CHAPTER VI. 



PERILS. — RELIGION AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



Democracy necessitates the public school. Important 

 as is the school to any civilized people, it is exception- 

 ally so to us, for in the United States the common school 

 has a function which is peculiar, viz., to Americanize 

 the children of immigrants. The public school is the 

 principal digestive organ of the body politic. By means 

 of it the children of strange and dissimilar races which 

 come to us are, in one generation, assimilated and made 

 Americans. It is the heterogeneous character of our 

 population (especially in cities) which threatens the 

 integrity of our public school system and at the same 

 time renders it supremely important to maintain that 

 integrity. Moreover, apart from consequences to the 

 school sj^stem, the policy which is finally adopted by the 

 American people touching religion and the public 

 schools concerns most intimately the welfare both of 

 our youth and of the State. 



Public opinion as to the true relations of the State to 

 religious instruction is as yet much divided or unformed. 

 The schools are criticised both on the ground that they 

 are godless and on the ground that they are sectarian, 

 because they have too little religion and again because 

 they have too much. Two theories which threaten the 

 well-being of the schools and of the State demand our 

 attention : — 



First, that of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which 

 holds that education should be distinctly religious, 

 which of course means Roman Catholic. Vague or gen- 

 eral instruction will not suffice, there must be inculcated 

 the system of doctrine found in the Roman catechism. 



