554 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE CHURCH AND STATE EDUCATION. 



THERE are some good things that 

 seem just a little too good for many 

 of those who profess to prize them 

 most highly. One of these, we regret 

 to say, is religious liberty. If there is 

 any one thing that the people of this 

 country, taken in the mass, are bent 

 on preserving and enjoying, it is this ; 

 aud yet it is this very thing that some 

 excellent people, who are far from re- 

 garding themselves as abettors of spirit- 

 ual tyranny, are continually seeking to 

 undermine. Our excellent contempo- 

 rary, the "Journal of Education," of 

 Boston and Chicago, has lately called 

 attention to the action of the Presby- 

 terian Synod of the State of New 

 York, in referring to a committee, to 

 be reported on at the next annual 

 meeting, a resolution affirming that, 

 while a union of church and state in 

 this country is not to be thought of, 

 it would still be desirable to incor- 

 porate into "the course of State and 

 national education" certain very spe- 

 cific theological doctrines, in which, as 

 it was stated, all Christian sects agreed. 

 These were : the existence of a personal 

 God, the responsibility of man to God, 

 the immortality of the soul, and a fu- 

 ture state of rewards and punishments. 

 We can not suppose for one moment 

 that those who favored this resolution 

 would wish such doctrines as these to 

 become topics of discussion in the pub- 

 lic schools, or to be treated as in any 

 way open to doubt or as subject to 

 possible future rectification. If taught 

 at all, they would have to be taught on 

 authority, just as the catechism might 

 be taught in church schools. This be- 

 ing the case, we can not understand 

 how the members of the synod who 

 favored the resolution could help see- 

 ing how vain was their disclaimer of 

 any desire to establish a connection 



between church and state. The whole 

 essence of an ecclesiastical establish- 

 ment consists in the assumption by the 

 State of the right to guide individual 

 citizens in the formation of theological 

 opinions. It matters not how many or 

 how few those opinions may be, how 

 much or how little of theological sub- 

 tilty their formulation may involve; 

 whenever and wherever the State looks 

 upon the individual as unfit to guide 

 himself in such matters, and therefore 

 undertakes to teach him dogmatically 

 what he ought to believe, then and 

 there we have the elements of ecclesi- 

 astical government. 



Now, the instinct of the American 

 people has hitherto been that theology 

 and religion do better without the pa- 

 tronage of the State than with it, and 

 that it is not safe to intrust the civil 

 power, whether Federal or local, with 

 the making of any law looking either 

 to the establishment of a church or to 

 the encouragement of any special form 

 of religious belief. We choose our own 

 rulers and we set them over us, not in 

 spiritual matters, but in temporal only, 

 and, if we are wise, we shall restrict 

 their action even in the temporal sphere 

 as much as possible. This by the way : 

 What is perfectly clear is that our peo- 

 ple do not want to receive direction in 

 theological questions at the hands of 

 the State, and therefore are not pre- 

 pared to have theology even its most 

 widely accepted propositions intro- 

 duced into public-school teaching. It 

 is felt that the State has no business to 

 make opinion in these matters, which 

 it undoubtedly would do if it were al- 

 lowed to impart any theological instruc- 

 tion whatever. Let, for example, the 

 propositions above mentioned become a 

 part of public-school teaching through- 

 out the length and breadth of the land, 

 and the modification of opinion to which 



