It appears, however, that this idea has infiltrated into other minds. Zion’s Herald, a Methodist journal, quoted by the liberal paper to which we have referred, says:
“The state deals only with temporal affairs, and does not attempt to usurp spiritual functions. Therefore the objects and methods of public education are wholly secular, but by no means necessarily, or at all, immoral or irreligious. On the contrary, they are decidedly favorable to piety and morality. But composed denominationally as the American people is, the state ought not to impart religious education. The moment such an attempt should be made, the community would be in conflict as to what form it should take. It may be conceded, without danger perhaps, that the state should not teach ethics, except so far as the great fundamental principles of morals and politics, as to which all Americans are agreed, are concerned. The religious education of children may and should be remitted to the family, the Sabbath-school, and the church—the natural and divinely-appointed guardians of religion and ethics.”
In the face of this growing acknowledgment of the “sectarian” character of our public schools, and knowing that they must give religious instruction or else be “pagan and atheistical,” we are pleased to hear the demand that “neither the State nor nation, nor both combined,” shall support such schools.
The fact is, that a people cannot wholly escape from its national traditions, without forgetting its language, or undergoing some violent revolution. If our fellow-citizens will study the meaning of the terms which they habitually use, they will not lose their traditions of freedom and equal rights, nor will they throw themselves into a violent, perilous departure from them. But we hasten to comment upon another sentence, which is frequently quoted from the President’s oration:
“Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school supported by private contributions.”
Precisely so. If it must come to this; if no arrangement can be made, by which religion and morality can be taught in the public schools, then, leave the matter to the family altar and the church, and allow it to be done by private contributions.
In other words, either furnish the people with that which you pretend to tax them for—viz., a fair and equitable system of public schools—or allow them to provide for themselves. But, whatever you do, keep your hands off the sacredness of the “family altar.” Do not set foot into the hallowed precincts of the domestic sanctuary. The family, though subordinate, is not to be violated by the state. Parents have rights, which no government can usurp. You have no more right to force the education of their children out of their hands, than to define the number of offspring by law. You have no more right to establish a system, to which you will endeavor to secure their conformity by violent measures, than you have to establish public wet-nurseries, or, require that voters shall be brought up on government pap and be fed out of a government spoon.
Keep from meddling with religion; you have no authority to teach it.
What a bitter rebuke these words of the President contain for that party, small and contemptible in itself, but powerful by reason of the times, which has ever sought to widen the gulf between us and our true-hearted countrymen! It is not enough that we should be estranged by the traditions of three hundred years. It is not enough to whisper into the popular ear every stale and loathed calumny. It is not enough to bring our holiest rites and beliefs into the obscene literature now circulating amongst the depraved youth of our country. It is not enough to drown with a thousand noisy, insolent tongues, every attempt we make at explanation. It is not enough for this malignant, persecuting power to drop its poison into every crevice of our social and religious system, from the parlor to the sewer, from the temple to the lupanar; but the nation must be organized against us. Our religion must, in some way or other, be dragged into politics. For shame! we cry, with the President. In a country of such varied religious beliefs as ours, there is but one way to order and peace—“Keep the church and the state for ever separate.”
To sum up: We agree with the President: