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Folder Title: [Education] - Guidelines for Moral
Instruction in California Schools, 1969
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GUIDELINES FOR MORAL INSTRUCTION
IN CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS
A Report Accepted by the State Board of Education
May 9, 1969
CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Max Rafferty - Superintendent of Public Instruction
Sacramento
1969
Contents
PREFACE
A SOLDIER'S LETTER -- Which Way America?
iii
CHAPTER
I
THE CHARGE -- AN INTRODUCTION
1
The Resolution
1
Preparation for the Guidelines
2
The Advisory Committee on Guidelines for
Moral Instruction
4
II
MORALITY AND THE LAW
8
The Theological State
8
Good Moral Character
10
Moral Turpitude
10
III
MORALITY AND THE NATURAL LAW TRADITION
15
John Adams
16
Aristotle
17
Sir Edward Coke
17
William Blackstone
18
Cicero
19
IV
MORALITY AND THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION
22
John Swett
24
V
MORALITY AND THE CHALLENGE OF SECULAR
HUMANISM
33
Humanism in the Eighteenth Century
33
Humanism in the Twentieth Century
35
The Contemporary Humanists
40
Humanism and Progressive Education
42
Humanism and "Sex Education
43
Humanism and the Behaviorists
50
Humanism and Social Sciences
56
Humanists and Marxists
58
Humanists and Evolutionists
62
VI
TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
65
APPENDIX A
71
APPENDIX B
74
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Preface
A Soldier's Letter
Which Way America?
Dear Family,
I don't know when mail from home has meant so much to me. As I write,
the sun is setting on one of those beautiful Pacific days, that more than make
up for the rainy ones. It has got me to thinking about our country.
The American people have emerged today with more power and prestige
than any country in the family of nations. Mankind is knocking at our gates,
seeking wisdom from our leaders, the hope of peace from our people. Before
we can fulfill our destiny, to lead mankind to sanity and harmony, we shall
have to rebuild the fiber of our national life.
Suppose we as a nation find again the faith our Father's knew? Suppose
our statesmen learn again to listen to the voice of God. Then we shall know
once again, the greatness of a nation, whose strength is in the spirit of her
people, whose strength is in her obedience to the moral law of God.
America! Choose the right road! Unless there is born again in our people
the spirit of sacrifice, of service, of moral responsibility, my comrades and
I who will fight on the beaches, and those of us who will die here, shall have
been exploited and betrayed, and fought and diedin vain.
It is the eleventh hour. By your choice, you will bless or blight mankind
for a thousand years to come. Which road will it be
America?
1
This was the last letter an American solider wrote his family prior to
his death. It has been put to music by Sing Out America youth groups which
perform throughout the country. We think the question posed by these
inspiring young Americans " Which way America? is the question asked
by all America today.
iii
Chapter I
The Charge - An Introduction
THE RESOLUTION
On July 11, 1968, the State Board of Education adopted a resolution direc-
ted to Max Rafferty, Superintendent of Public Instruction. It reads as follows:
Members of the State Board of Education are well aware that you have
consistently endeavored to keep before the citizens of California the
approaching dangers of a breakdown of discipline and morality in Cali-
fornia's schools.
We also know that you are aware of recent incursions into some school
districts by non-professional groups and organizations whose activities
fall within the prohibitive clauses of sections 12951--12955 of the Edu-
cation Code.
Since, moreover, there seems to be some confusion in the schools as
to the meaning of Section 7851 of the Code calling upon all public school
teachers "to impress upon the minds of the pupils the principles of
morality, 11 it seems imperative at this crucial period of our history to
clarify for public school employees what is traditionally meant by the
terms "manners and morals, " as employed in Section 7851 of the Education
Code.
Therefore, in accord with your concern, and with the approval of the
State Board, we hereby request that your staff prepare for Board con-
sideration a set of "guidelines" for teachers and administrators, designed
to identify those principles of morality established by tradition and heri-
tage as well as enforced by the laws of this State and of the United States.
We specifically want to identify that kind of behavior and activity alien to
our heritage, and/or unlawful or contrary to public policy.
It is evident from the wording of this resolution that the State Board of
Education asks the California State Department of Education to perform two
essential tasks:
1. Identify those "principles of morality mentioned in Section 13556. 5
(formerly Section 7851) of the Education Code, which are intended for
discussion in classroom situations.
2. Identify the nature of the "incursions" into the public schools of ideas
promoted by organizations or groups that are "alien to our heritage"
and "contrary to public policy.
Since the adoption of the July resolution, the State Board thereafter found
it necessary to ask the Department of Education to collect and evaluate
materials on so-called "sex education" courses which have been instituted in
1
2
some districts of the state. This latter investigation was initiated as a
result of an avalanche of letters from irate parents complaining of the
"pornographic" nature of some of the materials that have found their way
into the classroom and which are allegedly affecting the morality of
California's students.
Thus, the two resolutions, that of July, 1968, and that of November, 1968,
were considered by the Department staff as part of the same assignment.
Their task was not only to deliniate and identify those "principles of morality"
according to our heritage and traditions but also to identify those courses or
materials which might fall within the "prohibitive" sections of the Education
Code; for instance, sections 9001 and 9002, which prohibit the teaching of
sectarian religious preferences in the public schools, or Section 9031 pro-
hibiting indoctrination in Communism. These guidelines, therefore, serve a
twofold purpose. They attempt to answer those many questions presently
plaguing teachers and administrators in a revolutionary age. They attempt
to answer the fundamental question raised by that young soldier who recently
gave his life for the American cause in Vietnam: which way America?
PREPARATION FOR THE GUIDELINES
In order not to "remake the wheel, 11 the staff decided to collect information
elsewhere on the nature of "guidelines for moral instruction. 11 A survey was
made of all 50 states of the Union. The following questions were asked:
1. Whether your State Department of Education has prepared "guidelines
for moral instruction" to be used by the schools of your state.
2. Does your state have a committee of laymen studying the means of
"teaching moral principles?"
The following answers were given:
1. Thirteen states identified an ongoing program of moral instruction or
in the process of starting one.
2. Four states indicated no committee on guidelines but are interested in
what California is doing.
3. Twenty-four states replied they have neither guidelines nor a committee
studying the issue.
Then a survey was made of the 1, 100 districts in the state of California.
The questions asked of these districts were:
1. Do they have guidelines identified for our purposes?
2. Whether such guidelines or related materials are under preparation.
3. Whether they integrate "moral instruction" with the curriculum.
3
4. A space was provided for "other."
The responses to these were:
1. Some 40 districts replied they had guidelines or other prepared
materials.
2. Seventy-four districts responded that such materials are under prepa-
ration.
3. Four hundred seventy-seven replied they integrate such instruction
throughout the curriculum. Many of the replies to question number 3
were that the instruction was more "incidental than directed."
To question number 4, "other," responses were many and varied:
1. Some complained that they do not have materials.
2. Others said that they have no policy.
3. Others that it was done through extra curricular activities.
4. Others said it was taught by precept and example.
5. Others said that they used county materials or adopted the courses of
study of other counties.
To ascertain the level of preparation of teachers in this area, another
questionnaire was sent to all public and private teacher-training institutions
in California.
The letter sent to the heads of teacher-training departments described the
Department's goals and specifically quoted from the State Board Resolution
of December 17, 1963, which followed the U.S. Supreme Court decision on
school prayers. The following paragraph is from the 1963 resolution and
was quoted in the letter to the colleges:
Our schools should have no hesitancy in teaching about religion. We
urge our teachers to make clear the contributions of religion to our
civilization, through history, art and ethics. We want the children of
California to be aware of the spiritual principles and the faith which
undergird our way of life. We are confident that our teachers are com-
petent to differentiate between teaching about religion and conducting a
compulsory worship service. This point of view, we believe, is in
accordance with the tradition handed down by our fathers and reaffirmed
by the United States Supreme Court.
The following questions were then asked:
1. Do you offer courses in comparative religions of the world?
2. Do you require such a course, or courses, of your teacher credential
candidates?
4
How would you meet the requirements for such preparation as sug-
gested by the American Association of School Administrators?
a. By no requirements -- leaving it to the individual teacher
b. By requiring some course in comparative religions
C. By requiring courses in philosophy and ethics
Their responses were as follows:
1. Twenty-nine institutions answered in the affirmative.
Twenty-one answered negative.
2. Four answered in the affirmative.
Seventeen answered negative
To the a, b, and C answers which referred to the admonition that admini-
strators are urged to use "the prudence that would put direction of the project
in the hands of public school educators who are intimately aware of the possi-
bilities and limitations under which the materials may be used":
a. Eighteen responded that it is left to the individual teachers
b. Four responded by requiring courses in comparative religions
c. Twelve responded by requiring courses in philosophy and ethics
Since there was no space for "other" in the letter sent to the teacher-train-
ing institutions, some deans submitted additional information not covered
by the questions. Most of these comments concern the difficulty of adding
new requirements (if this is under consideration) and the need to drop some
requirements. Other comments were that such training is offered in history
courses, literature courses, philosophy courses, and so forth.
The few "guides" we received from out of state we found to be not as well
developed as the "moral and spiritual values" guides developed by Ventura
and Los Angeles counties. They were thus of little value to this study. Most
of the guides that California districts submitted were sketchy and did not
develop subject matter but usually stated requirements of the law.
THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON GUIDELINES FOR MORAL INSTRUCTION
One other step decided upon by the Department and approved by Dr. Raf-
ferty was the appointment of a committee of professional people and legislators
to sit with the staff from time to time and examine the materials that are
included in these documents. Such a move was thought necessary and useful
because of the direct nature of the subject. These individuals appointed by
Dr. Rafferty are:
5
The Honorable E. Richard Barnes
Assemblyman, 78th District
California Legislature
The Honorable John L. Harmer, Attorney
Senator, 21st District
California Legislature
The Honorable Floyd L. Wakefield
Assemblyman, 52nd District
California Legislature
Mrs. Rosemary Howard
Chairman, Interfaith Congress on Religion and Education
San Jose, California
Herbert Ellingwood
Legal Affairs Secretary
Office of the Governor
Formerly, Legislative Representative -- - State Bar of California
Harry Corkin, Attorney
Executive Secretary, United Christian Service Foundation
Sacramento, California
Rev. Robert Williams, Pastor
Church of Reflections
Knott's Berry Farm
Buena Park, California
Hardin B. Jones
Professor of Medical Physics
Assistant Director, Donner Laboratories
University of California
Berkeley, California
Edwin F. Klotz, Chairman
Special Assistant to the State Board of Education
At the first formal meeting of the Advisory Committee on Guidelines for
Moral Instruction in California Schools (December 4, 1968) Dr. Rafferty
reviewed the "general breakdown" of moral standards in recent years that is
of concern to everyone and told the committee that theirs was a most delicate
task, that "you are probably the most important committee now working in the
State Department, 11 and that "never until this time, to my knowledge, has any
formal attempt ever been made to try to set up a code of ethics on morality,
which by necessity has to be pretty largely separated from any sectarian
religious bodies. Dr. Rafferty added, "I'm not sure it can be done."
The advisory committee is not sure it has done all that could be done,
because it recognized that the challenge reaches beyond the pale of the
6
classroom situation. Their inner sentiments were reflected in the form of
a resolution adopted at their first meeting following a lengthy discussion.
It was addressed to the Federal Communications Commission expressing their
concerns and urging that the government initiate corrective action on the
federal level. That resolution was later issued by Dr. Rafferty's office as
a news release, January 6, 1969, and reads as follows:
WE, the undersigned, members of the California State Department of
Education's Advisory Committee on the adoption of Guidelines for Moral
Instruction in California Schools, take this opportunity to express our
profound concern for the lack of self-discipline being displayed by the
motion picture industry, television, and the public media in general, on
matters of decency and morals.
WE applaud the hearings recently conducted by the Congress concerning
the diet of violence offered the American public on television.
WE lament the growing tendency of the motion picture industry to lure
Americans to neighborhood drive-in theaters by appealing to their basest
instincts in matters of sexual conduct.
WE lament that the entertainment pages of daily newspapers sheepishly
accept pornographic techniques to sell their seedy films to the public.
WE lament that judicial decisions governing the definition of "porno-
graphy" or "obscenity" have opened the doors to vast publishing endeavors
to present our young people with the most corrupt literature of the ages,
as though it were the "normal" behavior of healthy citizens.
WE observe that this laxity of moral standards has pervaded our colleges
and that the most obscene scenes that man can imagine are enacted on
college stages and passed off as "drama."
WE discover now that what is described as "sex education" has become
established even in our elementary schools and that materials are being
used to "educate" third and fourth graders which would make most adults
blush.
WE, therefore, the undersigned, appointed to assist the Director of
Education for the State of California to identify those standards of morality
which are inherent in our culture and heritage, and recognizing that a
beginning must be made to reverse this trend, are determined to lead
California out of the moral decay in which it is presently descending.
WE, therefore, call upon the Federal Communications Commission to
investigate the kinds of materials used on public and educational television
which offend the decency of Americans and to help public school authorities
to promote "the manners and morals" which the Legislature of this State
has, by law, mandated to be taught in the schools.
7
FINALLY, we assert that the schools cannot perform this task when
beyond the classroom society is permeated with pictures, films, books
and television programs which tend to undermine the very moral structure
the schools are by law required to preserve and revere.
THE Federal Government has established itself as the responsible agent
to constrain radio and television. Therefore, we urge that your office
launch an investigation designed to reestablish proper codes of conduct
which alone can assist educators in their monumental tasks.
Signed - - Members of the Committee
It is evident that the Department's Advisory Committee on Moral Guide-
lines saw the issue as broader than anything the educational system could
influence, much less control. The schools could not by themselves reverse
the present trend towards moral decay unless all agencies of the country
cooperated and set general goals -- governmental and nongovernmental
agencies, news media, publishers, clergy, courts, and the population as a
whole.
The consensus of opinion of the advisory committee was, as Dr. Rafferty
noted, that a "moral crisis" was sweeping the land and that all aspects of
American behavior were affected. This moral crisis is reflected in the
increased use of drugs at colleges as well as increased sexual promiscuity
and illegitimate births and incredible increases in crimes of violence, espe-
cially among teenagers. It was the consensus of the committee that such a
moral crisis is at root a spiritual crises, and that to analyze the problem it
was necessary to ask the essential questions about right and wrong. They
noted the Board resolution of 1963 related morality with America's history
and tradition. They wanted to identify those ideas "alien to our heritage'
and contrary to public policy. Obviously such a mandate required a study
in depth of America's spiritual heritage, as well as of "first principles. " It
necessitated an examination of those ideas and ideals which motivated our
Founding Fathers. When Mr. Corkin observed that, "I always think that
America was built upon the Bible and we have as a result the highest civili-
zation the world has known, the basic issue was raised -- the relationship
of moral standards to our religious heritage and tradition. This committee
reaffirmed, in other words, the declaration of the State Board of Education
in 1963 quoted above: "We want the children of California to be aware of the
spiritual principles and the faith which undergird out way of life."
The problem, as the Department staff sees it, is that few school districts
in the state have taken the initiative to fulfill the spirit of this declaration of
1963. It is to correct this condition that the staff and its advisory committee
have made specific recommendations, not only as to content but as to action.
The Department believes it has approached its assignment successfully.
We hope that all school officials examine this document carefully and apply
its spirit and the techniques herein described to their individual situations.
The staff feels they have developed the proper yardstick by which to measure
the valid and the invalid, the moral and the immoral, the alien and the
unalienable.
Chapter II
Morality and the Law
THE THEOLOGICAL STATE
When President Eisenhower signed the legislative act giving legal force
to the change in the "Pledge of Allegiance" by adding the two words "under
God,' he reasserted what most Americans have long assumed: that God is
as much a legal part of the American heritage as He is a traditional entity,
loved and worshipped as befits the individual citizens' comprehension of His
Person.
This is not to say that all Americans believe in God or accept this heritage.
But it is to say that legally and traditionally the American Republic was, and
is, established upon a firm belief in divine providence.
There was, for example, considerable debate over adopting the Preamble
of the Constitution of the State of California in 1849 because it was considered
too close to being a "prayer." Charles Botts, a delegate from Monterey, took
exception to it and insisted that, "The closet is the proper place for devotion,
not the ballot box."
The majority of the delegates disagreed with Botts, however. After all,
each session had begun with prayer; one day by a priest, another day by a
Protestant minister. "If we can by supposition, said one delegate, "get a
prayer out of those who are not in the habit of praying, we should by all means
do it. "1
California's Preamble is similar to all the 50 states of the Union where it
invokes a dependency for its citizens upon divine law:2
We the people of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our
freedom, and in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish
this Constitution.
The only change made by the delegates at the 1879 convention, and which
remains to this day, was the addition of the words "and perpetuate."
Thus, "the blessings of freedom," by constitutional law, are dependent upon
obedience to the higher law of God. This is essentially the meaning of the
Preamble to our basic law and from which all our freedoms flow. (This
1 J. Ross Browne, Report of the Debates in the Convention of California
on the Formation of the State Constitution, in September and October, 1849,
Washington, D. C. 1850, p. 417.
2
Benjamin Weiss, God in American History. Grand Rapids, Mich. Zon-
dervan Publishing House. 1966. This publication contains the preambles of
all 50 states of the Union.
8
9
concept is pursued in depth in Chapter III.) It is something that the school
administrator can begin with, because, as the legal officer of the school, he
must begin with "what is, with what the law says. Unfortunately, there are
few statutes which specify the meaning of "morality" within this context which
he is bound to protect and promote. He would have to start with Article IX,
Section I of the Constitution of the State of California and understand the
intention of California's founding fathers when they adopted it.
A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the
preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the Legislature
shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual,
scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement.
It was not until 1943, however, that the Legislature moved to implement
that constitutional mandate. At that time Education Code Section 7851 (now
Section 13556. 5) was adopted.
13556. 5. Each teacher shall endeavor to impress upon the minds of the
pupils the principles of morality, truth, justice, patriotism, and a true
comprehension of the rights, duties, and dignity of American citizenship,
including kindness toward domestic pets and the humane treatment of living
creatures, to teach them to avoid idleness, profanity, and falsehood, and
to instruct them in manners and morals and the principles of a free govern-
ment.
Perhaps school officials, like judges, need to look behind the words, and
to the intentions of the legislators who adopted the laws, in order to best
fulfill their responsibilities according to tradition and heritage.
In the case of Section I, Article IX of the Constitution of the State of
California, the men at the Constitutional Convention in 1849 frequently referred
to articles on public education already adopted by other Western states. These
states, in turn, traced their allocations of public lands for education to the
provisions first proposed by Jefferson during the periods of the Confederation;
for instance, the Ordinance of 1785 which "reserve the lot N. 16 of every
township for the maintenance of public schools' and the additional Ordinance
of 1787 which included Article the Third: "Religion, morality and knowledge
being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools
and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. 11
There is no question, therefore, that one of the primary functions of public
education, according to the original purposes for establishing public schools,
was to teach religion and morality as essential to the success of good govern-
ment.
In a later chapter we shall examine the nature of this religion and morality.
For the moment let us cite those statutes which use the words moral, morality,
and immoral in connection with education.
10
GOOD MORAL CHARACTER
Section 13126 of the Education Code specifically requires candidates for
teaching certificates "to submit reasonable evidence of identification and
good moral character. "
Section 13129 provides the grounds for dismissal of teachers who are
addicted to intoxicating beverages, to narcotics, guilty of fraud, and "(e) Has
committed any act involving moral turpitude.'
Section 13202 of the Education Code reads:
The State Board of Education shall revoke or suspend for immoral or
unprofessional conduct, or for persistent defiance of, and refusal to obey,
the laws regulating the duties of persons serving in the Public School
System,
Other sections of the Education Code, beginning with Section 12910, provide
for the dismissal of teachers who have fallen into wayward behavior. Teachers
can be dismissed from the ranks of those who hold certificates for sex crimes
(Section 12911) as defined in the Penal Code Section 647; that is, for "lewd and
lascivious conduct and for narcotics offenses (Education Code sections
12912. 5ff). There are, of course, mandatory revocations for major crimes,
and any school official who is "knowingly" a member of the Communist Party
will suffer loss of his credential.
MORAL TURPITUDE
The problem confronting educators and administrators today is that, while
law identifies crimes based upon "immoral acts,' contemporary definitions of
"moral" and "immoral" have brought about a kind of stalemate to the point of
public acceptance of homosexual behavior. Some of the reasons for these
changes, if indeed they are changes, will be examined in Chapter V.
The issues remain one of definition of standards, however.
What is good moral character?
What is immoral?
What is obscene?
What is pornographic?
If one searches the reasons why these questions seem to go unanswered
these days, one would ultimately wind up on the steps of the U.S. Supreme
Court in Washington, D. C., for the answers.
Consider the term: "moral turpitude.' Webster traces the word "turpitude"
to the Latin turpitudo, from Turpis, vile, base. Hence, it means "inherent
11
baseness: depravity; also a base act. 11 But, as the advisory committee
observed the very first day of its meeting in December, 1968, there are
movies, books, magazines, and nonprofit institutes that sell a philosophy
of life which rejects traditional standards of "morality." This philosophy,
or religion, called Secular Humanism has penetrated deep into institutions
of higher education where California's future teachers are entertained by
campus-sponsored "dramas," such as The Beard, Ergo, Hair, and so forth.
This "new morality" illustrates the progress made in convincing college stu-
dents that there is literally no such thing as "a base act"; and if this is true,
there is difficulty in ascribing such acts as "moral turpitude."
The suggested changes made by the Teachers Professional Standards
Commission, appointed by the State Board of Education, are indicative of
these changes in attitude toward the term "good moral character. 11 Some of
those changes are as follows:
Penal Code sections 220-221
Assault with Intent to Rape. (Mandatory
Action) Permanent Revocation. (Discre-
tionary Action) Nonpermanent Denial.
Change to:
(Mandatory Action) Nonpermanent Revo-
cation. Recommend thorough legislative
statutory revision.
Penal Code Section 288a
Oral Sex Perversion. (Mandatory Action)
Nonpermanent Revocation. Permanent
Revocation, Permanent Denial.
Change to:
(Discretionary Action) Nonpermanent
Revocation or Suspension. Permanent
Denial. Recommend legislative statutory
revision.
Penal Code Section 314
Indecent Exposure. (Mandatory Action)
Permanent Revocation. Permanent Denial.
Change to:
(Discretionary Action) Nonpermanent
Revocation or Suspension. Nonpermanent
Denial. Recommend legislative statutory
revision.
Penal Code Section 647
Loitering In or About Public Toilet for
(Subdivision (d) )
Lewd Acts. (Mandatory Action) Perma-
nent Revocation. Permanent Denial.
Change to:
(Mandatory Action) Nonpermanent Revo-
cation. (Discretionary Action) Nonperma-
nent Denial.
12
The arguments for changing the penalties incurred by some of these
"offenses are that moral attitudes have changed and that, therefore, moral
standards for school teachers should also change. Hence, the question again
arises: What is that "good moral character¹ by which all public officials are
judged, be they teachers or not?
The question was posed by members of the advisory committee to the
Board, but their answers were not those of the relativists or the secular
Humanists. Their admonitions to the Department staff encouraged a look
behind the fads of the moment, of the moral decay observable around us.
They urged, instead, what the State Board wanted to know: What are those
standards according to our tradition and heritage?
The advisory committee members observed that behind statutory and
constitutional law lies the uncodified law of human behavior upon which
statutory laws rest. Statutes, they observed, largely protect those standards
that are traditionally a part of a society. Law, in other words, is a protective
function. It punishes only when the established traditions are disregarded.
Crime by definition is "a public offense"; that is, an offense against estab-
lished morals and standards. Laws, in other words, do not create morality,
but they do identify what is immoral or "wrong" by establishing penalties
against infractions.
The teacher can surely identify what is a public offense by reciting the Ten
Commandments as the standard of morality for America and for most of the
Western world, because the Decalogue is the unwritten law of the land, the
intellectual infrastructure upon which statutory laws rest. Let us illustrate
this by reciting some Penal Code sections and the particular moral standards,
traceable to the Decalogue, which they protect. 3 The table reaffirms the
assertion of Louis de Bonald, the eighteenth century enemy of Voltaire: "Laws
come from an earlier time and like man himself, they existed before they
were born. " (Bonald was quick to observe, moreover, that "bad laws have a
beginning, but the good, emanating from God, are as eternal as He.")
Commandment
Penal Code Section
Third Thou shalt not take the name
Prohibits vulgar, profane or
of the Lord Thy God in vain.
indecent language: 415
Fourth Remember the Sabbath Day to
Disturbing religious meetings: 302
keep it holy.
3 This comparison is a brief example of what could be explored in more
detail. Other than the Penal Code, the following professional codes also lean
heavily on the Decalogue as representative of the moral standards which
citizens of California wish upheld: the Business and Professional Code; the
Welfare and Institutions Code; the Health and Safety Code; and of course, the
Education Code.
13
Commandment
Penal Code Section
Fifth
Honour thy Father and thy
Failure to provide for parents: 270c
Mother.
Sixth
Thou shalt not kill.
Assault: 149, 221, 240, 244, 245
Battery: 242, 243
Murder: 187-190, 190.1, etc.
Mayhem: 203, 204
Attempts to kill: 216, 217, 217.1,
218, 219, etc.
Duels: 225-231
Suicides: 401
Seventh Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Rape: 220, 261-264, 266b
Abduction: 265, 267
Seduction: 266, 268, 269
Prostitution: 266a, 266e-h, 273f,
etc.
Pandering: 266
Adultery: 269a, 269b
Failure to provide: 270, etc.
Abortion: 274-276
Bigamy: 281-284
Incest: 285, 359, 785
Eighth Thou shalt not steal.
Bribery or unlawful receipt of money
or property: 67, 67-1/2, 68, 70
72, etc.
Extortion: 518-524, 526, 527
Fraud: 154, 155, 156, 157, etc.
Forgery: 470-476, etc.
Kidnapping: 207-210, 278, 784
Robbery: 211, 211a, 212-214
Burglary: 459-461, etc.
Lotteries: 319-326
Gaming: 330, 330a-c, etc.
Counterfeiting: 366, 477-481
Larceny: 384a, 484-487, etc.
Embezzlement: 424-428, 431, etc.
Ninth
Thou shalt not bear false wit-
Perjury: 118, 118a, 119, etc.
ness against thy neighbor.
Falsifying evidence: 132-136
Libel: 248-257, 964
Slander: 258-260, 784a
Tenth
Thou shalt not covet thy neigh-
The mental act of coveting is not a
bor's house, wife, servants
crime, but the fulfillment of that
or property.
desire would lead to theft, adul-
tery, kidnapping, rape, arson, or
similar crimes.
14
Therefore, to understand morality according to our traditions and heritage,
it is imperative that we begin with those concepts which were so basically a
part of the thinking of America's Founding Fathers. The bases of moral con-
duct in America as in the Western World as a whole, we will find in two major
traditions: (1) that of natural or higher law as developed by reason; and (2)
that of moral absolutes as expressed in the Judeo-Christian religion. 4
A third source will be referred to as well: those codes of conduct which
govern primitive people and which are handed down from one generation to
another, largely by verbal tradition. 5
In all three instances, however, there is evidence that the moral law is
inseparable from the inherent nature of mankind as a whole.
And there is inescapable evidence that, in all three areas of discovery of
the moral law, ultimately moral man is found to be a reflection of his perfect
Creator, God.
4
The official philosophy of the State Department of Education, as enunci-
ated by Dr. Max Rafferty, June 16, 1965: "Education in Depth maintains that
there are positive, eternal values, and that the main purpose of Education is
to seek out these lasting values
"
5
Here the discipline of anthropology can be utilized by classroom teachers.
The connection of man with spiritual origins and destiny is common to all
primitive peoples and cultures. Fortunately Frank Hamilton Cushing, an
Indian affairs official who lived many years among the Zuni, put into English
Zuni religious myths. "Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths, 11 was first published
in the 13th Annual Report 1891-92 by the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology,
Washington, D. C., pp. 325-447. It reflects in a remarkable way the story
of Genesis, and even of the Biblical wanderings of the Jews.
Chapter III
Morality and the Natural Law Tradition
A divine conception of the universe pervades the spirit of American civiliza-
tion as it does of world civilizations in general. It is that man's blessings-all
his freedoms-stem from a source that is higher than man.
This is the concept of higher law, or natural law, or divine law, as invoked
by America's men and heroes since the beginning of our history. The Declaration
of Independence incorporates this thesis, as every school boy should know. It
claims it is necessary for people "to assume among the powers of the earth, the
separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle
them
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
11
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
One of the problems of our time is that not every school boy does know the
significance of these theological declarations as they apply to the American
heritage.
The leading theorists on college campuses today seem to discredit the entire
theory of natural law by asserting it was nothing but an idealistic reflection of
a passing agrarian society, something of a figment of the imagination of one
man, Thomas Jefferson.
Roland Van Zandt, whose work is a source book for contemporary social
science teachers, refers to the "group of growing scholars and specialists who
have come to see that our traditional theories are indefensible even though these
theories are still generally subscribed to by the populace as a whole and those
members of society who are closest to the centers of power and are responsible
for the maintenance of that society. Mr. Van Zandt avoids theological premises
(see Chapter V) and considers the whole traditional order of American society
based upon "antiquated assumptions. 1
Mr. Van Zandt and the scholars of his school either miss the main thrust
of history as reflected in the American experiment, or they choose to ignore
it. What they ignore is the thesis that what is valid for all mankind is as valid
today as it was in the age of Gilgamish; namely, that the moral laws which
govern mankind remain constant, whatever the political or economic changes
in social structure that may take place as a result of technological changes.
It means, in other words, that a moral system governing the behavior of men
precedes and supercedes the political structure. It means that an intellectual
order is the infrastructure upon which an economic and political order rests.
The basic rights of free men are nowhere found where man is enslaved.
Such rights, in other words, to property, to freedom of movement within
one's own country, or the right to emigrate to another country. The cher-
ished American freedoms of speech, of press, of privacy, of conscience,
1
Roland Van Zandt, The Metaphysical Foundation of American History,
The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1959, p. 59.
