Our New York Letter

American Jewish World, April 3, 1925.

A change of tremendous dimensions seems to be taking place in this country. From the worship of the idol of Success, attention seems to be concentrated more and more on education in all its shapes and forms.

If all signs are not misleading -- and they cannot be misleading since the matter is gaining the attention of such practical men as members of the various state legislatures, belonging to the national political parties -- the supreme question in American life today is the problem of education. From California to New York, and from New Jersey to Oregon, the best minds are occupied with this problem.

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Representatives of Catholics, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Methodists and Jews in New York City, at a meeting held at the office of the City Superintendent of Public Schools, resolved to launch a movement which could be termed "Back to the Ten Commandments."

For this purpose they propose that the Ten Commandments be read every day in the New York City public schools. The difficulties which they meet are two-fold: first, it interferes with the principle of the public school being non-sectarian, and although the Ten Commandments are common to all sects, the interpretation might become sectarian. Secondly, the reading of the Ten Commandments to minors without comment is a service which cannot be sufficiently appreciated by the children and cannot make much of an impression on them. To be sure, several of the Commandments are not explainable to children.

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In New Jersey, the matter had advanced a little further than a pious desire for the mere reading of the Ten Commandments. There, a bill pending in the legislature would introduce religious instruction in the schools, which is presently non-sectarian. However, New Jersey Jews at present don't worry about it, since the measure has been postponed for the next legislative session.

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In California, the matter stands a little different. There, a bill introduced by Assemblyman Miller would introduce a system of excusing school children three hours a week from regular school work to attend religious instruction outside the school building. The bill, opposed by the Western Board of Jewish Ministers and the Seventh Day Adventists was, as is reported, pleaded against on behalf of the homogeneity of the public school system and the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. Joyfully it is reported that the bill has been tabled.

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In Wisconsin, the educational committee of the assembly introduced a bill which would require the obligatory recital at the beginning of every school day of the Lord's Prayer although nothing in the prayer could be objected to by any religious denomination, the fact of its being obligatory might be unwelcome to those parents who not be affiliated with any religious congregation and by orthodox Jewish parents since its text is taken from the gospel according to Matthew.

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Altogether different stands the matter in Oregon. There a law enacted in 1922, and, as was alleged, sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan, makes the attendance of any child in the public schools obligatory to such an extent that the existence of all private and parochial schools would be unlawful.

The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, a Catholic institution, led the fight against the bill. When the federal district court declared the measure unconstitutional, the battle, which as it seems will be of a decisive nature, began. Governor Pearce and Attorney General Van Winkle appealed to the United States Supreme Court in Washington. To the defense of the decision of the federal district court came the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, the Hill Military Academy, an Oregon institution which has attacked the validity of the anti-private school law, the North Pacific Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventists, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and Mr. Louis Marshall on behalf of the American Jewish Committee. The legal talent engaged holds the promise of an interesting constitutional battle.

The interest, however, of the Jewish public opinion in America is, no doubt, not in agreement with the idea of establishing Jewish parochial schools. Expressions to this effect have been made on more than one occasion. On the other hand, however, the prohibition of the existence of any private or parochial school would be a serious attack upon the principle of liberty and even on the principle of free education. Students of educational systems in various countries have for a long time given considerable thought to the question whether the general public school system does not bring more harm than good.

The law of the public school system frees from attendance every child who is abnormal or subnormal or ill, but it does not free from attendance those children who are super-normal and it is just those whose education needs particular care that they may not be retarded by the average mentality of the class. However, the question could not be more clearly and forcibly represented than it has been done by Louis Marshall, that vigilant spirit of American Jewry, in his brief filed in the case with the Supreme Court of the United States. Louis Marshall says:

"This legislation is clearly calculated to confer upon the public schools a monopoly of education. That would tend with absolute certainty to the suppression of all religious instruction, the importance of which cannot be minimized. Under our system of government the state is powerless, as it should be, to give religious instruction. That is a right and a duty which rests upon parents, upon the churches and the synagogues. If private, parochial and denominational schools are, however, to be deprived of the right to educate children, and parents are forbidden to send their children to such schools, then we shall be in precisely the same situation as that which now prevails in Russia. There it is strictly forbidden under severe penalties to impart religious instruction of any kind to children until they reach the age of eighteen years.

"Fundamentally, the questions in these cases are: May liberty to teach and to learn be restricted? Shall such liberty be dependent on the will of the majority? Shall such majority be permitted to dictate to parents and to children where and by whom instruction shall be given? If such power can be asserted, then it will lead inevitably to the stifling of thought. If the will of a temporary majority may thus control, then it is conceivable that it may prohibit the teaching of sciences, of the classics, of modern languages and literature, of art, and of nature study. A majority might reach the conclusion that the teaching of the Darwinian theory, of the philosophy of Spinoza or the ideas of Montesquieu, or of Jeremy Bentham or of John Stuart Mill, or of Emerson, should be prohibited. Today a majority may seek to eliminate the private or parochial school. Tomorrow it may attempt to compel parents to send their children to such schools. In some parts of this country, a majority, if it possessed the power, would unquestionably limit instruction in the public schools to the Three Rs. New York has recently witnessed an attempt to eliminate from the handbooks of history used in the public school any reference to England which is not to its discredit, and any reference to America which, although truthful, did not assert that it had at all times attained absolute perfection and was thus immune to criticism.

"Recognizing in the main the great merit of our public school system, it is nevertheless unthinkable that public schools alone shall by legislative compulsion, rather than by their own merits, be made the only medium of education in this country. Such a policy would speedily lead to their deterioration. The absence of the right of selection would at once lower the standards of education. If the children of the country are to be educated in accordance with an undeviating rule of uniformity and by a single method, then eventually our nation would consist of mechanical robots and standardized Babbitts.

"Proceeding on the theory which seeks to eliminate private parochial schools, the Legislature might as well compel all of the inhabitants of the land to subscribe to the same newspaper, to attend the same church, to become members of the same political party, and to join the same lodge. Indeed, it would be less of an invasion of liberty to do any of these things than to say to parents that, regardless of their ambitions and aspirations for their children, regardless of the love and affection which they bear for them, regardless of their conscientious beliefs, respecting the duty which they owe for the ethical, moral and religious rearing of their children, the State may come in and take away from them that sacred right which involved the performance of that high duty which they themselves regard as owing to their children and to future generations, that of zealously caring for their education. Our children do not belong to the State, nor is their future to be shaped according to the will of any casual majority of the electorate. As a rule the poorest of parents are better qualified to rear children than the best politician or professional agitator could possibly be."