The Edgerton Bible Case

Argument Supporting the Court’s Decision

Joseph Henry Crooker of Madison published two pamphlets supporting the court’s decision.1 All footnotes are to his pamphlet “”The Bible in the Public Schools” unless otherwise noted. His arguments can be usefully categorized in five groupings: (1) those who object to the decision misunderstand what it says about the Bible, (2) the Bible is necessarily sectarian, (3) Wisconsin is a secular, not Christian, state and therefore must provide a secular, not Christian, education in its public schools, (4) Bible reading in public schools has already become rare (for good reasons) and is not a measure of Godliness anyway, and (5) the decision will have beneficial effects.

Crooker begins: First, there is a wide-spread misconception of the bearing of this decision upon the Bible itself.2 As a matter of fact, the value of the Bible is not in dispute, and the court passed no opinion on its worth as a literary or religious product. The sole question at issue was this: Can the use of the Bible as divine revelation and as part of a religious exercise be permitted in the public schools? Necessarily, a nonsectarian education answers, “No.” To raise the cry “Must the Bible Go?” [as McAtee does] in this case is as ludicrous as the cry “Must religion go?” when our founding fathers separated church and state. With a Bible in almost every room of every house, and a Sunday school lesson paper with Bible verses in almost every child’s hand, it really does not look as though we are in any immediate danger of a Bible famine! Do not home, Sunday school and church still exist? And what are they for, if not to give children a religious education?3 With a million Sunday school teachers, a hundred thousand churches, and two hundred thousand missionaries of various kinds, our children ought to have a fair chance of hearing the Gospel, for the Almighty is not shut up in a book.4 In fact, as a friend of the Bible, I contend that it is best for the Bible itself to stop a use of it that is too formal to be productive of any good and which is most likely only to turn students away. But most importantly, it is only the use of the Bible as a tool of religious instruction that has been prohibited. The free use of the Bible as literature, without any supernatural claims, for no doctrinal purposes, but within the general scope of other educational material, would never have raised any issue. The court does not decide whether the Bible is or is not the Word of God; it simply recognizes that its use in Edgerton was as the divine revelation of one Christian group and as such unconstitutional.

Crooker continues: Second, the Bible necessarily is sectarian.5 In fact, every version of the Scriptures, made by those who resort to it for infallible dogma, must be more or less sectarian; for those who make it have to decide upon the thousands of disputed texts and on varied readings of the original, and in this work the personal bias necessarily shows through. Examples of disputes include passages about the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Jesus, and whether to use “immersion” (Baptists) or “baptism” (others). Moreover, sectarian bias will show through in the selection of passages for reading and even in one’s style of reading. The Bible contains diverse and antagonistic doctrines, in places intensely partisan and intolerant. Leviticus differs greatly from Amos; the portrait of Jesus in Matthew differs from that of the Fourth Gospel (John); Ecclesiastes differs greatly from the Sermon on the Mount. This is no discredit to the Bible; rather it merely shows how so many sects could grow from it. When learned men such as Dr. Bascom [who was then the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin] proclaims that the constitution requires religious instruction while prohibiting sectarian instruction, one wonders at the lapse in logic. To say the framer’s put away sectarianism to make way for religion is like saying a man put off his coat in winter that he might be warm. To ban religious instruction in public schools is not the sign of irreligion; rather, it is a sign of state neutrality on religious matters, for, as a matter of historical fact, a majority of those who have done the most to make the American nation a purely secular state have been deeply religious people. The danger to the American ideals of justice and freedom is not state neutrality between various religions, it is the imposition of one religion on others through the agencies of government. To ask, “why must the majority give up the Bible in schools to please a few Catholics or atheists?” is precisely the same as the Puritan question, “why should we accommodate a few pestiferous Quakers?”

Crooker continues: Third, the state of Wisconsin is a secular, not Christian, form of government, and therefore must provide a secular, not Christian education in its public schools.6 We must remember that what a nation needs as a people is one thing; what they see fit to do through government is quite another thing. We are a Christian community in the sense that it is our historical heritage and the religion of choice amongst the majority. That, however, does not make the government Christian. Because all forms of religion are equal before the law, the government is and must be secular; it is and must be neutral on matters of religious truth. That a majority of Wisconsin citizens use Ivory soap does not make the State of Wisconsin a soap manufacturer; that a majority of our citizens believe in Christianity does not make the State a religious institution. To demand that there be religious instruction in the schools, which is admitted by all opponents of the decision to be what reading Bible passages is, is to demand that state and church be one. It is a demand to return to religious wars over whose religion is to be taught in the schools and whose religion is to be favored by the government.

