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A COMPLETE EDUCATION –

WHAT IS IT?

David Barton

Texas Home School Coalition REVIEW © May 1999

The purpose of education is to provide students with as many tools as possible to succeed in life.  Experience has proven the need for learning in math, science, reading, language, etc., but it has just as equally demonstrated that faith and religion, too, form a basis for successful life skills. Nevertheless, many of today’s educational and legal experts vociferously decry intermingling religious instruction in education.  Two centuries ago, our Founding Fathers confronted and confounded the arguments of similar critics.

One of the many Founders outspoken about this issue was signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush – a leading educator whose impact is still felt upon American education today.  Dr. Rush’s educational credentials were impressive: he authored plans of education from city to state level; he was a professor of chemistry, anatomy, and medicine; he helped found five universities; and he pioneered education for women and for blacks.  Furthermore, Dr. Rush can rightfully be titled “The Father of Public Schools Under the Constitution” for being the first founder to call for broad public education.  What were his opinions about religious instruction in education?  Notice:

“[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.  Without this, there can be no virtue, and without virtue, there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments…Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.

“[I]f the Bible did not convey a single direction for the attainment of future happiness, it should be read in our schools in preference to all other books from its containing the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public temporal happiness.”

The sciences have been compared to a circle, of which religion composes a part.  To understand any one of them perfectly, it is necessary to have some knowledge of them all.  Bacon, Boyle, and Newton included the scriptures in the inquiries to which their universal geniuses disposed them.  Ironically, today’s critics claim that this co-mingling is “unconstitutional” – that it violates the intent of our Founding Fathers, who established this government and its documents.  Yet, notice just a few of the comments of those very leaders on the issue:

“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals: therefore, education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God.”  Governeur Morris, penman and signer of the Constitution 

“If we continue to be a happy people, that happiness must be assured by…establishing such modes of education as tend to inculcate in the minds of youth the feelings and habits of piety, religion and morality.”  Samuel Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence

“You have… received a public education, the purpose whereof hath been to qualify you the better to serve your Creator and your country … Your first great duties, you are sensible, are those you owe to Heaven, to your Creator and Redeemer.  Let these be ever present to your minds, and exemplified in your lives and conduct.”  William Samuel Johnson, signer of the Constitution, to students at a public graduation

“[Why} should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book?  Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble.  The reverence for the Sacred Book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and probably if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.”  Fisher Ames, author of the House Language for the First Amendment

“[A] free government…can only be happy when the public principle and opinions are properly directed … by religion and education.  It should therefore be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the principles of religion and morality.”  Abraham Baldwin, signer of the Constitution

“The attainment of knowledge does not comprise all which is contained in the larger term of education… [A] profound religious feeling is to be instilled and pure morality inculcated under all circumstances.  All this is comprised in education.”  Daniel Webster, statesman and orator

“[T]he Bible…[is] a book containing the history of all men and of all nations and … [is] a necessary part of a polite education.”  Henry Laurens, delegate to the Constitutional Convention; President of the Continental Congress

“[R]eason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle… Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for general diffusion of knowledge.”  George Washington, signer of the Constitution

These are only a few of the comments of our Founders on this important issue.  In fact, their beliefs on this issue were so firmly and unequivocally held that they drafted and passed an important federal law addressing the subject.  Significantly, this law was enacted while Congress was passing the First Amendment (which today’s courts interpret as requiring that religious instruction be isolated from education.)  What did that law declare?

Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged.

This clause linking “religion, morality, and knowledge” with education was neither obscure nor insignificant.  On the contrary, it was a provision of the law that set forth the means for attaining statehood in the newly formed United States.  Consequently, that wording appeared in the constitutions of the new states until almost the 20^th century.  In fact, that provision is even found in current constitutions (e.g., when the North Carolina constitution was revised in 1989, it retained that provision).

What all of this simply and clearly proves is that exclusion of religious instruction from education was not the plan of those who founded this nation or framed its documents.  The segregation of religious instruction from education is a new, and many would argue ill advised, innovation.  A question George Washington wisely asked two centuries ago (and a question we should still ask today) is:  “Let it be simply asked, ‘Where is the security for property, for reputation and for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert….?’”  General religious instruction should regain the place it long held in American education.

David Barton, husband of Cheryl and home schooling father of two, is president of WallBuilder Presentations, Inc., an organization dedicated to the restoration of the moral and religious values on which America was built and which, in recent years, have been seriously attacked and undermined. 

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