15
16
or of trade and commerce are unknown in countries which have denied God.
Of supreme importance is the right of parents to raise and educate their chil-
dren. This is one of the first rights lost to free men under twentieth century
Communist or Nazi regimes, for example.
All such rights are accepted as commonplace to most Americans whose
thinking is rooted in natural law. To avoid instruction in the meaning of these
profound theories is tantamount to ignoring the foundation of Western Civiliza-
tion.
JOHN ADAMS
For instance, those rights were spelled out long before 1776. Listen to
John Adams, in 1765:
Let the bar proclaim "the laws, the rights, the generous plan of power"
delivered from remote antiquity, inform the world of the mighty struggles
and numberless sacrifices made by our ancestors in defense of freedom.
Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes or
parliaments but original rights, conditions of original contracts, coequal
with prerogative and coeval with government; that many of our rights are
inherent and essential
Let them search for the foundations of
laws
and government in the frame of human nature, in the constitution of the
intellectual and moral world. There let us see that truth, liberty, justice,
and benevolence are its everlasting basis; and if these could be removed,
the superstructure is overthrown of course.
2
These views were repeated in the Declaration of Rights in 1774, which
declared that "the inhabitants of the English Colonies in North America, by
the immutable laws of nature, have the following rights,' which were then
identified as those of "life, liberty and property.' This document, like that
of 1776, proceeded to identify in detail the infractions committed by the British
government against rights guaranteed to a free people by natural law precepts.
As Clarence Carson points out, our Founding Fathers were very much at
home with the philosophical systems of the ancient Greeks and Romans. "The
framers of the Constitution, he observed, "did not merely echo or imitate
this ancient material, they applied it to the task in hand and transmuted it
into workable form."
For the first time in modern history, in fact, a people, forced by circum-
stances to examine the first principles of freedom, actually incorporated in
their structure of government, in the Bill of Rights, a philosophy of govern-
ment based upon natural law concepts. To say, as the debunkers of American
history are saying, that such an enormous contribution to the history of man
was merely an "abstraction" and "unnatural," as Mr. Van Zandt and his school
assert, is one of the most twisted interpretations of a nation's history that
the most gifted writer on utopias could ever attempt.
2
Clarence B. Carson, The American Tradition. Irvington-Hudson, N. Y.
Foundation for Economic Education, 1964, p. 16.
17
Let us look at some of the sources read and digested and applied by America's
Founding Fathers.
ARISTOTLE
The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists
by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first
principle
On such a principle then, depend the heavens and the world
of nature
If then, God is always in that good state in which we some-
times are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet
more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the
actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent
actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living
being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal
belong to God; for this is God.
3
And readers of Aristotle will discover how much the peripatetic liked to
quote the eighteenth century poet Hesiod on the origins of the world; a paragraph
which sounds rather like Genesis and prophetic of the Incarnation:
First of all things chaos made, and then
Broad-breasted earth
And love, 'mid all the gods pre-eminent.
It is very true that much of Aristotle and Cicero and Seneca came to our
Founding Fathers from the English theorists Sir Edward Coke and William
Blackstone. Coke, a sixteenth century writer, was our country's link with
the ancient world through his concentration on the middle ages.
SIR EDWARD COKE
The law of nature was before any judicial or municipal law (and) is
immutable. The law of nature is that which God at the time of creation of
the nature of man infused into his heart for preservation and direction;
and this is the eternal law, the moral law, called also the law of nature.
And by this law, written with the finger of God in the heart of man, were
the people of God a long time governed before the law was written by Moses,
who was the first reporter or writer of law in the world.
God and nature is one to all and therefore the law of God and nature is
one to all.
This law of nature which indeed is the eternal law of the Creator, infused
into the heart of the creature at the time of his creation, was two thousand
years before any laws written and before any judicial or municipal laws
3
Introduction to Aristotle, Metaphysics, Bk. XII. New York: Modern
Library, n. d., p. 295.
18
were made. Kings did decide cases according to the natural equity and were
not tied to any rule or formality of law.
4
WILLIAM BLACKSTONE
William Blackstone echoed Coke and was without doubt the most oft-quoted
philosopher among American patriots during the trying days of the independence
movement:
When the Supreme Being formed the universe and created matter out
of nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which
it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be.
This, then, is the general signification of law, a rule of action dictated
by some superior being; and, in those creatures that have neither the power
to think, nor to will, such laws must invariably be obeyed, so long as the
creature itself subsists, for its existence depends on that obedience.
But laws, in their more confined sense and in which it is our present
business to consider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but
of human action or conduct, that is, the precepts by which man
endowed
with both reason and free will, is commanded to make use of those faculties
in the general regulation of his behaviour.
Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws
of his Creator for he is entirely a dependent being
a state of dependence
will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him on whom he depends
as the rule of his conduct
in all those points wherein his dependence
consists
Consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything,
it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will.
This will of his Maker is called the law of nature.
For as God, when he created matter, and endowed it with a principle
of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that
nation, so, when he created man, and endowed him with free will to conduct
himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human
nature, whereby that free will is in some degree regulated and restrained,
and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws
The Creator is a being not only of infinite power and wisdom, but also of
infinite goodness
he has so intimately connected, so inseparably inter-
woven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual,
that
happiness cannot be attained but by observing the former; and if
the former be punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce [happiness].
4
Moral Leadership, The Protection of Moral Standards and Character
Education Program, United States Navy and United States Marine Corps,
Navpers No. 19589, 1957, p. 196.
19
This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law; for the
several articles into which it is branched into our systems, amount to no
more than demonstrating that this or that action tends to man's real
happiness, and therefore very justly concluding that the performance of
it is part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that
action is destructive of man's real happiness, and therefore that the law
of nature forbids it.
This law of nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God
himself, is of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding
over all the globe in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of
any validity if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all
their force and all of their authority mediately or immediately from this
original.
5
CICERO
But it was the great Roman orator Cicero who was most often quoted by
men who blazed new routes in moral and political history in the 1770s. It
will be readily seen from the following how much of a debt they, as well as
Coke and Blackstone, owed to him:
There is in fact a true law -- namely right reason -- which is in
accordance with nature, applies to all men, and is unchangeable and
eternal. By its commands this law summons men to the performance of
their duties; by its prohibitions it restrains them from doing wrong. Its
commands and prohibitions always influence good men, but are without
effect upon the bad.
To invalidate this law by human legislation is never morally right, nor
is it permissible ever to restrict its operation, and to annul it wholly is
impossible.
Neither the Senate nor the people can absolve us from our obligation to
obey this law, and it requires no Sextus Aelius to expound and interpret it.
It will not lay down one rule at Rome, and another at Athens, nor will
it be one rule today and another tomorrow.
But there will be one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times
upon all peoples; and there will be, as it were, one common master and
ruler of men, namely God, who is the author of this law, its interpreter
and its sponsor.
The man who will not obey it will abandon his better self, and, in denying
the true nature of a man, will thereby suffer the severest of penalties, though
he has escaped all the other consequences which men call punishment.
6
5
Ibid., pp. 196, 197.
6
Ibid., p. 196.
20
"Right reason," experience, experimentation, applied to the physical world
has allowed mankind to discover and harness the laws of physical nature to
apply to his comfort and pleasure. Right reason, experience, and experimen-
tation has also presented to mankind over the course of human history a structure
of moral order which, if followed, leads to peace and happiness and, if ignored,
leads to strife and tyranny.
Our Founding Fathers fully believed, therefore, that moral codes of law
were as discernible as were those laws governing the actions of physical forces.
They bound all men -- at all times in all countries. Through sheer "reason,"
given to man alone of all God's creatures, these laws are manifest. Our Found-
ing Fathers often quoted Plutarch's injunction: "to follow God and obey reason
is the same thing. IT Right reason would lead men to discover those laws govern-
ing human behavior, just as reason and experimentation revealed to man those
laws governing the movement of heavenly bodies, or of gravity, or of heat, or
the composition of matter. If all flowed from God, it was reasonable to expect
that He would enlighten man more and more as his reason was continuously
applied to experience. Because of this, perhaps, Roscoe Pound, America's
greatest teacher of law in the twentieth century, remarked about those from
whom our forefathers learned:
The Seventeenth Century policy as set forth in Coke's doctrine, was the
one we accepted at our Revolution and put into our constitutions. When
these instruments declare themselves the 11 supreme law of the land" they
use the language of Magna Carta as interpreted by Coke; namely, that
statutes could be scrutinized to look into the basis of their authority and
if in conflict with fundamental law they must be disregarded. This doctrine
was as much a matter of course to the American lawyer of the early Revolu-
tion as the doctrine of the absolute binding force of an act of Parliament is
to the English lawyer of today.
So steeped were the Eighteenth Century colonial lawyers in Coke's
teachings, that the controversial literature of the era of the Revolution,
if it is to be understood, must be read or interpreted by a common law
lawyer. Indeed, he must be a common law lawyer of the Nineteenth Century
type, brought up to read and reread Coke and Blackstone until he got the
whole feeling and atmosphere of those who led resistance to the home
government.
7
The one outstanding element which held together the spirit of our Founding
Fathers in those dark days of resistance to tyranny from abroad was the element
of humility as creatures of God. As Hamilton commented on the difficulties
which confronted them in their struggle for freedom: "It is impossible for the
man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand
which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical
stages of the Revolution. 118
7
Ibid., p. 198.
8
Federalist Papers, #37.
21
Today, as Americans are reflecting more and more upon those intellectual
foundations upon which our society and culture was established, they would be
less than sensible if they did not heed Roscoe Pound's advice and reexamine
those sources of wisdom which form one side of the triangle of our heritage.
By so doing, they would recognize the deep significance of that oft-quoted but
seldom examined phrase of Thomas Jefferson: "Endowed by our Creator with
certain unalienable rights.
Fortunately for the Department staff, Assemblyman E. Richard Barnes, for
over 20 years a chaplain in the U.S. Navy, became a member of the Advisory
Committee on Guidelines for Moral Instruction. He brought to our attention the
"moral leadership" program of the Navy and Marine Corps, from which some
of the preceding quotes were taken. Here was a prepared and tested outline
of techniques to teach young men the nature of man and his relationship to God,
his neighbor, his country, and his world. It was not only approved by all
denominations of chaplains of the Navy but approved as well by the federal
government as an educational program.
An analysis of the Navy's series of booklets on the subject of moral education
convinced the committee that much of the Department's task on this particular
phase of the guidelines had already been done. Accordingly, the chairman of
the committee wrote to the Chief of Navy Chaplains, Washington, D. C., asking
whether there would be any problem involved if the California State Board of
Education decided to use the Navy's materials as part of their moral guidelines
project.
Rear Admiral James W. Kelly, Chief of Chaplains, replied, "Your Committee
is indeed welcome to utilize as much of this subject matter as desired for the
propsed Guidelines. There are no copyright laws involved in the reproduction
of this material." In another communication the Admiral added, "I am pleased
in your interest in the Character Education program of the Navy and Marine
Corps, and I wish you success in the implementation of a similar program in
the California schools.
Rear Admiral Kelly managed to obtain for us 10 copies of the document
This Is My Life. 9 It is suggested by the staff that chapters I, II, III and V
are especially appropriate to the purposes assigned by the Board resolution of
July, 1968.
9
This is My Life, United States Navy and Marine Corps Character Education
Program, Series Four, NAVPERS 15884, Washington, D.C.
Chapter IV
Morality and the Religious Tradition
Every school boy is taught that America's first European settlers were
Christians, whether they were Anglo-Protestants in the North or Catholic
Christians sweeping up from the South. Moreover, both denominations carried
to the New World with them a missionary zeal to convert to Christianity the
Indians they found in the New World.
In 1493 Columbus wrote concerning his discoveries of the Indies:
Let Christ rejoice on earth, as he rejoices in heaven in the prospect
of the salvation of the souls of so many nations hitherto lost. Let us also
rejoice, as well on account of the exaltation of our faith, as on account
of the increase of our temporal prosperity of which not only Spain, but
all Christendom will be partakers.
1
It took several centuries for the Spanish missionary zeal to reach the
shores of California where Gaspar de Portola and Junipero Serra led the
northernmost exploits of the Spaniards to complete what Columbus had started
three centuries earlier.
Meanwhile, the English plans to colonize and civilize the eastern portions
of the New World were not without a Christian missionary zeal. Wrote Richard
Hakluyt in 1584:
It remains to be thoroughly weighed and considered by what means and
by whom this most godly and Christian work may be performed of enlarging
the glorious gospel of Christ, and reducing (leading) of infinite multitudes
of these simple people that are in error into the right and perfect way of
their salvation. The blessed apostle Paul, converter of the Gentiles,
Romans 10, writes in this manner: "Whosoever shall call on the name of
the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call on him in whom they have
not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not
heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they
preach except they be sent?" Then it is necessary, for the salvation of
those poor people who have sat SO long in darkness and in the shadow of
death, that preachers should be sent unto them. But by whom should these
preachers be sent? By them no doubt who have taken upon them the pro-
tection and defense of the Christian faith. Now the Kings and Queens of
England have the name of Defenders of the Faith. By which title I think
they are not only charged to maintain and patronize the faith of Christ, but
also to enlarge and advance the same. 2
1
Edwin Scott Gaustad, A Religious History of America. New York:
Harper & Row Pubs., 1966, p. 7.
2
Ibid., p. 28.
22
23
We can know our heritage and our traditions through our documents -- by
reading the biographies of our heroes and by recording the impact of America
upon the world scene.
The compact signed aboard the Mayflower by the Puritans upon arriving at
Plymouth was "for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian Faith.'
The primary purpose of education in America's early history was precisely
to prepare young Christians to familiarize themselves with the "book," the
Bible, as Justice Brewer of the U.S. Supreme Court said: "The American
Nation, from its first settlement in Jamestown to this very moment, has been
permeated by the Bible.
Abraham Lincoln once declared: "In regard to the great Book, the Bible,
I have only to say that it is the best gift God has ever given to man
But
for this Book we could not know right from wrong."4
Daniel Webster elaborated on this theme: "The Bible is a book of faith, and
a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of special
revelation from God.
In our times Adlai Stevenson found it necessary to observe that: "The
Christian faith has been the most significant single element in our history and
tradition.
Even the courts have, in recent years, in their zeal to protect the rights of
individuals, found it necessary to reassert America's religious heritage as
the major support of the individual because he is a creature of God. In Zorach
V. Clauson, the U.S. Supreme Court admitted that Americans "are a religious
people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." And in the case of
U.S. of America, V. Daniel Andrew Seeger, (an appeal to the U.S. Supreme
Court to reverse conviction of refusal to submit to induction into the Armed
Forces, No. 206, Docket 28346, U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit 1964)
the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Daniel Seeger on the
following grounds:
It has been noted that the principal distinction between the free world
and the Marxist nations is traceable to democracy's concern for the rights
of the individual citizen as opposed to the collective mass of society. And
this dedication to the freedom of the individual of which our Bill of Rights
is the most eloquent expression, is in large measure the result of the
nation's religious heritage.
3
Benjamin J. Weiss, Great Thoughts. South Pasadena, Calif. : National
Educators Fellowship, 1968, p. 7.
4
Ibid., p. 9.
5
Ibid., p. 13.
6
Ibid., p. 39.
24
The court added, "Indeed, we here respect the right of Daniel Seeger to
believe what he will largely because of the conviction that every individual is
a child of God; and that Man, created in the image of his Maker, is endowed
for that reason with human dignity.
These comments only reaffirm what the State Board of Education resolution
asserted in December, 1963: the courts of our country have leaned again and
again upon America's religious heritage in order to arrive at decisions which
protect individual liberties.
How was the issue of religion in the public schools in California dealt with
in the past? It may be instructive for us to examine how the famous California
Superintendent of Public Instruction John Swett fused the issues of religion
and morality to the satisfaction of the public in his day.
JOHN SWETT
It is a curious circumstance that just about 100 years ago, John Swett found
it necessary to defend the public schools against charges that they were not
teaching morality to the children. His thirteenth report to the California State
Legislature for the year 1863 is replete with arguments for his defense and
supplies our generation with some materials that could well be examined for
our purposes. There are here excellent examples of how the natural law
precepts fused and mixed with the Christian ethic and how materials were
designed to fulfill the obligations of the schools as those officials of that day
saw it.
"That moral training is an important part of public school education, no
one will deny,' wrote Swett. And he added, "And that it receives all the
attention which its importance demands, few will affirm. 11
Swett continued:
Now, the moral faculties of the child, like the intellectual, need daily
development from the feeble germs of childhood. We do not expect a little
child to learn arithmetic or grammar by repeating rules and formulas;
neither ought we to suppose that the same child will appreciate, understand,
and assimilate, the great foundation principles of right and wrong which
should be its rule of action through life by the mere process of repeating
mottoes, maxims, or commandments.
It is not enough to tell children it is wicked to lie, or to make them
commit to memory the commandment forbidding it; the enormity of the
offence must be pressed home by familiar illustrations, by simple stories
or anecdotes, until their feeble moral powers can comprehend its meanness
and its wickedness. The moral faculties, like the intellectual, are of slow
growth; they need daily culture until the habit of right thinking and right
doing is formed. There are evil tendencies in the child's nature to be
repressed; there are the germs of good qualities to, be warmed into life and
quickened in their growth; and this is the work of skillful teachers during
many years.
25
Abstract doctrines of religious belief will never do this. The moral
nature grows with the intellectual -- as knowledge dawns upon the mind, so
comes the distinction between right and wrong. Any teacher who should
attempt to make his pupils thoroughly understand cube root by committing
to memory the rule without performing a single example under it, or who
should attempt to teach them a knowledge of grammar by requiring them to
memorize all the rules, without writing or speaking a word, would be far
wiser than he who attempts to develop the moral natures of children by
formal precepts alone. It is not the best way to make a boy honest to
require him to repeat, "Thou shalt not steal,' from morning till night,
neither is it the surest way to fortify him against a habit of profanity simply
by telling him it is wicked to swear. Hundreds of parents have found this
out to their sorrow. The form is too often mistaken for the reality, and
the shadow for the substance.
Simply reading the Bible in schools may be an aid to moral training, but
there is no substitute for it. The vital point is, not whether the Bible shall
or shall not be read, but whether the dormant germs of moral and religious
life shall be warmed and quickened by the soul of the teacher.
The difference between the English and the Douay version of the Scrip-
tures, about which there has been so much contention, makes no essential
difference in human nature, or in the great principles which underlie all
morality and all religion.
Do the public schools make any provision for moral culture, and if so,
what is it? The State Board of Education has placed on the State series
of textbooks Cowdery's Moral Lessons, to be used in school by teachers.
It seems a little strange, when so much attention has been given to text-
books in all school studies, that there is only one little work on morals
adapted to the minds of children, and based on philosophical principles of
development. Of larger works in ethics there are many, but this little
book of Cowdery's seems to be the only textbook suitable for use in schools
of the lower grades. It contains some thirty lessons on manners and morals,
each lesson having a maxim, which is illustrated by stories or anecdotes,
followed by questions on the principle inculcated. The following are the
subjects of the lessons:
1. Do unto others as you would have others do to you.
2. Repay all injuries with kindness.
3. A little wrong done to another is great wrong done to ourselves.
4. The noblest courage is the courage to do right.
5. Be slow to promise, but sure to perform.
6. Honor thy father and thy mother.
7. Think the truth; speak the truth; act the truth.
8. Do good to all as you have opportunity.
9. Speak evil of no one.
10. Carefully listen to conscience, and always obey its commands.
11. We must forgive all injuries, as we hope to be forgiven.
12. Learn to help one another.
13. The greatest conqueror is the self-conqueror.
26
14. Swear not at all.
15. Be faithful to every trust.
16. Be neat.
17. Right actions should spring from right motives.
18. Labor conquers all things.
19. Be honest in 'little things,' upright in all things
20. A person is known by the company he keeps.
21. Learn to deny yourself.
22. Live usefully.
23. Be kind to the unfortunate.
24. Do right and fear not.
25. Be patient and hopeful.
26. Be merciful to animals.
27. It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.
28. It is more blessed to give than to receive.
29. Think no thoughts that you would blush to express in words.
30. Live innocently if you would live happily.
31. We must learn to love others as we love ourselves.
32. The good alone are great.
Willson's Readers are adopted in the State Series. Are they destitute of
"moral lessons?" Turning to the pages of the Second Reader, designed for
primary schools, I find such lessons as these:
Never tell a lie;
Story of the railroad thief;
God is near;
Don't kill the birds;
Man and his Maker;
The angry man;
Lazy Slokins, the schoolboy --
Work and play;
drunkard the thief;
Praise ye the Lord;
The works of God;
The Ten Commandments.
Are not these the best kind of "moral lessons?" The Third Reader, for
the next higher grade of pupils, contains the following reading lessons, among
many others of a like nature:
My mother's Bible;
Joseph and his brethren;
The Creation;
The story of Moses;
The beginning of sin;
David and Goliath;
Cain and Abel;
David, Saul, and Jonathan;
The flood;
Solomon the wise king;
The Ark and the dove;
Solomon's Proverbs;
Abraham and Lot;
Be honest, and dare to tell the truth;
Abraham offering Isaac;
Idleness and industry compared;
Isaac and Rebecca;
Honesty is the best policy;
Jacob and Esau;
The first temptation.
Swett concluded this demonstration with a question in defense of the public
schools:
Here are found the most instructive and interesting stores of the Bible,
told to children in a pleasing and simple style. Are the public schools
27
any more "godless" than those in which the New England catechism, the
Catholic catechism, or the Episcopal catechism, all containing a skeleton
of church creeds, are learned by rote, without reference to understanding?
Yet zealots and bigots cry out against the public schools that they do not
teach the existence of a God, that they do not give instruction in the principles
of morality, that they do not recognize the truth of the Bible. These illustra-
tions are sufficient to refute the charge that the public schools pay no attention
to moral instruction. 7
Swett obviously did not feel that mere recitation of what was right and what
was wrong was going to do the job, but the example, "learning by doing, is a
technique as old as Adam and as applicable to the "moral faculties" as it is
the intellectual. Hence, he quoted several other superintendents of his day
from other states who described his views. The following is that of his colleague
from Illinois, the Honorable Newton Bateman:
It should be proclaimed in every school that there are original, immut-
able, and indestructible maxims of moral rectitude -- great lights in the
firmament of the soul which no circumstances can affect, no sophistry
obliterate; that to this eternal standard every individual of the race is bound
to conform, and that by it the conduct of every man shall be adjudged. It
should be proclaimed that dishonesty, fraud, and falsehood are as despicable
and criminal in the most exalted stations as in the most obscure, in politics
as in business; that the demagogue who tells a lie to gain a vote is as infamous
as the peddler who tells one to gain a penny; that an editor who wantonly
maligns an opponent for the benefit of his party, is as vile as the perjured
hireling who slanders his neighbor for pay; that the corporation or the man
who spawns by the thousand his worthless promises to pay, under the name
of banking, knowing them to be worthless, is as guilty of obtaining money
under false pretences as the acknowledged rogue who is incarcerated for the
same thing under the name of swindling; that the contractor who defrauds the
Government, under cover of the technicalities of the law, is as much a thief
as he who deliberately and knowingly appropriates to his own use the property
of another.
In a word, let it be impressed in all our schools that the vocabulary of
heaven has but one word for each wilful infraction of the moral code, and
that no pretexts or subterfuges or sophistries of men can soften the import
or lessen the guilt which that word conveys. Tell the school children that
the deliberate falsifier of the truth is a liar whether it be the prince on his
throne or the beggar on his dunghill; whether it be by diplomatists for reasons
of state, or by chiffoniers for the possession of the rags in the gutter. Tell
them that he who obtains money or goods under false pretences is a swindler,
no more or less, be the man and the circumstances what they may. Tell them
that he who irreverently uses the name of the Deity is a blasphemer, whether
7
Thirteenth Annual Report Of The Superintendent of Public Instruction of the
State of California for The Year 1863, pp. 144-147.
28
he be a Congressman or a scullion. Tell them that he who habitually drinks
intoxicating liquors to excess is a drunkard, whether it be from goblets of
gold in the palatial saloon, or from tin cups in a grog shop. Tell them that
he who speaks lightly or sneeringly of the honor of woman is a calumniator,
be his pretensions to gentility what they may. And SO with the whole catalogue
of vices and crimes, till the line of demarcation between good and evil shall
be graven so deeply upon the mind and conscience that it can never be obli-
terated. 8
If those words seem a little harsh and puritanical to our generation, they
nevertheless reflect the orientation of the leading school officials of their day.
But the point remains that up until recently, schools have been teaching the
essentials of morality by involving the specifics of our moral heritage accord-
ing to the Bible. Although this was not codified as law, there were moves in
1879 to clarify Section 1 of Article IX of the Constitution of the State of California
by the following amendment: "The standard of moral instruction in our public
schools shall be that set forth in the Bible, precluding sectarianism. "9
This amendment was not adopted for a variety of reasons, not the least of
which was the effort of some delegates to the 1879 convention to abolish that
entire section of the state constitution requiring "moral improvement. The
proponents of that section, however, prevailed over its opponents. Some of the
following remarks by the winning side are evidence of the reasons underlying
why that section remained in the Constitution and remains there today despite
efforts by the 1968 Constitution Revision Commission to erase it from history:
Mr. WINANS. Mr. Chairman:
Public education forms the basis of
self-government and constitutes the very corner stone of republican institu-
tions. Ignorance is the parent of vice, and vice soon hardens into crime.
Education is the parent of intelligence and virtue. Crime has its temples
in the penitentiaries which bristle over the land. Education has its temples
in the school houses which rear their stately domes within the cities, or
spread their simple structures, white and glowing in the sunlight, through-
out the towns and villages, over the hillsides and amid the valleys of this
broad domain. As the school houses multiply the penitentiaries decrease.
In the earlier Constitutions of the original States the subject of education
was merely mentioned. It was declared in the form of a principle, but did
not concentrate into any form of legislative enactment. It was merely the
broad declaration of a high principle, but as the time advanced and the
condition of the people improved, and the nation augmented, this subject
began to increase in consequence, and center into the new Constitutions
as they were from time to time adopted, in the form of section after section,
8
Ibid. pp. 149-150.
9
Debates and Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of
California, Vol. I, Supt. State Printing, Sacramento, 1880, p. 146.
29
until at last, it attained to the dignity of a complete article in every Constitu-
tion. In all of the Constitutions of the States, it is a noticeable fact, that the
declaration of abstract principles upon which they are founded is confined to
an original article entitled a "Declaration of Rights, 11 and in regard to the
articles upon education that figure through the several Constitutions of the
States there is this marked difference, that they are always premised by an
original section declaratory of the importance and magnitude of the service,
and declaratory of the principle which it involves. This is entirely excep-
tional in all the other departments of constitutional enactment. 10
Mr. Winans may have expected too much of education when he suggested
that as "school houses multiply, penitentiaries decrease," but he did under-
stand why those general words in Section 1, Article IX were needed to assure
continuity of the Republic.
Delegate Cross at that convention also distinguished these basic needs from
the equally necessary function of transmitting to all segments of education the
nature of our heritage:
Mr. CROSS. Mr. Chairman:
The section as here proposed by the
committee certainly does involve the expenditure of public funds for encour-
aging education not limited to reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, grammar,
and geography, but this to encouraging the promotion of intellectual, scientific,
moral, and agricultural improvement. The section as presented by the com-
mittee takes the position of the latter class, while the amendment represents
the sentiment that education at public expense should be limited to the common
English branches. This amendment proposes the education merely of children.
For my own part, I believe that if there is in the State of California one boy
or one girl of whatever age, a young man or a young woman who is disposed
to devote his or her time to the acquisition of knowledge, that it is for the
interest of this State to furnish the instruction. I believe it is for the interest
of the State, and if it is for the interest of the State we should not impair the
power of the State to act for its own interest.
The emphases on principles and the goals of general education were stated
by delegates Wickes and Lampson:
Mr. WICKES. Mr. Chairman: I am in favor of the retention of section
one of the report of the committee. I do not care whether it is called a
preamble or not. I take a Constitution to be a philosophic and historic as
well as a legal instrument. Judge Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Law,
says that a Constitution contains the principles upon which the government
is founded. We have here in this first section the principles, in a modified
for n, that underlie a system of general education. Here, now, is a republican
form of government in which the people are sovereign. This Government must
10
Ibid., p. 1087.
30
have the means of perpetuating itself, therefore the people must be educated.
Again, we must have good rulers, and good legislators to make the laws.
These rulers and these statesmen must come up from the ranks of the people;
hence the people must be liberally educated. Again, the people must under-
stand the importance of the laws that are made; hence the people must be
liberally educated. This section expresses that idea: A general diffusion
of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights
and liberties of the people, the Legislature shall encourage, by all suitable
means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural
improvement. The better and more liberally the people are educated, the
more inventions and discoveries will be made. Again, to raise great men
you must raise the mass of the people. All must rise together. Another
reason why I am in favor of a liberal education, ranging from the primary
to the university grade, is that it breaks down aristocratic caste; for the
man who has a liberal education, if he has no money, if he has no wealth, he
can stand in the presence of his fellow-men with the stamp of divinity upon
his brow, and shape the laws of the people -- shape our republican institu-
tions by his intelligence and speech. 11
Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Chairman: I have but one word to say in reference
to this section. It seems strange to me that gentlemen should object to say-
ing that 'a general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation
of the rights and liberties of the people. I wish, myself, I could see it
doubly stated. The idea of striking out this declaration, or objecting to it,
is strange to me. If I was to strike out either one of the lines, I would
strike out the last two and leave that standing as a declaration to the people
of America. It reads clear and distinct, and goes on from where I stopped:
'The Legislature shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of
intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement. All four
of these come in strictly under the true principle of education. The gentle-
man, in his amendment, leaves out one of them, the scientific. I see no
reason for striking out a single word from that section one. It stands
exactly as the words that are spoken by every parent, at his fireside, to his
child. I think that this Convention could find fault, perhaps, with other sec-
tions of this article, but on that section I see no reason for discussion. It
is the true principle, that comes from the heart of every parent, that the
diffusion of knowledge and intelligence is essential to the preservation of
the rights and liberties of the people. The Legislature will do what they
see fit to do. I do not think that a single word, even the word 'scientific,'
ought to be stricken out. The Legislature will provide in reference to it. 12
There are several important points that could be made about these remarks
made by legislators nearly a century ago. First, they were fully aware of the
early laws of the confederation which set aside lands for public education
designed to spread knowledge for the preservation of our Republic. Second,
they were aware that religion and morality were an integral part of that know-
ledge to be diffused.
