# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S13
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1900. 13

after he had set out the grounds for the necessity of Christian schools, he lets the objection be made: But that surely belongs to the parents! And this objection he does not by any means reject, but answers: That is rightly said. But he then shows that the councilmen, as things stood at that time, could not refuse the duty of taking up the instruction of the young; for a well-brought-up youth belongs indeed to the welfare of the state. What Luther regarded as an emergency, people later made into a virtue, and now in Germany the state has torn the instruction of children entirely to itself.

Quite different is the situation in our country. Here the state school is without religion and is supposed to be. State and church are completely separated here. If the state may not prescribe a particular religious conviction to its citizens, and may not in general meddle in their matters of conscience, then it also has no right to take over the religious education of children. How indeed could that be possible? If the state school is truly to be a general public school, it cannot make any religious confession the subject of instruction, because thereby the use of the school would be made impossible for all who think differently. From the principle of religious freedom follows of necessity the religionlessness of the state school.

In judging such a state school, three things are now to be kept in view. First: religion as a subject of instruction is excluded in principle from the state school. True, attempts have been made here and there again and again to insert at least Bible reading into the timetable. But all educators and public-school officials who express themselves on this come finally to the result that reading of the Bible may be tolerated for the sake of its indisputable literary, historical and moral value, but that as soon as objection is raised against it, every use of the Bible must be dropped, because it is, after all, a religious book. Thus the Bible is excluded in principle from the state school, even in the simple form of an occasional passage being read aloud from it. In an editorial of the "School Journal" of 27 January 1900 we find the following on this: "The school is a gathering place for children of every kind of religious belief, and it is absolutely necessary that everything be left out that is offensive to citizens. If the people want the Bible read, well and good; let it be done without interpretation. But if objection is raised, let even this go. It is the task of parents and churches to take care of the religious instruction of children; the common school must really remain a common school." (The school is the gathering ground for children of every form of religious belief, and it is absolutely necessary that whatever offends citizens should be omitted. If the people want reading of the
[Margin: a hand-drawn ink bracket around the quotation; not printed.]