Crooker continues: Fourth, most all educators have already stopped Bible readings for good reasons, not the least of which it is the cause of needless dispute and is no measure of the godliness of our schools or any person.7 At present the Bible is not read in more than one-twentieth of our State schools since it is the source of constant religious strife. For example, Presbyterians and Methodists find the public school is not “Christian” enough, while German Lutherans find it lacking the “mother tongue,” and Catholics find it Protestant-oriented.8 By common consent, in obedience to widening experience, its use has been almost universally discontinued. This does not make the schools godless any more than a bank is made godless by failing to make a man read a Bible passage before making a deposit. To my mind, what makes the Public School so supremely godly, when well taught, is the fact that there is so much humanity and so little theology there. And where Bible passages are read, is it logical to suppose that those places are necessarily more moral or enlightened or godly or Christian? Devoted Bible reading is compatible with all manner of horrors, as our sectarian past and its religious persecutions make clear.

Crooker continues: Fifth, and finally, secularization of the schools is a benefit to the American ideals of justice and freedom. The strength of the States lies in absolute justice, and already this decision has brought Catholic people into closer sympathy with our Public Schools, putting to rest much needless and harmful irritation in many districts, and Time will prove it to be one of the greatest promoters of the prosperity of our system of education.9 The demand that Protestant instruction be kept out of the public schools is a demand that all shall be free and all shall be equal before the law: the demand that Protestant instruction be required in the schools is a demand that no one shall be free.10 Although the public school must teach morals and the duties of citizenship, this does not require a religious basis.11

Crooker continues: It is often urged that Christianity is part of the law of this land because our English forefathers (the Puritans) tried to set up on these shores a theocracy based upon the pattern found in the Scriptures. But people who so argue forget that the experiment was a failure, that it bred injustice and tyranny and cruelty and inhumanity. American ideals are best served by an education without religious strife, where every child shall be secure in the exercise of his religious convictions, for what has proved the providence of God, is that every man shall be given a chance to find and live the Good, the True, the Beautiful, in his own fashion, as long as he does not trespass upon the rights of others. And this is possible only in a secular state and secular school separated from religious belief and instruction. A secular school is a powerful instrument for a tolerant and against a bigoted spirit, and it cultivates the mind for the associations of the street and business where the diversity of religious belief must necessarily meet.12

Crooker concludes:13 As we bend our ear to catch the faintly whispered demand of the myriads of children yet unborn, we hear the divinely urgent exhortation: Guard for us the Public School from priestly tyranny and dogmatic zealotry, from ecclesiastical dictation and the poison of sectarian passion; preserve it in all its sacred freedom and truly catholic functions; protect it as the organ and oracle of the humanity of man; and finally, hand it down to us as the seed-plot of patriotism, more efficient for citizenship because dogma is not there, and more friendly to religion because no unwise use of the Bible is there attempted. And to these pleading generations we answer: By the grace of God and the help of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, we will.

Notes

1 Most relevant is Crooker, “The Bible in the Public Schools, or Dr. Bascom and the Supreme Court,” (Madison: State Journal Printing Co., 1890). Less attention is given to the case in Crooker, “The Public School and the Catholics,” (Madison: H.A. Taylor, 1890).

2 Crooker, pp. 5-9.

3 Crooker, “The Public School and The Catholic,” p. 12.

4 Crooker, “The Public School and The Catholic,” p. 12-13.

5 Crooker, pp. 9-11.

6 Crooker, pp. 13-15.

7 Crooker, pp. 15-17.

8 Crooker, “The Public School and the Catholics,” pp. 3-5.

9 Crooker, p. 12.

10 Crooker, p. 13.

11 Crooker, “The Public School and The Catholics,” p. 9.

12 Crooker, “The Public School and The Catholics,” p. 11.

13 Crooker, p. 18.