Perhaps my comments last week regarding J. Edgar Hoover’s proposal that Sunday school be made compulsory were a little premature. Rather, they were made from reading part of his statement out of context, which was all that was available at the time. The full statement is now at hand. He says:
“Shall I make my child attend Sunday school? Yes. And with no further discussion about the matter. Startled? Why? How do you answer Junior when he comes to breakfast on Monday morning and announces that he is not going to school any more? You know. Junior goes. How do you answer when he comes in very besmudged and says, “I’m not going to take a bath?” Junior bathes. Why all this timidity then, in the realm of his spiritual guidance and growth? Going to let him wait and decide what church he’ll go to when he’s old enough? Quit your kidding! You don’t wait until he’s old enough to decide whether he wants to go to school or not… What shall we say when Junior announces he won’t go to Sunday school? Just be consistent. Tell him, “Junior, in our house we all go to church and Sunday school and that includes you.” Your firmness and example will furnish a bridge over which youthful rebellion may travel into rich and satisfying experience in personal religious living.”
I am glad to quote the whole statement, for the excerpt that I did quote gave the wrong impression – the impression that there should be compulsory Sunday school attendance laws.
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Paul Blanshard in his thought-provoking book, The Right To Read, has a paragraph that seems worth sharing with you. He says, “Many local district attorneys in recent years have taken upon themselves the role of extra-legal literary censors, and have issued blacklists, containing the titles of books and magazines never condemned by a court, to local dealers. Because of their economic position, local newsstand dealers rarely bother to challenge the suggestion of a prosecutor that a certain book is undesirable or objectionable or downright illegal. In almost all instances they withdraw it promptly without prosecution. What happens, then, to our right to read?
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From a report of the Carnegie Corporation of New York comes an explanation of one aspect in the current controversy over the quality of education the children in the schools are getting. This time, it is an explanation of why so many children dislike their arithmetic. Quoting from the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey, the corporation says that while “All states required education sources for secondary mathematics teachers, a third of the states require no mathematics for certification of math teachers.” And “In the majority of instances, a prospective elementary school teacher can enter a teachers college without any credits in secondary school math. In most states a teacher can be certified to teach elementary school math without any work in math at the college level.” This being the case, the corporation concludes, it is no wonder that elementary teachers are for the most part ignorant of the mathematical basis of arithmetic.
Living in a cash economy as we do, when at every turn in an individual’s behavior, some sort of mathematical calculation is necessary, it is difficult to see how we can justify ignoring to prepare capable instructors for this very important branch of basic education. To continue to do so is permitting the blind to lead the blind, and we both know that in the biblical account both fell into the ditch together. We cannot afford such ditch falling. What about your child’s teacher?
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A reasoned and reasonable statement was recently directed by the ACLU to the Eastland Committee on Internal Security, urging that the committee not invade the protected areas of private political beliefs. Portions of the statement seem worth quoting. They say:
“The American Communist Party is not only a political agitational movement. It is also part of the Soviet conspiracy. Insofar as it is the first, its members have all the rights of members of other parties; to the extent that it is the second, its members may in some particulars be restricted by law…
“Investigation of real subversion is a matter of proper concern for Congress. But when an investigation enters the area of political beliefs and associations as such, an area in which Congress cannot legislate, the inquiry is improper.
“We recognize that it is extremely difficult to distinguish between conspiratorial activity and political association. Nevertheless, we respectively but vigorously urge that the subcommittee do everything possible to help preserve the principle of free association, by exercising special care in its questioning not to invade constitutionally protected areas of private political belief…”
And, I might add that respect for private political belief is as important in our system of things as is respect for private religious belief, for freedom is indivisible.
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The Right Rev. Horace W.B. Donegan, Protestant Episcopal bishop of New York, has announced his opposition to religious instruction in the public schools. “No one faith or denominational teaching can be chosen as the basis of instruction,” he said, “nor can even a general theistic belief he promulgated without the violation of the rights of teachers, children, and parents who have chosen an atheistic or secularist way – much as we might wish they had not.
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This program has frequently and somewhat regularly been concerned about the cause of education and the federal government’s responsibility in relation to it, for your reporter believes that better schools make better citizens, educationally, socially, morally, and spiritually. Consequently, he has perhaps harped on the theme more than you listeners appreciate. However, there is so much lack of information and even misinformation as to the Eisenhower proposals for federal aid, that in the interest of reducing this lack, he would like to outline briefly just what the president did propose in his special message to Congress.
- Federal grants of $1.5 billion for five years to be matched by state funds to supplement local construction efforts in the neediest school districts;
- $750 million over five years for federal purchase of local school construction bonds when school districts cannot sell them in private markets at reasonable interest rates;
- A five-year program of advances to help provide reserves for bonds issued by state school financing agencies. These bonds to finance local construction of schools to be rented and eventually owned by the local school systems;
- A five-year $20 million program of matching grants to states for planning to help communities and states overcome obstacles to their financing school construction.