11
Ibid., p. 1, 088.
12
Ibid., p. 1, 089.
31
In short, those legislators of 1879 included all segments of education under
the constitutional mandate that "the Legislature shall encourage by all suitable
means the promotion of
moral
improvement. It should be evident to
everyone that at that time it included higher education, as well as K through 12.
Today "higher education" includes the 14 university campuses, the 19 state
college campuses, and the 89 junior college campuses. Nevertheless, the
constitutional mandate is still there. It is necessary that this interrelationship
of all educational institutions be stressed. Because to redirect public instruc-
tion towards heritage and tradition as the ultimate rationale for the very existence
of public education (the thesis of these guidelines), it is obvious that the changes
must commence in the institutions of higher education. It is in these institutions
where teachers and other professional citizens are trained in the techniques to
transmit this heritage to our children and to posterity. In other words, the
universities and colleges must become involved in this rededication to American
moral standards if their graduates are to be effective torch bearers. How this
is to take place will certainly give rise to many other questions. The question
often before the public and the Legislature is whether the three branches of
higher education are performing the function expected of them; that is, prepar-
ing teachers and other professionals who know the American heritage and who
are dedicated to its perpetuation. The advisory committee feels this is the
crucial issue to be resolved by the State Board of Education.
Some key books, recently published, should be noted here as suggested
materials for teachers and administrators to train their instructors in this
important area.
Your American Yardstick, by Hamilton A. Long, (Your Heritage Books,
Philadelphia, 1963) is an encyclopedia of original quotations and references
concerning the "Twelve Basic American Principles" which undergird our
culture. It is a source book of unique value as America enters upon its 200th
anniversary years. It would be used as a teacher-training textbook or as a
classroom source book. The Boston City Schools recently adopted it for this
latter purpose. Highly recommended.
And We Mutually Pledge, by Stewart M. Robinson, a Presbyterian minister
and former chairman, General Commission on Chaplains, (Long House, Inc.
New Canaan, Connecticut, 1964). This small but compact book records and
describes how significant were the speeches and pamphlets of Ministers of the
Faith in the growing examination of the "cause of freedom" between 1770 and
1776. He demonstrates the links between the natural law and the divine law
concepts as recognized by the various Christian denominations.
Unto the Generations, The Roots of True Americanism, by Daniel L. Marsh,
former President of Boston University, (Long House, Inc., New Canaan,
Connecticut, 1968) is the republication of a text once called The American Canon
published in 1939. As with authors Long and Robinson, Dr. Marsh returns to the
essential documents and the men who wrote and supported them to discover the
"roots" of the American Creed. It is excellently written.
32
A Religious History of America, by Edwin Scott Gaustad, (Harper and Row,
New York, 1966) is an excellent text, full of original source materials, and is
most appropriate for teacher-training institutions.
Chapter V
Morality and the Challenge of Secular Humanism
HUMANISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
George Washington, in his "Farewell Address, warned in a subtle way of
an intellectual confrontation that was gathering force in his age. Commenting on
the need to promote the practice of religion as a safeguard to political stability,
he said: "And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be
maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of
refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both
forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious
principle.
That "supposition" to which Washington referred was not new to the eighteenth
century, nor were "minds of peculiar structure to whom he attributed that
"supposition" unknown in previous ages. Yet, our forefathers were well aware
that a new form of secularism was arising in the eighteenth century and that
this "new morality" was a philosophy of life to be avoided, or even suppressed.
The new "religion" which gave rise to the French Revolution and the terror has
been known by many names since the eighteenth century. Most often it is char-
acterized by what it rejects, than by what it fosters. The iconoclastic but wise
Voltaire even made fun of his own destructive achievements when he once coun-
seled a young revolutionary who wanted to know how to establish a new religion.
Said Voltaire, "Get yourself crucified and then rise from the dead after three
days."
John Jay, when serving abroad in the 1780s as an emissary for the Confedera-
tion of States, relates how he was challenged by Jacobin intellectuals. Once
during a party he related how the conversation fell on religion and a guest asked
him if he believed in Christ. "I answered that I did, 11 responded Jay, "and that
I thank God that I did." A cold silence fell upon the group, he records in his
memoirs, and "nothing further passed between me and them on that subject.
On another occasion, Jay relates, he was in an argument with a fellow about
the existence of God. His host affirmed that he would welcome the day when
there would be no religion at all in the world. Jay argued that if there was no
God, there was no morality, and if no morality then no obligations at all among
men. His antagonist agreed with alacrity and declared that then they could all
establish a substitute religion based upon "enlightened self-interest." Jay con-
cluded that he turned a cold shoulder on his companion and that ended the conver-
sation.
A few years later, in 1789 when the French Revolution was about to burst,
Alexander Hamilton wrote to his old comrade-in-arms, the Marques de Lafayette,
to be wary of the Jacobin intellectuals. "I dread the reveries of your philosophic
politicians" he remarked. He urged his old friend not to collaborate with them.
The advice was not heeded, history tells us, and following the overthrow of
the old regime in France and after the religion of "reason" gave way to the
33
34
tyranny of Napoleon, Hamilton attempted to organize a highly tight-knit
society to arrest the progress of Jacobinism in the U.S. "Let an association
be formed, 11 he suggested, "to be denominated by the Christian Constitutional
Society. Its objects to be: First, the support of the Christian religion;
second, the support of the Constitution of the U.S. 11
The foregoing observations could be broadened extensively to demonstrate
that antireligious forces of the modern age were well-known to our Founding
Fathers and that they were prepared to organize against them. These forces
of antireligion are generally the creations of "minds of peculiar structure, "
as Washington noted. In previous centuries they were not organized, but
isolated "free thinkers, 11 intellectuals who challenged the established creeds
because their country's religion had become corrupt or perhaps because out
of sheer intellectual curiosity. Protagoras, for example, the fifth century
B. C. philosopher, wearied of the routine explanation that the pagan gods were
responsible for man's behavior, wiped out theology as a subject of discourse
when he declared: "Man is the measure of all things."
Alexander Pope echoed Protagoras in the eighteenth century when he wrote
his Essay on Man in which he declared: "The proper study of mankind is man. 11
True enough, so long as the analyst sees in man a spiritual as well as a physi-
cal nature.
It was not until the eighteenth century, however, when this philosophy
emerged as the moving force of organized societies to divorce the nature of
man from his spiritual half and to concentrate solely on his physical self,
composed, chemists tell us, of 95 percent water. In the second third of the
eighteenth century, these "minds of peculiar structure, 11 as Washington
described them, conspired to overthrow the existing system of government
and to change the basic intellectual structure of society upon which those gov-
ernments rested. Their "creed" rejected the proposition that any form of
supernatural order exists. Their only cure for man's ills was to destroy the
very conception of God Himself, as well as any civilization based upon divine
revelation.
How concerned the men of the eighteenth century were with this creeping
cult of secular Humanism is reflected in a document recently extracted from
archives in Philadelphia and republished by Robert Donner of Colorado Springs. 1
Not only is the natural and divine law theory expressly stated here as the under-
lying intellectual foundation of America's political and judicial systems, but
the analysis of the "intellectual left" as early as 1800 makes it a suitable docu-
ment to demonstrate that secularist Humanism as a minority movement is not
exactly new upon the American scene. Some caution should be executed, however,
when reading Judge Addison on the participation of Masons in these developments.
The destruction of French Freemasonry was a result of the infiltration of revo-
lutionary elements into masonry, as Judge Addision laments. American masonry,
1
Alexander Addison, Rise and Progress of Revolution: A Charge to the Grand
Juries of the County Courts of the Fifth Circuit of the State of Pennsylvania, at
December Sessions, 1800, Philadelphia, 1801. (Robert Donner, 7 West Las Vegas
St., Colorado Springs, Colorado)
35
identified in the person of George Washington, was conscious of this penetra-
tion and successfully combated it. 2 Our Founding Fathers were aware of these
revolutionary developments in our early history and they brought them into the
open. This is in the tradition of free inquiry in a country of free men. This
atheist creed has grown over the years and decades and is today in full bloom
across the world. Generally the creed assumes the name of Humanism despite
the fact that the original Humanists, the Christian latinists of the Renaissance
Petrach, Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives, John Colet, St. Thomas More -- have as
little in common with these "peculiar minds, 11 as William F. Buckley, Jr. has
with Gus Hall.
HUMANISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Time magazine, August 17, 1962, gave the following account of the rising
Humanist movement in an article entitled "The Supreme Being: Man":
The Renaissance "Humanist" was a foe of medieval scholastic philosophy,
an admirer of the Greek and Latin classics. Now Humanist means a believer
in an ethical nonreligion, in which the Supreme Being is man, and prayer is
"a telephone conversation with no one at the other end. " To Humanists, God
is a bundling up of all life's mysteries in one package, just as a man with
bills at many stores might consolidate his debts with a bank loan so as to
owe only the bank. Humanists, reject both consolidations as equally delusive.
Contemporary Humanism is catching on. Last week, at the Third Congress
of the International Humanist and Ethical Union in Oslo, 400 sober-minded
Humanists were on hand, representing more than 300, 000 of their fellow
believers in 24 countries. Although West Germany subsidizes some Humanist
organizations, and The Netherlands allows them to have their own army
chaplains, Humanist societies are generally denied the recognition that
governments accord to religious groups. But what they lack in privilege,
the Humanists make up in prestige: the ranks of the American Humanist
Association are heavy with scientists and intellectuals, and the international
union boasts such influential leaders as British Biologist Julian Huxley and
two Nobel prizewinners, British Agriculturist Lord Boyd Orr and U.S. Genet-
icist Hermann Muller.
From Atheists to Agnostics. Chief purpose of the Oslo congress was a
discussion of long-range Humanist goals, and talk at the six-day session
centered on the problem of how to develop a mature (meaning nonreligious)
personality, and how Humanists could help preserve individual freedom in
2
Evidence of strong anticommunist sentiment in American Masonry today is
the effort of the Supreme Council, 33rd, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of
Freemasonry, (Southern Jurisdiction, United States of America, 1733 16th St.,
N. W. Washington 9, D. C.) to inform their brothers of the international menace.
See their "Communism Menaces Freedom" by Willard E. Givens and Belmont M.
Farley, and other pamphlets which can be used in schools to bolster American
understanding of the problem and gird up the American intellectual structure.
36
an overorganized world. The socially conscious delegates also thought
about goals closer to hand, passed a resolution approving the anti-hunger
work of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization as "a notable
example of Humanist action. 11 To abet the work of FAO, Humanists of the
world were urged to work for better birth-control campaigns at home, and
for the industrialization of underdeveloped nations.
Delegates ranged from dedicated atheists to questioning agnostics eager
to cooperate with well-meaning Christians in building the good society, and
they differed widely in their attitude toward religion. Norwegian Psychiatrist
Gabriel Langfeldt argued that individuals would, in the future development of
mankind, have to make a choice between religion and ethics: "Crediting
ethics to supernaturally inspired messages and to revelations has led and
still leads to brutal wars. Ethics, anchored as it is in purely human needs,
"
will always win where religion and ethics come into conflict.
"We Cannot Go Back, 11 Belgian Astronomer Karel Cuypers pointed out
that Humanism is the heir of organized religion, and warned the delegates
that totalitarian ideologies may take advantage of the decline of organized
religion to substitute themselves for God. "The loosening of the grip of
religion has created great danger both for religion itself and for Humanism."
Cuypers warned. "But we cannot go back. We cannot return to irration-
alism and to mysticism without denying ourselves."
Does Humanism's godless, man-centered faith offer much hope to the
world? So far, the world as a whole has its doubts, but Humanists are
convinced that their emphasis upon life here and now frees man to concen-
trate upon the improvement of the earth he occupies. Sums up Humanist
Langfeldt: "As man becomes more educated, mysticism and dogma dis-
appear and are replaced by rational thinking. We believe in the goodness
of men. If we can get rid of the political and religious pressures burdening
man today and encourage his honest, generousness and intelligence instead,
we can make a better world for all of us."
Another article in the Brooklyn Tablet, July 8, 1965, is indicative of the
movement's progress in Europe:
German Christians, almost evenly divided among Catholics and Prot-
estants, are being faced with a new force that is frankly dedicated to under-
mining Christian influence in public and private life.
The "third church"
as it is sometimes referred to, is the Humanist Union, an organization of
intellectual atheists. Most of the union's influence has sprouted up in the
past two years under the direction of Gerhard Szezesny, onetime culture
editor of Bavarian radio in Munich,
The Humanist Union differs from
other anti-clerical organizations. First, it is avowedly atheistic. Second,
it is not limited to a small esoteric circle of believers. The union is grow-
ing day by day, and it is finding most of its followers among intellectual
groups, college students, artists and professors.
37
The Humanist movement is important to analyze if we are to arrive at an
objective approach to the teaching of morality in our public schools, because
Humanism, a twentieth century synonym for atheism, is a religion according
to their own proclamations and according to law. For this important reason,
the role Humanism has in the California school system must be well compre-
hended if we are to evaluate "activity alien to our heritage and/or contrary to
public policy. 11
Probably one of the most complete statements ever made public about the
Humanist religion was published in The New Humanist, Vol. VI, No. 3, in
1933. It was called "A Humanist Manifesto" and is reproduced here in its
entirety:
A HUMANIST MANIFESTO
The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in
religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere
revision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change have disrupted
the old beliefs. Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming
to terms with new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and
experience. In every field of human activity, the vital movement is now in
the direction of a candid and explicit HUMANISM. In order that religious
Humanism may be better understood we, the undersigned, desire to make
certain affirmations which we believe the facts of our contemporary life
demonstrate.
There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of
the word RELIGION with doctrines and methods which have lost their sig-
nificance and which are powerless to solve the problems of human living in
the 20th Century. Religions have always been means for realizing the
highest values of life. Their end has been accomplished through the interpre-
tation of a total environing situation (theology or world view), the sense of
values resulting therefrom (goal or ideal), and the technique (cult), established
for realizing the satisfactory life. A change in any of these factors results
in alteration of the outward forms of religion. This fact explains the change-
fulness of religion thru the centuries. But thru all changes religion itself
remains constant in its quest for abiding values, an inseparable feature of
human life.
Today man's larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achieve-
ments, and his deeper appreciation of brotherhood have created a situation
which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. Such
a vital, fearless, and frank religion capable of furnishing adequate social
goals and personal satisfactions may appear to many people as a complete
break with the past. While this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional
religions, it is none the less obvious that any religion that can hope to be
a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs
of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present.
38
It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation. We therefore affirm
the following:
FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not
created.
SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has
emerged as the result of a continuous process.
THIRD: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional
dualism of mind and body must be rejected.
FOURTH: Humanism recognizes that man's religious culture and civiliza-
tion, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product
of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environ-
ment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular
culture is largely molded by that culture.
FIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by
modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees
of human values. Obviously humanism does not deny the possibility of
realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine
the existence and value of any realities is by means of intelligent inquiry
and by the assessment of their relation to human needs. Religion must
formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.
SIXTH: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism,
modernism, and the several varieties of "new thought".
SEVENTH: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences
which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious.
It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation
all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living.
The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be
maintained.
EIGHTH: Religious humanism considers the complete realization of human
personality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development and ful-
fillment in the here and now. This is the explanation of the humanist's
social passion.
NINTH: In place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the
humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense
of personal life in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.
TENTH: It follows that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and
attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural.
ELEVENTH: Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his
knowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly
attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom. We
assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene and
discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking.
TWELFTH: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living,
religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man and to encourage
achievements that add to the satisfactions of life.
THIRTEENTH: Religious humanism maintains that all associations and
institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evalua-
tion, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and
institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose
and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions, their
39
ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must
be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function
effectively in the modern world.
FOURTEENTH: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisi-
tive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and
that a radical change in methods, controls and motives must be instituted.
A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the
end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The
goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people volun-
tarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists
demand a shared life in a shared world.
FIFTEENTH: We assert that humanism will: (a) affirm life rather than
deny it; (b) seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee from it; and
(c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all,
not merely for the few. By this positive morale and intention humanism
will be guided, and from this perspective and alignment the technique
and efforts of humanism will flow.
So stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the
religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for
the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming
aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his
dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must
set intelligence and will to the task.
Signers:
J. A. C. Fagginger Auer
- Parkman Prof. of Church History and Theology,
Harvard University; Prof. of Church History,
Tufts College.
E. Burdette Backus
- Unitarian Minister.
Harry Elmer Barnes
- Gen. Editorial Dept., Scripps-Howard News-
papers.
L. M. Birkhead
- The Liberal Center, Kansas City, Mo.
Raymond B. Bragg
- Secretary Western Unitarian Conference.
Edwin Arthur Burtt
- Prof. of Philosophy, Sage School of Philosophy,
Cornell University.
Ernest Caldecott
- Minister, First Unitarian Church, Los Angeles.
A. J. Carlson
- Prof. of Physiology, Univ. of Chicago.
John Dewey
- Columbia University
Albert Dieffenbach
- Former Editor Christian Register
John H. Dietrich
- Minister, First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis.
Bernard Fantus
- Prof. of Therapeutics, College of Medicine,
Univ. of Illinois.
William Floyd
- Editor of The Arbitrator, New York, N.Y.
F. M. Hankins
- Prof. of Economics and Sociology, Smith College.
A. Eustace Hayden
- Prof. of History and Religions, Univ. of Chicago.
Llewellyn Jones
- Literary critic and author
Robert Morse Lovett
- Literary critic and author; Editor New Republic;
Prof. English, Univ. of Chicago.
Harold P. Marley
- Minister, The Fellowship of Liberal Religion,
Ann Arbor, Mich.
40
R. Lester Mendale
- Minister, Unitarian Church, Evanston, Ill.
Charles Francis Potter
- Leader and Founder the First Humanist
Society of New York, Inc.
John Herman Randall, Jr.
- Dept. of Philosophy, Columbia University.
Curtis W. Reese
- Dean Abraham Lincoln Center, Chicago.
Oliver L. Reiser
- Associate Prof. of Philosophy, Univ. of
Pittsburgh.
Roy Wood Selaars
- Prof. of Philosophy, Univ. of Michigan.
Clinton Lee Scott
- Minister, Universalist Church, Peoria, Ill.
Maynard Shipley
- Pres. The Science League of America
W. Frank Swift
- Director, Boston Ethical Society
V. T. Thayer
- Educational Director, Ethical Culture Schools.
Eldred C. Vanderlaan
- Leader of the Free Fellowship, Berkeley,
Calif.
Joseph Walker
- Attorney, Boston, Mass.
Jacob J. Weinsten
- Rabbi, Advisor of Jewish Students, Columbia
University
Frank S. C. Wicks
- All Soul's Unitarian Church, Indianapolis, Ind.
David Rhy Williams
- Minister, Unitarian Church, Rochester, N. Y.
Edwin H. Wilson
- Managing Editor, The New Humanist, Chicago;
Minister, Third Unitarian Church, Chicago, Ill.
The New Humanist ceased publication in October, 1936, and was succeeded
by the Humanist Bulletin, which also became defunct within a few years.
3
THE CONTEMPORARY HUMANISTS
Thus, it is evident that what was said about adherents of Humanism in
Europe is also true about America. Subscribers to that now defunct journal,
The New Humanist, indicated a membership almost wholly intellectual or
literary, or church affiliated. An ingredient has been added to the revival of
Humanism in the 1960s as the Time magazine article indicated. Scientists,
especially biologists and psychologists, and their allied disciplinarians, such
as sociologists and anthropologists, have joined together in recent years to
create the American Humanist Association. Their publication, The Humanist,
begun in 1963, features well-known intellectuals who are also frequent campus
guest lecturers -- Erich Fromm, Julian Huxley, Harry Elmer Barnes, and
Lester Kirkendall. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell, whose books are
widely used in U.S. colleges, recently was featured by a letter to the editor
of the Humanist refuting speculation that he, Russell, was about to convert to
some religion before he died. Retorted Russell to the rumor: 'How often
must I deny that I have become religious? There is no basis whatsoever for
these rumors. My views of religion remain those that I acquired at the age
of 16. I consider all forms of religion not only false, but harmful. My pub-
lished works record my views. 114
3
Californians will have a hard time finding copies, since our research
revealed that only libraries on the East Coast still retain copies of The New
Humanist.
4
The Humanist, September/October 1968, p. 24.
41
The ideas of the "Humanist Manifesto" of 1933 are incorporated in brief
on the inside cover of each issue of the present Humanist magazine as follows:
Humanism is way of life which relies on human capacities and natural
and social resources. Humanists see man as a product of this world of
evolution and human history and acknowledge no cosmic mind or super-
natural purpose or forces. Humanism expresses an attitude or conviction
which requires the acceptance of responsibility for human life in this world,
emphasizing mutual respect and recognizing human interdependence.
The American Humanist Association was incorporated as an educational
membership organization in 1941 to represent the views of humanists in
the United States and Canada. It is a founding member of the International
Humanist Ethical Union. 5
In the "Credo of a Humanist written by a U.S. Air Force Captain, Dale E.
Noyd, who is seeking conscientious objector status because of his Humanist
religion, we learn who some of the prophets of the new religion are:
The basis of my faith, beliefs, and values is humanism; this essentially
means respect and love for man, faith in his inherent goodness and perfecta-
bility, and confidence in his capability to ameliorate some of the banes of
the human condition. Included in my faith is the belief that, apart from the
issue of the existence or non-existence of a supernatural being, the pre-
occupation with such an object-being has been functionless and diversionary;
that it has reflected principally the lack of imagination and courage of man;
that it has been inimical to man defining his highest ideals; and that it has
been pernicious to the individual integrity and moral purpose necessary to
achieve those ideals. I have faith in man, and concommitantly, what may
be called ultimate concern for man. My beliefs concern the value, dignity,
and particularly the growth of man -- ideas found in disparate sources.
They may be found in what has been termed "earthly salvation' by certain
Christian sects, "personal integration or self-actualization" by Rationalists,
"being" by existentialists, "neogenesis" by Teilhard, "the courage to be"
by Tillich, and "affirmation and rebellion 11 by Camus. Humanism is eclectic
but at the same time simple and singular: and whether it be labeled a reli-
gion, movement, philosophy, or creed, it is the sustaining and directing
force in my life.
It is, of course, impossible for me to state the entire content of my
humanist faith in a paragraph, but the communalities that exist among the
writings of men such as Camus, Tillich, Huxley, Fromm, Potter, Russell,
Pike, Lippmann, Cummings, Buber, and Teilhard offer an indicant of this
credo. 6
5
The Humanist, July/August 1967.
6
Humanist, July/August, 1967, p. 130.
42
Moreover, there are two U.S. Supreme Court decisions cited by the
Humanist magazine which gives legal sanction to the claim that Humanism
is a religion. One is the Torcaso case, 1961, and the other the Seeger case,
1964. 7 In The Fellowship of Humanists V. the County of Alameda, (153 C. A. L.,
A. P.P. 2nd 673) September 17, 1957, a California court agreed that the
fellowship was a church in the sense that their facilities were used as a church
and therefore tax exempt. The Humanist won its claim by arguing that "the
state has no power to decide the validity of the beliefs held by a humanist group.
The court agreed that religion fills a void that exists in the lives of most men'
and accepted the arguments of the defendants, the Humanists:
(13) Id. Exemptions - - Property Used for Religious Worship. - The proper
interpretation of "religion" or "religious" in tax exemption laws should
not include any reference to whether the beliefs involved are theistic or
nontheistic; religion simply includes (1) a belief, not necessarily referring
to supernatural powers; (2) a cult involving a gregarious association openly
expressing the belief; (3) a system of moral practice directly resulting from
adherence to the belief; and (4) an organization within the cult designed to
observe the tenets of the belief.
HUMANISM AND PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION
If we keep in mind the yardstick for measuring American traditions and
heritage as defined in chapters III and IV, we will be better able to grasp the
subtle and challenging nature of dealing with secular Humanism in the public
schools:
Humanism is, by definition, a religion.
Humanists meet in places which have the legal status of "churches."
Humanists claim pacificism as a religious tenent, and it has been
conceded to them by the courts of our nation,
More important, since the Humanist religion is solely materialistic, the
goals of the Humanists are also solely materialistic. This means that "the
things of this world' dominate all aspects of the Humanist personality.
This purely secularist philosophy of life, entrenched in high places, has
created an intellectual confrontation within the educational system which must
be recognized, especially as it touches on the issue of morality in school
curriculum and on the question of sectarianism in the schools.
The one name that stands out in the signatures of the "Humanist Manifesto'
is that of John Dewey, known commonly as the high priest of "progressive
education. 11 Many writers have, over the years, critically examined the
7 Ibid., p. 115.
43
"philosophy" of John Dewey and concluded that it is incompatible with the
American Tradition. But few have openly asserted that Dewey's disciples
are teaching a religion in the public schools of our nation, Says Albert Lynd:
Many of Dewey's educational disciples may be copy or confused,
but the master himself is clear enough in his writings about the implica-
tions of his philosophy. It excludes God, the soul, and all the props of
traditional religion. It excludes the possibility of immutable truth, of
fixed natural law, of permanent moral principles. It includes an attitude
toward social reform which is anti-Communist, but unmistakably
socialist. 8
In the Turning of the Tides, 9 Congressman Paul Shafer and John H. Snow
pointed out how progressive education had penetrated nearly every discipline
of the public school system through the national professional organizations.
In 1950 William Buckley, Jr., hammered at the theme in his Man and God
at Yale:
The teachings of John Dewey and his predecessors have borne fruit.
And there is surely not a department at Yale that is uncontaminated with
the absolute that there are no absolutes, no intrinsic rights, no ultimate
truths. The acceptance of these notions, which emerge in courses in
history and economics, in sociology and political science, is psychology
and literature, makes impossible any intelligible conception of an omnipotent,
purposeful, and benign Supreme Being who has laid down immutable laws,
endowed his creatures with inalienable rights, and posited unchangeable
rules of human conduct. 10
HUMANISM AND "SEX EDUCATION"
How has the rejection of the American premise that we are a people
"grateful to Almighty God for our Freedom" affected the curriculum of the
public schools?
Put another way, has the religion of Humanism penetrated the curriculum
of the schools without being classified as a religion, and therefore subject
to the limitations of all religions; that is, that it should be identified and
studied as a religion?
The controversy over "sex education" in California's public schools has
been shown to be closely associated with the recent affirmation of a "new
morality. " Both of these movements are in turn connected with the "sex
revolution, 11 which has been a planned program of indoctrination underway on
8
Augustin G. Rudd, Bending the Twig, American Book-Stratford Press, Inc.,
New York, 1957, p. 135.
9
Paul W. Shafer and John Howland Snow, The Turning of the Tides. New
Canaan, Conn.: Long House, Inc., 1956.
10
Rudd, op. cit., p. 167.
44
many college campuses for many years. Any cursory examination will
reveal all three movements to be connected with leading personalities in
Humanist or allied organizations of one type or another. 11 Often the sex
education programs for the K-12 years follow upon the heels of these well-
planned "sex revolution" programs, such as that conducted in Sacramento
the week of February 26 through March 1, 1968, and sponsored by the
colleges of the community. Entitled "The Sexual Revolution, 1968, the
program featured a number of well-established "sexologists": Ira Reiss;
James E. Elias, an associate of Alfred C. Kinsey; a newcomer, but very
popular, Anson Mount, Public Affairs Manager of Playboy magazine; plus
the granddaddy of all sexologists, Albert Ellis, a man who has devoted his
life and fortune to "urge young Americans to perpetrate almost any sexual
act their cunning little minds can devise. "12
A member of the staff of the State Department of Education and two legis-
lators attended one of Mr. Mount's lectures at American River College on
February 27, 1968, and reported the following to the Superintendent of
Public Instruction:
Throughout his address Anson Mount referred to "situation ethics,"
that right and wrong in the old sense is dead. Medicine and modern
science have made sex relatively safe. 11 That premarital sex is dangerous
is old hat, and guilt feelings about "illicit sex" are ridiculous.
The new measure for right and wrong is whether "it affects the human
happiness of others. Intercourse OK among students if it doesn't violate
their own moral standards. It is immoral only when it interferes with
human welfare or happiness. " The only evil in life is a lack of love for
fellow man. Nothing is wrong except as it affects people. "The older
generation is unqualified to judge" since they have actually rejected
Christian morality and are "sick, inhuman, unchristian, boobs and
babbits. 11 The New Morality is a rebellion against this phoney parental
authority.
Mount discusses "morality" of business, of war, of greed, etc., and
claims adults are shocked at "one little 'dirty' deed of a boy and a girl
out in the woods. 11
His address is colored with the words Humanistic and Secular, which
holds that "The Highest Good is Human Welfare and Happiness. The
11
See the publication "Sex/Family Life Education and Sensitivity Training--
Indoctrination or Education presented to the California State Board of Educa-
tion, February, 1969, by the Citizens for Parental Rights, P.O. Box 241,
San Mateo, California 94401. This document has become part of an overall
Report of the State Department of Education as a result of the series of reports
and hearings conducted by the State Board between January and April, 1969.
12
Robert A. Liston, "Biographical Sketch of Albert Ellis, 11 The Man's
Magazine, (March 1966).
45
religions of your parents are fossilized
better to join the Peace Corps,
or the "Southern Christian Leadership Conference"
Mount's heroes are Bishop James Pike and the English Bishop, Robinson,
lately of the English Anglican Church. He mentioned the Hippie retreat at
Esalon at Big Sur and confirmed at the end of his speech that "OUR RELIGION
IS OUR LOVE AFFAIR WITH LIFE. 11
If one calculates that such teams of "sexperts" are storming the ivy walls
of college campuses across the country preaching this "religion," there is
little wonder demands are now made to prepare adolescents for the environ-
ment into which they will step upon graduation from high school.
