# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S39
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1900. 39

That the state school indeed does not truly accomplish what one expects of it in this respect must be seen by everyone who does not view everything through the tinted spectacles of self-complacency. We Lutherans of the Synodical Conference [*Synodalconferenz*] are not alone in lamenting that, as a result of the defectiveness of the public school, virtue in our country is not increasing but decreasing. From other circles also the same complaint is heard. So writes, among others, the editor of the "Outlook" in the issue of 2 December 1899: "The most graduates of our schools and colleges go through a course of study in which religion is left unnoticed. In its place philosophy and ethics for the most part come in. This has as a consequence that the pupil learns to know, to think and to feel independently of any recognized religious influence (element)."

In the "Lutheran Quarterly" (April 1900) M. S. Young writes: "It is a hopeful sign that some of the leading educators of our country are beginning to become conscious of the danger which lies in the neglect of the religious and moral education of the young. One hears warning words from searching and influential teachers, such as President Harper of the Chicago University, who says: 'It is hard to predict what results the present method of education of the young will bring to light in 50 years. We train in our public schools the understanding (mind), but the moral side of the child's nature is almost entirely neglected. The Roman Catholic Church insists on removing this evident evil, but our Protestant churches seem to leave it entirely unnoticed. They expect the Sunday school to make good what our state schools neglect, and the consequence is that we overlook a danger as real and as great as any that we have had to face.'" Harper rightly holds the youth growing up without religion to be the greatest danger that threatens our country, a danger greater than the secession of the South forty years ago, than the struggle of the labor unions and capitalists, than monopolies and trusts.

The congregational school is, among all arrangements, the one that can work emphatically against these dangers. We recognize this if we consider some virtues that are of special importance for civic and social life, and observe how one educates toward them in the state school and in the congregational school.

The highest virtue of a good citizen is obedience to the laws. Especially in our country of personal and civil liberty, where, not as in a monarchy, the observance of the laws is to be enforced by a strong police power, where rather the individual is granted as free movement as possible, it is all the more necessary that the citizen carry obedience to the laws in his heart. Now