religion based on revelation and establish in its place the religion of rationalism?

BRYAN: It's getting very warm in here. All this talk makes me very uncomfortable. don't know what it is leading to.

I

If I did, I

SOCRATES: I don't either. should not be asking questions. What is your answer, Mr. Jefferson?

JEFFERSON: I'll begin by pointing out to you that there was no coercion of opinion. We had no inquisition.

SOCRATES: I understand. But you established public schools and a university?

JEFFERSON: Yes.

SOCRATES: And taxed the people to support

them?

JEFFERSON: Yes.

SOCRATES: What was taught in these schools?

JEFFERSON: The best knowledge of the

time.

SOCRATES: The knowledge revealed by

God?

JEFFERSON: No, the best knowledge acquired by the free use of the human reason. SOCRATES: And did your taxpayers believe that the best knowledge could be acquired by the human reason?

JEFFERSON: Some believed it. Some preferred revelation.

SOCRATES: And which prevailed?

JEFFERSON: Those who believed in the hu

man reason.

SOCRATES: Were they the majority of the citizens?

JEFFERSON: They must have been. The legislature accepted my plans.

SOCRATES: You believe, Mr. Jefferson, that the majority should rule?

JEFFERSON: Yes, providing it does not infringe the natural rights of man.

SOCRATES: And among the natural rights of man, if I am not mistaken, is, as you once wrote, the right not to be compelled to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, and abhors. Mr. Bryan, I think, disbelieves and abhors the opinion that man evolved from a lower form of life.

BRYAN: I do. It is a theory which undermines religion and morality.

SOCRATES: And you objected to being taxed for the teaching of such an opinion? BRYAN: I most certainly did.

SOCRATES: And you persuaded the representatives of a majority of the voters in one

state to forbid this teaching in the schools they were compelled to support.

BRYAN: It was an outrageous misuse of public funds.

SOCRATES: May I ask whether you meant that nobody should be taxed to support the teaching of an opinion which he disbelieves, or whether you meant that the majority shall decide what opinions shall be taught.

BRYAN: I argued that if a majority of the voters in Tennessee believed that Genesis was the true account of creation, they had every right, since they pay for the schools, not to have the minds of their children poisoned.

SOCRATES: But the minority in Tennessee, the modernists, the agnostics, and the unbelievers, also have to pay taxes. Do they not? BRYAN: The majority must decide.

SOCRATES: Did you say you believe in the separation of church and state?

BRYAN: I did. It is a fundamental principle.

SOCRATES: Is the right of the majority to rule a fundamental principle?

BRYAN: It is.

SOCRATES: Is freedom of thought a fundamental principle, Mr. Jefferson?

JEFFERSON: It is.

SOCRATES: Well, how would you gentlemen compose your fundamental principles, if a majority, exercising its fundamental right to rule, ordained that only Buddhism should be taught in the public schools?

BRYAN: I'd move to a Christian country. JEFFERSON: I'd exercise the sacred right of revolution. What would you do, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'd re-examine my fundamental principles.

5. WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE

That is what I should like to attempt in these lectures. The greater part of the American people must of necessity be educated in public schools. These schools are supported by taxation and administered by officials who derive their authority from the voters. The question is: shall those who pay the piper call the tune?

It may be that to many among you these questions will seem speculative and remote. You may feel that I am making too much of the spectacles at Dayton and Chicago, and that I am wrong in taking them as symbols and portents of great significance. May I remind you, then, that the struggles for the control of the schools are among the bitterest political struggles which now divide the nations? Wherever

there is a conflict of religious sects, you will find that the public schools are one of the chief bones of contention. It has been so in Canada for generations. It is so now in Mexico. In every country of Europe where there are national minorities, there is bitter dispute over the public schools. It is inevitable that it should. be so. Wherever two or more groups within a state differ in religion, or in language and in nationality, the immediate concern of each group is to use the schools to preserve its own faith and tradition. For it is in the school that the child is drawn towards or drawn away from the religion and the patriotism of its parents.

The reason why this kind of conflict is relatively unfamiliar to us is that America has been until recently a fairly homogeneous community. Those who differed in religion or in nationality from the great mass of the people played no important part in American politics. They did the menial work, they had no influence in society, they were not self-conscious, and they had produced no leaders of their own. There were some sectarian differences and some sectional differences within the American nation. But by and large, within the states themselves, the dominant group was like-minded and its dominion was unchallenged.