One of the apostles of Humanism and of sex education who joins the secondary
level and higher education with the various noneducational organizations is
Lester Kirkendall, formerly of Oregon State University. Dr. Kirkendall is
now devoting full time to preparing teachers how to teach "sex education' K-12.
The fact that Dr. Kirkendall is an officer of the American Humanist Associa-
tion and of the Sex Information Educational Council of the U.S. (SIECUS) as
well as an editor of the Humanist makes his work particularly important for
us to analyze. The following orientation for discussing the sticky questions
about right and wrong are from a position paper he issued to teachers at a
training session in southern California. The paper is entitled "A Morality
for Twentieth Century Living.'
The moral code must concentrate upon what behavior, attitudes and
experiences will do to actualize man's sociality, rather than upon maintain-
ing prescribed or proscribed patterns of behavior. The practice of consider-
ing moral standards wholly in terms of acts which are acceptable or which
are to be renounced has become completely impractical as a result of the
cultural intermingling which is now occurring and growing rapidly. This
factor in particular emphasizes the need to undercut various differences as
they are reflected in overt acts, and find a common ground which will
enable us to interpret all behavior in its context.
It is these considerations which have crystallized for me the idea that
morally our first concern should be for the development of effective inter-
personal relationships. It was this which led me to write:
Whenever a decision or a choice is to be made concerning behavior,
the moral decision will be the one which works towards the creation of
trust, confidence, and integrity in relationships. It should increase the
capacity of individuals to cooperate, and enhance the sense of self-
respect in the individual. Acts which create distrust, suspicion, and
misunderstanding, which build barriers and destroy integrity, are
immoral. They decrease the individuals sense of self-respect, and
rather than producing a capacity to work together they separate people
and break down the capacity for communication.
This concept may be set up in chart forin.
46
BASIS FOR MORAL JUDGEMENTS
Those actions, decisions and attitudes are
Right
Wrong
1. increased capacity to trust people
1. increased distrust of people
2. greater integrity in relationship
2. deceit and duplicity in relationships
3. dissolution of barriers separating
3. barriers between persons and groups
people
4. cooperative attitudes
4. resistant, uncooperative attitudes
5. feelings of faith and confidence in
5. exploitive behavior toward others
people
6. enhanced self-respect
6. diminished self-respect
7. fulfillment on individual potentialities 7. thwarted and dwarfed individual
and a zest for living
capacities and disillusionment
13
An examination of several guides from various school districts indicate that
this foundation for "moral" behavior has been adopted by some school districts. 14
To put it another way, the Humanist religion is being used as the basis for
moral judgments, whether it be in sex education or those sessions called
"interpersonal relationships. "
For example, Ashley Montague, a self-described "social biologist" who has
been promoting "the sex revolution for some decades, reflects this amoral
religion in "The Pill, The Sexual Revolution, and the Schools' when he wrote:
Young unmarried individuals who are sufficiently responsible will be
able, in the new dispensation [sic], to enter into responsible sexual rela-
tionships in a perfectly healthy and morally acceptable and reciprocally
beneficial manner which will help the participants to become more fully
developed human beings than they would otherwise have stood a chance of
becoming. The dead hand of ugly traditional beliefs (such as the nastiness
and sinfulness of sex, the wickedness of premarital sex), which has been
responsible for untold human tragedies, will be replaced by a new flowering
of human love.
15
13
Obtained at the Charter House inservice training session, Anaheim,
California.
14
Review Committee, Supplementary Evaluation of Curriculum Guides on
Family Life and Sex Education and an Overview of the Guides, State Depart-
ment of Education, Sacramento, March 5, 1969.
15
To balance this kind of "morality" one could reach into history's great
storehouses and select many works on moral theology to propose as an antidote.
We think The Handbook of the Militant Christian, by the Christian Humanist
Desiderus Erasmus would be a real challenge to this generation.
47
What is important for educators to remember is that such indoctrination
is not labeled as "religious instruction. 11 If Dr. Kirkendall's seven command-
ments of Humanism were placed alongside the Ten Commandments, "right
and wrong" could be more properly analyzed. In other words, Humanism,
as a religious approach to life, must be identified as such, studied as such,
and taught as one of many creeds which form the fabric of our American
civilization. To teach Humanism's "moral code" any other way is tantamount
to indoctrination in a religion and contrary to public policy according to
Education Code Section 8453.
The State Board of Education accumulated huge quantities of materials
about SIECUS and its adherents during its lengthy investigation of sex educa-
tion in California's schools. The investigation was completed on April 10,
1969, after which the Board adopted the following resolution:
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The California Constitution prescribes "moral improvement"
as one of the principal purposes of the public schools;
WHEREAS, The traditional institutional sources of family and sexual
information and guidance for young people are often inadequate and absent;
WHEREAS, The local public schools as one social institution accessible
to all young people reflect broad community support and with sufficient
intellectual and material resources, can aid substantially in the development
of sound and individual codes of family life and sexual behavior;
WHEREAS, Too much misinformation is being learned by our children
who receive no formal instruction in Family Life and Sex Education, and
many are truly damaged emotionally and psychologically; now, therefore
be it
RESOLVED: That a Family Life and Health Education program be
included as a necessary part of our over-all educational system (grades
K-12) in order to aid in the carrying out of the full intent of the Constitution;
and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the local school district maintain the
local control over materials and methods needed in achieving this program in
its proper perspective and fulfillment for the needs of the community by
utilizing guidelines as recommended by the State Board of Education.
1. The primary responsibility for sex education is that of the home.
However, the school, along with the church, has a secondary role in support-
ing and supplementing the home's responsibility.
2. That instruction concerning sex education programs be conducted by
a team of qualified instructors, including professionals who have shown an
aptitude for working with young people and who have received special
48
training; and utilizing physicians as recommended by local medical societies
as consultants, advisors, and resource persons in the development and
guidance of such curriculum.
3. All materials to be used to be studied by a citizens committee with
avoidance of materials not approved. Suggest members of committee
include:
a. medical doctors approved by local medical society and/or public
health department
b. registered nurse (school nurse)
C. representatives of administration of school districts
d. representatives of PTA and/or other responsible parent groups
e. representative of clergy (all major faiths)
f. representatives of police department -- - especially juvenile
probation officers
g. other concerned members of the community
4. Programs dealing with sex education should be voluntary and not be
mandatory.
5. Harmful effects of premarital sex, etc. and a code of morals be
emphasized with no derogatory instruction relative to religious beliefs
and ethics, and to parents' beliefs and teachings. Emphasize family unit -
and especially moral values.
6. Earliest instruction relative to human reproduction not to be intro-
duced prior to age of 9.
7. Acquaintance and instruction of parents with materials (not just an
outline) to be utilized in home and in the classroom with re-evaluation of
objectionable materials.
8. Evaluation of sex education, as well as in-service training of per-
sonnel involved, should be a continuing process.
9. Successful programs such as that in San Diego could well be used as
guidelines for other districts.
10. Elimination of SIECUS materials from California schools.
These Guidelines for Moral Instruction are thus to be considered an integral
part of the Family Life and Sex Education program suggested for use in California
schools. Moreover, SIECUS is to be eliminated as a source of materials for
those schools which choose to teach sex education. But how then does the cur-
riculum specialist select materials? What about such nonconnected Humanists
as Margaret Mead, who has taught a couple of generations of American teachers?
49
In her most famous book, The Coming of Age in Samoa, first published in
1928, Miss Mead described the lives of 50 Samoan girls whom she observed
in childhood over a period of nine months. Forty years later she revisited
the island and reestablished contacts. She apparently believes as firmly
today as she did 40 years ago that "moral relativism is the only solution to
the human problem. In her last chapter, "Education for Choice," she
reduces the formula to this:
The home must cease to plead an ethical cause or a religious belief
with smiles or frowns, caresses or threats. The children must be
taught how to think, not what to think. And because old errors die slowly,
they must be taught tolerance, just as today they are taught intolerance.
They must be taught that many ways are open to them, no one sanctioned
above its alternative, and that upon them and upon them alone lies the
burden of choice. Unhampered by prejudices, unvexed by too early con-
ditioning to any one standard, they must come clear-eyed to the choices
which lie before them. 16
Moreover, after having promoted the "open ended" society for so many
decades, Miss Mead brings us up-to-date in "The Generation Gap" by lamenting:
now, nowhere in the whole world are there any elders who know what
the children know, no matter how remote and simple the societies in which
the children live. In the past there were always some elders who knew
more in terms of experience, of having grown up within a system than
any children. Today there are none. It is not only that parents are no
longer a guide, but that there are no guides, in the older sense of the term,
whether one seeks them in one's own country, or in China, or in India. 17
Again, she says, "We have to realize that no other generation will ever expe-
rience what we have experienced. In this sense we have no descendants. At
this breaking point between two radically different and closely related groups,
both are inevitably very lonely, as we face each other knowing that they will
never experience what we have experienced and that we can never experience
what they have experienced. 11
It is hard to say how representative Miss Mead's ideas are in her profession
or whether the vibrant American people grasp what she is saying. The similari-
ties between her views and those of Anson Mount and Dr. Kirkendall cannot be
lost to the critic. The crisis of our time is that these people have not bothered
to examine the guides which history and experience offer to us. Their rejection
of our traditions begs the questions: Can a child in a school system dedicated
by law to the affirmation of a religious and moral heritage be taught to question
16
Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Morrow, William and
Co., 1961, p. 246.
17
Science, April 11, 1969, Volume 164, No. 3876.
50
the substance of that heritage? Can children be taught to judge "right or
wrong" as the unsteady product of their individual consciences?
Is this not in violation of Education Code Section 13556. 5 (formerly
Section 7851)? Is it not also in violation of more recent legislation designed
to protect the child's (and parent's) morality from attack by secular Humanists?
It was the consensus of the State Board of Education that morality, the
morality of America's religious heritage, be part and parcel of whatever
family life and sex education is inaugurated in California's schools. There
are books which approach the issue from this viewpoint, and they are the
books that properly fit the suggestions of the State Board of Education,
HUMANISM AND THE BEHAVIORISTS
Another area of public school endeavor which should be examined according
to our traditionalist yardstick and put in proper perspective is the tendency to
look upon the schools as a kind of psychiatric or mental health center. To the
behaviorists, education is no longer the mastering of a specific discipline;
their goal is to achieve "adjustment" of the individual to the group. "Group
consensus, 11 "self analysis, and "interpersonal relationships" are terms
commonly used by this school. The most widespread term today is "sensi-
tivity training.'
The drive to introduce these "counseling" techniques into the schools was
launched with great zeal at the end of World War II when the first president
of the newly organized World Health Organization (a part of the United Nations),
R. Brock Chisholm, participated in a symposium on "The Psychiatry of
Enduring Peace and Social Progress. "18 The goals of the UN and of the WHO,
observed the speakers at this symposium, were to abolish war and to redistribute
the world's economic wealth through world government. The way to do this is
to win the minds of the people of the world to think as world citizens, that is,
to embrace Humanism.
There was one major "hangup," however, which impeded this development,
according to Dr. Chisholm. Mankind through the centuries, he said, has been
obsessed by the concept of "sin" and of morality:
We have been very slow to rediscover this truth and to recognize the
unnecessary and artificially imposed inferiority, guilt and fear, commonly
known as sin, under which we have almost all labored and which produces
so much of the social maladjustment and unhappiness in the world. For
many generations we have bowed our necks to the yoke of conviction of sin.
18
The complete text of this speech can be found in Psychiatry (February,
1946). A review of its meaning for our generation can be found in Triumph,
(October, 1968), 11-14.
51
The objective, therefore, should be to eradicate this awful mental distor-
tion for all mankind. And only psychiatrists know how to do this. Whatever
hampers or distorts man's thinking ability works against him and even "tends
to destroy him. " And this is why, proclaimed Dr. Chisholm, that "an effective
psychotherapy' had to be prepared for an all-out attack against the concept of
right and wrong. His goal was to change the human psyche, man's basic person-
ality, through psychotherapy.
If this means ripping the child away from the values and traditions of his
parents, then so be it. A mature person, says Dr. Chisholm, has the quali-
ties of adaptability and compromise, and he chastises those parents who bring
up their children to be absolutely loyal and obedient to the local concept of
virtue whatever that happened to be
It almost always happened that among
all the people in the world only our own parents and perhaps a few people they
selected, were right about everything. We could refuse to accept their rightness
only at the price of a load of guilt and fear, and peril to our immortal souls.
This training has been practically universal in the human race; variations in
content have had almost no importance. The fruit is poisonous no matter how
it is prepared or disguised."
The behaviorists solution is, as follows, according to Dr. Chisholm:
The re-interpretation and eventually eradication of the concept of right
and wrong which has been the basis of child training, the substitution of
intelligent and rational thinking for faith in the certainties of the old people,
these are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy.
Would they not be legitimate objectives of original education? Would it not
be sensible to stop imposing our local prejudices.and faiths on children and
give them all sides of every question SO that in their own good time they
may have the ability to size things up, and make their own decisions.
"If the race is to be freed from its crippling burden of good and evil, " adds
Dr. Chisholm, "it must be psychiatrists who take the original responsibility, 11
because "freedom from moralities means freedom to observe, to think and
behave sensibly, to the advantage of the person and of the group, free from
outmoded types of loyalties and from the magic fears of our ancestors."
It can be seen that the vocabulary of Dr. Chisholm, of Margaret Mead, of
Mary Calderone, of Lester Kirkendall has a good deal in common, and it
pervades the world of American education and psychology. There is much
evidence that teachers are being trained in this school and are destined to
become, not disseminators of knowledge, but directors of a child's behavior
development. Dr. Chisholm called for collective action around the
Humanist philosophy. His design was to organize the young parents, teachers,
parent teacher associations, service groups, and so forth around the Humanist
goal of world government through the abolition of national cultures and their
value systems. The means is through group therapy. Recent revelations
about the successes of "sensitivity training' in the colleges, and now in the
high schools, suggest that those dedicated to this goal, however well-meaning
they may be, are in fact aligned with revolutionary groups acting contrary to
public policy; that is, they intend to use the schools to destroy American culture
and traditions.
52
The technique of sensitivity training on the campus at the University of
California at Berkeley was brought to public attention during the 1968 hearings
on sensitivity training held in the State Capitol, Sacramento. 19
One of the witnesses speaking at the hearing was Hardin Jones, Professor
of Medical Physics and Assistant Director of the Donner Laboratory at the
University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Jones' testimony shocked a good
many listeners and is so crucial to an understanding of the forces dedicated
to the destruction of American institutions that we include it here in its
entirety.
Sensitivity Training is being promoted on a massive scale in the United
States. Some of this promotion already involves educational institutions.
A recent national meeting of representatives of college fraternal organiza-
tions had a whole session devoted to these techniques. A training convention
for this purpose was just held in San Francisco (American Association for
Humanistic Psychology, Sixth Annual Meeting, Fairmont Hotel, August, '68).
Various institutions, including the administrative offices of the Davis campus
of the University of California, have held instruction for the staff in these
methods.
The training consists of creating physical awareness of other people.
This awareness is highly related to such physical contacts as between
mother and infant and sexual feelings between persons. The idea is to
become aware of the other person through touch and other forms of direct
contact. The impact of the "training" is enhanced by removal of clothing
SO as to expose the skin to view and to contact and, as the training advances,
this step in awareness can be reached in most people. The techniques of
contact are dramatically effective in awakening alert attention to the presence
of another person through animal feeling.
Sensitivity training is a powerful form of Pavlovian conditioning by which
sexual-emotional types of response can be substituted for intellectual con-
sideration of any proposition common to the group, developing a surge of
animalistic mob-response. At U. C., Davis, sensitivity training appears to
be the motive for the disrobing to complete nudity which took place in mixed
classes. It is not unusual to have the participants of sensitivity training
sessions go on to consummation of sexual contacts, as was observed and
reported about the nude parties held under the Left's umbrella at Berkeley.
This conditioning through emotional, animalistic responses has been
developed by the Communoid forces, who apply these techniques to control
of group behavior. It has also been adapted, in milder forms, by some
religious groups as a means to intensify group dedication. On a massive
reaction basis, its equivalent has always occurred spontaneously in countries
in the first stages of warfare, when mutuality, comradeship, and sexuality
19
A Hearing on Mandatory Sensitivity Training for Public Employees,
State Capitol, Room 2117, September 10, 1968.
53
reach much more intensive levels than during peacetime. Sensitivity
training is, in fact, a recently publicized variation of Group Dynamics,
which is a systematized assembly of psychological techniques applied
for the purpose of directing and influencing group action without recourse
to intellectual persuasion.
Many of those interested in group dynamics and sensitivity training are
bent upon applying these emotional responses to increase a feeling of
brotherly love with regard to international brotherly love in the antiwar
movement and to generate a similar feeling of admiration between the
whites and the blacks. The rise of Black Power and black racism has
tended to interrupt the "love movement" between black and white. This
and a beginning of awakening of the white liberals to the need for progress
through rational process have now diminished this trend markedly, but
it was quite evident in 1964, '65, and '66. Those who are pushing for such
shortcuts to interpersonal feelings through passion disregard the importance
of intellectual understanding as a means to create stable human relations.
Apparently, too, they do not understand that the animalistic mass reaction
can change direction rapidly, since it lacks intellectual and moral stability.
The youth movements of the 1930s in Germany are a terrifying example
to recall. These began with the "sensitivity" -awakening indoctrination of
the young by radical socialists and Communists for political purposes.
The animalistic mob-culture was rapidly taken over by Hitler and became
the Hitler Junge (Youth) who, as a political army, were unthinking, obedient,
and conditioned to give prompt reflex responses such as Pavlov studied.
Hitler actually organized massive sexual contacts as well as mass meetings
for the Junge; these social activities were nothing more than intensively
applied "sensitivity training. 11 He sought to disguise these affairs by declaring
them to be necessary to increase the numbers of Nordic peoples.
To the extent we begin to be influenced by animalistic tendencies and mob
psychology, we certainly lose the structure of a society based on solving its
problems rationally. There is danger that the rational aspects of democracy
may be lost completely due to the magnitude of the concerted effort from
radical politicians in the ranks of our educators and clergymen, pushing
society witlessly in the direction of substitution of emotion for moral prin-
ciples and intellectual judgment. The extent of the danger yet to become
evident can be judged from a few examples (see appendix) of the extent of
social subversion from radical elements.
The possibility of the use of applied mass psychology to condition political
behavior stemmed from the discovery of the conditioned reflex by the distin-
guished Russian physiologist, Pavlov. He had an important influence on all
of Russian biological and social science. American scientists have tended to
neglect this area of study, and American politicians have made comparatively
little use of its capabilities because, until now, the politics of the country
were very stable. The leaders of world Communism have relied heavily on
the social methodology developed from Pavlov's principle of conditioning. It
is a way that satisfaction of animalistic human needs, such as food, affection,
discipline, and sexual activities, can be controlled so as to condition a person
54
to actions and beliefs without intellectual evaluation. The possibility of
massive application of biology and psychology to change and regulate human
life was described in vivid science-fiction accounts by the English scientist
J.B.S. Haldane in the novel, Daedalus, by Aldous Huxley in the novel,
Brave New World, and by George Orwell in the novel, 1984. These authors
have been heroes to the radical Left, and it is obvious that some of these
principles are being applied by Leftist forces, almost on schedule with
the timetable of the nightmarish novel, 1984. It also appears that Americans
are inordinately susceptible to such conditioning and that our social institu-
tions have added to the problem of spreading the social subversion rather
than being anchor positions of sanity and leadership to keep the moral fiber
vital.
In part, the severity of the problems having to do with social subversion
through the educational establishments was clearly set down by Richard
Weaver, who foresaw the nature of the difficulties as a cultural clash between
American and Western European culture on the one hand and the culture of
some East European-Asians whom he identifies as the "gnostics of education. 11
Weaver states that they have radical social goals and have come to reside in
considerable numbers in our educational institutions. The following excerpts
are from Weaver, Visions of Order:
It is not too much to say that in the past fifty years public education
in the United States has been in the hands of revolutionaries. To grasp
the nature of their attempted revolution, we need only realize that in
the past every educational system has reflected to a great extent the
social and political constitution of the society which supported it. This
was assumed to be a natural and proper thing, since the young were to
be trained to take places in the world that existed around them. They
were "indoctrinated" with this world because its laws and relations
were those by which they were expected to order their lives. In the
period just mentioned, however, we have witnessed something never
before seen in the form of a systematic attempt to undermine a society's
traditions and beliefs through the educational establishment which is
usually employed to maintain them. There has been an extraordinary
occurrence, a virtual educational coup d'etat carried out by a specially
inclined minority. This minority has been in essence a cabal, with
objectives radically different from those of the state which employed
them. An amazing feature of the situation has been how little they have
cared to conceal these objectives. On more than one occasion they have
issued a virtual call to arms to use publicly created facilities for the
purpose of actualizing a concept of society not espoused by the people.
The result has been an educational system not only intrinsically bad but
increasingly at war with the aims of the community which authorizes it,
as we are now forced to recognize.
This subversion has gone SO far that gnostics of education until very
recently [until the threat of nuclear warfare]constituted the greatest
single threat to our culture. In the discredit that they have cast upon
the higher faculties, in the way they have cut the young off from knowledge
55
of the excellencies achieved in the past, and in the way they have turned
attention toward transient externals and away from the central problem
of man, they have no equal as an agency of subversion. Their schemes
are exactly fitted, if indeed they are not designed, to produce citizens
for the secular communist state, which is the millenial dream of the
modern gnostic. To put an end to this adventure into fantasy and to
prevent the cruel awakening which would follow, we should do all we can,
educationally and politically, to hasten the decline of their influence.
The antidote to this kind of education, of course, is to return to the basic
purposes of public education: the teaching of skills and the cultivation of love
and respect for our heritage and traditions. The opposite point of view of
Dr. Chisholm and his many friends in the behaviorist world is that posed by
Russell Kirk in an essay entitled "Prescription, Authority and Ordered
Freedom. "20 It says in a few pages what must be said about the American
experiment and reflects a point of view of millions, of Americans were they
able to articulate it as well.
A grotesque example of the technique to identify "sick" people was related
by Martha White Washington in the April, 1969, issue of Triumph magazine.
She tells how the New York City Mental Health Center made a survey of
175, 000 souls and "found that 81. 5 percent of the neighborhood inhabitants
were mentally ill. 11 But, says Mrs. Washington, the article did not reveal
that the neighborhood survey was predominately, a black community, precinct
19 on the upper eastside of New York City. "In the light of that knowledge,
it becomes clearer what may be crazy about those people: they are black,
and they act differently than 'normal' people that is, the white political
psychiatrists."
Some other interesting facts contained in that article: the number of
psychiatrists in the U.S. has grown from 4, 000 in 1945 to 22, 680 at last
count, "a growth rate more than eight times that of the overall population."
As of June, 1968, there were 331 mental health centers in 49 states of the
Union. Funds have been proposed to increase these centers to 1, 500 by the
end of the 1970s.
Especially does Mrs. Washington sense a danger in the rise of "political
psychiatrists" and their ultimate effect on the natural freedoms of all
Americans. She quotes several statements of the Deputy Director of the
National Institute of Mental Health, Bertram S. Brown, who has approved
the terminology "political psychiatrist. "As men seek for answers to the
problems of our times, he writes in a professional journal, "they increas-
ingly turn to psychiatry. In the Senate debating war and peace, a psychiatrist
is there; in the court considering guilt and innocence, a psychiatrist is there;
in the mayor's committee room holding a post mortem of the urban riot, a
psychiatrist is there."
20
What Is Conservatism? (First edition). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston, 1964, p. 242.
56
The effort to reduce all men to the a priori standards of psychiatrists
sought by Dr. Chisholm and his school is harshly judged. Asks Mrs.
Washington:
What use to the black man are his newly-won "civil rights" -- his
equal housing, his equal job opportunity, his equal voting rights if the
political psychiatrists can sweepingly reduce him to an animal? This is
what blacks have learned, thanks to being so profusely blessed with the
benefits of psychiatry: blacks are able to recognize chattel slavery when
they see it, no matter what disguise it wears. They know that the slave
mentality is the product of the break-up of the family, the denial of literacy
and the confiscation of earnings. Having questioned and tested the schemes
of civil rights, they have finally rejected them because the powers of
political psychiatry can betray all the promises of civil rights.
What is the solution? "Only rediscovery of and respect for man's identity
his nature -- can do that. To this end, there is no reason why blacks, Chris-
tians, conservatives, youth all those alienated from the mental hygiene
establishment cannot join, despite all their differences, in demands for
restraint of political psychiatrists, before it succeeds in making America
literally a nation of madmen.
HUMANISM AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
There is yet another technique of undermining our heritage and reversing
the progress of human dignity as reflected in American history. This is the
prevalence of a school of teachers and scholars who are professionally anti-
traditionalists. They are the "debunkers" of American institutions, those who
concentrate on American failings rather than on American achievements. Some
of the views of these gentlemen have found their way into the curriculum of our
schools. We cannot here describe the extent of this penetration, but if we
examine the orientation of one of their high priests, we can readily see how
such views are finding their ways into our schools. We can also suggest that
to reverse this trend, the school of the antitraditionalist must also be objectively
examined in the universities and colleges, rather than to allow the universities
and colleges to reflect this view as the quasi-official view of public educational
institution.
In the Metaphysical Foundations of American History by Roland Van Zandt,
referred to in Chapter II, we have something of an outline of the Humanist
philosophy as applied American history. Mr. Van Zandt blithely rejects the
natural law theory which underlies the whole structure of American thought
and which gives force to its continuity. Mr. Van Zandt calls it the one "dogma"
which infects American history. He claims that the American Revolution built
nothing, that it was a movement to destroy history in order to rebuild a new
history, and that not until our day, with a new intellectual leadership, are
Americans free to fulfill their obligations to construct a new history of the
world. The intellectuals of our day, he claims, have rejected the antiquated
assumptions" of the traditional order. The new order is that of science -- a
moving, changing, relative world of truths and values. He models his historical
57
views upon the scientific formulations of Einstein and laments that "the
Queen of sciences, political science, has not yet come into its own. America
has lost its bearings, he claims, and must reject its own history and intel-
lectual establishment in order to create a new history. Mr. Van Zandt's
primary target is Thomas Jefferson, upon whom he levels most of his
criticism as if Jefferson were alone responsible for those verbal formula-
tions he gave the world in the Declaration of Independence.
Mr. Van Zandt thinks Jefferson's "career was all a mistake
in a way,
for instance, that American history throughout his lifetime was somehow a
mistake. (p. 197)
Mr. Van Zandt's arguments are in the Marxian style of thesis and antithesis.
He avoids the exaltation of the spirit in human existence like the plague. His
view of history is existential. He even denies that an American history ever
existed. American history is now defined as that which is not, he says.
Americans have come to the point where they must renounce the knowledge of
their forefathers because their knowledge was circumscribed by ignorance.
The dogma of natural law, he claims is a myth. It is the greatest single
obstacle to the rational control of man's own life. What Mr. Van Zandt will
substitute for American history or any other history is a "unity of process. 11
It applies only to the human scene, because it is only the human scene that is
important in history.
Such an approach to American history and culture, should it spread any
further, would as assuredly destroy America's concepts of moral standards
as it would America's faith in its political and cultural institutions. Such instruc-
tion, should it penetrate the lower grades, would be in direct contradiction of
those state laws which mandate reverence and respect for our heritage. While
the antitraditionist view is not a view which teaches Communism per se, it is
a school which teaches the destruction of the American way of life. Certainly
it would be a view "contrary to public policy, which is the policy of a people
determined to protect and cherish their heritage.
How one copes with this problem is rather the task of the universities and
colleges than it is the public schools. And yet, since the teachers of our
children are trained in the public colleges and universities, it is logical that
the State Board of Education should have a concern about the kind of orientation
teachers of social sciences are receiving. Teachers need a yardstick by which
to judge dangerous theories. They can get that yardstick only if the higher
institutions of education provide them with it. Hamilton Long, in his American
Yardstick, related how Jefferson and Madison dealt with the problem in 1825
and which could be a good example for our generation. These two former
presidents wrote and caused to be adopted by the Board of Visitors of the
University of Virginia the following resolution:
Whereas it is the duty of this board to the government (of the United
States) under which it lives, and especially to that (of Virginia) of which
this University is the immediate creation, to pay especial attention to the
principles of government which shall be inculcated therein, and to provide
that none shall be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which
58
the Constitutions of this State, and of the U.S. were genuinely based in the
common opinion: and for this purpose it may be necessary to point out
specifically where these principles are to be found legitimately developed.
If California's universities and colleges followed this example, they would
not be allowed to "inculcate" ideas alien to our heritage and tradition, although
surely they would be encouraged to study them. As Mr. Long comments:
"
sound teaching does not preclude, indeed it requires, students being taught
about conflicting principles in order to enable them to understand the unsoundness
of the latter
judged by the sound standard of the American principles, with
which the students must, of course, first be made familiar SO as to have a yard-
stick by which to judge soundly. 11
The antitraditionalists should be studied and compared within the context of
the American intellectual heritage. To ignore that heritage and simply pass
judgments on it is hardly the function of higher education.
HUMANISTS AND MARXISTS
The following section of the Education Code was referred to in the State Board's
resolution of July 14, 1968, and is significant to our analysis of the problem of
subversion:
Advocacy or Teaching of Communism; "Communism" Defined
8455. No teacher giving instruction in any school, or on any property
belonging to any agencies included in the Public School System, shall advo-
cate or teach communism with the intent to indoctrinate any pupil with, or
inculcate a preference in the mind of any pupil for communism.
The Legislature in prohibiting the advocacy or teaching of communism
with the intent to indoctrinate any pupil with or inculcate a preference in the
mind of any pupil for, such doctrine does not intend to prevent the teaching
of the facts of the above subject but intends to prevent the advocacy of, and
inculcation and indoctrination into communism as is hereinafter defined,
for the purpose of undermining the patriotism for, and the belief in, the
Government of the United States and of this State in the minds of the pupils
in the Public School System.