In other words, the president proposes that the federal government spend not over about $2 billion in a situation that needs far more than that, and needs it right now. We can agree with the president’s recommendations for providing funds to states on the basis of need and in relation to pay, but the amount which he suggests is grossly inadequate for the job which needs to be done.
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Washington: A survey of the nation’s synagogues reveals that Judaism is enjoying the same religious revival as the Christian churches. The revival is particularly evident in suburban areas where hundreds of new synagogues have been built. Leading Jewish rabbis say the return movement to the ancient faith of Judaism parallels the booming growth of both Catholic and Protestant churches. America’s Jewish community is the largest in the world. It is estimated at about 5.5 million persons – the vast majority of them living in big cities. New York City alone accounts for about half of them.
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Indianapolis, Indiana: Seventh grade pupils in the public schools of Indianapolis are getting religious training in a unique way. As the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Herman L. Shibler, puts it, “We aren’t teaching religion – we’re teaching about religion.” For example, the students have learned that Alexander Hamilton was an Episcopalian, that John Adams was a Congregationalist. And that crusty old Andrew Jackson, “Old Hickory,” knew how to pray. In the eighth grade, the students learn, for example, that the word “God” appears four times in the Declaration of Independence, and that Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious services are held regularly in the Pentagon. Sectarianism (so it says here) is strictly forbidden. Teachers are cautioned to avoid any subjective evaluation or criticism of any religion. In the forefront of the teaching is a quotation from General Omar Bradley: “This country has many men of science, too few men of God. It has grasped the mystery of the atom, but rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”
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Lourdes, France: More and more Americans are among the pilgrims at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. Authorities say some 6,000 Americans prayed at the shrine last year for restoration of health. The shrine is the site where the peasant girl is said to have seen a shining lady in white nearly 1,000 years ago. In 1950, Americans made up only a handful of the two million persons who visited the shrine. The rest were Europeans, but the number of Americans has increased steadily since.
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Iowa City: A leading clergyman says foreign students attending the University of Iowa have soured on democracy because of racial discrimination in Iowa City. Rev. John G. Craig, chairman of the Human Relations Committee of the Iowa City Ministers Association, says the problem had reached serious proportions. Monsignor John D. Conway, pastor of the St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church, says one Negro couple was refused housing in Iowa City.
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Bellevue, Nebraska: The Most Rev. Edward J. Calvin, founder of the Catholic St. Columban Missionary Society, died in Dalgan, Ireland, of leukemia contracted while he was a prisoner of the Chinese Reds in Manyang, China. Announcement of Father Calvin’s death was made by the society’s headquarters at Bellevue, Nebraska.
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Washington: The American Catholic Philosophical Association has announced it will hold its 30th annual meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, on April 3 and 4. The meeting will be held under the patronage of the Most Rev. Karl J. Alter, archbishop of Cincinnati, and of Catholic Universities and senior colleges and seminaries in the area.
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London: The British Broadcasting Corporation has apologized to the Protestant Alliance for referring to St. Peter as the first pope, during a radio quiz program. The Protestant Alliance contends it has never been proved that St. Peter was a pope, or a Roman Catholic, or that he ever lived in Rome.
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New York: The Church World Service has rushed 25 tons of relief materials to blizzard-stricken areas of Italy for distribution to victims of one of the most severe winters in Europe’s history. Rev. R. Norris Wilson, executive director of Church World Service, says additional supplies are being prepared in case they’re needed in other areas.
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The official newspaper of the New Orleans Roman Catholic Diocese has warned Louisiana Catholic lawmakers they face possible excommunication if their proposed segregation bills become law. The lawmakers want to keep private schools in Louisiana segregated. Most private schools in Louisiana are Catholic. They are slated soon to accept both white and Negro students. Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel of New Orleans has approved the editorial that warned of possible excommunication. But the Catholic lawmakers are reported to go ahead anyway. Meanwhile, Louisiana’s incoming governor, Earl Long, has stated that undoubtedly the archbishop is right from a religious standpoint. But he thinks the prelate is perhaps a little too advanced. Long is a Baptist. (Though what that has to do with it, I do not know.)
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In Montgomery, Alabama, 23 Negro protestant ministers have been among 100 Negroes indicted on charges of boycotting the bus lines. The Negroes want desegregation in the transportation system. Alabama’s boycott law could mean sentences of six-month prison terms and $1,000 fines. The Negroes have held mass prayer meetings. At one of them, the Rev. Martin Luther King asked them to pray for guidance. The Montgomery situation and other segregation problems have drawn comment from many religious leaders and groups. In Pittsburgh, the North American Area Council of the World Presbyterian Alliance has warned that intolerable situations have developed in the fight against the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on racial segregation. In Greenwich, Connecticut, the Protestant Episcopal Church has laid down a set of principles aimed at helping rid it of racial barriers. The church’s national council has also declared “Any attitude or act in the house of God which sets brethren of different races apart form one another is sinful.” And it is difficult if not impossible to find any error in this.