The district court ruling in the second trial found that the children at Abington High School were compelled the practice of reading 10 verses from the Bible and. Beth, The American Theory of Church and State (1958), 88. [66] See Johnson and Yost, Separation of Church and State in the United States (1948), 71; Note, Bible Reading in Public Schools, 9 Vand. The Establishment Clause withdrew from the sphere of legitimate legislative concern and competence a specific, but comprehensive, area of human conduct: man's belief or disbelief in the verity of some transcendental idea and man's expression in action of that belief or disbelief." For, as I have said, religious exercises are not constitutionally invalid if they simply reflect differences which exist in the [318] society from which the school draws its pupils. 648. [104] But I think we must not assume that school boards so lack the qualities of inventiveness and good will as to make impossible the achievement of that goal. A directive for the recitation of the Lord's Prayer is included in the "Employees' Handbook and Administrative Guide," issued from the office of O. H. English, Superintendent of Abington Township Schools. 119.
2d 181 (Fla. The resolution was objected to by members of the sect of Jehovah's Witnesses, who refused to salute the flag considering it to be a "graven image". The key to the holding that such a requirement abridged rights of free exercise lay in the fact that attendance at school was not voluntary but compulsory. The two clauses, although distinct in their objectives and their applicability, emerged together from a common panorama of history. See also Commonwealth v. Herr, 229 Pa. 132, 78 A. Thus Virginia from the beginning pursued a policy of disestablishmentarianism. The events leading to its adoption strongly suggest that the Establishment Clause was primarily an attempt to insure that Congress not only would be powerless to establish a national church, but [310] would also be unable to interfere with existing state establishments. . It should be unnecessary to observe that our holding does not declare that the First Amendment manifests hostility to the practice or teaching of religion, but only applies prohibitions incorporated in the Bill of Rights in recognition of historic needs shared by Church and State alike. But comment by the teacher will inevitably reveal his own personal preferences; and the exhibition of preferences is what we are seeking to eliminate." 65, 84-85, 127-130 (1962); Katz, Religion and American Constitutions, Address at Northwestern University Law School, March 20, 1963, pp. Great American Court Cases. [15] Dr. Weigle testified at length as to his experience and background in matters concerning theology. 120, 107 N. Y. S. 2d 865; cf. Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204. 416, 1956), 69-70; Asch, Effects of Group Pressure upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments, in Cartwright and Zander, Group Dynamics (2d ed. Quoted in Blakely, American State Papers and Related Documents on Freedom in Religion (4th rev. 234, 246 (1961). While it is not, of course, appropriate for this Court to decide questions not presently before it, I venture to suggest that religious exercises in the public schools present a unique problem. If such practices were not for that reason unconstitutional, it was necessarily because the state constitution forbade only public expenditures for sectarian instruction, or for activities which made the school-house a "place of worship," but said nothing about the subtler question of laws "respecting an establishment of religion. 278-281, infra, that daily prayer and reading of Scripture now serve secular goals as well, there can be no doubt that the origins of these practices were unambiguously religious, even where the educator's aim was not to win adherents to a particular creed or faith. They are experts in such matters, and we are not. The Pennsylvania Superintendent of Public Instruction, testifying by deposition in the Schempp case, offered his view that daily Bible reading "places upon the children or those hearing the reading of this, and the atmosphere which goes on in the reading . [37] See, e.g., Snee, Religious Disestablishment and the Fourteenth Amendment, 1954 Wash. U. L. Q. See Louisell and Jackson, Religion, Theology, and Public Higher Education, 50 Cal. Compare also Alexander Hamilton's conception of "the characteristic difference between a tolerated and established religion" and his grounds of opposition to the latter, in his remarks on the Quebec Bill in 1775, 2 Works of Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton ed.
. Inasmuch as the verses of the Bible address themselves to, or are premised upon a recognition of God, the Bible is essentially a religious work. Gen. 316 (1955); 1948-1950 Nev. Atty. The petitioners, Mrs. Madalyn Murray and her son, William J. Murray III, are both professed atheists. The latter was originally a party but having graduated from the school system pendente lite was voluntarily dismissed from the action. 1963), 4-10; Rackman, op. . The constitutional issues in this Court extended no further than the claim that this program amounted to a taking of private property for nonpublic use.
174 (1936), appeal dismissed, 276 N. Y. 121, 260 S. W. 2d 573; compare ruling of Texas Commissioner of Education, Jan. 25, 1961, in 63 American Jewish Yearbook (1962), 188. Recent proposals have explored the possibility of commencing the school day "with a quiet moment that would still the tumult of the playground and start a day of study," Editorial, Washington Post, June 28, 1962, ยง A, p. 22, col. 2. . Dr. Grayzel testified that portions of the New Testament were offensive to Jewish tradition and that, from the standpoint of Jewish faith, the concept of Jesus Christ as the Son of God was "practically blasphemous". The Maryland test oath involved an attempt to employ essentially religious (albeit nonsectarian) means to achieve a secular goal to which the means bore no reasonable relationship. Even if they had done so, such a body of religious doctrine would tend to become a substitute for the more demanding commitments of historic faiths." "[85] Engel is surely authority that nonsectarian religious practices, equally with sectarian exercises, violate the Establishment Clause. Record at p. 270. ". Smith, The Religious Crisis In Our Schools, 128 The Episcopalian, May 1963, pp. While the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment is written in terms of what the State may not require of the individual, the Establishment Clause, serving the same goal of individual religious freedom, is written in different terms.
164 (Sup. [65] E.g., 1955 Op. Compare Jefferson's letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, when the latter was about to begin the study of law, in which Jefferson outlined a suggested course of private study of religion since "[y]our reason is now mature enough to examine this object."
L. Rev. The children testified that all of the doctrines to which they referred were read to them at various times as part of the exercises. [45] The nonparticipant in the McCollum program was given secular instruction in a separate room during the times his classmates had religious lessons; the nonparticipant in any Zorach program also received secular instruction, while his classmates repaired to a place outside the school for religious instruction. 372 (1958); Note, 10 West.