School Choice: What American Bishop, Martin J. Spalding, Had To Say on the Matter

Catholics have a duty to vote for the good of society. Equal access to education does just that.

The following is an excerpt from The Life of the Most Rev. M.J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore, by John Lancaster Spalding, 1873

The first section of this article showcases what Archbishop Martin John Spalding thought about the debates regarding school choice, or government funding of private and parochial schools.

The second, bonus, section details his thoughts about schools removing God from their education, and its following dangerous implications.

Remember, this analysis was written by the Bishop’s nephew, John Lancaster Spalding, who himself was the first Bishop of Peoria from 1877 to 1908 and the co-founder of The Catholic University of America.

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In the Pastoral Letter of the Third Council of Cincinnati held in 1861, special reference is made to the common school system as it exists in this country.

“We think,” say the fathers, “that few candid observers will fail to have remarked the progressive demoralization among the youth of our country, and to regret that the system of common-school education has certainly not succeeded in obviating this downward tendency, to which we may fairly ascribe much in the present alarming condition of our affairs. Under the influence of this plausible but most unwise system, the rising generation has been educated either without any definite religious principles at all, or with false, at least, more or less exaggerated and fanatical principles. The system itself, if carried out according to its alleged intent of abstaining from any definite religious instruction, is well calculated to bring up a generation of religious indifferentists, if not of practical infidels; and if not thus carried out, its tendency is to develop false or very defective, if not dangerous, religious principles. The facts, we believe, sufficiently prove that the influence of our common schools has been developed either in one or both of these directions. We can scarcely explain in any other way the manifest moral deterioration of the country, which is probably the very worst feature in our present troubles. No candid man will deny that public virtue is now very far below the standard to which it was raised in the earlier and purer days of the Republic, when our fathers admired the moral heroism and were guided by the political wisdom of a Washington.

“ We have not ceased, on all suitable occasions, to warn our countrymen against the dangerous tendency of this system, as it has been practically carried out, not merely because its operation is very unjust to ourselves, but because we consider it radically defective and wrong; but our appeal has been made calmly, and with due regard for the feelings, and even what we might consider the prejudices, of others. We feel it to be our most sacred and most solemn duty to rear up our children in the knowledge, fear, and love of God; and we regard this as the essential element, as the very foundation, the life and soul, of all sound education among Christians—that which, in fact, distinguishes it from education among pagans. As this religious training is not possible in the public schools as at present organized and conducted, our children are necessarily excluded from them as effectually as they would be by locks and bolts, unless, indeed, we were to become so dead to faith as to be willing to sacrifice the religious education of our children for a merely worldly convenience…

…In a country so divided in sentiment as ours is on the subject of religion, the only system which would be fair and equitable to all would be that which would make education like religion, and like all important pursuits—entirely free; and if taxes are collected from all for its encouragement and support, let them be apportioned fairly among the scholars taught certain branches up to a certain standard, no matter under what religious or other auspices.”

In further illustration of Bishop Spalding’s views on this, socially and religiously, the most important question of our day, I shall here refer to a controversy on this subject which he carried on, in the spring and summer of 1859, with George D. Prentice, the editor of the Louisville Journal. The discussion grew out of Bishop Spalding’s review of Joseph Kay’s work on common-school education in Europe. Taking the facts as furnished by Mr. Kay, a Protestant, Bishop Spalding had shown, first, that in the matter of common-school education, France stood first among the nations of Europe, and England last, whilst Germany occupied a middle position between these extremes; second, that in the educational system almost universally adopted in Europe, religion occupied the chief place among the branches taught—the principle being generally received that education without religious instruction is, at best, imperfect and of doubtful advantage; third, that to secure religious liberty and safeguard the rights of parents, separate schools, supported out of the common-school fund, were allowed whenever the minority, whether Protestant or Catholic, desired to establish them; fourth, that where this plan had been most faithfully carried out, as in France, Austria, Prussia, and Bavaria, the common-school system had worked best, had given most general satisfaction, and had been productive of the greatest good. The logical inference from all this was, that the denominational system of education, adopted by nearly all the states of Europe, was preferable to the common-school system of the United States, which ignores religion and excludes it from the process of education. That a Catholic bishop should affirm this, and, above all, that he should prove it to be true, was of course unpardonable.

