am sure that the Amish people w ill also keep their part of the agreement and maintain their splendid spirit of cooperation.
1 feel that when a school attendance record is averaging approximately 95% in grades one through eight that agreements are being kept.
If there is any way in which this office can be of service to the Amish schools or Amish people please do not hesitate to ask.
S incerely,
GEAUGA COUNTY SCHOOLS
(S igned)
D. C. Jividen Super i ntendent
OCJ/dgn BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bibliographical Note: Much of the research in this study is based upon personal interviews with Amish people and public school o ffic ia ls who wished to remain anonymous. Primary materials relating to the Ohio Amish conflict are located in the offices of the county superintendents in the library of the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Columbus, Ohio; and in the offices of the State Department of Education, Columbus Ohio.
Books
All port, Gordon W. The Nature of Prejudice. Abridged. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958,
Bachman, Calvin G. The Old Order Amish of Lancaster County. Lancaster: Pennsylvania German Society, 1961.
Braght, Thielman J. Van. The Bloody Theater or Martyr's M irror. Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1950.
Brown, Samuel W. The Secularization of American Education As Shown by State Legislation. State Constitutional Provisions and State Supreme Court Decisions. New York: Columbia University, 1912.
Butts, R. Freeman, and Cremin, Lawrence A. A History of Education in American Culture. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1959.
Byler, Uria R. Our Better Country: A H istory. Gordonville: Old Order Book Society, 1963.
Committee for Economic Development. Modernizing Local Government to Secure a Balanced Federalism. New York: The Committee, 1966.
Cremin, Lawrence A. The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.
Davis, David B. "Intergroup C onflict," in American History and the Social Sciences. Edward N. Saveth (ed.) . Glencoe: Free Press, 1964. 267
Douglass, Ben. History of Wayne County. Indianapolis: Robert Douglass, 1878 .
Drouin, Edmund G. (compiler). The School Question: A Bibliography on Church-State Relationships in American Education 1940-1960. Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963.
Fakkema, Mark. Pattern for Educational Dictatorship: A Report on Pressure Patterns in Education. Fullerton: Education Informa tion, Inc., .1962.
Francis, Emerick K. In Search of Utopia: The Mennonites in Manitoba. Glencoe: Free Press, 1955.
Friedenberg, Edgar A. Coming of Age in America: Growth and Acquies cence. New York: Random House, 1963.
Geauga County Historical and Memorial Society. Pioneer and General History of Geauga County. Burton, 1953*
Glick, N ettie. Historical Sketch of the Walnut Creek, Ohio. Amish Mennonite Church. Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1933.
Goals for Americans: A Report of the President's Commission on National Goa Is. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, I960.
Goodman, Paul. Compulsory Miseducation. New York: Horizon Press, 1964.
Grubb, W. H. (Rev.). History of the Mennonites of Butler County. Ohio. Trenton, Ohio, 191 6.
H artzler, John E. Education Among the Mennonites of America. Danver: The Central Mennonite Publication Board, 1925.
Heald, Edward T. The Stark County Story. Vol. IV, Part 2: The Suburban Era. Canton: Stark County Historical Society, 1958.
Henry, Jules. Culture Against Man. New York: Random House, 1963.
Hofstader, Richard. Anti-Intellectual ism in American Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1966.
Horsch, John. Mennonites in Europe. Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1942.
Hostetler, John A. Amish Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963. 268
Hostetler, John A. Annotated Bibliography on the Amish: An Annotated Bibliography of Source Materials Pertaining to the Old Order Amish Mennonites. Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1951.
Jacquet, Constant H. Jr. (ed.). Yearbook of American Churches 1967. New York: National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U. S. A ., 1967.
Josephson, Eric and Mary (eds.). Man Alone: Alienation in Modern Society. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1962.
Kelley, Earl C. In Defense of Youth. New York: Prentice Hall, 1963.
Kollmorgen, Walter M. Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community: The Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Washington, D. C .: U. S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 19^2.
Lee, Dorothy. "Discrepancies in the Teachi g of American Culture," in Education and Culture. George D. Spindler (ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963-
Lee, Dorothy, Freedom and Culture. Englewood C liffs : Spectrum Books, 1959-
L i t t e l l, Franklin H. The Anabaptist View of the Church. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958.
Mann, M. T. P. The Life and Works of Horace Mann. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1 8 91•
Mehl, Bernard. "Education in American History," in Foundations of Education. George F. Kneller (ed.). New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1963.
Mennonite Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Reference Work on the Anabaptist-Mennonite Movement. Hillsboro: Mennonite Brethren Publishing House, 1955-1959. (^ VoIs.)
