PREFACE.

The contents of this volume were originally published as a series of articles in the correspondence columns of THE INDEPENDENT. During their publication the author received numerous letters from various parts of the country, expressing a strong interest in the discussion, and suggesting that, at the completion of the series, the whole. should be given to the public in the form of a book. The approval of the articles thus indicated, the references occasionally made to them by the secular and religious press, and the insertion of some of them in other newspapers, led the author to conclude that their collection and publication in a volume might possibly contribute some help to the public mind in arriving at the true solution of the much debated School question. They now appear just what and as they were at their original publication, with the exception of a few changes made in their titles.

The School question has for years past excited no little attention among the people, and it will probably continue to do so for years to come. It

is only a branch of the larger question that relates to the proper attitude to be assumed and maintained by civil government with reference to religion. In respect to this larger question, the American people, alike in their constitutions and laws, have adopted a policy entirely antagonistical to any union between Church and State. Shall this policy be applied to the public school, organized and managed by State authority, and supported by general taxation? Shall this school, like the State itself, be exclusively secular in its purposes and processes, or shall it, in addition to the secular element, be made the instrument of religious instruction and worship?

The object of this volume is to answer these questions. As to the correctness of the conclusion, and the pertinency and power of the argument to sustain it, the reader can fairly judge only by perusing the entire series of essays. If he will turn to the last number, entitled "The Conclusion," he will find a summary of the whole discussion, and be the better able to judge of the relations of its several parts to each other. No one aspect of the question exhausts it; and no examination of it can be deemed at all thorough or complete that does not carefully consider the principles and ends of civil government, especially as constitutionally established in this country.

It being granted that civil government should confine itself exclusively to the attainment of secular and temporal ends, and it being further granted

that the political system of the American people is based on this principle, and also granted that the public school is an institution of the State, and not of the Church, then the only conclusion, at all consistent with the premises, is that the school should be a fair expression of the character of the State. This is the conclusion adopted by the author; and his main effort in this volume has been fully to state the premises and show that they prove this conclusion. The argument is addressed to the people as citizens, and not as religionists, whether Protestant or Catholic. In the latter aspect they can never agree upon a common school policy: yet in the former they should agree by fully respecting each others' rights as citizens, and hence by asking nothing of each other which they do not as cheerfully concede.

BROOKLYN, September, 1876.

RELIGION AND THE STATE,

OR

THE BIBLE AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION.

THE NEW POLITICAL PROGRAMME.

Ex-Speaker Blaine, in his letter of October 20th, 1875, addressed to a gentleman in Ohio just after the election in that State, suggested an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which he has since submitted to the House of Representatives in the following form:

"No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised ever be divided between religious sects or denominations."

The first clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution declares that " Congress shall make no