Article January 20, 1917 Issue

Our good friends the Presbyterians want one afternoon a...

Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Republican

Our good friends the Presbyterians want one afternoon a week of public school time to be devoted to religion. Each denomination is to teach its own creed, including, we take it, Mohammedanism, if there are any of that faith living in a community, or voodooism,—anything that any one may call his religion. Just so a man believes it, that is the thing that is going to "save" him. Well, the rest of us have no quarrels with them on this, but we may be permitted to suggest that the more the churches leave the public schools alone the better it will be for the schools. Too many cooks are apt to spoil even that broth, popular as it is and well as it has supplied the needs of the dissemination of universal education. We all realize the need of good, even stern, moral training, and the public schools are hardly deficient in that now; and in the schools generally even the spirit of religiousness, without reference to any particular brand of belief, is more or less imparted and inculcated.

But we would be inclined to be afraid of the consequences if each denomination is given an afternoon to work on its section of pupils in the school hours of the week. Even the little boys and girls may be struck with the incongruity of the situation, and in that way the effort may do more harm than good. We should also bear in mind that religion nowadays, at least among the Protestant peoples, has become largely an elective system, each one taking what seems to suit his choice—and let us hope that by whatever road they elect to travel they will reach the home of the blessed at last.

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