Mennonite Yearbook and Calendar 1967. Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1967.
Merton, Robert K. Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe: Free Press, 19^9.
Miller, Edward A. The History of Educational Legislation in Ohio from 1803 to 1850. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1920.
M ille r, Elizabeth M. From the Fiery Stakes of Europe to the Federal Courts of America. New York: Vintage Press, 1 963- 269
Minimum Standards for the Amish Parochial or Private Elementary Schools of the State of Ohio as a Form of Regulations. Com- piled and Approved by the Bishops, Committeemen, and Others in Conference, Henry J. Hershberger, Chairman of Committee, Apple Creek, Ohio [1958],
Morris, George M. C entralization and Consolidation of Schools in Ohio. Columbus: State Department of Education, 1925-
North, Douglass C. The Economic Growth of the United States 1790-1860. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1961.
O'Dea, Thomas F. The Sociology of R eligion. Englewood C liffs : Prentice H all, 1966.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Amish Sectarian Education in Ohio. Research Report No. kk. Columbus, \$60.
Ohio State Department of Education. A Study of the Public Schools of Geauga County w ith Recommendations for Their Future Organiza tio n . Columbus: Ohio State Department of Education, 1937-
Ohio State Department of Education. A Study of the Public Schools of Holmes County with Recommendations for Their Future Organiza tio n . Columbus: Ohio State Department of Education, 1937-
Ohio State Department of Education. A Study of the Public Schools of Wayne County w ith Recommendations for Their Future Organiza t io n . Columbus: Ohio State Department of Education, 1937-
Ohio State School Survey Commission. Report to the Governor of Ohio. Columbus, 191^*
Parkyn, George W. The Consolidation of Rural Schools. New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Whitcombe and Tombs Lts., 1952.
Sanders, Thomas. Protestant Concepts of Church and State: Historical Backgrounds'and Approaches for the Future. New York: Doubleday and Co., 19&5-
Schneider, Herbert Wallace. Religion in 20th Century America. 2nd ed. revised. New York: Atheneum, 1964.
Schreiber, William I. Our Amish Neighbors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
Smith, Charles H. The Mennonites: A Brief History of Their Origin and Later Development in Both Europe and America. Berne, Indiana: Mennonite Book Concern, 1920.
Smith, Elmer L. The Amish Today: An Analysis of Their B e lie fs , Behavior, and Contemporary Problems. Allentown: Schlechters, 1961 . 270
Smucker, Don E. "The Influence of Public Schools on Mennonite Ideals and Its Implications for the Future," in Proceedings of Second Conference on Mennonite Cultural Problems" (Goshen, Indiana, July 2 2 -2 3 1 9 ^ 3 ). Kansas: Bethel College Press, 19^3.
Spindler, George D. (ed.)* Education and Culture. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963.
Stoll, Joseph (ed,). The Challenge of the Child: Selections from the Blackboard B ulletin. 1957-1966. 2nd ed. revised. Aylmer, Ontario: Pathway Publishing Corporation, 1967-
S to ll, Joseph. Who Shall Educate Our Children? Aylmer, Ontario: Pathway Publishing Corporation, 1965.
Troeltsch, Ernst. The Social Teachings of the Christian Church. Olive Wyon (trans. ) . London: George Allen and Unwin L t d . ,f 9 3 1 • (2 vo 1s.).
Umble, John S. Ohio Mennonite Sunday Schools. Goshen, Indiana: The Mennonite Historical Society, 19^1.
Vernon, Glenn M. Sociology of Religion. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962.
Welter, Rush. Popular Education and Democratic Thought in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.
Wenger, John C. (ed.). Complete Writings of Menno Simons c . 1^96-1561. Translated from the Dutch by Leonard Verduin. Scottdale: Herald Press, 1962.
Wenger, John C. Separated Unto God: A Plea for Christian Sim plicity of Life and for a Scriptural Nonconformity to the World. Scottdale: Mennonite Publishing House, 1952.
Woodring, Paul. "One-Room School," in American Education Today. Paul Woodring and John Scanlon (eds.T^ New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963-
Articles and Periodicals
A lley, Robert J. "The Consolidation of Schools," National Education Association Journal of Proceedings and Addresses. U 8th Annual Meet i ng , 80s ton (Ju1y 2-8, 1910), 277"79-
"Attack on School Expenditures," Elementary School Journal. XXVIII (December, 1927), 2^9-52.
Baehr, Karl H. "Secularization Among the Mennonites of Elkhart County, Indiana," Mennonite Quarterly Review. XVI (July, 1962), 131-60. 271
Bender, Harold S. "Amish Mennonites." Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. I, 93-97.