Bishop Spalding was therefore accused of being an enemy of American institutions, and an advocate of the despotic governments of Europe, whilst Catholics in general were branded with being disloyal, because they claimed the right to agitate in favor of reform in the common-school system of the country. His assailant did not call in question the facts on which his reasoning was based, but he denied that either they or the deductions made from them were applicable to the educational wants or to the social and religious condition of the United States.

Apart from the general importance of the subject, there were special reasons of a local character which rendered it proper that Bishop Spalding should not refuse to accept the challenge thus thrown out to him.

A sectarian school, established for the avowed purpose of perverting Catholic children from the faith of their fathers, had been recently recognized by the School Board of Louisville, and had received a portion of the moneys of the public school fund. Catholics had thus been made to pay to help destroy the faith of their own children.

Bishop Spalding entered into this controversy the more willingly, because it would afford him an excellent opportunity of publicly denouncing this outrage upon the most sacred rights of conscience.

To the charge that the continued agitation of the question of common-school education, after it had been settled by the voice of the people, implied disloyalty to the Government, he made answer:

“We regret the useless agitation of settled questions as much, at least, as does the writer; but we have yet to learn that, in this free country, a minority which feels itself aggrieved by the majority has not the clear right, and is not even impelled by duty, to state its grievances, and to continue to do so temperately but boldly until the wrong be redressed. Oppressed minorities surely have rights as well as triumphant majorities; and where they have truth and justice on their side, they have even more sacred and more valid rights...In this country of generous impulses and manly sympathy for the weaker side, there is nothing which awakens greater interest or excites more admiration, than to see an aggrieved minority nobly and persistently battling for its rights.’

Having proclaimed the right of agitation for the redress of grievances under a free government, Bishop Spalding took up the objections of his opponent, and showed that there is no reason to be found, either in the social or religious condition of this country, why the denominational system of public schools, which had been found to work well in Europe, should not be introduced here with equal success.

The Government is not asked, he argued, to assume that any form of religion is in itself either true or false. To determine this does not lie within the competency of the state, as the Constitution of the United States expressly admits. The state, however, recognizes the existence of religion, and promises to secure to all its citizens the full and undisturbed possession of their religious rights. Now, when the state forces the members of a religious denomination to pay taxes for the support of schools to which they are not free to send their children, it violates the liberty of conscience which it professes to protect.

“But,” objected Bishop Spalding’s opponent, “we must have schools supported by taxation; for otherwise, as all experience shows, vast numbers will neglect to give their children any education whatever. It is the part of a wise and well-regulated government to encourage education by every lawful means, for if the corrupt are unfit to be free, the ignorant are incapable of maintaining their liberties. Now, in a country like this, where there are so many opposing churches, the only practicable method of establishing schools to be supported by taxation is to exclude the question of religion.”

Bishop Spalding answered these objections, which are probably as strong as any which the friends of our common school system can make, by applying the great doctrine of free-trade to the business of education. He considered that the minimum of state interference was logically contained in the American theory of government, and that in proportion as we augment the patronage of government, in that same degree do we endanger our political institutions. Legislative and official corruption, which are the principal evils of which we complain, grow out of the too great patronage of the Government, which leads men to look upon political life, not as the road to honor and fame, but as the shortest way to wealth.

The only political remedy for this evil, which has become national and which threatens our life as a nation, is to reduce the influence of the Government to its lowest expression. It is no more the business of the state to teach school than it is to run banks or railroads.

But what does come within its province is the enactment of laws for the proper regulation and protection of all legitimate business, which, provided these conditions be complied with, should be left to the untrammelled competition of all citizens. Now, consider education as a business which the state should protect and foster, but which it should in no case monopolize. Let the state create a fund for educational purposes, by taxation, as under the present system; let it make regulations to which all schools claiming a portion of the public moneys must conform; let it retain a supervision over schools to the support of which it contributes, in whatever relates to secular learning, and then let Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and infidels build their schoolhouses, and receive a rated proportion of the public moneys, provided they conform to the requirements of the law.

Bishop Spalding held that the system, the outlines of which are here given, was not only practicable, but that it would give far greater satisfaction than the one now in existence. The rights of the State would be safeguarded, no injustice would be done to any class of citizens, and popular education, to say the least, would be as universal and of as high a grade as at present. It is not to the purpose to say that this system would make the state a teacher of religion. It would do nothing of the kind. The state under it would do simply what it is now doing, with this difference, that it would not then force a large portion of its citizens to contribute to the support of schools to which they cannot in conscience send their children.

