Bible Reading and Nonsectarian Schooling: The Failure of Religious Instruction in Nineteenth-Century Public Education

Abstract

In the late 1880s Catholic taxpayers in the city of Edgerton, Wisconsin, sued the local school district, asking that teachers in the public schools discontinue the practice of reading selections from the Bible each day. In pressing their case before the Wisconsin supreme court, they argued successfully that Bible reading violated Article 10, Section 3, of the state constitution, which prohibited sectarian instruction in the district schools of the state. Proponents of Bible reading in Edgerton sought to counter this argument by raising the issue of legislative intention. Alleging that the practice had continued to prevail generally after the adoption of the state constitution, they reasoned that the constitution's framers surely had not meant to prohibit it. Justice William P. Lyon, however, in an observation that merits special attention, rejoined: we must be permitted to doubt whether the practice [of Bible reading] was ever a general one in the district schools of the state. We are quite confident that it is not so at the present time.' Easily the most neglected issue in the endless discussions about religion in American public schools is the historical question: What constituted general practice in the multitude of school districts across the nation? In contemporary debate, opposing sides seem to agree that the twin Supreme Court cases of Engel v. Vitale, which in 1962 outlawed public school prayer, and Abington School District v. Schempp, which proscribed Bible reading in those schools the following year, overturned practices of classroom religion that had been inscribed in public school systems since the early nineteenth century. Predictably, those who seek restoration of prayer and Bible reading refer nostalgically to allegedly hoary practices with deep roots in the