For the purposes of this section, communism is a political theory that
the presently existing form of government of the United States or of this
State should be changed, by force, violence, or other unconstitutional
means, to a totalitarian dictatorship which is based on the principles of
communism as expounded by Marx, Lenin and Stalin.
The task of identifying activity alien to our heritage and/or contrary to
public policy is easier when we focus our sights on this specific case of
'prohibitive instruction. The recent publicity given to the national student
59
organization called Students for a Democratic Society makes it abundantly
clear that America's youth is being bombarded with Communist propaganda
and organized by trained Communist agitators. Recently, the Superintendent
of Public Instruction made it clear that all such activities as planned by SDS
are already illegal, that administrators need only act to enforce the laws on
the books in order to prevent subversion on high school campuses.
It is the opinion of the advisory committee, therefore, that if the tide of
red indoctrination of our youth in college or in the lower grades is to be
stemmed, some sort of instructional guidelines on the teaching of Communist
theory and tactics has to be prepared by the Department of Education for use
in all of California's schools. There are already many programs in existence,
the best of which use the basic documents from the congressional investigative
committees which have been recording the progress of Communist subversion
since 1935. There is little evidence that the laws which have been in existence
for some 15 years have been successful. Much of the problem arises from
the respectability given to professional Communists when the University of
California Regents agreed to allow Communists and advocates of Communism
the use of campus facilities and easy contact with students. One member of
the Board of Regents in 1963 spoke sharply against rights of Communists to
speak freely, but few citizens apparently listened. He was Jerd Sullivan, a
San Francisco banker. In the November 1, 1963, issue of the California
Legionnaire, the Sullivan letter was published with the editorial statement:
Since the university has not released Mr. Sullivan's views, the California
Legionnare reproduces his letter with his permission."
60
The letter is as follows:
Mr. Gerald H. Hagar, Chairman
Board of Regents
University of California
Los Angeles 24, California
Dear Gerry:
As I told you on the phone last week, I am extremely sorry but I cannot
get to the June meeting of the Regents at Los Angeles because of a legal
situation which requires my presence here.
I was particularly anxious to attend as I understand the matter of pre-
venting communist speakers on campus will be reopened. I personally am
unalterably opposed to granting such a privilege. I do favor the objective
study of Communism on our various campuses so long as that study is con-
ducted by reputable and discerning educators. But to allow an agent of the
Communist Party to peddle his wares to students of an impressionable age
is just as wrong, in my estimation, as it would be to allow Satan himself
to use the pulpit of one of our great cathedrals for the purpose of trying to
proselyte new members.
The conflicting opinions and concepts of the radical right and the radical
left must be given expression just as expression is given to the more tradi-
tional philosophies of our society. But Communism is not the radical left.
It is not a natural outgrowth of our economy or our philosophy of human
relations. It is a foreign ideology; a subversive conspiracy dedicated to
the overthrow of our form of government, by force if necessary. Their
sales ability has been well demonstrated by the strides they have made in
many parts of the world. Therefore, if we as a country feel that our ideol-
ogy is superior, why leave our youth open to the narcotic influence of that
salesmanship.
Further, at a time like this when the greatest portion of our enormous
tax burden is spent for defense against Communism, it is to me unreason-
able to argue that we should allow Communist agents to plead their case
to the youth of this country in our tax supported institutions of learning.
The most precious possession of the University is the good name, and
the respect it has generated among the people who provide its financial
support. To tarnish that good name and dilute that respect would be an
irresponsible act far beneath the character of our Board of Regents.
I sincerely hope the Board will see fit to reaffirm its stand at the
current meeting.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Jerd Sullivan
61
Three years after Mr. Sullivan was rebuffed, three years after the Regents
rejected his plea for sanity in confronting Communist subversion, Professor
Lewis S. Feuer, upon resigning from Berkeley and taking up residence at the
University of Toronto, wrote his devastating article, "The Decline of Freedom
at Berkeley, 11 for Atlantic Monthly, (August, 1966). The faculty had resolved
that "the content of speech or advocacy should not be restricted by the univer-
sity. The original idea, says Dr. Feuer, was to allow Marxists to express
their views while the more than sufficient scholars on campus would defend the
traditional position. But it turned out quite differently. "Freedom of discussion
presupposes that the chief sides in any national debate will be represented. In
Berkeley, the supporters of President Johnson's foreign policy are, in effect,
denied a forum on the Berkeley campus. The New Left has made it nearly
impossible for the national administration's standpoint to be presented to
Berkeley students. In January, 1966, he notes, Chancellor Roger Heyns
became probably the first university head in America to be taken to task by a
county grand jury for condoning "the deliberate violation of criminal laws' on
the campus. The Alameda Grand Jury declared that Berkeley had become "a
staging area for unlawful off campus activities" and proceeded to cite some 34
examples of recent years. Berkeley, wrote Dr. Feuer, became the first
"political university" in the United States. "This is a development of the highest
significance. For the first time, the intellectual class of the United States is
undertaking to enter politics directly, and to offer to the electorate, through the
agency of faculty-student activities, something akin to an Intellectual's Party.'
Given the pace of events since Dr. Feuer's article in 1966, there is much
that could be added to give substance to his charges that an "intellectual revo-
lutionary class" seeks political power. How much of this revolutionism is due
to Communist-connected professors only the FBI knows for sure. The other
question, however, is more academic and important to the secondary school
administrators: How does one combat the scholarly Marxists who are not
Communist conspirators?
One can only answer, of course, that Marxism should be taught within the
context of "The American Yardstick" and as destructive to everything Americans
hold dear. But if Marxism is taught by teachers favorable to the Communist
system, and if by implication the pupil (whether in college or junior high school)
is inculcated "with a preference in the mind of any pupil for Communism" then
that student's respect for American institutions is undermined, and the teacher
is guilty of indoctrination.
We enter a dangerous arena when we delve into such questions for the simple
reason that there is danger of making blanket statements governing all Humanists
and putting them into the same kettle of fish with Marxists or Communists. And
yet, the Humanist magazine itself is an excellent source to establish the point of
contact between them because of that magazine's frequent articles dealing with
the fusion of their ideologies. In a recent article in the January/February, 1969
issue of the Humanist, Yugoslav Communist Mihailo Markovic wrote about The
Basic Characteristics of Marxist Humanism":
62
Marxist humanism is nowadays the main spiritual inspiration for very
broad liberation movements. To be sure, these movements have some-
times been used for selfish and inhuman ends and still their very existence
shows that Marx's humanist ideal is not only the continuation of a great
tradition and not only the expression of revolt against all that is inhumane
in the present day world, but also a dream that might come true.
There is, in short, a great deal of communication and interrelationship
between known Humanists and known Marxists on the intellectual level; such
intellectuals as Erich Fromm, for instance, and of Professor Paul Baran
of Stanford, both of whom have preached since the 1950s that it is foolish to
believe that Soviet Communism is aggressive or that they are an "international
threat. 21
J. Edgar Hoover, in his recent series "On Communism" which were
serialed in the Copley newspapers, described how Marxists use Humanism
as a semantic device to spread their Communist propaganda. Perhaps he
was referring to Corliss Lamont, one of the editors of Humanist and the
author of the much vaunted book The Philosophy of Humanism. But Mr.
Lamont has also been associated with Communist causes for several decades
and was identified as a fellow Communist by former editor of the Daily Worker,
Louis Budenz. (See Senate Internal Security Report, September 28, 1958.)
Thus, it is a necessary task to use "the American Yardstick" and measure
carefully those differences between Humanists and Marxists and to identify
them as carriers of ideas alien to our heritage and/or contrary to public
policy. Marxists like Sidney Hook may be solely intellectual in their approach
and hence nonactivists. But Communists are Marxists of whatever political
persuasion, be it the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, or Yugoslav variety. Humanists
indeed may not be Marxists. But Marxists are, ipso facto, Humanists. The
point, for teachers, is that the differences and allegiances must be examined
and taught by teachers trained to distinguish the differences and to teach it in
an objective manner against the backdrop of the American experience. Upon
America's ability to learn to do this rests the answer to the question of that
American GI who posed the ultimate question: Which way America?
HUMANISTS AND EVOLUTIONISTS
It has been noted above that Humanists hold that "man is a part of nature
and that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process, 11 that is, by
evolution. In the more recent Humanist magazine, we are told that "Humanists
see man as a product of this world -- of evolution and human history -- and
acknowledge no cosmic mind or supernatural purpose or forces."
21
See L.A. Times, January 21, 1962, wherein Prof. Baran, is reported
to have told a U. C.L.A. audience that the U.S. Foreign Policy is the world's
greatest threat.
63
Evolution, in other words, is an a priori assumption of the Humanist
religion. Evolution is thus inseparable from John Dewey's progressive
educational theories. As Augustin Rudd points out, 22 Dewey had to deny the
dualistic theory of man as mind and body; therefore, the concept of the soul
is patently false; therefore, there is no reason at all to include the spirit and
its source (theology) as a subject of study; therefore, there are no eternal
verities, but only changing conditions to which man must adjust, and therefore,
traditional beliefs are largely hindrances in the broad evolutionary movement
of man who is something continuously changing and "becoming."
In recent years there has been growing concern among scientists them-
selves concerning the teaching of evolution as fact instead of as a theory which
requires continuous proof. In fact there has developed since 1963 an organiza-
tion called the Creation Research Society, a nationwide association of Christian
scholars who call themselves "creationists" and who are attempting to dispute
the "dogma" of evolutionism as enunciated by Charles Darwin and which is often
taught in the public schools as fact and not theory. The major concern of these
men of science is that the origins of man are still too hazy to be accepted as
fact, especially if they exclude all other theories. In a paper entitled "Dis-
coveries Since 1859 Which Invalidate the Evolution Theory," Walter Lammerts,
Director of Research, Germain's Horticultural Research Division, Livermore,
California, explains why discoveries in recent decades have caused many sci-
entists to reexamine the postulations so readily acceptable for nearly a hundred
years. The "creationists," in short, have organized and are attacking the
censorship" of their own colleagues. Writes Henry M. Morris, the author
of "The Twilight of Evolution:"
One reason for the apparent dearth of anti-evolutionary sentiment is
that the major scientific publishing houses and periodicals are completely
and exclusively under the control of leaders who are evolutionists. If
anyone questions this, let him try to get a serious scientific article or book
published refuting evolution
the only outlet for such literature seems
to be through conservative or private media.
"Similarly," he adds, "it is almost an impossibility for a convinced cre-
ationist to obtain or to retain an influential position on a university faculty
in the various disciplines now dominated by the evolution concept, such as
anthropology, geology, biology, psychology, and psychiatry. The writer has
known some men personally, and heard of others, who were refused graduate
degrees in geology, for example, primarily on the basis of their rejection of
Lyellian uniformitarianism and Darwinian evolutionism. 23
22
Rudd, Ibid., p. 21.
23
Henry M. Morris, The Twilight of Evolution, Nutley, N.J. : Presbyterian
& Reformed Pub. Co., 1963, p. 28.
64
The teaching of evolution as a part of the religion of Humanism, therefore,
is yet another area of concern to parents and teachers alike who wish to abide
by the mandates of the laws and of the State Board Resolution that "Christian
parents
are protected by law against any attempt to destroy or weaken
their children's faith in their particular church.' In this instance, as with
other areas of controversial instruction, it is how the subject is treated by
the teachers, what materials the teacher uses that matters. If the origins
of man were taught from the point of view of both evolutionists and creationists,
the purpose of education would be satisfied. By concentrating on only one theory
and ignoring others, it is tantamount to indoctrination in one special religious
viewpoint.
Chapter VI
Teaching About Religion in the Public Schools
It is evident to the Department staff and to the advisory committee that the
major obstacles confronting public education is not that the problems are
unfathomable, but that implementation of the programs in the schools required
to protect the American heritage and its traditions, established by custom and
protected by law, are not allowed to get started. The State Board made it
bluntly clear following the school prayer decisions of the early 1960s that the
state is forbidden to promote a Godless religion just as it is forbidden to promote
any one sect. The solution the Board adopted then, and which is still state policy,
is that all religions and all creeds should be studied and evaluated within the con-
text of the American heritage. The Board resolution of December 17, 1963,
quotes Justice Brennan:
The holding of the Court plainly does not foreclose teaching about the
Holy Scriptures or about the differences between religious sects in classes
of literature or history. Indeed, whether or not the Bible is involved, it
would be impossible to teach meaningfully many subjects in the social
sciences or the humanities without some mention of religion. To what
extent, and at what points in the curriculum religious material should be
cited, are matters which the courts ought to entrust very largely to the
experienced officials who superintend our nation's public schools. They are
experts in such matters, and we are not.
The awful truth is that the "experts" have failed to come forth with a program
which would be positive and acceptable to everyone. It is likely for this reason
that a group of private citizens have accepted the challenge thrown down by the
courts and have developed what the Department staff and the advisory committee
believe to be the only practical solution to America's future. In Religion Goes
to School: A Practical Handbook for Teachers, by James V. Panoch and David
L. Barr, 1 the schools have provided for them a source book of materials and
bibliography which they can adopt for inservice training programs. Some 70
pertinent and basic questions about teaching in this delicate area are posed and
answered. The authors explain their understanding of the present situation
on page 5 of the handbook:
The Supreme Court did not remove religion from the public schools.
We did. Uninformed teachers, an unconcerned public, unconscious
churchmen all have had their hand in systematically eliminating all
mention of the Bible and religion from significant areas of school life.
The church, largely unconscious of the good that could come from the
proper use of the Bible and religion in the schools, has withdrawn from
public education. The public, apparently unconcerned, has been content
to think that there could be no mention of religion in a public school.
Teachers, uninformed about the legal uses of Bible and religion, have
tended to use them illegally or not at all. It is apparent that our real
problem with religion in the school is simply a misunderstanding of the
problem itself. Once it is really understood, most of the difficulties
1
Harper & Row Pubs., 49 East 33rd Street, New York, N.Y.
65
66
dissolve. The purpose of this book is to identify the problem clearly and
to make a positive contribution toward its solution.
The authors of the handbook are officials of a nationwide organization known
as the Religious Instruction Association, 2 an organization which serves as a
clearinghouse for information. It provides its subscribers with information
on a variety of techniques used in various states of the Union to implement
programs about religion. In what might be identified as a statement of modus
operandi, they assert the following:
MATERIALS CLARIFYING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELIGION AND
PUBLIC EDUCATION
Religion may be practiced or studied. The practice is what makes
religion meaningful. The study is largely a study of the practice. In
private life the practice and the study of religion may be combined.
But in public life they must be kept separate. The public school must
not sponsor the more important practice of religion, but must sponsor the
less important study of religion. Though the study of religion is less
important, it is not unimportant. And a proper study of religion will
make the practice of religion more meaningful. The school may study
what is practiced, but not practice what is studied.
The school should sponsor the study of religion, but should not sponsor
the practice of religion.
The school should expose students to all religious views, but should not
impose any particular view.
The schools' approach to religion is one of instruction, not one of
indoctrination.
The schools' approach to religion is academic, not devotional.
The school should study what all people believe, but should not
teach a pupil what he should believe.
The school should strive for student understanding of all religions,
but should not press for student acceptance of any one religion.
The school should seek to inform the student about various beliefs,
but should not seek to conform him to any one belief.
To implement a program with such ends will obviously require a drastic
change of thinking on the part of many citizens, teachers and laymen who have
been under the impression for several years that "you can't talk about God
2 Religious Instruction Association, Inc., 4001 Fairfield Avenue, Fort
Wayne, Indiana 46807.
67
in the schools. 11 The major need of course will be the training or retraining
of teachers who can handle such a program. This may require changes in the
training of teachers at the college level. It may involve the hiring of consul-
tants with the qualifications of Messrs. Panoch and Barr to service colleges
and local districts in the techniques. Certainly it will necessitate a reevalua-
tion of curricula of the state's teacher training institutions if these programs
are instituted.
There are essentially two ways the schools can teach about religion and
hence reflect a moral heritage. One method is demonstrated in Chapter IV
where John Swett outlined the course materials for the early grades, as well
as the orientation of its teachers. The other method, for high school students,
is to sponsor courses in comparative or world religions. In Claremont, Cali-
fornia, shortly after the 1963 resolution by the State Board, history teacher
Joseph Forcinelli received nationwide attention because of the methodology he
uses in his course. He describes it as follows:
It is at present part of the social science curriculum, offered as an
elective to juniors and seniors only and carrying six units of credit.
Sessions are held three times weekly for forty-five minutes. The course
runs for a full year. During the last two years, we have made a wider
use of religious art as well as films and film strips. Outside lecturers
who are specialists in their fields are frequently brought in to speak. A
bibliography of the best works on the various religions is integrated into
the course, for additional readings. We feel we have an excellent library
and we are continuing to add to this resource
We have been able to
attend as visitors Hindu, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant worship services.
This year we hope to include a visit to a Buddhist Temple. Research papers
and comprehensive examinations also make up a part of the course. In other
words, grades are not given on the basis of one's piety.
3
Mr. Forcinelli, in effect, preceded the Panoch and Barr orientation by
more than ten years. In 1955 he finished his master's dissertation at Claremont
Graduate School on the topic "School Administration and Religious Education
in the Public Schools of the United States of America. " In this lengthy and
well-documented study, he examined all the controversies surrounding the issue
up to that time, and especially those many studies made by the professional
organizations on "moral and spiritual values." Forcinelli rejected, just as George
Washington rejected, the views that such values could be taught without refer-
ence to religion. Such values would have no roots; they would be merely sus-
pended from the reality of man as explained by his history. Accordingly, he
reasoned, all moral values must be evaluated as they are traced to the religious
beliefs of man. "Religion," affirmed Forcinelli, "can and should be considered
as an empirical study. Though some religions have their ultimate source
embodied in a transcendent power, all religions are manifest by empirical
3
Journal of Secondary Education, April, 1967, Vol. 42, N4.
68
fact in the stream of history. As such, religion in its all-inclusive form can
be examined, studied, considered, and integrated into conscious thought just
as any empirical science might be 114
Armed with such an attitude and given the proper training, any teacher
could thus implement the approach identified by Panoch and Barr. Each
country or culture could be examined phenomenologically and compared to
all others. Secularist doctrines and religions would be included and analyzed
and contrasted with 'the faith that undergirds our [American] way of life as
the Board resolution of 1963 encouraged. What would emerge from such
objective studies would be a better understanding of the freedoms all Americans
enjoy.
In the Seeger case mentioned in Chapter V, for instance, the Court granted
the young man's plea for conscientious objection because he was religious and
because his human dignity was dependent upon a divine entity. "It has been
noted, said the Court, "that the principal distinction between the free world
and the Marxist nations is traceable to democracy's concern for the rights of
the individual citizens; as opposed to the collective mass of society.
The Court said in effect what the staff identified as the law of the State in
Chapter II: Californians live under the protection of God, and the individual
citizen's worth is measured because of his worth to God, not to man. "We
the people of the State of California," says the Preamble, "grateful to Almighty
God for our freedom, and in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do
establish this Constitution."
If such legal and traditional affirmation of man's divine image and worth
are inculcated in our social science and literature and history courses,
Americans will have no trouble recognizing their uniqueness as a people and
as a nation. In effect, when the Court declares as it did in Zorach V. Clauson,
that we are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being,"
the Court is proclaiming something that 199 million Americans already know
and that perhaps a million Americans may also know but refuse to accept,
because they are 'minds of peculiar structure.
The need today is to contrast the American genius and the American's
reliance on Almighty God with the cold, dreary utilitarianism of the Secular
Humanists or Marxists. Humanists who look at man as the Supreme Being
have real grounds to fear for their own future as well for the faithful because
they cannot deny that civilizations which in the past erased God from their
value systems have also erased whatever dignity was left of man. This thesis
is examined in an interesting essay, Atheism, The Enemy of Civilization by
W. B. Riley, former president of Northwestern University. One need only
recall the civilizations of the ancient Pharaohs, of the Roman Caesars, or
4
Joseph Forcinelli, "School Administration and Religious Education in the
Public Schools of the United States of America 11 A thesis presented to the
general faculty of the Claremont Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Claremont, Calif. February
19, 1955, p. 25.
69
twentieth century atheist societies of the Nazis and Communists as examples.
By contrast, the little pledge of those Americans who gather every July 4th
at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia (and more recently in Sacramento) projects
a grandeur of man that no tyrant can ever assault. They solemnly read
The Liberty Pledge:
On July 4, 1776, the Founders of our Republic breathed a spirit
into American Government totally dependent upon Revealed Truth.
This Divine Spirit affirmed the sovereignty of the citizen as the just
and reasonable consequence of the sovereignty of the soul. To this
proposition, the essence of the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution of the United States of America, we pledge our support
and, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we
mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred
honor.
About a hundred years ago, John Henry Cardinal Newman observed the
encroachments of science as the new "religion" of the future. He wrote
in The Idea of a University: "In word, in deed, and in idea, it is easy enough
to divide knowledge into human and divine, secular and religious, and to lay
down that we address ourselves to the one without interfering with the other;
but it is impossible in fact.' Newman was defining the science of theology
and that all knowledge, including theology, had to be studied as one vast
composite if man were to comprehend the world and his place in it. Continued
Newman: Granting that divine truth differs in kind from human, so do human
truths differ in kind one from another. If the knowledge of the Creator is a
different order from knowledge of the creature, so in like manner, metaphysical
science is in a different order from physical, physics from history, history from
others. Newman's point was that to strip divine knowledge from the memory
of man. You will soon break up into fragments, he insisted, the whole circle
of secular knowledge if you begin the mutilation with the divine. "15
The successful flight of Apollo 8 has become an echo of Cardinal Newman's
words. As Frederick D. Wilhelmsen observed in a recent article, man had to
travel 500, 000 miles into space to rediscover that earth indeed was his home.
" Apollo 8 has not led upwards to a secular paradise awaiting us tomorrow.
The arrival at the Moon, out there in a space byond physical comprehension
has hurtled us all backwards into time through the vortex of the imagination;
it took all America and most of the world, on those fateful Christmas days, to
Genesis and to beginnings -- to the creation of all things from nothing.
Because knowledge begs for more knowledge, all men know that the horizons
of space offer new frontiers for physical conquest. And as man learns to flit
from planet to planet, always an alien figure and perhaps never finding other
living creatures such as he, man will continue to look to the green earth as
home. He will continue to signal home for information about the Creator, even
while he continues to search for information about creation.
5
The Idea of a University, Garden City, N. Y: Image Books, 1959, p. 66.
6
Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, "The Good Earth," Triumph, (February, 1969),
p. 11.
70
The testimony of America's three astronauts as they swung around the
moon on Christmas Eve, 1968, may well be the inauguration of a new beginning
for Americans, because the humility reflected in their performance reflects
the ties which bind together the whole human race: Genesis, or mankind's
common origin.
William Anders:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. And the earth was without form and void; and
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God
said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God
saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the
light from the darkness.
James Lovell:
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he
called Night. And the evening and the morning were
the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament
in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters
from the waters. And God made the firmament, and
divided the waters which were under the firmament
from the waters which were above the firmament; and
it was SO. And God called the firmament Heaven. And
evening and morning were the second day.
Frank Borman:
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be
gathered together unto one place, and the dry land
appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land
Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called
he Seas: and God saw that it was good
Merry Christmas and God bless all of you - - - all
of you on the Good Earth.
Appendix A
Teaching About Religion in the Public Schools
1
The State Board of Education at its meeting in Los Angeles on December 12,
1963, authorized issuance of the following statement:
Bible-reading and prayer in the public schools has become a sharp issue
since the Supreme Court decision of June 17, 1963, in the case of Abington
School District versus Schempp. Because of uncertainty as to what the
decision implied, the California State Board of Education presents this brief
summary of what the Supreme Court did and did not say. It is hoped that
this will be of help to school administrators, teachers, and parents.
The issue was whether or not the "establishment" clause of the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was violated by the Board of School
Commissioners of Baltimore and by a Pennsylvania statute. The Commis-
sioners had adopted a statute requiring reading from the Bible without com-
ment at the opening of each school day, and the recitation of the Lord's
Prayer by the students in unison. The Court decided eight to one that such
school exercises violate the First Amendment.
Some parents have expressed fear that the door is opened to the teaching
of secularistic and atheistic doctrine. It has been said that in the United
States God has been taken out of our public education and the rights of a
minority have been raised over the rights of the majority. Some are con-
fused as to whether or not the Bible can be referred to in any way and
whether any mention of religion or churches is allowable in the classroom.
That there is no prohibition against such mention seems obvious from a
reading of the Supreme Court decision and the comments made by four of
the justices who have written concurrences,
It may be well to begin with what the decision did not say. Justice Clark,
who wrote the majority opinion, says:
It is insisted that unless these religious exercises are permitted a
"religion of secularism' is established in the schools. We agree, of
course, that the state may not establish a "religion of secularism" in
the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion,
thus "preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do
believe.
He quotes Judge Alphonzo Taft with approval who said nearly a hundred
years ago:
The government is neutral and while protecting all, it prefers none,
and disparages none.
So if the state is forbidden by the Constitution to promote the Christian
religion, it is also forbidden to promote a godless religion of secularism
1 Memorandum from California State Board of Education to School Adminis-
trators, Dec. 17, 1963 (Sacramento).
71
72
or atheism. It would seem to follow, therefore, that no teacher is at
liberty to teach a point of view denying God any more than a teacher is
at liberty to promote a particular religious sect.
The objection of the Supreme Court was to religious service, but Justice
Clark makes it plain that the Bible may be available in libraries and may be
used as a reference book whenever it is appropriate. He says that one cannot
study history without referring to the Bible nor can one study mankind without
referring to religion. So, while it is clearly unlawful to use the Bible in a
devotional service in the schools, it is expected that the Bible shall be open
to all students.
There is not found in the decision any tendency to discount the importance
of religion in general or of Christianity in particular. Justice Clark says,
"The place of religion in our society is an exalted one." He refers with
approbation to the Engle versus Vitale case in which the court said, "We
are a religious people. 11
Mr. Justice Goldberg with Mr. Justice Harlan concurring says the
realization of religious liberty means that the government shall effect "no
favoritism among sects or between religion and non-religion" and that it
shall "work deterrence of no religious belief. These two justices go
further and recognize the danger of a non-interference and non-involvement
with religion which might promote a "passive or even active, hostility to
the religious. 11 "Such results, says Mr. Justice Goldberg, "are not only
not compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by
it." It seems quite clear that the Supreme Court recognized and warned
against the danger of creating passive attitudes of hostility toward religion.
Mr. Justice Brennan also concurring speaks of the line separating secular
from sectarian as an "elusive" one. Then he goes on to say:
The holding of the Court today plainly does not foreclose teaching
about the Holy Scriptures or about the differences between religious
sects in classes of literature or history. Indeed, whether or not the
Bible is involved, it would be impossible to teach meaningfully many
subjects in the social sciences or the humanities without some mention
of religion. To what extent, and at what points in the curriculum religious
material should be cited, are matters which the courts ought to entrust
very largely to the experienced officials who superintend our Nation's
public schools. They are experts in such matters, and we are not.
The Justices' opinions in this case recognize the importance of religion
and reflect a great respect for it. They are men who would not willingly
weaken religion in any way nor substitute a godless philosophy for it.
The California Attorney General's opinion given to the State Superintendent
of Public Instruction is in this same spirit. He says, "Those constitutional
and statutory provisions that provide 'no sectarian or denominational doctrine'
shall be 'taught or instruction thereon be permitted directly or indirectly in
any of the common schools of this state' apply equally to all forms of religious
belief irrespective of whether they embody a belief in the existence of God.
73
Thus the 'teaching of' atheism or agnosticism in the public schools is
prohibited if by the words 'teaching of' it is meant the teaching of doctrine
with a view toward obtaining an acceptance as to the truth of that doctrine
11
He goes on to say that there are penalties in the State Education Code which
would apply to "the making of statements, in such schools and colleges,
which advocate, tend to advocate, or implant in pupils minds a preference
for, atheism or agnosticism or which reflect unfavorably upon any particu-
lar religion, upon all religions, or upon any religious creed. 11
The State Board of Education believes that these matters need to be
brought to the attention of parents as well as to school officials. While
religious worship services are not to be held in the schools nor is any
religions group to be given the right to promote its own beliefs over another,
neither is the irreligious person given the right to promote his particular
point of view. Christian parents, therefore, are protected by law against
any attempt to destroy or weaken their children's faith in their particular
church. The religious faith of the majority is protected as well as the
freedom of the minority.
Our schools should have no hesitancy in teaching about religion. We urge
our teachers to make clear the contributions of religion to our civilization,
through history, art and ethics. We want the children of California to be
aware of the spiritual principles and the faith which undergird our way of
life. We are confident that our teachers are competent to differentiate
between teaching about religion and conducting a compulsory worship
service. This point of view, we believe, is in accordance with the tradi-
tion handed down by our fathers and reaffirmed by the United States Supreme
Court.
Appendix B
Education in Depth
MAX RAFFERTY
OF
Superintendent of Public Instruction
and Director of Education
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
STATE EDUCATION BUILDING, 721 CAPITOL MALL, SACRAMENTO 95814
June 16, 1965
The official philosophy of the State Department of Education is the
philosophy of Education in Depth.
Education in Depth maintains that there are positive, eternal values, and
that the main purpose of Education is to seek out these lasting values, and
to identify them, and to explore them to the greater benefit of the individual
and the nation.
Education in Depth holds that the teaching of organized, disciplined, and
systematic subject matter is the principal objective of the schools.
Education in Depth intends to regard the individual as the be-all and the
end-all of the educative process.
Education in Depth teaches that committing important names, places,
events, dates, and passages of poetry and prose to memory is a necessary
part of instruction.
Education in Depth wants a curriculum to provide for the individual the
tools and skills he needs to be a cultured, productive, patriotic American
citizen.
Education in Depth believes that the very survival of our country and the
success of the individual in later life depends upon how well he is taught to
hold his own in a highly competitive world.
The purpose of an educational institution is not to make pupils popular or
well-adjusted or universally approved. It is to make them learned. It is to
teach them to use the tools which the race, over the centuries, has found to
be indispensable in the pursuit of truth. If the schools do not so teach subject
matter, the children are never going to learn it.