Concerning the reality and serious nature of the injustice which Catholics suffer under the present system of public schools, Bishop Spalding did not think there could be two opinions. To state the case was, as he looked at it, to make it as evident as the most labored argument could render it.

That Catholics have the sincerest conscientious scruples as to the danger of sending their children to the public schools, their deeds more than their words prove. The sacrifices which a man is willing to make in any cause are generally accepted as the test of his sincerity; and if we apply this to the Catholic population of the United States, the perfect honesty of their convictions is at once manifest.

The main purpose of this article is now finished. You are free to stop here, but you can also continue reading to hear what the Archbishop thought about removing God from schools.

If there were no remedy for this evil, except by withdrawing all state aid for educational purposes, a plausible pretext might be found for this system of injustice. That such is not the case, the example of other civilized nations has proved; whilst the impartial consideration of our own social condition leads to the same conclusion. The Catholic Church in this country has taken a far deeper view of this most vital question of education than that which has been granted to any of the sects; all of which are either wanting in religious earnestness, or ignore the natural laws of religious development in their exclusive and false theories of the special and supernatural action of God in the soul. God has subjected the religious instinct or faculty in man, in some degree at least, to the same law of evolution which governs his other faculties; and consequently, it must be evolved by processes similar to those by which the intellectual and moral faculties are educated; otherwise, man’s religious nature will remain to a great extent in a latent and potential state.

Now, the whole theory of common-school education in this country ignores this all-important psychological fact. It will not do, in the vast number of cases, to leave religious training to the family influence alone. This is evident for many reasons. The greater number of parents have neither the time nor the intellectual and moral qualifications which would fit them as religious educators of their own children. What would be thought of us were we to insist that the intellectual training which children can receive at home is all-sufficient? All experience teaches that were education left exclusively to the family, ignorance would become universal. In the same way, faith would grow feeble and decay if the religious training of the young were left to the parents alone.

It may be objected that we have churches in which the priest can supplement the religious education received at home. Without seeking in the least to underrate the value of this instruction, it must be admitted that it is altogether inadequate to the purpose. As it is the province of religion to control all the actions of life, it follows that it must enter into and form part of the general training of youth. Since the religious faculty requires to be brought out by a process similar to that by which the intellect is educated, it is but natural to suppose that this cannot be done with any degree of success by a few instructions given at considerable intervals of time. Believing that this is the highest and divinest faculty in man, the church holds that at least as much care should be bestowed upon its cultivation as upon that of the other faculties.

Indeed, the exclusion of religious instruction from the school-room can be logically justified only on the assumption that religion is false. If all positive religious dogmas are the offspring of superstition, then it is certainly most desirable that doctrines emanating from such a source should be considered as evil, as tending to the perversion of both the mind and the heart. That men who look thus upon all positive religion should wish to exclude it from the process of education is not surprising, but that those who believe that these teachings are revealed of God should concur in this, is altogether incomprehensible. The godless school theory, then, can have its logical basis only in that system of sophistry which holds that all positive religious dogmas had their origin in the credulity, the ignorance and fears, of rude and savage peoples. Were this true, the diffusion of the spirit of unbelief would be most desirable; and for the accomplishment of this end no better means could be found than the godless school system. It is only when we look at the question of education from this higher point of view that we get a right conception of the determined opposition of Catholics to the common-school system as it exists in this country, and that we come to understand how such men as Bishop Spalding, who in other respects undoubtedly admired American institutions, could have no sympathy whatever with this theory of education. He was persuaded that it was based upon an essentially antichristian philosophy, and that, starting out on the implied assumption of the untruth of Christianity, its practical tendency was to undermine faith in Christ himself. No meddlesome or unworthy spirit moved him to protest with such fearlessness and vehemence against the public schools. He felt that the most sacred interests of the country itself were in danger, and that, unless a remedy were applied, the final outcome would be the loss of our character as a Christian nation; and his grief was not greater than his astonishment to find that the leaders of the various Protestant churches were blind to the evils which he deplored, and which did not concern Catholics alone, but all who believe in the divinity of the Christian religion.