Bender, Harold S. (trans. and ed.). "Some Early American Amish- Mennonite Disciplines," Mennonite Quarterly Review. V II I, No. 2 (April, 193*0, 90-98.
Bossing, Nelson L. ‘The History of Educational Legislation in Ohio from 1851 to 1925,11 Ohio Archeological" and Historical Society Publicat ions. XXXIX (January-Apri1, 1930), 78—219-
Carley, William. "Parental Rights Under Fire," Catholic Wor1d. CLXXXIX (May, 1959), 137-^2.
"Directory of [Amish] Schools and Teachers, 1966-67," The Blackboard Bui let in. X (November, 1966), 79-83.
Engle, T. L., and Engle, Eleanor. "Attitude Differences Between Amish and Non-Amish Children Attending the Same School," Journal of Educational Psychology, XXIV (April, 1943).
Erickson, Donald A. "On the Role of Non-Public Schools," School Review, LXIX (Autumn, 1961), 338-53.
Erickson, Donald A. 'The Plain People Versus the Common Schools," Saturday Review, XLIX (November 19, 1966), 85- 8 7.
Gascho, Milton. "The Amish Division of 1693-1697 in Switzerland and Alsace," Mennonite Quarterly Review. XI (October, 1937), 235- 6 6 .
Goodman, Paul. "Why Go to School," The New Repub 1ic. CXLIX (October 5, 1963), 13-14.
Graham, A. B. "Centralized Schools in Ohio.1.1 The Agricultural College Extension Bui let in . IV, No. 6 (February , 1909).
Haight, James T. 'The Amish School Controversy,*" Ohio Bar Association Report. XXXI (October 6, 1958), 846-59*
Hegstad, Roland R. "Stand at Charity Flats," Liberty: A Magazine of Religious Freedom. LXI (March-Apri1, 1966), 29.
H ertzler, Silas. "Mennonite Elementary Schools 1947-1948," Mennonite Quarterly Review. XXIII (January, 1949), 108-13.
Hostetler, John A. 'The Amish, Citizens of Heaven and America," Pennsylvania Folklore. X (Spring, 1959), 33—37- 272
Hostetler, John A. "Amish Family Life—A Sociologist's Analysis," Pennsylvania Folklore. X II (Fall, 1961), 28.
Hostetler, John A. 'The Amish and the Public Schools," Christian Living, I I I , No. 9 (September, 1956).
Hostetler, John A. 'The Amish Use of Symbols and Their Function in Bounding the Community," The Journal of the Royal Anthropological In s titu te . XCIV, Part 1 (1963)* 11-22.
Hostetler, John A. "Old Order Amish," Mennonite Encyclopedia. Vol. IV, 43-47.
Hostetler, John A. "Persistance and Change Patterns in Amish Society," Ethnology. Ill, No.2 (April, 1964), 185-98.
Hostetler, John A. "Yoder School in Garrett County,Maryland," Christian Livinq (September, 1958).
Hostetler, John A., and Redekop, Calvin. "Education and Assimilation in Three Ethnic Groups," Alberta Journal of Educational Research. V I I I , No. 4 (December, 1962).
Jones, Margaret Ann. "Reading Among the Amish," Wilson Library B u lle tin , XXII (February, 1948), 450.
Kneider, Robert. "Environmental Influences Affecting the Decisions of Mennonite Boys of Draft Age," Mennonite Quarterly Review. XVI (October, 1942), 257-59-
Knight, David M. "State Regulation of Independent Schools," America. XCIII (June 4, 1956), 263-65.
Leatherman, (luintus. "Christopher Dock, Mennonite Schoolmaster, 1718- 1771." Mennonite Quarterly Review. XVI (January, 1942), 32-44.
Littell, Franklin H. 'The State of Iowa Versus the Amish," Christian Century. XXCVIII (February 23, 1966), 234-35.
Miller, Ernest E. "An Effective Christian Emphasis in Education," Mennonite Quarterly Review. XVI (January, 1942), 3-12.
Mininger, Paul. "Best Methods of Attaining Our Mennonite Educational Objectives," Mennonite Quarterly Review. XVI (January, 1942), 13- 22.
Reeves, Floyd W. "Reorganization--An Educational Must." Ohio Schools. XXfV (November, 1946), 360. 273
Roper. William L. "The Plight of the Plain People," Liberty: A Magazine of Religious L ib erty . LIX (March-AprTT, 1 9 6 *0 ,8 -1 1 .
Ryder, H. E. ‘The Problems of the Amish as Related to School Attend ance," School and Society. XXIII (January 2, 1926), 17-
Stauffer, Ethelbert. "The Anabaptist Theology of Martyrdom," Mennon i te Quarterly Review. XIX (July, 1945), 179-214.