This is Education in Depth. This is the philosophy of the State Department
of Education.
D8-116 5-69 2M
74
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"ocrText": "Ronald Reagan Presidential Library\nDigital Library Collections\nThis is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections.\nCollection: Reagan, Ronald: Gubernatorial Papers,\n1966-74: Press Unit\nFolder Title: [Education] - Guidelines for Moral\nInstruction in California Schools, 1969\nBox: P34\nTo see more digitized collections visit:\nhttps://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library\nTo see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit:\nhttps://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection\nContact a reference archivist at: [email protected]\nCitation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing\nNational Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/\nGUIDELINES FOR MORAL INSTRUCTION\nIN CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS\nA Report Accepted by the State Board of Education\nMay 9, 1969\nCALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION\nMax Rafferty - Superintendent of Public Instruction\nSacramento\n1969\nContents\nPREFACE\nA SOLDIER'S LETTER -- Which Way America?\niii\nCHAPTER\nI\nTHE CHARGE -- AN INTRODUCTION\n1\nThe Resolution\n1\nPreparation for the Guidelines\n2\nThe Advisory Committee on Guidelines for\nMoral Instruction\n4\nII\nMORALITY AND THE LAW\n8\nThe Theological State\n8\nGood Moral Character\n10\nMoral Turpitude\n10\nIII\nMORALITY AND THE NATURAL LAW TRADITION\n15\nJohn Adams\n16\nAristotle\n17\nSir Edward Coke\n17\nWilliam Blackstone\n18\nCicero\n19\nIV\nMORALITY AND THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION\n22\nJohn Swett\n24\nV\nMORALITY AND THE CHALLENGE OF SECULAR\nHUMANISM\n33\nHumanism in the Eighteenth Century\n33\nHumanism in the Twentieth Century\n35\nThe Contemporary Humanists\n40\nHumanism and Progressive Education\n42\nHumanism and \"Sex Education\n43\nHumanism and the Behaviorists\n50\nHumanism and Social Sciences\n56\nHumanists and Marxists\n58\nHumanists and Evolutionists\n62\nVI\nTEACHING ABOUT RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS\n65\nAPPENDIX A\n71\nAPPENDIX B\n74\ni\nthe 4\nTO\nof\nand\nOCT\nthe DE\n$ of\nto\nthe\na be to\nla the State at\nthe\nGO\nto\nof the\nPreface\nA Soldier's Letter\nWhich Way America?\nDear Family,\nI don't know when mail from home has meant so much to me. As I write,\nthe sun is setting on one of those beautiful Pacific days, that more than make\nup for the rainy ones. It has got me to thinking about our country.\nThe American people have emerged today with more power and prestige\nthan any country in the family of nations. Mankind is knocking at our gates,\nseeking wisdom from our leaders, the hope of peace from our people. Before\nwe can fulfill our destiny, to lead mankind to sanity and harmony, we shall\nhave to rebuild the fiber of our national life.\nSuppose we as a nation find again the faith our Father's knew? Suppose\nour statesmen learn again to listen to the voice of God. Then we shall know\nonce again, the greatness of a nation, whose strength is in the spirit of her\npeople, whose strength is in her obedience to the moral law of God.\nAmerica! Choose the right road! Unless there is born again in our people\nthe spirit of sacrifice, of service, of moral responsibility, my comrades and\nI who will fight on the beaches, and those of us who will die here, shall have\nbeen exploited and betrayed, and fought and diedin vain.\nIt is the eleventh hour. By your choice, you will bless or blight mankind\nfor a thousand years to come. Which road will it be\nAmerica?\n1\nThis was the last letter an American solider wrote his family prior to\nhis death. It has been put to music by Sing Out America youth groups which\nperform throughout the country. We think the question posed by these\ninspiring young Americans \" Which way America? is the question asked\nby all America today.\niii\nChapter I\nThe Charge - An Introduction\nTHE RESOLUTION\nOn July 11, 1968, the State Board of Education adopted a resolution direc-\nted to Max Rafferty, Superintendent of Public Instruction. It reads as follows:\nMembers of the State Board of Education are well aware that you have\nconsistently endeavored to keep before the citizens of California the\napproaching dangers of a breakdown of discipline and morality in Cali-\nfornia's schools.\nWe also know that you are aware of recent incursions into some school\ndistricts by non-professional groups and organizations whose activities\nfall within the prohibitive clauses of sections 12951--12955 of the Edu-\ncation Code.\nSince, moreover, there seems to be some confusion in the schools as\nto the meaning of Section 7851 of the Code calling upon all public school\nteachers \"to impress upon the minds of the pupils the principles of\nmorality, 11 it seems imperative at this crucial period of our history to\nclarify for public school employees what is traditionally meant by the\nterms \"manners and morals, \" as employed in Section 7851 of the Education\nCode.\nTherefore, in accord with your concern, and with the approval of the\nState Board, we hereby request that your staff prepare for Board con-\nsideration a set of \"guidelines\" for teachers and administrators, designed\nto identify those principles of morality established by tradition and heri-\ntage as well as enforced by the laws of this State and of the United States.\nWe specifically want to identify that kind of behavior and activity alien to\nour heritage, and/or unlawful or contrary to public policy.\nIt is evident from the wording of this resolution that the State Board of\nEducation asks the California State Department of Education to perform two\nessential tasks:\n1. Identify those \"principles of morality mentioned in Section 13556. 5\n(formerly Section 7851) of the Education Code, which are intended for\ndiscussion in classroom situations.\n2. Identify the nature of the \"incursions\" into the public schools of ideas\npromoted by organizations or groups that are \"alien to our heritage\"\nand \"contrary to public policy.\nSince the adoption of the July resolution, the State Board thereafter found\nit necessary to ask the Department of Education to collect and evaluate\nmaterials on so-called \"sex education\" courses which have been instituted in\n1\n2\nsome districts of the state. This latter investigation was initiated as a\nresult of an avalanche of letters from irate parents complaining of the\n\"pornographic\" nature of some of the materials that have found their way\ninto the classroom and which are allegedly affecting the morality of\nCalifornia's students.\nThus, the two resolutions, that of July, 1968, and that of November, 1968,\nwere considered by the Department staff as part of the same assignment.\nTheir task was not only to deliniate and identify those \"principles of morality\"\naccording to our heritage and traditions but also to identify those courses or\nmaterials which might fall within the \"prohibitive\" sections of the Education\nCode; for instance, sections 9001 and 9002, which prohibit the teaching of\nsectarian religious preferences in the public schools, or Section 9031 pro-\nhibiting indoctrination in Communism. These guidelines, therefore, serve a\ntwofold purpose. They attempt to answer those many questions presently\nplaguing teachers and administrators in a revolutionary age. They attempt\nto answer the fundamental question raised by that young soldier who recently\ngave his life for the American cause in Vietnam: which way America?\nPREPARATION FOR THE GUIDELINES\nIn order not to \"remake the wheel, 11 the staff decided to collect information\nelsewhere on the nature of \"guidelines for moral instruction. 11 A survey was\nmade of all 50 states of the Union. The following questions were asked:\n1. Whether your State Department of Education has prepared \"guidelines\nfor moral instruction\" to be used by the schools of your state.\n2. Does your state have a committee of laymen studying the means of\n\"teaching moral principles?\"\nThe following answers were given:\n1. Thirteen states identified an ongoing program of moral instruction or\nin the process of starting one.\n2. Four states indicated no committee on guidelines but are interested in\nwhat California is doing.\n3. Twenty-four states replied they have neither guidelines nor a committee\nstudying the issue.\nThen a survey was made of the 1, 100 districts in the state of California.\nThe questions asked of these districts were:\n1. Do they have guidelines identified for our purposes?\n2. Whether such guidelines or related materials are under preparation.\n3. Whether they integrate \"moral instruction\" with the curriculum.\n3\n4. A space was provided for \"other.\"\nThe responses to these were:\n1. Some 40 districts replied they had guidelines or other prepared\nmaterials.\n2. Seventy-four districts responded that such materials are under prepa-\nration.\n3. Four hundred seventy-seven replied they integrate such instruction\nthroughout the curriculum. Many of the replies to question number 3\nwere that the instruction was more \"incidental than directed.\"\nTo question number 4, \"other,\" responses were many and varied:\n1. Some complained that they do not have materials.\n2. Others said that they have no policy.\n3. Others that it was done through extra curricular activities.\n4. Others said it was taught by precept and example.\n5. Others said that they used county materials or adopted the courses of\nstudy of other counties.\nTo ascertain the level of preparation of teachers in this area, another\nquestionnaire was sent to all public and private teacher-training institutions\nin California.\nThe letter sent to the heads of teacher-training departments described the\nDepartment's goals and specifically quoted from the State Board Resolution\nof December 17, 1963, which followed the U.S. Supreme Court decision on\nschool prayers. The following paragraph is from the 1963 resolution and\nwas quoted in the letter to the colleges:\nOur schools should have no hesitancy in teaching about religion. We\nurge our teachers to make clear the contributions of religion to our\ncivilization, through history, art and ethics. We want the children of\nCalifornia to be aware of the spiritual principles and the faith which\nundergird our way of life. We are confident that our teachers are com-\npetent to differentiate between teaching about religion and conducting a\ncompulsory worship service. This point of view, we believe, is in\naccordance with the tradition handed down by our fathers and reaffirmed\nby the United States Supreme Court.\nThe following questions were then asked:\n1. Do you offer courses in comparative religions of the world?\n2. Do you require such a course, or courses, of your teacher credential\ncandidates?\n4\nHow would you meet the requirements for such preparation as sug-\ngested by the American Association of School Administrators?\na. By no requirements -- leaving it to the individual teacher\nb. By requiring some course in comparative religions\nC. By requiring courses in philosophy and ethics\nTheir responses were as follows:\n1. Twenty-nine institutions answered in the affirmative.\nTwenty-one answered negative.\n2. Four answered in the affirmative.\nSeventeen answered negative\nTo the a, b, and C answers which referred to the admonition that admini-\nstrators are urged to use \"the prudence that would put direction of the project\nin the hands of public school educators who are intimately aware of the possi-\nbilities and limitations under which the materials may be used\":\na. Eighteen responded that it is left to the individual teachers\nb. Four responded by requiring courses in comparative religions\nc. Twelve responded by requiring courses in philosophy and ethics\nSince there was no space for \"other\" in the letter sent to the teacher-train-\ning institutions, some deans submitted additional information not covered\nby the questions. Most of these comments concern the difficulty of adding\nnew requirements (if this is under consideration) and the need to drop some\nrequirements. Other comments were that such training is offered in history\ncourses, literature courses, philosophy courses, and so forth.\nThe few \"guides\" we received from out of state we found to be not as well\ndeveloped as the \"moral and spiritual values\" guides developed by Ventura\nand Los Angeles counties. They were thus of little value to this study. Most\nof the guides that California districts submitted were sketchy and did not\ndevelop subject matter but usually stated requirements of the law.\nTHE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON GUIDELINES FOR MORAL INSTRUCTION\nOne other step decided upon by the Department and approved by Dr. Raf-\nferty was the appointment of a committee of professional people and legislators\nto sit with the staff from time to time and examine the materials that are\nincluded in these documents. Such a move was thought necessary and useful\nbecause of the direct nature of the subject. These individuals appointed by\nDr. Rafferty are:\n5\nThe Honorable E. Richard Barnes\nAssemblyman, 78th District\nCalifornia Legislature\nThe Honorable John L. Harmer, Attorney\nSenator, 21st District\nCalifornia Legislature\nThe Honorable Floyd L. Wakefield\nAssemblyman, 52nd District\nCalifornia Legislature\nMrs. Rosemary Howard\nChairman, Interfaith Congress on Religion and Education\nSan Jose, California\nHerbert Ellingwood\nLegal Affairs Secretary\nOffice of the Governor\nFormerly, Legislative Representative -- - State Bar of California\nHarry Corkin, Attorney\nExecutive Secretary, United Christian Service Foundation\nSacramento, California\nRev. Robert Williams, Pastor\nChurch of Reflections\nKnott's Berry Farm\nBuena Park, California\nHardin B. Jones\nProfessor of Medical Physics\nAssistant Director, Donner Laboratories\nUniversity of California\nBerkeley, California\nEdwin F. Klotz, Chairman\nSpecial Assistant to the State Board of Education\nAt the first formal meeting of the Advisory Committee on Guidelines for\nMoral Instruction in California Schools (December 4, 1968) Dr. Rafferty\nreviewed the \"general breakdown\" of moral standards in recent years that is\nof concern to everyone and told the committee that theirs was a most delicate\ntask, that \"you are probably the most important committee now working in the\nState Department, 11 and that \"never until this time, to my knowledge, has any\nformal attempt ever been made to try to set up a code of ethics on morality,\nwhich by necessity has to be pretty largely separated from any sectarian\nreligious bodies. Dr. Rafferty added, \"I'm not sure it can be done.\"\nThe advisory committee is not sure it has done all that could be done,\nbecause it recognized that the challenge reaches beyond the pale of the\n6\nclassroom situation. Their inner sentiments were reflected in the form of\na resolution adopted at their first meeting following a lengthy discussion.\nIt was addressed to the Federal Communications Commission expressing their\nconcerns and urging that the government initiate corrective action on the\nfederal level. That resolution was later issued by Dr. Rafferty's office as\na news release, January 6, 1969, and reads as follows:\nWE, the undersigned, members of the California State Department of\nEducation's Advisory Committee on the adoption of Guidelines for Moral\nInstruction in California Schools, take this opportunity to express our\nprofound concern for the lack of self-discipline being displayed by the\nmotion picture industry, television, and the public media in general, on\nmatters of decency and morals.\nWE applaud the hearings recently conducted by the Congress concerning\nthe diet of violence offered the American public on television.\nWE lament the growing tendency of the motion picture industry to lure\nAmericans to neighborhood drive-in theaters by appealing to their basest\ninstincts in matters of sexual conduct.\nWE lament that the entertainment pages of daily newspapers sheepishly\naccept pornographic techniques to sell their seedy films to the public.\nWE lament that judicial decisions governing the definition of \"porno-\ngraphy\" or \"obscenity\" have opened the doors to vast publishing endeavors\nto present our young people with the most corrupt literature of the ages,\nas though it were the \"normal\" behavior of healthy citizens.\nWE observe that this laxity of moral standards has pervaded our colleges\nand that the most obscene scenes that man can imagine are enacted on\ncollege stages and passed off as \"drama.\"\nWE discover now that what is described as \"sex education\" has become\nestablished even in our elementary schools and that materials are being\nused to \"educate\" third and fourth graders which would make most adults\nblush.\nWE, therefore, the undersigned, appointed to assist the Director of\nEducation for the State of California to identify those standards of morality\nwhich are inherent in our culture and heritage, and recognizing that a\nbeginning must be made to reverse this trend, are determined to lead\nCalifornia out of the moral decay in which it is presently descending.\nWE, therefore, call upon the Federal Communications Commission to\ninvestigate the kinds of materials used on public and educational television\nwhich offend the decency of Americans and to help public school authorities\nto promote \"the manners and morals\" which the Legislature of this State\nhas, by law, mandated to be taught in the schools.\n7\nFINALLY, we assert that the schools cannot perform this task when\nbeyond the classroom society is permeated with pictures, films, books\nand television programs which tend to undermine the very moral structure\nthe schools are by law required to preserve and revere.\nTHE Federal Government has established itself as the responsible agent\nto constrain radio and television. Therefore, we urge that your office\nlaunch an investigation designed to reestablish proper codes of conduct\nwhich alone can assist educators in their monumental tasks.\nSigned - - Members of the Committee\nIt is evident that the Department's Advisory Committee on Moral Guide-\nlines saw the issue as broader than anything the educational system could\ninfluence, much less control. The schools could not by themselves reverse\nthe present trend towards moral decay unless all agencies of the country\ncooperated and set general goals -- governmental and nongovernmental\nagencies, news media, publishers, clergy, courts, and the population as a\nwhole.\nThe consensus of opinion of the advisory committee was, as Dr. Rafferty\nnoted, that a \"moral crisis\" was sweeping the land and that all aspects of\nAmerican behavior were affected. This moral crisis is reflected in the\nincreased use of drugs at colleges as well as increased sexual promiscuity\nand illegitimate births and incredible increases in crimes of violence, espe-\ncially among teenagers. It was the consensus of the committee that such a\nmoral crisis is at root a spiritual crises, and that to analyze the problem it\nwas necessary to ask the essential questions about right and wrong. They\nnoted the Board resolution of 1963 related morality with America's history\nand tradition. They wanted to identify those ideas \"alien to our heritage'\nand contrary to public policy. Obviously such a mandate required a study\nin depth of America's spiritual heritage, as well as of \"first principles. \" It\nnecessitated an examination of those ideas and ideals which motivated our\nFounding Fathers. When Mr. Corkin observed that, \"I always think that\nAmerica was built upon the Bible and we have as a result the highest civili-\nzation the world has known, the basic issue was raised -- the relationship\nof moral standards to our religious heritage and tradition. This committee\nreaffirmed, in other words, the declaration of the State Board of Education\nin 1963 quoted above: \"We want the children of California to be aware of the\nspiritual principles and the faith which undergird out way of life.\"\nThe problem, as the Department staff sees it, is that few school districts\nin the state have taken the initiative to fulfill the spirit of this declaration of\n1963. It is to correct this condition that the staff and its advisory committee\nhave made specific recommendations, not only as to content but as to action.\nThe Department believes it has approached its assignment successfully.\nWe hope that all school officials examine this document carefully and apply\nits spirit and the techniques herein described to their individual situations.\nThe staff feels they have developed the proper yardstick by which to measure\nthe valid and the invalid, the moral and the immoral, the alien and the\nunalienable.\nChapter II\nMorality and the Law\nTHE THEOLOGICAL STATE\nWhen President Eisenhower signed the legislative act giving legal force\nto the change in the \"Pledge of Allegiance\" by adding the two words \"under\nGod,' he reasserted what most Americans have long assumed: that God is\nas much a legal part of the American heritage as He is a traditional entity,\nloved and worshipped as befits the individual citizens' comprehension of His\nPerson.\nThis is not to say that all Americans believe in God or accept this heritage.\nBut it is to say that legally and traditionally the American Republic was, and\nis, established upon a firm belief in divine providence.\nThere was, for example, considerable debate over adopting the Preamble\nof the Constitution of the State of California in 1849 because it was considered\ntoo close to being a \"prayer.\" Charles Botts, a delegate from Monterey, took\nexception to it and insisted that, \"The closet is the proper place for devotion,\nnot the ballot box.\"\nThe majority of the delegates disagreed with Botts, however. After all,\neach session had begun with prayer; one day by a priest, another day by a\nProtestant minister. \"If we can by supposition, said one delegate, \"get a\nprayer out of those who are not in the habit of praying, we should by all means\ndo it. \"1\nCalifornia's Preamble is similar to all the 50 states of the Union where it\ninvokes a dependency for its citizens upon divine law:2\nWe the people of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our\nfreedom, and in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish\nthis Constitution.\nThe only change made by the delegates at the 1879 convention, and which\nremains to this day, was the addition of the words \"and perpetuate.\"\nThus, \"the blessings of freedom,\" by constitutional law, are dependent upon\nobedience to the higher law of God. This is essentially the meaning of the\nPreamble to our basic law and from which all our freedoms flow. (This\n1 J. Ross Browne, Report of the Debates in the Convention of California\non the Formation of the State Constitution, in September and October, 1849,\nWashington, D. C. 1850, p. 417.\n2\nBenjamin Weiss, God in American History. Grand Rapids, Mich. Zon-\ndervan Publishing House. 1966. This publication contains the preambles of\nall 50 states of the Union.\n8\n9\nconcept is pursued in depth in Chapter III.) It is something that the school\nadministrator can begin with, because, as the legal officer of the school, he\nmust begin with \"what is, with what the law says. Unfortunately, there are\nfew statutes which specify the meaning of \"morality\" within this context which\nhe is bound to protect and promote. He would have to start with Article IX,\nSection I of the Constitution of the State of California and understand the\nintention of California's founding fathers when they adopted it.\nA general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the\npreservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the Legislature\nshall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual,\nscientific, moral, and agricultural improvement.\nIt was not until 1943, however, that the Legislature moved to implement\nthat constitutional mandate. At that time Education Code Section 7851 (now\nSection 13556. 5) was adopted.\n13556. 5. Each teacher shall endeavor to impress upon the minds of the\npupils the principles of morality, truth, justice, patriotism, and a true\ncomprehension of the rights, duties, and dignity of American citizenship,\nincluding kindness toward domestic pets and the humane treatment of living\ncreatures, to teach them to avoid idleness, profanity, and falsehood, and\nto instruct them in manners and morals and the principles of a free govern-\nment.\nPerhaps school officials, like judges, need to look behind the words, and\nto the intentions of the legislators who adopted the laws, in order to best\nfulfill their responsibilities according to tradition and heritage.\nIn the case of Section I, Article IX of the Constitution of the State of\nCalifornia, the men at the Constitutional Convention in 1849 frequently referred\nto articles on public education already adopted by other Western states. These\nstates, in turn, traced their allocations of public lands for education to the\nprovisions first proposed by Jefferson during the periods of the Confederation;\nfor instance, the Ordinance of 1785 which \"reserve the lot N. 16 of every\ntownship for the maintenance of public schools' and the additional Ordinance\nof 1787 which included Article the Third: \"Religion, morality and knowledge\nbeing necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools\nand the means of education shall forever be encouraged. 11\nThere is no question, therefore, that one of the primary functions of public\neducation, according to the original purposes for establishing public schools,\nwas to teach religion and morality as essential to the success of good govern-\nment.\nIn a later chapter we shall examine the nature of this religion and morality.\nFor the moment let us cite those statutes which use the words moral, morality,\nand immoral in connection with education.\n10\nGOOD MORAL CHARACTER\nSection 13126 of the Education Code specifically requires candidates for\nteaching certificates \"to submit reasonable evidence of identification and\ngood moral character. \"\nSection 13129 provides the grounds for dismissal of teachers who are\naddicted to intoxicating beverages, to narcotics, guilty of fraud, and \"(e) Has\ncommitted any act involving moral turpitude.'\nSection 13202 of the Education Code reads:\nThe State Board of Education shall revoke or suspend for immoral or\nunprofessional conduct, or for persistent defiance of, and refusal to obey,\nthe laws regulating the duties of persons serving in the Public School\nSystem,\nOther sections of the Education Code, beginning with Section 12910, provide\nfor the dismissal of teachers who have fallen into wayward behavior. Teachers\ncan be dismissed from the ranks of those who hold certificates for sex crimes\n(Section 12911) as defined in the Penal Code Section 647; that is, for \"lewd and\nlascivious conduct and for narcotics offenses (Education Code sections\n12912. 5ff). There are, of course, mandatory revocations for major crimes,\nand any school official who is \"knowingly\" a member of the Communist Party\nwill suffer loss of his credential.\nMORAL TURPITUDE\nThe problem confronting educators and administrators today is that, while\nlaw identifies crimes based upon \"immoral acts,' contemporary definitions of\n\"moral\" and \"immoral\" have brought about a kind of stalemate to the point of\npublic acceptance of homosexual behavior. Some of the reasons for these\nchanges, if indeed they are changes, will be examined in Chapter V.\nThe issues remain one of definition of standards, however.\nWhat is good moral character?\nWhat is immoral?\nWhat is obscene?\nWhat is pornographic?\nIf one searches the reasons why these questions seem to go unanswered\nthese days, one would ultimately wind up on the steps of the U.S. Supreme\nCourt in Washington, D. C., for the answers.\nConsider the term: \"moral turpitude.' Webster traces the word \"turpitude\"\nto the Latin turpitudo, from Turpis, vile, base. Hence, it means \"inherent\n11\nbaseness: depravity; also a base act. 11 But, as the advisory committee\nobserved the very first day of its meeting in December, 1968, there are\nmovies, books, magazines, and nonprofit institutes that sell a philosophy\nof life which rejects traditional standards of \"morality.\" This philosophy,\nor religion, called Secular Humanism has penetrated deep into institutions\nof higher education where California's future teachers are entertained by\ncampus-sponsored \"dramas,\" such as The Beard, Ergo, Hair, and so forth.\nThis \"new morality\" illustrates the progress made in convincing college stu-\ndents that there is literally no such thing as \"a base act\"; and if this is true,\nthere is difficulty in ascribing such acts as \"moral turpitude.\"\nThe suggested changes made by the Teachers Professional Standards\nCommission, appointed by the State Board of Education, are indicative of\nthese changes in attitude toward the term \"good moral character. 11 Some of\nthose changes are as follows:\nPenal Code sections 220-221\nAssault with Intent to Rape. (Mandatory\nAction) Permanent Revocation. (Discre-\ntionary Action) Nonpermanent Denial.\nChange to:\n(Mandatory Action) Nonpermanent Revo-\ncation. Recommend thorough legislative\nstatutory revision.\nPenal Code Section 288a\nOral Sex Perversion. (Mandatory Action)\nNonpermanent Revocation. Permanent\nRevocation, Permanent Denial.\nChange to:\n(Discretionary Action) Nonpermanent\nRevocation or Suspension. Permanent\nDenial. Recommend legislative statutory\nrevision.\nPenal Code Section 314\nIndecent Exposure. (Mandatory Action)\nPermanent Revocation. Permanent Denial.\nChange to:\n(Discretionary Action) Nonpermanent\nRevocation or Suspension. Nonpermanent\nDenial. Recommend legislative statutory\nrevision.\nPenal Code Section 647\nLoitering In or About Public Toilet for\n(Subdivision (d) )\nLewd Acts. (Mandatory Action) Perma-\nnent Revocation. Permanent Denial.\nChange to:\n(Mandatory Action) Nonpermanent Revo-\ncation. (Discretionary Action) Nonperma-\nnent Denial.\n12\nThe arguments for changing the penalties incurred by some of these\n\"offenses are that moral attitudes have changed and that, therefore, moral\nstandards for school teachers should also change. Hence, the question again\narises: What is that \"good moral character¹ by which all public officials are\njudged, be they teachers or not?\nThe question was posed by members of the advisory committee to the\nBoard, but their answers were not those of the relativists or the secular\nHumanists. Their admonitions to the Department staff encouraged a look\nbehind the fads of the moment, of the moral decay observable around us.\nThey urged, instead, what the State Board wanted to know: What are those\nstandards according to our tradition and heritage?\nThe advisory committee members observed that behind statutory and\nconstitutional law lies the uncodified law of human behavior upon which\nstatutory laws rest. Statutes, they observed, largely protect those standards\nthat are traditionally a part of a society. Law, in other words, is a protective\nfunction. It punishes only when the established traditions are disregarded.\nCrime by definition is \"a public offense\"; that is, an offense against estab-\nlished morals and standards. Laws, in other words, do not create morality,\nbut they do identify what is immoral or \"wrong\" by establishing penalties\nagainst infractions.\nThe teacher can surely identify what is a public offense by reciting the Ten\nCommandments as the standard of morality for America and for most of the\nWestern world, because the Decalogue is the unwritten law of the land, the\nintellectual infrastructure upon which statutory laws rest. Let us illustrate\nthis by reciting some Penal Code sections and the particular moral standards,\ntraceable to the Decalogue, which they protect. 3 The table reaffirms the\nassertion of Louis de Bonald, the eighteenth century enemy of Voltaire: \"Laws\ncome from an earlier time and like man himself, they existed before they\nwere born. \" (Bonald was quick to observe, moreover, that \"bad laws have a\nbeginning, but the good, emanating from God, are as eternal as He.\")\nCommandment\nPenal Code Section\nThird Thou shalt not take the name\nProhibits vulgar, profane or\nof the Lord Thy God in vain.\nindecent language: 415\nFourth Remember the Sabbath Day to\nDisturbing religious meetings: 302\nkeep it holy.\n3 This comparison is a brief example of what could be explored in more\ndetail. Other than the Penal Code, the following professional codes also lean\nheavily on the Decalogue as representative of the moral standards which\ncitizens of California wish upheld: the Business and Professional Code; the\nWelfare and Institutions Code; the Health and Safety Code; and of course, the\nEducation Code.\n13\nCommandment\nPenal Code Section\nFifth\nHonour thy Father and thy\nFailure to provide for parents: 270c\nMother.\nSixth\nThou shalt not kill.\nAssault: 149, 221, 240, 244, 245\nBattery: 242, 243\nMurder: 187-190, 190.1, etc.\nMayhem: 203, 204\nAttempts to kill: 216, 217, 217.1,\n218, 219, etc.\nDuels: 225-231\nSuicides: 401\nSeventh Thou shalt not commit adultery.\nRape: 220, 261-264, 266b\nAbduction: 265, 267\nSeduction: 266, 268, 269\nProstitution: 266a, 266e-h, 273f,\netc.\nPandering: 266\nAdultery: 269a, 269b\nFailure to provide: 270, etc.\nAbortion: 274-276\nBigamy: 281-284\nIncest: 285, 359, 785\nEighth Thou shalt not steal.\nBribery or unlawful receipt of money\nor property: 67, 67-1/2, 68, 70\n72, etc.\nExtortion: 518-524, 526, 527\nFraud: 154, 155, 156, 157, etc.\nForgery: 470-476, etc.\nKidnapping: 207-210, 278, 784\nRobbery: 211, 211a, 212-214\nBurglary: 459-461, etc.\nLotteries: 319-326\nGaming: 330, 330a-c, etc.\nCounterfeiting: 366, 477-481\nLarceny: 384a, 484-487, etc.\nEmbezzlement: 424-428, 431, etc.\nNinth\nThou shalt not bear false wit-\nPerjury: 118, 118a, 119, etc.\nness against thy neighbor.\nFalsifying evidence: 132-136\nLibel: 248-257, 964\nSlander: 258-260, 784a\nTenth\nThou shalt not covet thy neigh-\nThe mental act of coveting is not a\nbor's house, wife, servants\ncrime, but the fulfillment of that\nor property.\ndesire would lead to theft, adul-\ntery, kidnapping, rape, arson, or\nsimilar crimes.\n14\nTherefore, to understand morality according to our traditions and heritage,\nit is imperative that we begin with those concepts which were so basically a\npart of the thinking of America's Founding Fathers. The bases of moral con-\nduct in America as in the Western World as a whole, we will find in two major\ntraditions: (1) that of natural or higher law as developed by reason; and (2)\nthat of moral absolutes as expressed in the Judeo-Christian religion. 4\nA third source will be referred to as well: those codes of conduct which\ngovern primitive people and which are handed down from one generation to\nanother, largely by verbal tradition. 5\nIn all three instances, however, there is evidence that the moral law is\ninseparable from the inherent nature of mankind as a whole.\nAnd there is inescapable evidence that, in all three areas of discovery of\nthe moral law, ultimately moral man is found to be a reflection of his perfect\nCreator, God.\n4\nThe official philosophy of the State Department of Education, as enunci-\nated by Dr. Max Rafferty, June 16, 1965: \"Education in Depth maintains that\nthere are positive, eternal values, and that the main purpose of Education is\nto seek out these lasting values\n\"\n5\nHere the discipline of anthropology can be utilized by classroom teachers.\nThe connection of man with spiritual origins and destiny is common to all\nprimitive peoples and cultures. Fortunately Frank Hamilton Cushing, an\nIndian affairs official who lived many years among the Zuni, put into English\nZuni religious myths. \"Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths, 11 was first published\nin the 13th Annual Report 1891-92 by the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology,\nWashington, D. C., pp. 325-447. It reflects in a remarkable way the story\nof Genesis, and even of the Biblical wanderings of the Jews.