The undenominational system of schools which we have here is precisely that which the infidel party in Europe is using every exertion to introduce there, because it perceives how fatal it must prove to religion. “ In my opinion,” has said one of the leaders of this party, “ every church, whatsoever may be the name which it bears or the principle from which it springs, is an obstacle to civilization. Every church, for the reason that it lays down articles of belief and insists upon faith, impedes the development of the human mind. Every church is a hamper upon the free flight of the soul. I desire that the soul be unfettered, and therefore I desire that there be no church. Abolish, then, this whole system which teaches man, from his infancy, to believe in a future state of life. We must learn how to be atheists.” *(Carl Vogt: Address before the National Assembly in Frankfort, Germany)

The great social problem of the age with these men is how to give to man on earth the happiness which he has hitherto been led to look for only in heaven. Underlying all the objections which the various schools of unbelief make to religion, is the thought that whatever induces man to act with regard to a future state is superstition; that, consequently, all positive religious dogmas are hurtful to our true interests, since by inducing us to think of heaven, they cause us to neglect the vital interests of earth.

It is but natural that men who hold such views should wish to exclude all religious instruction from the schools. But these views cannot be said, as yet, to represent public sentiment in this country. Most Americans still believe in God, and have a certain veneration for religion. There is, however, a very general feeling with us that religion is easily distinguishable from creeds and churches; that ecclesiastical organizations are chiefly serviceable as affording a convenient means of teaching morality; that the two sacraments which still remain to, at least, a portion of Protestant Christianity—baptism and the Lord’s Supper—are mere rites, void of efficacy and even of meaning; that the minister of religion is only a preacher—a teacher without a divine commission; and, consequently, that church-membership is simply an affair of convenience, and the choice between the different religious denominations of the land merely a matter of taste. Hence, there can be little reason why we should be astonished that the masses of our people attach no importance to denominational religious instruction. They do not, indeed, like the infidels of Europe, look upon all churches as bad, as obstacles to the progress of mankind; but as little do they consider them divine institutions, essential to the progress of religion, to the welfare of society, and the salvation of the soul. Hence, it was altogether natural that in establishing a common-school system, no notice whatever should have been taken of the various religious denominations of the country. Even among the stricter sort of Protestants, the idea, very generally received, that religion must proceed exclusively from the special interference of God, by which the individual, through consciousness of sin, is awakened to repentance, causes them to look upon the teaching of religious doctrines as of little importance. A stray and dissonant voice is now and then raised from the midst of one or other of the sects, to warn against the danger to faith from the exclusion of all religious instruction from the public schools, but it dies away without having awakened even an echo.

Although no one could be more opposed to the public school system than Bishop Spalding, yet he was by no means in favor of committing the church to party politics in order to effect a reform in this matter or in any other. He appealed to public opinion, and sought to enlighten it, without, however, deluding himself with the hope that any speedy change was to be looked for. He considered that he had done but little when he had written and spoken in favor of the true theory of popular, as of all, education. What God demands of Catholics in this nineteenth century, and in this country especially, is not that they talk, but that they act. He looked upon the agitation of the school question as of very little importance compared with the real work to be done. The remedy which he sought, and which it was in his power to apply, was to build parochial schools, into which he strove to gather the children of his own people, who showed their religious earnestness by generously co-operating with him in this, the most important work of the church.

It will be perceived, from what has been said, that Bishop Spalding’s opposition to the common-school system did not proceed chiefly, or to any great extent indeed, from fear lest special or accidental influences prejudicial to their faith should be brought to bear upon Catholic children if allowed to frequent the public schools. He objected to the system itself, which, as it presented itself to his mind, was based upon false principles, and necessarily tended to produce a spirit of religious indifference fatal to Christianity, as understood and taught by the Catholic Church.

The view of religion which common-school education is almost sure to develop, is that it is something quite independent of ecclesiastical organizations, and consequently that it is of no consequence to what church one belong, or whether he belong to any; and this view is in direct antagonism with the fundamental idea upon which the church is founded. To individualize Christianity is to undermine the facts upon which it rests. The humanity of Christ and the objective visible church are correlative facts, and both are essential to the complete notion of the Christian religion. Fellowship with Christ is obtained through communion with his church. She alone is his spouse; she alone the mother of his children. Hence, there can be no more pernicious error in religion than the theory which the common schools, however conducted, must of necessity help to propagate—that communion with the church is not of obligation; and Bishop Spalding therefore held that these schools, even when unsectarian, are still anti-Catholic.

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Is this argument of Archbishop Martin J. Spalding still relevant to us today? Will Kentuckians vote for school choice, especially by saying “yes” to the proposed Amendment 2 on the ballot this fall?

The choice is ours. May God guide us to choose His choice.