[S to ll, Joseph]. "Fireside Chats Number 3— In Which Are Discussed Hogs and HighmindednessThe Blackboard Bulletin. X (February, 1967 ), 141-4 4 .
Toohy, Elizabeth. "Private School #1—Amish School." Nat ion. CLXXVI (January 31, 1953)•
Tortora, Vincent R. 'The Amish in Their One-Room School houses," Pennsylvania Folklore. XI (Fall, I960), 42-46.
Umble, John. "Memoirs of an Amish Bishop," Mennonite Quaarterly Review, XXII (April, 1948), 94-108.
Unpublished Material
Almendinger, Fred W. "Historical Study of Holmes County, Ohio." Master's thesis, Department of History, University of Southern C a lifo rn ia , 1938.
Angus, David L. 'The Dropout Problem, An In terp retative H isto ry." Ph.D. d iss e rtatio n , The Ohio State U niversity, 1965-
Bennion, John W. 'The Formation of Federal Educational Policy in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965." Ph.D. disser ta tio n , The Ohio State U niversity, 1966.
B illin g s , Thomas. 'The Old Order Amish Versus the Compulsory School Attendance Law: An Analysis of the Conflict." Ph.D. thesis, University of Oregon, 1961.
Blackburn, Frank M. "A Study of the Public Schools of Union County with Recommendations for Their Future Organization." Master's thesis, The Ohio State U niversity, 1951.
Byler, Uria R. Testimony Before the Amish School Study Committee. Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Columbus, Ohio. November 22, I960. (Mimeographed.) nk
Carroll, William A. "Report of Referee in the Matter of the Salt Creek Township Local School D is tric t." Columbus: State Board of Education, February 23, I960. (Typewritten.)
Dush, Joseph. Testimony Before the Amish School Study Committee. Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Columbus, Ohio. November 22, 1960. (Mimeographed.)
Elson, John. "State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools: The Legal Frame work." Background Paper, National Invitational Conference on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, University of Chicago, Chicago,111inois, March 28-29, 1967- (Mimeographed.)
Ely, Ralph. "A History of the Amish People of East Union Township, Wayne County, Ohio, with Special Emphasis on Educational Problems." Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 19^2.
Ely, Ralph, et a l . Facts Concerning the Amish Parochial Schools. [Wooster, Ohio]: Wayne County Public Schools, [1956]. (Mimeographed.)
Erickson, Donald A. "The Amish and the State School Statutes: A Position Paper." Submitted to the Midwestern State Attorneys General at their Detroit Conference, December 5-7, 1965- (Mimeographed.)
Erickson, Donald A. "Freedom's Two Educational Imperatives." Paper read before the National Invitational Conference on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illin o is , March 29, 1967. (Mimeographed.)
Erickson, Donald A. "How to Exterminate the Amish Without Really Trying." University of Chicago: The author, 1965- (Mimeo graphed.)
Erickson, Donald A. "Showdown at an Amish School house," Background Paper, National Invitational Conference on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illin o is , March 28-29, 1967. (Mimeographed.)
Excerpts from an Amish Teacher's Diary^ December, 1957-July, 1958. (Typewritten copy in possession of F. S. Buchanan.)
Fletcher, Lyle R. "The Amish People of Holmes County, Ohio: A Study in Human Geography." Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1932.
Geauga County Board of Education. Minutes of Meetings, 191^-1950.
Hardin County Board of Education. Minutes of Meetings, 1953-1961. 275
Henry, Jules. "In View of Culture, Is Education Possible?" Paper read before the National Invitational Conference on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illin o is , March 28, 1967.
Hughes, Harold E. (Governor). "Humanitarian ism and Political Reali ties." Paper read before the National Invitational Conference on State Regulation of Nonpublic Schools, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illin o is , March 28, 1 967-
Huntington, Abbie Gertrude E. "Dove at the Window: A Study of an Old Order Amish Community in Ohio." Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1956.
Kolthoff, Kaj Anton. "Culture Factors of the Putnam County Mennonites." Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1937-
Leeper, Velma LaRue. 'The History, Customs and Social L ife of the Amish of Ohio with Special Reference to Holmes County." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 1936.
Lindholm, William C. (Rev.). "Religious Liberty Defined: Some Impli cations—The Amish and their Schools." East Tawas, Michigan, March, 1966. (Mimeographed.)
Martin, Arthur A. "An investigation of Amish Schools of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania." Master's thesis, M ille rs v ille State College, 1 965 -
Master Plan Committee. Report on the Master Plan. Columbus: State Board of Education, January 9, 1967. (Mimeographed.)