\nChapter III\nMorality and the Natural Law Tradition\nA divine conception of the universe pervades the spirit of American civiliza-\ntion as it does of world civilizations in general. It is that man's blessings-all\nhis freedoms-stem from a source that is higher than man.\nThis is the concept of higher law, or natural law, or divine law, as invoked\nby America's men and heroes since the beginning of our history. The Declaration\nof Independence incorporates this thesis, as every school boy should know. It\nclaims it is necessary for people \"to assume among the powers of the earth, the\nseparate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle\nthem\nWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created\n11\nequal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,\nOne of the problems of our time is that not every school boy does know the\nsignificance of these theological declarations as they apply to the American\nheritage.\nThe leading theorists on college campuses today seem to discredit the entire\ntheory of natural law by asserting it was nothing but an idealistic reflection of\na passing agrarian society, something of a figment of the imagination of one\nman, Thomas Jefferson.\nRoland Van Zandt, whose work is a source book for contemporary social\nscience teachers, refers to the \"group of growing scholars and specialists who\nhave come to see that our traditional theories are indefensible even though these\ntheories are still generally subscribed to by the populace as a whole and those\nmembers of society who are closest to the centers of power and are responsible\nfor the maintenance of that society. Mr. Van Zandt avoids theological premises\n(see Chapter V) and considers the whole traditional order of American society\nbased upon \"antiquated assumptions. 1\nMr. Van Zandt and the scholars of his school either miss the main thrust\nof history as reflected in the American experiment, or they choose to ignore\nit. What they ignore is the thesis that what is valid for all mankind is as valid\ntoday as it was in the age of Gilgamish; namely, that the moral laws which\ngovern mankind remain constant, whatever the political or economic changes\nin social structure that may take place as a result of technological changes.\nIt means, in other words, that a moral system governing the behavior of men\nprecedes and supercedes the political structure. It means that an intellectual\norder is the infrastructure upon which an economic and political order rests.\nThe basic rights of free men are nowhere found where man is enslaved.\nSuch rights, in other words, to property, to freedom of movement within\none's own country, or the right to emigrate to another country. The cher-\nished American freedoms of speech, of press, of privacy, of conscience,\n1\nRoland Van Zandt, The Metaphysical Foundation of American History,\nThe Hague: Mouton and Co., 1959, p. 59.\n15\n16\nor of trade and commerce are unknown in countries which have denied God.\nOf supreme importance is the right of parents to raise and educate their chil-\ndren. This is one of the first rights lost to free men under twentieth century\nCommunist or Nazi regimes, for example.\nAll such rights are accepted as commonplace to most Americans whose\nthinking is rooted in natural law. To avoid instruction in the meaning of these\nprofound theories is tantamount to ignoring the foundation of Western Civiliza-\ntion.\nJOHN ADAMS\nFor instance, those rights were spelled out long before 1776. Listen to\nJohn Adams, in 1765:\nLet the bar proclaim \"the laws, the rights, the generous plan of power\"\ndelivered from remote antiquity, inform the world of the mighty struggles\nand numberless sacrifices made by our ancestors in defense of freedom.\nLet it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes or\nparliaments but original rights, conditions of original contracts, coequal\nwith prerogative and coeval with government; that many of our rights are\ninherent and essential\nLet them search for the foundations of\nlaws\nand government in the frame of human nature, in the constitution of the\nintellectual and moral world. There let us see that truth, liberty, justice,\nand benevolence are its everlasting basis; and if these could be removed,\nthe superstructure is overthrown of course.\n2\nThese views were repeated in the Declaration of Rights in 1774, which\ndeclared that \"the inhabitants of the English Colonies in North America, by\nthe immutable laws of nature, have the following rights,' which were then\nidentified as those of \"life, liberty and property.' This document, like that\nof 1776, proceeded to identify in detail the infractions committed by the British\ngovernment against rights guaranteed to a free people by natural law precepts.\nAs Clarence Carson points out, our Founding Fathers were very much at\nhome with the philosophical systems of the ancient Greeks and Romans. \"The\nframers of the Constitution, he observed, \"did not merely echo or imitate\nthis ancient material, they applied it to the task in hand and transmuted it\ninto workable form.\"\nFor the first time in modern history, in fact, a people, forced by circum-\nstances to examine the first principles of freedom, actually incorporated in\ntheir structure of government, in the Bill of Rights, a philosophy of govern-\nment based upon natural law concepts. To say, as the debunkers of American\nhistory are saying, that such an enormous contribution to the history of man\nwas merely an \"abstraction\" and \"unnatural,\" as Mr. Van Zandt and his school\nassert, is one of the most twisted interpretations of a nation's history that\nthe most gifted writer on utopias could ever attempt.\n2\nClarence B. Carson, The American Tradition. Irvington-Hudson, N. Y.\nFoundation for Economic Education, 1964, p. 16.\n17\nLet us look at some of the sources read and digested and applied by America's\nFounding Fathers.\nARISTOTLE\nThe first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists\nby necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first\nprinciple\nOn such a principle then, depend the heavens and the world\nof nature\nIf then, God is always in that good state in which we some-\ntimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet\nmore. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the\nactuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God's self-dependent\nactuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living\nbeing, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal\nbelong to God; for this is God.\n3\nAnd readers of Aristotle will discover how much the peripatetic liked to\nquote the eighteenth century poet Hesiod on the origins of the world; a paragraph\nwhich sounds rather like Genesis and prophetic of the Incarnation:\nFirst of all things chaos made, and then\nBroad-breasted earth\nAnd love, 'mid all the gods pre-eminent.\nIt is very true that much of Aristotle and Cicero and Seneca came to our\nFounding Fathers from the English theorists Sir Edward Coke and William\nBlackstone. Coke, a sixteenth century writer, was our country's link with\nthe ancient world through his concentration on the middle ages.\nSIR EDWARD COKE\nThe law of nature was before any judicial or municipal law (and) is\nimmutable. The law of nature is that which God at the time of creation of\nthe nature of man infused into his heart for preservation and direction;\nand this is the eternal law, the moral law, called also the law of nature.\nAnd by this law, written with the finger of God in the heart of man, were\nthe people of God a long time governed before the law was written by Moses,\nwho was the first reporter or writer of law in the world.\nGod and nature is one to all and therefore the law of God and nature is\none to all.\nThis law of nature which indeed is the eternal law of the Creator, infused\ninto the heart of the creature at the time of his creation, was two thousand\nyears before any laws written and before any judicial or municipal laws\n3\nIntroduction to Aristotle, Metaphysics, Bk. XII. New York: Modern\nLibrary, n. d., p. 295.\n18\nwere made. Kings did decide cases according to the natural equity and were\nnot tied to any rule or formality of law.\n4\nWILLIAM BLACKSTONE\nWilliam Blackstone echoed Coke and was without doubt the most oft-quoted\nphilosopher among American patriots during the trying days of the independence\nmovement:\nWhen the Supreme Being formed the universe and created matter out\nof nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which\nit can never depart, and without which it would cease to be.\nThis, then, is the general signification of law, a rule of action dictated\nby some superior being; and, in those creatures that have neither the power\nto think, nor to will, such laws must invariably be obeyed, so long as the\ncreature itself subsists, for its existence depends on that obedience.\nBut laws, in their more confined sense and in which it is our present\nbusiness to consider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but\nof human action or conduct, that is, the precepts by which man\nendowed\nwith both reason and free will, is commanded to make use of those faculties\nin the general regulation of his behaviour.\nMan, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws\nof his Creator for he is entirely a dependent being\na state of dependence\nwill inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him on whom he depends\nas the rule of his conduct\nin all those points wherein his dependence\nconsists\nConsequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything,\nit is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will.\nThis will of his Maker is called the law of nature.\nFor as God, when he created matter, and endowed it with a principle\nof mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that\nnation, so, when he created man, and endowed him with free will to conduct\nhimself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human\nnature, whereby that free will is in some degree regulated and restrained,\nand gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws\nThe Creator is a being not only of infinite power and wisdom, but also of\ninfinite goodness\nhe has so intimately connected, so inseparably inter-\nwoven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual,\nthat\nhappiness cannot be attained but by observing the former; and if\nthe former be punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce [happiness].\n4\nMoral Leadership, The Protection of Moral Standards and Character\nEducation Program, United States Navy and United States Marine Corps,\nNavpers No. 19589, 1957, p. 196.\n19\nThis is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law; for the\nseveral articles into which it is branched into our systems, amount to no\nmore than demonstrating that this or that action tends to man's real\nhappiness, and therefore very justly concluding that the performance of\nit is part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that\naction is destructive of man's real happiness, and therefore that the law\nof nature forbids it.\nThis law of nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God\nhimself, is of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding\nover all the globe in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of\nany validity if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all\ntheir force and all of their authority mediately or immediately from this\noriginal.\n5\nCICERO\nBut it was the great Roman orator Cicero who was most often quoted by\nmen who blazed new routes in moral and political history in the 1770s. It\nwill be readily seen from the following how much of a debt they, as well as\nCoke and Blackstone, owed to him:\nThere is in fact a true law -- namely right reason -- which is in\naccordance with nature, applies to all men, and is unchangeable and\neternal. By its commands this law summons men to the performance of\ntheir duties; by its prohibitions it restrains them from doing wrong. Its\ncommands and prohibitions always influence good men, but are without\neffect upon the bad.\nTo invalidate this law by human legislation is never morally right, nor\nis it permissible ever to restrict its operation, and to annul it wholly is\nimpossible.\nNeither the Senate nor the people can absolve us from our obligation to\nobey this law, and it requires no Sextus Aelius to expound and interpret it.\nIt will not lay down one rule at Rome, and another at Athens, nor will\nit be one rule today and another tomorrow.\nBut there will be one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times\nupon all peoples; and there will be, as it were, one common master and\nruler of men, namely God, who is the author of this law, its interpreter\nand its sponsor.\nThe man who will not obey it will abandon his better self, and, in denying\nthe true nature of a man, will thereby suffer the severest of penalties, though\nhe has escaped all the other consequences which men call punishment.\n6\n5\nIbid., pp. 196, 197.\n6\nIbid., p. 196.\n20\n\"Right reason,\" experience, experimentation, applied to the physical world\nhas allowed mankind to discover and harness the laws of physical nature to\napply to his comfort and pleasure. Right reason, experience, and experimen-\ntation has also presented to mankind over the course of human history a structure\nof moral order which, if followed, leads to peace and happiness and, if ignored,\nleads to strife and tyranny.\nOur Founding Fathers fully believed, therefore, that moral codes of law\nwere as discernible as were those laws governing the actions of physical forces.\nThey bound all men -- at all times in all countries. Through sheer \"reason,\"\ngiven to man alone of all God's creatures, these laws are manifest. Our Found-\ning Fathers often quoted Plutarch's injunction: \"to follow God and obey reason\nis the same thing. IT Right reason would lead men to discover those laws govern-\ning human behavior, just as reason and experimentation revealed to man those\nlaws governing the movement of heavenly bodies, or of gravity, or of heat, or\nthe composition of matter. If all flowed from God, it was reasonable to expect\nthat He would enlighten man more and more as his reason was continuously\napplied to experience. Because of this, perhaps, Roscoe Pound, America's\ngreatest teacher of law in the twentieth century, remarked about those from\nwhom our forefathers learned:\nThe Seventeenth Century policy as set forth in Coke's doctrine, was the\none we accepted at our Revolution and put into our constitutions. When\nthese instruments declare themselves the 11 supreme law of the land\" they\nuse the language of Magna Carta as interpreted by Coke; namely, that\nstatutes could be scrutinized to look into the basis of their authority and\nif in conflict with fundamental law they must be disregarded. This doctrine\nwas as much a matter of course to the American lawyer of the early Revolu-\ntion as the doctrine of the absolute binding force of an act of Parliament is\nto the English lawyer of today.\nSo steeped were the Eighteenth Century colonial lawyers in Coke's\nteachings, that the controversial literature of the era of the Revolution,\nif it is to be understood, must be read or interpreted by a common law\nlawyer. Indeed, he must be a common law lawyer of the Nineteenth Century\ntype, brought up to read and reread Coke and Blackstone until he got the\nwhole feeling and atmosphere of those who led resistance to the home\ngovernment.\n7\nThe one outstanding element which held together the spirit of our Founding\nFathers in those dark days of resistance to tyranny from abroad was the element\nof humility as creatures of God. As Hamilton commented on the difficulties\nwhich confronted them in their struggle for freedom: \"It is impossible for the\nman of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand\nwhich has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical\nstages of the Revolution. 118\n7\nIbid., p. 198.\n8\nFederalist Papers, #37.\n21\nToday, as Americans are reflecting more and more upon those intellectual\nfoundations upon which our society and culture was established, they would be\nless than sensible if they did not heed Roscoe Pound's advice and reexamine\nthose sources of wisdom which form one side of the triangle of our heritage.\nBy so doing, they would recognize the deep significance of that oft-quoted but\nseldom examined phrase of Thomas Jefferson: \"Endowed by our Creator with\ncertain unalienable rights.\nFortunately for the Department staff, Assemblyman E. Richard Barnes, for\nover 20 years a chaplain in the U.S. Navy, became a member of the Advisory\nCommittee on Guidelines for Moral Instruction. He brought to our attention the\n\"moral leadership\" program of the Navy and Marine Corps, from which some\nof the preceding quotes were taken. Here was a prepared and tested outline\nof techniques to teach young men the nature of man and his relationship to God,\nhis neighbor, his country, and his world. It was not only approved by all\ndenominations of chaplains of the Navy but approved as well by the federal\ngovernment as an educational program.\nAn analysis of the Navy's series of booklets on the subject of moral education\nconvinced the committee that much of the Department's task on this particular\nphase of the guidelines had already been done. Accordingly, the chairman of\nthe committee wrote to the Chief of Navy Chaplains, Washington, D. C., asking\nwhether there would be any problem involved if the California State Board of\nEducation decided to use the Navy's materials as part of their moral guidelines\nproject.\nRear Admiral James W. Kelly, Chief of Chaplains, replied, \"Your Committee\nis indeed welcome to utilize as much of this subject matter as desired for the\npropsed Guidelines. There are no copyright laws involved in the reproduction\nof this material.\" In another communication the Admiral added, \"I am pleased\nin your interest in the Character Education program of the Navy and Marine\nCorps, and I wish you success in the implementation of a similar program in\nthe California schools.\nRear Admiral Kelly managed to obtain for us 10 copies of the document\nThis Is My Life. 9 It is suggested by the staff that chapters I, II, III and V\nare especially appropriate to the purposes assigned by the Board resolution of\nJuly, 1968.\n9\nThis is My Life, United States Navy and Marine Corps Character Education\nProgram, Series Four, NAVPERS 15884, Washington, D.C.\nChapter IV\nMorality and the Religious Tradition\nEvery school boy is taught that America's first European settlers were\nChristians, whether they were Anglo-Protestants in the North or Catholic\nChristians sweeping up from the South. Moreover, both denominations carried\nto the New World with them a missionary zeal to convert to Christianity the\nIndians they found in the New World.\nIn 1493 Columbus wrote concerning his discoveries of the Indies:\nLet Christ rejoice on earth, as he rejoices in heaven in the prospect\nof the salvation of the souls of so many nations hitherto lost. Let us also\nrejoice, as well on account of the exaltation of our faith, as on account\nof the increase of our temporal prosperity of which not only Spain, but\nall Christendom will be partakers.\n1\nIt took several centuries for the Spanish missionary zeal to reach the\nshores of California where Gaspar de Portola and Junipero Serra led the\nnorthernmost exploits of the Spaniards to complete what Columbus had started\nthree centuries earlier.\nMeanwhile, the English plans to colonize and civilize the eastern portions\nof the New World were not without a Christian missionary zeal. Wrote Richard\nHakluyt in 1584:\nIt remains to be thoroughly weighed and considered by what means and\nby whom this most godly and Christian work may be performed of enlarging\nthe glorious gospel of Christ, and reducing (leading) of infinite multitudes\nof these simple people that are in error into the right and perfect way of\ntheir salvation. The blessed apostle Paul, converter of the Gentiles,\nRomans 10, writes in this manner: \"Whosoever shall call on the name of\nthe Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call on him in whom they have\nnot believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not\nheard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they\npreach except they be sent?\" Then it is necessary, for the salvation of\nthose poor people who have sat SO long in darkness and in the shadow of\ndeath, that preachers should be sent unto them. But by whom should these\npreachers be sent? By them no doubt who have taken upon them the pro-\ntection and defense of the Christian faith. Now the Kings and Queens of\nEngland have the name of Defenders of the Faith. By which title I think\nthey are not only charged to maintain and patronize the faith of Christ, but\nalso to enlarge and advance the same. 2\n1\nEdwin Scott Gaustad, A Religious History of America. New York:\nHarper & Row Pubs., 1966, p. 7.\n2\nIbid., p. 28.\n22\n23\nWe can know our heritage and our traditions through our documents -- by\nreading the biographies of our heroes and by recording the impact of America\nupon the world scene.\nThe compact signed aboard the Mayflower by the Puritans upon arriving at\nPlymouth was \"for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian Faith.'\nThe primary purpose of education in America's early history was precisely\nto prepare young Christians to familiarize themselves with the \"book,\" the\nBible, as Justice Brewer of the U.S. Supreme Court said: \"The American\nNation, from its first settlement in Jamestown to this very moment, has been\npermeated by the Bible.\nAbraham Lincoln once declared: \"In regard to the great Book, the Bible,\nI have only to say that it is the best gift God has ever given to man\nBut\nfor this Book we could not know right from wrong.\"4\nDaniel Webster elaborated on this theme: \"The Bible is a book of faith, and\na book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of special\nrevelation from God.\nIn our times Adlai Stevenson found it necessary to observe that: \"The\nChristian faith has been the most significant single element in our history and\ntradition.\nEven the courts have, in recent years, in their zeal to protect the rights of\nindividuals, found it necessary to reassert America's religious heritage as\nthe major support of the individual because he is a creature of God. In Zorach\nV. Clauson, the U.S. Supreme Court admitted that Americans \"are a religious\npeople whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.\" And in the case of\nU.S. of America, V. Daniel Andrew Seeger, (an appeal to the U.S. Supreme\nCourt to reverse conviction of refusal to submit to induction into the Armed\nForces, No. 206, Docket 28346, U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit 1964)\nthe U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Daniel Seeger on the\nfollowing grounds:\nIt has been noted that the principal distinction between the free world\nand the Marxist nations is traceable to democracy's concern for the rights\nof the individual citizen as opposed to the collective mass of society. And\nthis dedication to the freedom of the individual of which our Bill of Rights\nis the most eloquent expression, is in large measure the result of the\nnation's religious heritage.\n3\nBenjamin J. Weiss, Great Thoughts. South Pasadena, Calif. : National\nEducators Fellowship, 1968, p. 7.\n4\nIbid., p. 9.\n5\nIbid., p. 13.\n6\nIbid., p. 39.\n24\nThe court added, \"Indeed, we here respect the right of Daniel Seeger to\nbelieve what he will largely because of the conviction that every individual is\na child of God; and that Man, created in the image of his Maker, is endowed\nfor that reason with human dignity.\nThese comments only reaffirm what the State Board of Education resolution\nasserted in December, 1963: the courts of our country have leaned again and\nagain upon America's religious heritage in order to arrive at decisions which\nprotect individual liberties.\nHow was the issue of religion in the public schools in California dealt with\nin the past? It may be instructive for us to examine how the famous California\nSuperintendent of Public Instruction John Swett fused the issues of religion\nand morality to the satisfaction of the public in his day.\nJOHN SWETT\nIt is a curious circumstance that just about 100 years ago, John Swett found\nit necessary to defend the public schools against charges that they were not\nteaching morality to the children. His thirteenth report to the California State\nLegislature for the year 1863 is replete with arguments for his defense and\nsupplies our generation with some materials that could well be examined for\nour purposes. There are here excellent examples of how the natural law\nprecepts fused and mixed with the Christian ethic and how materials were\ndesigned to fulfill the obligations of the schools as those officials of that day\nsaw it.\n\"That moral training is an important part of public school education, no\none will deny,' wrote Swett. And he added, \"And that it receives all the\nattention which its importance demands, few will affirm. 11\nSwett continued:\nNow, the moral faculties of the child, like the intellectual, need daily\ndevelopment from the feeble germs of childhood. We do not expect a little\nchild to learn arithmetic or grammar by repeating rules and formulas;\nneither ought we to suppose that the same child will appreciate, understand,\nand assimilate, the great foundation principles of right and wrong which\nshould be its rule of action through life by the mere process of repeating\nmottoes, maxims, or commandments.\nIt is not enough to tell children it is wicked to lie, or to make them\ncommit to memory the commandment forbidding it; the enormity of the\noffence must be pressed home by familiar illustrations, by simple stories\nor anecdotes, until their feeble moral powers can comprehend its meanness\nand its wickedness. The moral faculties, like the intellectual, are of slow\ngrowth; they need daily culture until the habit of right thinking and right\ndoing is formed. There are evil tendencies in the child's nature to be\nrepressed; there are the germs of good qualities to, be warmed into life and\nquickened in their growth; and this is the work of skillful teachers during\nmany years.\n25\nAbstract doctrines of religious belief will never do this. The moral\nnature grows with the intellectual -- as knowledge dawns upon the mind, so\ncomes the distinction between right and wrong. Any teacher who should\nattempt to make his pupils thoroughly understand cube root by committing\nto memory the rule without performing a single example under it, or who\nshould attempt to teach them a knowledge of grammar by requiring them to\nmemorize all the rules, without writing or speaking a word, would be far\nwiser than he who attempts to develop the moral natures of children by\nformal precepts alone. It is not the best way to make a boy honest to\nrequire him to repeat, \"Thou shalt not steal,' from morning till night,\nneither is it the surest way to fortify him against a habit of profanity simply\nby telling him it is wicked to swear. Hundreds of parents have found this\nout to their sorrow. The form is too often mistaken for the reality, and\nthe shadow for the substance.\nSimply reading the Bible in schools may be an aid to moral training, but\nthere is no substitute for it. The vital point is, not whether the Bible shall\nor shall not be read, but whether the dormant germs of moral and religious\nlife shall be warmed and quickened by the soul of the teacher.\nThe difference between the English and the Douay version of the Scrip-\ntures, about which there has been so much contention, makes no essential\ndifference in human nature, or in the great principles which underlie all\nmorality and all religion.\nDo the public schools make any provision for moral culture, and if so,\nwhat is it? The State Board of Education has placed on the State series\nof textbooks Cowdery's Moral Lessons, to be used in school by teachers.\nIt seems a little strange, when so much attention has been given to text-\nbooks in all school studies, that there is only one little work on morals\nadapted to the minds of children, and based on philosophical principles of\ndevelopment. Of larger works in ethics there are many, but this little\nbook of Cowdery's seems to be the only textbook suitable for use in schools\nof the lower grades. It contains some thirty lessons on manners and morals,\neach lesson having a maxim, which is illustrated by stories or anecdotes,\nfollowed by questions on the principle inculcated. The following are the\nsubjects of the lessons:\n1. Do unto others as you would have others do to you.\n2. Repay all injuries with kindness.\n3. A little wrong done to another is great wrong done to ourselves.\n4. The noblest courage is the courage to do right.\n5. Be slow to promise, but sure to perform.\n6. Honor thy father and thy mother.\n7. Think the truth; speak the truth; act the truth.\n8. Do good to all as you have opportunity.\n9. Speak evil of no one.\n10. Carefully listen to conscience, and always obey its commands.\n11. We must forgive all injuries, as we hope to be forgiven.\n12. Learn to help one another.\n13. The greatest conqueror is the self-conqueror.\n26\n14. Swear not at all.\n15. Be faithful to every trust.\n16. Be neat.\n17. Right actions should spring from right motives.\n18. Labor conquers all things.\n19. Be honest in 'little things,' upright in all things\n20. A person is known by the company he keeps.\n21. Learn to deny yourself.\n22. Live usefully.\n23. Be kind to the unfortunate.\n24. Do right and fear not.\n25. Be patient and hopeful.\n26. Be merciful to animals.\n27. It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.\n28. It is more blessed to give than to receive.\n29. Think no thoughts that you would blush to express in words.\n30. Live innocently if you would live happily.\n31. We must learn to love others as we love ourselves.\n32. The good alone are great.\nWillson's Readers are adopted in the State Series. Are they destitute of\n\"moral lessons?\" Turning to the pages of the Second Reader, designed for\nprimary schools, I find such lessons as these:\nNever tell a lie;\nStory of the railroad thief;\nGod is near;\nDon't kill the birds;\nMan and his Maker;\nThe angry man;\nLazy Slokins, the schoolboy --\nWork and play;\ndrunkard the thief;\nPraise ye the Lord;\nThe works of God;\nThe Ten Commandments.\nAre not these the best kind of \"moral lessons?\" The Third Reader, for\nthe next higher grade of pupils, contains the following reading lessons, among\nmany others of a like nature:\nMy mother's Bible;\nJoseph and his brethren;\nThe Creation;\nThe story of Moses;\nThe beginning of sin;\nDavid and Goliath;\nCain and Abel;\nDavid, Saul, and Jonathan;\nThe flood;\nSolomon the wise king;\nThe Ark and the dove;\nSolomon's Proverbs;\nAbraham and Lot;\nBe honest, and dare to tell the truth;\nAbraham offering Isaac;\nIdleness and industry compared;\nIsaac and Rebecca;\nHonesty is the best policy;\nJacob and Esau;\nThe first temptation.\nSwett concluded this demonstration with a question in defense of the public\nschools:\nHere are found the most instructive and interesting stores of the Bible,\ntold to children in a pleasing and simple style. Are the public schools\n27\nany more \"godless\" than those in which the New England catechism, the\nCatholic catechism, or the Episcopal catechism, all containing a skeleton\nof church creeds, are learned by rote, without reference to understanding?\nYet zealots and bigots cry out against the public schools that they do not\nteach the existence of a God, that they do not give instruction in the principles\nof morality, that they do not recognize the truth of the Bible. These illustra-\ntions are sufficient to refute the charge that the public schools pay no attention\nto moral instruction. 7\nSwett obviously did not feel that mere recitation of what was right and what\nwas wrong was going to do the job, but the example, \"learning by doing, is a\ntechnique as old as Adam and as applicable to the \"moral faculties\" as it is\nthe intellectual. Hence, he quoted several other superintendents of his day\nfrom other states who described his views. The following is that of his colleague\nfrom Illinois, the Honorable Newton Bateman:\nIt should be proclaimed in every school that there are original, immut-\nable, and indestructible maxims of moral rectitude -- great lights in the\nfirmament of the soul which no circumstances can affect, no sophistry\nobliterate; that to this eternal standard every individual of the race is bound\nto conform, and that by it the conduct of every man shall be adjudged. It\nshould be proclaimed that dishonesty, fraud, and falsehood are as despicable\nand criminal in the most exalted stations as in the most obscure, in politics\nas in business; that the demagogue who tells a lie to gain a vote is as infamous\nas the peddler who tells one to gain a penny; that an editor who wantonly\nmaligns an opponent for the benefit of his party, is as vile as the perjured\nhireling who slanders his neighbor for pay; that the corporation or the man\nwho spawns by the thousand his worthless promises to pay, under the name\nof banking, knowing them to be worthless, is as guilty of obtaining money\nunder false pretences as the acknowledged rogue who is incarcerated for the\nsame thing under the name of swindling; that the contractor who defrauds the\nGovernment, under cover of the technicalities of the law, is as much a thief\nas he who deliberately and knowingly appropriates to his own use the property\nof another.\nIn a word, let it be impressed in all our schools that the vocabulary of\nheaven has but one word for each wilful infraction of the moral code, and\nthat no pretexts or subterfuges or sophistries of men can soften the import\nor lessen the guilt which that word conveys. Tell the school children that\nthe deliberate falsifier of the truth is a liar whether it be the prince on his\nthrone or the beggar on his dunghill; whether it be by diplomatists for reasons\nof state, or by chiffoniers for the possession of the rags in the gutter. Tell\nthem that he who obtains money or goods under false pretences is a swindler,\nno more or less, be the man and the circumstances what they may. Tell them\nthat he who irreverently uses the name of the Deity is a blasphemer, whether\n7\nThirteenth Annual Report Of The Superintendent of Public Instruction of the\nState of California for The Year 1863, pp. 144-147.\n28\nhe be a Congressman or a scullion. Tell them that he who habitually drinks\nintoxicating liquors to excess is a drunkard, whether it be from goblets of\ngold in the palatial saloon, or from tin cups in a grog shop. Tell them that\nhe who speaks lightly or sneeringly of the honor of woman is a calumniator,\nbe his pretensions to gentility what they may. And SO with the whole catalogue\nof vices and crimes, till the line of demarcation between good and evil shall\nbe graven so deeply upon the mind and conscience that it can never be obli-\nterated. 8\nIf those words seem a little harsh and puritanical to our generation, they\nnevertheless reflect the orientation of the leading school officials of their day.\nBut the point remains that up until recently, schools have been teaching the\nessentials of morality by involving the specifics of our moral heritage accord-\ning to the Bible. Although this was not codified as law, there were moves in\n1879 to clarify Section 1 of Article IX of the Constitution of the State of California\nby the following amendment: \"The standard of moral instruction in our public\nschools shall be that set forth in the Bible, precluding sectarianism. \"9\nThis amendment was not adopted for a variety of reasons, not the least of\nwhich was the effort of some delegates to the 1879 convention to abolish that\nentire section of the state constitution requiring \"moral improvement. The\nproponents of that section, however, prevailed over its opponents. Some of the\nfollowing remarks by the winning side are evidence of the reasons underlying\nwhy that section remained in the Constitution and remains there today despite\nefforts by the 1968 Constitution Revision Commission to erase it from history:\nMr. WINANS. Mr. Chairman:\nPublic education forms the basis of\nself-government and constitutes the very corner stone of republican institu-\ntions. Ignorance is the parent of vice, and vice soon hardens into crime.