The school as a character-building agency - religion in public schools

Humanist, March-April, 1998 by Thayer V.T.

The following article appeared a half century ago in the winter 1947 issue of the Humanist. It appears here abridged and slightly edited to conform to modern usage and style.

The question we face is this: does a proper concern for the moral and spiritual education of our children require that we bring religious education back to the schools?

It should be noted that the term religion is commonly used in two ways: first, to indicate a system of beliefs and practices, a creed or a code (it is in this sense that Methodists differ from Baptists, Presbyterians from Anglicans, and, more fundamentally, Protestants from Catholics, Catholics from Jews, and Muslims from Hindus); and, second, to refer to a conscious dedication to ideals and principles, an identification of oneself with specific ways of thinking and feeling and acting toward people.

Now a distinction between these two concepts of religion is all important since, as we shall see, the introduction of religion into the schools as first conceived undermines democratic education; whereas to instill religion of the second type is a primary task of the school.

To introduce religion into the school in the form of compulsory Bible reading, required prayers, and positive instruction in the tenets of religious faiths not only creates division and hostility within school and community but it is powerless to generate the spiritual development in children which earnest people hope for when they launch campaigns of this character. In support of our statement, we have the data of numerous investigations into character education. Carefully directed studies of the effects upon children of Bible reading; the recitation of prayers, the study, of the catechism; attempts, if you will, to instill fear or respect for God and his will into the hearts of children by means of verbal instruction confirm its futility.

Nor is the reason for this failure hard to detect. Faith without works is dead. Verbal instruction apart from a way of life that is grounded in daily practice and is consistent with what is taught is worse than barren, since it leads often to cynicism and hypocrisy. Consequently, a genuine concern to stem the tide of juvenile delinquency, crime, and immortality will rely less upon verbal instruction in the religious ideas and practices that set Protestant against Jew and Catholic against agnostic and more upon a way of life in the school that brings into play those common principles of conduct and behavior and those fundamental ideals of our culture which we term the democratic way of life.

Specifically, I refer to the disposition and the habit of respecting people as persons, of judging others in terms of who they are and their potentialities, and not by reference to their origin or the group into which the accidents of birth have placed them. I refer to principles of conduct, such as the habit of selecting one's goals and regulating the method of achieving these goals in sensitive response to their implications in the lives of others. I refer to common virtues such as honesty and reliability, tolerance, cooperation, temperance, self-denial, and the like -- virtues that are basic for an essential self-respect and a free communication of spirit with others.

Now the first thing to observe about these principles and virtues is that they grow out of active relationship with others. They are achieved less by talk than by the daily incidents of living. They take their character from the warp and woof of membership in a family, a community, a school, a common life. In other words, their acquisition, as their quality, derives from first-hand experience. As Dr. William Heard Kilpatrick puts it, children learn what they live and live what they learn. A parent may preach honesty to a child, but of far more importance is the way in which the former deals with family members or with his or her employees and customers. In short, actions speak louder than words in interpreting to the child both the meaning and the importance of honest behavior.

Secondly, character education is positive not negative, a creative not a repressive experience. It is something we grow into by means of consistent and persistent relationships between thought and action rather than the result of yielding to a negative and self-denying ordinance. I do not mean to say that discipline and self-sacrifice are unessential or that the road which leads to the kind of person we want to become is not strewn with don'ts; quite the contrary. But what actually happens when discipline is healthy and constructive is this: we deny one potential self one good, or one set of goods, in order to grow into a different kind of a self and to realize goods of a more appealing quality. That is to say, the negation of one desire or system of desires serves as a means for the selection and attainment of what are considered to be more worthy ends.

Often this postponement of realization, this checking of immediate desire in order to attain goals of richer meaning, is aided by verbal formulation. Who has not had the experience of resolving a difficulty with the help of a sentence pregnant with life's meaning, some well-phrased words of wisdom, or a poem that came to mind at a critical moment? The popularity of Poor Richard's Almanac and Benjamin Franklin's pen derived from this fact. When our civilization was dominantly rural and agricultural and human relationships less complex than they are today, the Bible served as a handbook of conduct to which many could turn in time of need or temptation. At such moments, the book helped people analyze a troubled situation and distinguish the less important or the ephemeral from that which abides and endures.