CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF 3 1924 070 708 551 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924070708551 HELIGIOIS^ ^ISTD SCHOOLS. NOTES OF HEARINGS BEFOEB Ij.;E jy. COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION ^NJ) LABOR, UMIXED STATES SENATE, Friday, February 15, .1889, eM Friday,. Februaj-.t 22, 1889, JOINT RESOLUTION (S. E. 8G) PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES RESPECTING ESTAB- LISHMENTS OF RELIGION AND FREE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1889, 12053 1 : . ; RELlGIOx^^ AND SCHOOLS. Friday, February 15, 1889. The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., in tlie Senate reception room. Present: Senators Blair (chairman), Palmer, Wilson, and George of the committee, and Senator Chandler. There appeared before the committee Eev. T. P. Stevenson, of Phila- delphia, corresponding: secretary of the National Eeform Association Rev. James M. King, D. D., of !N"ew York, representing the American Branch of the Evangelical Alliance ; Eev. George K. Morris, D. D., of Philadelphia; Rev. W. M. Glasgow, of Baltimore; Rev*. J. N. McQurdy, D. D., of Philadelphia ; O. R. Blackall, M. D., of Philadelphia, and Will- iam S. Morris, M. D., of Philadelphia. The Chairman (Senator Blair). The hearing this morning is upon the joint resolution (S. R. 86) proposing an amendment to the Constitu- tion of the United States respecting establishments of religion and free Ijublic schools, which is as follows: Besolved hy the Senate and Souse of Mepresentatives of the United Stales of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following amendment to the Constitution of the United States be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States as provided in the Constitution Akticle — Section 1. No State shall ever make or maintain any law respecting an establish- ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Sec. 'i. Each State iu this Union shall establish and maintain a system of free public schools adequate for the education of all the children living therein, between the ages of six and sixteen years, inclusive, iu the ccmmon branches of knowledge, and in virtue, morality, and the principles of the Christian religion. But no money raised by taxation imposed by law or any money or other property or credit belonging to any municipal organization, or to any State, or to the United States, shall ever be appropriated, applied, or given to the use or purposes of any school, institution, corporation, or person, whereby instruction or training shall be given in the doctrines, tenets, belief, ceremonials, or observances peculiar to any sect, denomination, organi- zation, or society, being, or claiming to be, religious in its character, nor shall such peculiar doctrines, tenets, belief, ceremonials, or observances be taught or inculcated in the free public schools. Sec. 3. To the end that each State, the United States, and all the people thereof, may have and preserve governments republican inform and in substance, the United States shall guaranty to every State, and to the people of everj' State and of the United States, the support and maintenance of such a system of free public schools as is herein provided. Sec. 4. That Congress shall enforce this article by legislation when necessary. 3 : RELIGION AND t-CHOOLS. ARGUMENT BY REV. T. P. STEVENSON. Hev. Mr. Stevenson. Mr. Cbairmau and members of the committee, ot a public meeting- iu support of this measure was held in the city meetiug Philadelpliia on the 11th of December l.'ist. The call for the was signed by nearly one hundred of the leading citizens of Philadel- phia, including such names as those of Messrs. Francis W. Kennedy, George M. Troutman, B. B. Comegys, presidents of banks; Jay Cooke, ot national reputation; Philip C.Garrett, late chairman of the State Com mis- sion on Charities and Correction; John B. Garrett, vice-president ot the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, and others. The list is a thoroughly representative list of our best citizens. At this meetingapermanent committee was appointed to draught a me- morial to the two houses of Congress and to take such action from time to time as might further the adoption of the proposed constitutional amendment. This memorial I herewith submit, bearing the signatures of one hundred of the leading citizens of Philadelphia, including, besides the names I have already referred to, such names as that of George S. Graham, the district attorney of Philadelphia, and through you we de- sire that it be presented to the Senate of the United States. The Chairman. It is now submitted for the first time ? Mr. Stevenson. AVe bear it this morning. The Chairman. The memorial will be presented to the Senate and also inserted in. the record at this point. The memorial is as follows To the Senate and House of Bepresentatives of the JJnitid Stairs in Ccvgrcis asscmlUd This memorial, on belialf of citizens of Pbiladelphia, showelli, two grave dangers threaten at this hour the American system of common schools—the alheislio tendency in education and the strenuous demand for a division of the school funds iu the in- terest of sectarian or denominational schools. Through the tormer tendency,the reading of the Christian Scriptures and the offer- ing of prayer have been forbidden in the schools of some of our principal cities, while one at least has gone so far as to throw out of her schools every text-book con- taining any reference to God. This attempt to exclude all leligious ideas from the instruction given in the public schools we hold to be unphilosophical and inimical to the public good, because it neglects the moral faculties, which are the most impor- tant faculties of man, and the right exercise of which is most important to the state, and because it does not correspond to the character of the institutions for which the conmion school is designed to prepare the citizens of this Kepublic. On the other hand, to accept the proposal for a division of the school funds would be for the state to destroy the whole school system, which we have built up with so much care and at such vast expense; to renounce all responsible or effective control of the work of educati»n ; and to become a mere tax-gatherer for the sects. The one great argument by which this proposal is sustained is that Christian parents cannot accept for their children an education which, while ostensibly neutral, is virtually hostile to religion. The adoption of the secular theory of education, therefoie, so far from reconciling those who advocate the division of the funds, only stimulates them to fresh efforts, and supplies them with fresh argumeiiis against the public schools. These two adverse tendencies, therefore, assist each other, and between them there is danger that our school system may perish or be seriously crippled at the very time when it is most urgently needed ; for, more than any other single in- stitution, it maybe regarded as the digestive organ of the body politic, through which we assimilate to the national chaiacter the foreign elements which every year brings in increasing volume to our shores. Against both these dangers we shall provide most effectively by simply keeping our school system on the foundations where it was placed by our fathers. We believe that the time has come when constitutioual safeguards ought to be erected in the nation's fundamental law around this most precious institution. We have therefore observed with pleasure the introduction of a joint resolution uow pending before one of your honorable bodies (Senate Resolution 86), proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which, while it recognizes the Christian character RELIGION AND SCHOOLS. and purpose of ouv system of public education, forbids the apttropriation of public inouey to any school or institution in which the peculiar doctrines or ceremonials of nuy religious sect or denomination are practised or taught ; and we earnestly pray that you will speedily submit this or some similar amendment to the legislatures of the several States for their approval. In this connection we are reminded that General Grant, when President, recom- mended to Congress the passage of an amendment to the national Constitution "pro- hibiting the granting of any school funds or school taxes, or any part thereof, either by legislative, municipal, or other authority, for the benefit or in aid, directly or in- directly, of any religious sect or denomination." The Republican national conven- tion, at Cincinnati, June 15, i876»recoramended " an amendment to the Constitution of the United States forbidding the application of any public funds or property for the benefit of any schools or institutions under sectarian control." The Democratic national platform, adopted in the same year at Saint Louis, declared for the main- tenance of the public schools "without prejudice or preference for any class, sect, or creed, and without largesses from the Treasury to any." A joint resolution to this etfect, introduced into the House of Representatives by the Hon. James G. Blaiue, was adopted in that body by au almost unanimous vote. Amended in the Senate by the addition of a proviso that it should not be constrned against the reading of the Bible in the schools, it was adopted there by a vote of twenty-eight to sixteen, or a little less than the requisite two-thirds. The danger is now more manifest, the need is more urgent, than then.