Mitchell, Frederic. 'The Supreme Court of the United States on Reli gion and Education (18M+-19^8)." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1959.
Nethers, John L. "An Historical Study of the Amish People in the Holmes County Area of Ohio." Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1959.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Minutes of Amish School Study Committee, August 18, 1960. (Typewritten.)
Osborn, R. L. "Patterns of Separation of Church and State in Relation to Education." Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1961.
Oyler, Merton D. "Patterns of Belief Among the Amish." Bulletin No. 293. Columbus: Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, The Ohio State University, 1958. (Mimeographed.)
* Spri nger, David Elton. "School Dropout Problem in a Rural Mennonite Community." Master's thesis, The Ohio State U niversity, 1951.
Stoltzfus, Grant M. "History of the First Amish Communities in America. Master's thesis, University of Pittsburg, 195*+.
Umble Roy H. "Mennonite Preaching: 1864-19*+*+." Ph.D. d iss e rtatio n , Northwestern University, l9*+8.
Wrentmore, John. "A Proposed Program of Education for the Amish People of Middlefield Township, Geauga County, Ohio." Master's thesis, The Ohio State U niversity, 1939-
Yutzy, Daniel. "The Changing Amish: An Intergenerationa1 Study," Master's thesis, The Ohio State University, 1961.
Letters
Amish boy to Governor Michael D iS alle, Columbus, Ohio, September 1, 1959.
Amishman to Mrs. W. C. Simonton, Covington, Tennessee, March 16, 1959.
Amish school teacher to F. S. Buchanan, Columbus, Ohio, August 28, 1966.
Amish school teacher to F. S. Buchanan, Columbus, Ohio, January 2, 1967.
Hardin County Commissioners to Bishop [sic] Lambright, Kenton, Ohio, February 17, 1955.
Holt, E. E., Columbus, Ohio, to Paul L. Oaklief, Kenton, Ohio, August 29, 1961.
Holt, E. E., Columbus, Ohio, to Arthur E. Stevenson, Homerville, Ohio, June 28, 1962.
Inman, W. E ., to John R. Lea, Wooster, Ohio, June 5, 1961.
Jividen, Denver E., Chardon, Ohio, to an Amishman, October 31, 1962.
Lausche, Frank J. (Senator), Washington, D. C ., to F. S. Buchanan, Columbus, Ohio, August 2*+, 19 6 6.
Oaklief, Paul L., Kenton, Ohio, to E. E. Holt, Columbus, Ohio, August *+, 1961.
Ransdel1, Frank C., Kenton, Ohio, to Alvin Lambright, Kenton, Ohio, August 5, 1953. 27 7
Rich, Glenn A., Columbus, Ohio, to Crist M iller, Dalton, Ohio, February 18, 1958.
Rich, Glenn A ., Columbus, Ohio, to F. R. Schofield, Chardon, Ohio, July 22, 1957.
Stevenson, Arthur E ., Homerville, Ohio, to E. E, Holt, Columbus, Ohio, June 15, 1982.
Yoder, H. C., Wooster, Ohio, to Ohio State Board of Education, Columbus, Ohio, April 2, 1958.
Yoder, Harvey (Rev.), Broadway, Virginia, to F. S. Buchanan, Columbus, Ohio, December 19, 1966.
Newspapers
An important source of information concerning the Amish school conflict in Ohio is the clipping f i l e in the office of John R. Lea, Wooster, Ohio. This f i l e contains many items (for the period 1957-1980 especially) from the following newspapers:
Akron Beacon Journal.
Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Dai 1 v Record (Wooster).
Also u tilize d in this study were items from:
Columbus C itizen .
Columbus Dispatch.
Geauga County Record.
Geauga Leader.
Geauga Republican.
The most important newspaper source for insight into Amish everyday life is The Budget, a weekly newspaper published in Sugarcreek, Ohio. It deals almost exclusively with news from Amish communities throughout the United States and Canada. 278
Other Sources
Ohio House of Representatives. Journal. 105th General Assembly, 1963- Vol. 130.
Paar v. State of Ohio. 117 Ohio State 23 (1927).
State v. G1 ick. 15 Ohio Opinions (2d) 410 (1961).
State v. Click, Case No. 27884, Kenton, Ohio. (Typewritten transcri Pt of court proceedings.)
State v. Hershberger. 150 N.E. (2d) 671 Ohio (1958).
State v. Hershberger, Case No. 599, Kenton, Ohio. (Typewritten transcript of court proceedings.)
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette. 319 U.S. 624 (1943).