PERILS. — RELIGION AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 103 



is no less a political necessity than intelligence. These 

 statements may be regarded as axiomatic. Here is the 

 bed rock on which rest compulsory educational laws, the 

 right of taxation for the public schools, and the right and 

 duty of giving religious instruction in them. 



Our common school system is not based on the doc- 

 trine that each child is entitled to an education. So far 

 as individual right is concerned, under our theory of 

 government a man is as much entitled to demand of the 

 State capital on which to begin business, as to demand 

 for his children that intellectual capital which we call 

 an education. Both might be done in a socialistic state, 

 but our government is neither socialistic nor "paternal." 

 Why does the State take money from your pocket to 

 educate my child? Not on the ground that an education 

 is a good thing for him, but on the ground that his igno- 

 rance would he dangerous to the State. This may be 

 •'low ground," but it is not marshy. In like manner, 

 the State must teach in its schools fundamental religious 

 truths, not because the child should know them in prep- 

 aration for a future existence, — the State is not con- 

 cerned with the eternal welfare of its citizens, — but 

 because immorality is perilous to the State, and popular 

 morality cannot be secured without the sanctions of 

 religion. Of course the advocacy of religion on the 

 ground that it serves as moral police is not very exalted : 

 but if our ground is to be broad enough for upwards of 

 60,000,000 people to stand on, it must needs be low. The 

 top of the pyramid is narrow. 



Secularists deny that religious teaching is essential to 

 moral instruction. It is claimed that it makes no prac- 

 tical difference whether happiness or utility or the will 

 of God be the ground of morality ; that whatever view 

 is taken of the metaphysical ground of right, all theo- 

 ries end in adopting the same practical virtues, which 

 niay therefore be taught quite independently of religion. 

 Yes, a child may be taught that this is wrong and that is 

 right without any reference to God, but the child must 

 have moral training as well as mornl instruction; and 