\nEducation is the parent of intelligence and virtue. Crime has its temples\nin the penitentiaries which bristle over the land. Education has its temples\nin the school houses which rear their stately domes within the cities, or\nspread their simple structures, white and glowing in the sunlight, through-\nout the towns and villages, over the hillsides and amid the valleys of this\nbroad domain. As the school houses multiply the penitentiaries decrease.\nIn the earlier Constitutions of the original States the subject of education\nwas merely mentioned. It was declared in the form of a principle, but did\nnot concentrate into any form of legislative enactment. It was merely the\nbroad declaration of a high principle, but as the time advanced and the\ncondition of the people improved, and the nation augmented, this subject\nbegan to increase in consequence, and center into the new Constitutions\nas they were from time to time adopted, in the form of section after section,\n8\nIbid. pp. 149-150.\n9\nDebates and Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of\nCalifornia, Vol. I, Supt. State Printing, Sacramento, 1880, p. 146.\n29\nuntil at last, it attained to the dignity of a complete article in every Constitu-\ntion. In all of the Constitutions of the States, it is a noticeable fact, that the\ndeclaration of abstract principles upon which they are founded is confined to\nan original article entitled a \"Declaration of Rights, 11 and in regard to the\narticles upon education that figure through the several Constitutions of the\nStates there is this marked difference, that they are always premised by an\noriginal section declaratory of the importance and magnitude of the service,\nand declaratory of the principle which it involves. This is entirely excep-\ntional in all the other departments of constitutional enactment. 10\nMr. Winans may have expected too much of education when he suggested\nthat as \"school houses multiply, penitentiaries decrease,\" but he did under-\nstand why those general words in Section 1, Article IX were needed to assure\ncontinuity of the Republic.\nDelegate Cross at that convention also distinguished these basic needs from\nthe equally necessary function of transmitting to all segments of education the\nnature of our heritage:\nMr. CROSS. Mr. Chairman:\nThe section as here proposed by the\ncommittee certainly does involve the expenditure of public funds for encour-\naging education not limited to reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, grammar,\nand geography, but this to encouraging the promotion of intellectual, scientific,\nmoral, and agricultural improvement. The section as presented by the com-\nmittee takes the position of the latter class, while the amendment represents\nthe sentiment that education at public expense should be limited to the common\nEnglish branches. This amendment proposes the education merely of children.\nFor my own part, I believe that if there is in the State of California one boy\nor one girl of whatever age, a young man or a young woman who is disposed\nto devote his or her time to the acquisition of knowledge, that it is for the\ninterest of this State to furnish the instruction. I believe it is for the interest\nof the State, and if it is for the interest of the State we should not impair the\npower of the State to act for its own interest.\nThe emphases on principles and the goals of general education were stated\nby delegates Wickes and Lampson:\nMr. WICKES. Mr. Chairman: I am in favor of the retention of section\none of the report of the committee. I do not care whether it is called a\npreamble or not. I take a Constitution to be a philosophic and historic as\nwell as a legal instrument. Judge Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Law,\nsays that a Constitution contains the principles upon which the government\nis founded. We have here in this first section the principles, in a modified\nfor n, that underlie a system of general education. Here, now, is a republican\nform of government in which the people are sovereign. This Government must\n10\nIbid., p. 1087.\n30\nhave the means of perpetuating itself, therefore the people must be educated.\nAgain, we must have good rulers, and good legislators to make the laws.\nThese rulers and these statesmen must come up from the ranks of the people;\nhence the people must be liberally educated. Again, the people must under-\nstand the importance of the laws that are made; hence the people must be\nliberally educated. This section expresses that idea: A general diffusion\nof knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights\nand liberties of the people, the Legislature shall encourage, by all suitable\nmeans, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural\nimprovement. The better and more liberally the people are educated, the\nmore inventions and discoveries will be made. Again, to raise great men\nyou must raise the mass of the people. All must rise together. Another\nreason why I am in favor of a liberal education, ranging from the primary\nto the university grade, is that it breaks down aristocratic caste; for the\nman who has a liberal education, if he has no money, if he has no wealth, he\ncan stand in the presence of his fellow-men with the stamp of divinity upon\nhis brow, and shape the laws of the people -- shape our republican institu-\ntions by his intelligence and speech. 11\nMr. LAMPSON. Mr. Chairman: I have but one word to say in reference\nto this section. It seems strange to me that gentlemen should object to say-\ning that 'a general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation\nof the rights and liberties of the people. I wish, myself, I could see it\ndoubly stated. The idea of striking out this declaration, or objecting to it,\nis strange to me. If I was to strike out either one of the lines, I would\nstrike out the last two and leave that standing as a declaration to the people\nof America. It reads clear and distinct, and goes on from where I stopped:\n'The Legislature shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of\nintellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement. All four\nof these come in strictly under the true principle of education. The gentle-\nman, in his amendment, leaves out one of them, the scientific. I see no\nreason for striking out a single word from that section one. It stands\nexactly as the words that are spoken by every parent, at his fireside, to his\nchild. I think that this Convention could find fault, perhaps, with other sec-\ntions of this article, but on that section I see no reason for discussion. It\nis the true principle, that comes from the heart of every parent, that the\ndiffusion of knowledge and intelligence is essential to the preservation of\nthe rights and liberties of the people. The Legislature will do what they\nsee fit to do. I do not think that a single word, even the word 'scientific,'\nought to be stricken out. The Legislature will provide in reference to it. 12\nThere are several important points that could be made about these remarks\nmade by legislators nearly a century ago. First, they were fully aware of the\nearly laws of the confederation which set aside lands for public education\ndesigned to spread knowledge for the preservation of our Republic. Second,\nthey were aware that religion and morality were an integral part of that know-\nledge to be diffused.\n11\nIbid., p. 1, 088.\n12\nIbid., p. 1, 089.\n31\nIn short, those legislators of 1879 included all segments of education under\nthe constitutional mandate that \"the Legislature shall encourage by all suitable\nmeans the promotion of\nmoral\nimprovement. It should be evident to\neveryone that at that time it included higher education, as well as K through 12.\nToday \"higher education\" includes the 14 university campuses, the 19 state\ncollege campuses, and the 89 junior college campuses. Nevertheless, the\nconstitutional mandate is still there. It is necessary that this interrelationship\nof all educational institutions be stressed. Because to redirect public instruc-\ntion towards heritage and tradition as the ultimate rationale for the very existence\nof public education (the thesis of these guidelines), it is obvious that the changes\nmust commence in the institutions of higher education. It is in these institutions\nwhere teachers and other professional citizens are trained in the techniques to\ntransmit this heritage to our children and to posterity. In other words, the\nuniversities and colleges must become involved in this rededication to American\nmoral standards if their graduates are to be effective torch bearers. How this\nis to take place will certainly give rise to many other questions. The question\noften before the public and the Legislature is whether the three branches of\nhigher education are performing the function expected of them; that is, prepar-\ning teachers and other professionals who know the American heritage and who\nare dedicated to its perpetuation. The advisory committee feels this is the\ncrucial issue to be resolved by the State Board of Education.\nSome key books, recently published, should be noted here as suggested\nmaterials for teachers and administrators to train their instructors in this\nimportant area.\nYour American Yardstick, by Hamilton A. Long, (Your Heritage Books,\nPhiladelphia, 1963) is an encyclopedia of original quotations and references\nconcerning the \"Twelve Basic American Principles\" which undergird our\nculture. It is a source book of unique value as America enters upon its 200th\nanniversary years. It would be used as a teacher-training textbook or as a\nclassroom source book. The Boston City Schools recently adopted it for this\nlatter purpose. Highly recommended.\nAnd We Mutually Pledge, by Stewart M. Robinson, a Presbyterian minister\nand former chairman, General Commission on Chaplains, (Long House, Inc.\nNew Canaan, Connecticut, 1964). This small but compact book records and\ndescribes how significant were the speeches and pamphlets of Ministers of the\nFaith in the growing examination of the \"cause of freedom\" between 1770 and\n1776. He demonstrates the links between the natural law and the divine law\nconcepts as recognized by the various Christian denominations.\nUnto the Generations, The Roots of True Americanism, by Daniel L. Marsh,\nformer President of Boston University, (Long House, Inc., New Canaan,\nConnecticut, 1968) is the republication of a text once called The American Canon\npublished in 1939. As with authors Long and Robinson, Dr. Marsh returns to the\nessential documents and the men who wrote and supported them to discover the\n\"roots\" of the American Creed. It is excellently written.\n32\nA Religious History of America, by Edwin Scott Gaustad, (Harper and Row,\nNew York, 1966) is an excellent text, full of original source materials, and is\nmost appropriate for teacher-training institutions.\nChapter V\nMorality and the Challenge of Secular Humanism\nHUMANISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY\nGeorge Washington, in his \"Farewell Address, warned in a subtle way of\nan intellectual confrontation that was gathering force in his age. Commenting on\nthe need to promote the practice of religion as a safeguard to political stability,\nhe said: \"And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be\nmaintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of\nrefined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both\nforbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious\nprinciple.\nThat \"supposition\" to which Washington referred was not new to the eighteenth\ncentury, nor were \"minds of peculiar structure to whom he attributed that\n\"supposition\" unknown in previous ages. Yet, our forefathers were well aware\nthat a new form of secularism was arising in the eighteenth century and that\nthis \"new morality\" was a philosophy of life to be avoided, or even suppressed.\nThe new \"religion\" which gave rise to the French Revolution and the terror has\nbeen known by many names since the eighteenth century. Most often it is char-\nacterized by what it rejects, than by what it fosters. The iconoclastic but wise\nVoltaire even made fun of his own destructive achievements when he once coun-\nseled a young revolutionary who wanted to know how to establish a new religion.\nSaid Voltaire, \"Get yourself crucified and then rise from the dead after three\ndays.\"\nJohn Jay, when serving abroad in the 1780s as an emissary for the Confedera-\ntion of States, relates how he was challenged by Jacobin intellectuals. Once\nduring a party he related how the conversation fell on religion and a guest asked\nhim if he believed in Christ. \"I answered that I did, 11 responded Jay, \"and that\nI thank God that I did.\" A cold silence fell upon the group, he records in his\nmemoirs, and \"nothing further passed between me and them on that subject.\nOn another occasion, Jay relates, he was in an argument with a fellow about\nthe existence of God. His host affirmed that he would welcome the day when\nthere would be no religion at all in the world. Jay argued that if there was no\nGod, there was no morality, and if no morality then no obligations at all among\nmen. His antagonist agreed with alacrity and declared that then they could all\nestablish a substitute religion based upon \"enlightened self-interest.\" Jay con-\ncluded that he turned a cold shoulder on his companion and that ended the conver-\nsation.\nA few years later, in 1789 when the French Revolution was about to burst,\nAlexander Hamilton wrote to his old comrade-in-arms, the Marques de Lafayette,\nto be wary of the Jacobin intellectuals. \"I dread the reveries of your philosophic\npoliticians\" he remarked. He urged his old friend not to collaborate with them.\nThe advice was not heeded, history tells us, and following the overthrow of\nthe old regime in France and after the religion of \"reason\" gave way to the\n33\n34\ntyranny of Napoleon, Hamilton attempted to organize a highly tight-knit\nsociety to arrest the progress of Jacobinism in the U.S. \"Let an association\nbe formed, 11 he suggested, \"to be denominated by the Christian Constitutional\nSociety. Its objects to be: First, the support of the Christian religion;\nsecond, the support of the Constitution of the U.S. 11\nThe foregoing observations could be broadened extensively to demonstrate\nthat antireligious forces of the modern age were well-known to our Founding\nFathers and that they were prepared to organize against them. These forces\nof antireligion are generally the creations of \"minds of peculiar structure, \"\nas Washington noted. In previous centuries they were not organized, but\nisolated \"free thinkers, 11 intellectuals who challenged the established creeds\nbecause their country's religion had become corrupt or perhaps because out\nof sheer intellectual curiosity. Protagoras, for example, the fifth century\nB. C. philosopher, wearied of the routine explanation that the pagan gods were\nresponsible for man's behavior, wiped out theology as a subject of discourse\nwhen he declared: \"Man is the measure of all things.\"\nAlexander Pope echoed Protagoras in the eighteenth century when he wrote\nhis Essay on Man in which he declared: \"The proper study of mankind is man. 11\nTrue enough, so long as the analyst sees in man a spiritual as well as a physi-\ncal nature.\nIt was not until the eighteenth century, however, when this philosophy\nemerged as the moving force of organized societies to divorce the nature of\nman from his spiritual half and to concentrate solely on his physical self,\ncomposed, chemists tell us, of 95 percent water. In the second third of the\neighteenth century, these \"minds of peculiar structure, 11 as Washington\ndescribed them, conspired to overthrow the existing system of government\nand to change the basic intellectual structure of society upon which those gov-\nernments rested. Their \"creed\" rejected the proposition that any form of\nsupernatural order exists. Their only cure for man's ills was to destroy the\nvery conception of God Himself, as well as any civilization based upon divine\nrevelation.\nHow concerned the men of the eighteenth century were with this creeping\ncult of secular Humanism is reflected in a document recently extracted from\narchives in Philadelphia and republished by Robert Donner of Colorado Springs. 1\nNot only is the natural and divine law theory expressly stated here as the under-\nlying intellectual foundation of America's political and judicial systems, but\nthe analysis of the \"intellectual left\" as early as 1800 makes it a suitable docu-\nment to demonstrate that secularist Humanism as a minority movement is not\nexactly new upon the American scene. Some caution should be executed, however,\nwhen reading Judge Addison on the participation of Masons in these developments.\nThe destruction of French Freemasonry was a result of the infiltration of revo-\nlutionary elements into masonry, as Judge Addision laments. American masonry,\n1\nAlexander Addison, Rise and Progress of Revolution: A Charge to the Grand\nJuries of the County Courts of the Fifth Circuit of the State of Pennsylvania, at\nDecember Sessions, 1800, Philadelphia, 1801. (Robert Donner, 7 West Las Vegas\nSt., Colorado Springs, Colorado)\n35\nidentified in the person of George Washington, was conscious of this penetra-\ntion and successfully combated it. 2 Our Founding Fathers were aware of these\nrevolutionary developments in our early history and they brought them into the\nopen. This is in the tradition of free inquiry in a country of free men. This\natheist creed has grown over the years and decades and is today in full bloom\nacross the world. Generally the creed assumes the name of Humanism despite\nthe fact that the original Humanists, the Christian latinists of the Renaissance\nPetrach, Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives, John Colet, St. Thomas More -- have as\nlittle in common with these \"peculiar minds, 11 as William F. Buckley, Jr. has\nwith Gus Hall.\nHUMANISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY\nTime magazine, August 17, 1962, gave the following account of the rising\nHumanist movement in an article entitled \"The Supreme Being: Man\":\nThe Renaissance \"Humanist\" was a foe of medieval scholastic philosophy,\nan admirer of the Greek and Latin classics. Now Humanist means a believer\nin an ethical nonreligion, in which the Supreme Being is man, and prayer is\n\"a telephone conversation with no one at the other end. \" To Humanists, God\nis a bundling up of all life's mysteries in one package, just as a man with\nbills at many stores might consolidate his debts with a bank loan so as to\nowe only the bank. Humanists, reject both consolidations as equally delusive.\nContemporary Humanism is catching on. Last week, at the Third Congress\nof the International Humanist and Ethical Union in Oslo, 400 sober-minded\nHumanists were on hand, representing more than 300, 000 of their fellow\nbelievers in 24 countries. Although West Germany subsidizes some Humanist\norganizations, and The Netherlands allows them to have their own army\nchaplains, Humanist societies are generally denied the recognition that\ngovernments accord to religious groups. But what they lack in privilege,\nthe Humanists make up in prestige: the ranks of the American Humanist\nAssociation are heavy with scientists and intellectuals, and the international\nunion boasts such influential leaders as British Biologist Julian Huxley and\ntwo Nobel prizewinners, British Agriculturist Lord Boyd Orr and U.S. Genet-\nicist Hermann Muller.\nFrom Atheists to Agnostics. Chief purpose of the Oslo congress was a\ndiscussion of long-range Humanist goals, and talk at the six-day session\ncentered on the problem of how to develop a mature (meaning nonreligious)\npersonality, and how Humanists could help preserve individual freedom in\n2\nEvidence of strong anticommunist sentiment in American Masonry today is\nthe effort of the Supreme Council, 33rd, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of\nFreemasonry, (Southern Jurisdiction, United States of America, 1733 16th St.,\nN. W. Washington 9, D. C.) to inform their brothers of the international menace.\nSee their \"Communism Menaces Freedom\" by Willard E. Givens and Belmont M.\nFarley, and other pamphlets which can be used in schools to bolster American\nunderstanding of the problem and gird up the American intellectual structure.\n36\nan overorganized world. The socially conscious delegates also thought\nabout goals closer to hand, passed a resolution approving the anti-hunger\nwork of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization as \"a notable\nexample of Humanist action. 11 To abet the work of FAO, Humanists of the\nworld were urged to work for better birth-control campaigns at home, and\nfor the industrialization of underdeveloped nations.\nDelegates ranged from dedicated atheists to questioning agnostics eager\nto cooperate with well-meaning Christians in building the good society, and\nthey differed widely in their attitude toward religion. Norwegian Psychiatrist\nGabriel Langfeldt argued that individuals would, in the future development of\nmankind, have to make a choice between religion and ethics: \"Crediting\nethics to supernaturally inspired messages and to revelations has led and\nstill leads to brutal wars. Ethics, anchored as it is in purely human needs,\n\"\nwill always win where religion and ethics come into conflict.\n\"We Cannot Go Back, 11 Belgian Astronomer Karel Cuypers pointed out\nthat Humanism is the heir of organized religion, and warned the delegates\nthat totalitarian ideologies may take advantage of the decline of organized\nreligion to substitute themselves for God. \"The loosening of the grip of\nreligion has created great danger both for religion itself and for Humanism.\"\nCuypers warned. \"But we cannot go back. We cannot return to irration-\nalism and to mysticism without denying ourselves.\"\nDoes Humanism's godless, man-centered faith offer much hope to the\nworld? So far, the world as a whole has its doubts, but Humanists are\nconvinced that their emphasis upon life here and now frees man to concen-\ntrate upon the improvement of the earth he occupies. Sums up Humanist\nLangfeldt: \"As man becomes more educated, mysticism and dogma dis-\nappear and are replaced by rational thinking. We believe in the goodness\nof men. If we can get rid of the political and religious pressures burdening\nman today and encourage his honest, generousness and intelligence instead,\nwe can make a better world for all of us.\"\nAnother article in the Brooklyn Tablet, July 8, 1965, is indicative of the\nmovement's progress in Europe:\nGerman Christians, almost evenly divided among Catholics and Prot-\nestants, are being faced with a new force that is frankly dedicated to under-\nmining Christian influence in public and private life.\nThe \"third church\"\nas it is sometimes referred to, is the Humanist Union, an organization of\nintellectual atheists. Most of the union's influence has sprouted up in the\npast two years under the direction of Gerhard Szezesny, onetime culture\neditor of Bavarian radio in Munich,\nThe Humanist Union differs from\nother anti-clerical organizations. First, it is avowedly atheistic. Second,\nit is not limited to a small esoteric circle of believers. The union is grow-\ning day by day, and it is finding most of its followers among intellectual\ngroups, college students, artists and professors.\n37\nThe Humanist movement is important to analyze if we are to arrive at an\nobjective approach to the teaching of morality in our public schools, because\nHumanism, a twentieth century synonym for atheism, is a religion according\nto their own proclamations and according to law. For this important reason,\nthe role Humanism has in the California school system must be well compre-\nhended if we are to evaluate \"activity alien to our heritage and/or contrary to\npublic policy. 11\nProbably one of the most complete statements ever made public about the\nHumanist religion was published in The New Humanist, Vol. VI, No. 3, in\n1933. It was called \"A Humanist Manifesto\" and is reproduced here in its\nentirety:\nA HUMANIST MANIFESTO\nThe time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in\nreligious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere\nrevision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change have disrupted\nthe old beliefs. Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming\nto terms with new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and\nexperience. In every field of human activity, the vital movement is now in\nthe direction of a candid and explicit HUMANISM. In order that religious\nHumanism may be better understood we, the undersigned, desire to make\ncertain affirmations which we believe the facts of our contemporary life\ndemonstrate.\nThere is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of\nthe word RELIGION with doctrines and methods which have lost their sig-\nnificance and which are powerless to solve the problems of human living in\nthe 20th Century. Religions have always been means for realizing the\nhighest values of life. Their end has been accomplished through the interpre-\ntation of a total environing situation (theology or world view), the sense of\nvalues resulting therefrom (goal or ideal), and the technique (cult), established\nfor realizing the satisfactory life. A change in any of these factors results\nin alteration of the outward forms of religion. This fact explains the change-\nfulness of religion thru the centuries. But thru all changes religion itself\nremains constant in its quest for abiding values, an inseparable feature of\nhuman life.\nToday man's larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achieve-\nments, and his deeper appreciation of brotherhood have created a situation\nwhich requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. Such\na vital, fearless, and frank religion capable of furnishing adequate social\ngoals and personal satisfactions may appear to many people as a complete\nbreak with the past. While this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional\nreligions, it is none the less obvious that any religion that can hope to be\na synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs\nof this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present.\n38\nIt is a responsibility which rests upon this generation. We therefore affirm\nthe following:\nFIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not\ncreated.\nSECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has\nemerged as the result of a continuous process.\nTHIRD: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional\ndualism of mind and body must be rejected.\nFOURTH: Humanism recognizes that man's religious culture and civiliza-\ntion, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product\nof a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environ-\nment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular\nculture is largely molded by that culture.\nFIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by\nmodern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees\nof human values. Obviously humanism does not deny the possibility of\nrealities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine\nthe existence and value of any realities is by means of intelligent inquiry\nand by the assessment of their relation to human needs. Religion must\nformulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.\nSIXTH: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism,\nmodernism, and the several varieties of \"new thought\".\nSEVENTH: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences\nwhich are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious.\nIt includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation\nall that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living.\nThe distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be\nmaintained.\nEIGHTH: Religious humanism considers the complete realization of human\npersonality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development and ful-\nfillment in the here and now. This is the explanation of the humanist's\nsocial passion.\nNINTH: In place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the\nhumanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense\nof personal life in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.\nTENTH: It follows that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and\nattitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural.\nELEVENTH: Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his\nknowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly\nattitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom. We\nassume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene and\ndiscourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking.\nTWELFTH: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living,\nreligious humanists aim to foster the creative in man and to encourage\nachievements that add to the satisfactions of life.\nTHIRTEENTH: Religious humanism maintains that all associations and\ninstitutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evalua-\ntion, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and\ninstitutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose\nand program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions, their\n39\nritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must\nbe reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function\neffectively in the modern world.\nFOURTEENTH: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisi-\ntive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and\nthat a radical change in methods, controls and motives must be instituted.\nA socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the\nend that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The\ngoal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people volun-\ntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists\ndemand a shared life in a shared world.\nFIFTEENTH: We assert that humanism will: (a) affirm life rather than\ndeny it; (b) seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee from it; and\n(c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all,\nnot merely for the few. By this positive morale and intention humanism\nwill be guided, and from this perspective and alignment the technique\nand efforts of humanism will flow.\nSo stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the\nreligious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for\nthe good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming\naware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his\ndreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must\nset intelligence and will to the task.\nSigners:\nJ. A. C. Fagginger Auer\n- Parkman Prof. of Church History and Theology,\nHarvard University; Prof. of Church History,\nTufts College.\nE. Burdette Backus\n- Unitarian Minister.\nHarry Elmer Barnes\n- Gen. Editorial Dept., Scripps-Howard News-\npapers.\nL. M. Birkhead\n- The Liberal Center, Kansas City, Mo.\nRaymond B. Bragg\n- Secretary Western Unitarian Conference.\nEdwin Arthur Burtt\n- Prof. of Philosophy, Sage School of Philosophy,\nCornell University.\nErnest Caldecott\n- Minister, First Unitarian Church, Los Angeles.\nA. J. Carlson\n- Prof. of Physiology, Univ. of Chicago.\nJohn Dewey\n- Columbia University\nAlbert Dieffenbach\n- Former Editor Christian Register\nJohn H. Dietrich\n- Minister, First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis.\nBernard Fantus\n- Prof. of Therapeutics, College of Medicine,\nUniv. of Illinois.\nWilliam Floyd\n- Editor of The Arbitrator, New York, N.Y.\nF. M. Hankins\n- Prof. of Economics and Sociology, Smith College.\nA. Eustace Hayden\n- Prof. of History and Religions, Univ. of Chicago.\nLlewellyn Jones\n- Literary critic and author\nRobert Morse Lovett\n- Literary critic and author; Editor New Republic;\nProf. English, Univ. of Chicago.\nHarold P. Marley\n- Minister, The Fellowship of Liberal Religion,\nAnn Arbor, Mich.\n40\nR. Lester Mendale\n- Minister, Unitarian Church, Evanston, Ill.\nCharles Francis Potter\n- Leader and Founder the First Humanist\nSociety of New York, Inc.\nJohn Herman Randall, Jr.\n- Dept. of Philosophy, Columbia University.\nCurtis W. Reese\n- Dean Abraham Lincoln Center, Chicago.\nOliver L. Reiser\n- Associate Prof. of Philosophy, Univ. of\nPittsburgh.\nRoy Wood Selaars\n- Prof. of Philosophy, Univ. of Michigan.\nClinton Lee Scott\n- Minister, Universalist Church, Peoria, Ill.\nMaynard Shipley\n- Pres. The Science League of America\nW. Frank Swift\n- Director, Boston Ethical Society\nV. T. Thayer\n- Educational Director, Ethical Culture Schools.\nEldred C. Vanderlaan\n- Leader of the Free Fellowship, Berkeley,\nCalif.\nJoseph Walker\n- Attorney, Boston, Mass.\nJacob J. Weinsten\n- Rabbi, Advisor of Jewish Students, Columbia\nUniversity\nFrank S. C. Wicks\n- All Soul's Unitarian Church, Indianapolis, Ind.\nDavid Rhy Williams\n- Minister, Unitarian Church, Rochester, N. Y.\nEdwin H. Wilson\n- Managing Editor, The New Humanist, Chicago;\nMinister, Third Unitarian Church, Chicago, Ill.\nThe New Humanist ceased publication in October, 1936, and was succeeded\nby the Humanist Bulletin, which also became defunct within a few years.\n3\nTHE CONTEMPORARY HUMANISTS\nThus, it is evident that what was said about adherents of Humanism in\nEurope is also true about America. Subscribers to that now defunct journal,\nThe New Humanist, indicated a membership almost wholly intellectual or\nliterary, or church affiliated. An ingredient has been added to the revival of\nHumanism in the 1960s as the Time magazine article indicated. Scientists,\nespecially biologists and psychologists, and their allied disciplinarians, such\nas sociologists and anthropologists, have joined together in recent years to\ncreate the American Humanist Association. Their publication, The Humanist,\nbegun in 1963, features well-known intellectuals who are also frequent campus\nguest lecturers -- Erich Fromm, Julian Huxley, Harry Elmer Barnes, and\nLester Kirkendall. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell, whose books are\nwidely used in U.S. colleges, recently was featured by a letter to the editor\nof the Humanist refuting speculation that he, Russell, was about to convert to\nsome religion before he died. Retorted Russell to the rumor: 'How often\nmust I deny that I have become religious? There is no basis whatsoever for\nthese rumors. My views of religion remain those that I acquired at the age\nof 16. I consider all forms of religion not only false, but harmful. My pub-\nlished works record my views. 114\n3\nCalifornians will have a hard time finding copies, since our research\nrevealed that only libraries on the East Coast still retain copies of The New\nHumanist.\n4\nThe Humanist, September/October 1968, p. 24.\n41\nThe ideas of the \"Humanist Manifesto\" of 1933 are incorporated in brief\non the inside cover of each issue of the present Humanist magazine as follows:\nHumanism is way of life which relies on human capacities and natural\nand social resources. Humanists see man as a product of this world of\nevolution and human history and acknowledge no cosmic mind or super-\nnatural purpose or forces. Humanism expresses an attitude or conviction\nwhich requires the acceptance of responsibility for human life in this world,\nemphasizing mutual respect and recognizing human interdependence.\nThe American Humanist Association was incorporated as an educational\nmembership organization in 1941 to represent the views of humanists in\nthe United States and Canada. It is a founding member of the International\nHumanist Ethical Union. 5\nIn the \"Credo of a Humanist written by a U.S. Air Force Captain, Dale E.\nNoyd, who is seeking conscientious objector status because of his Humanist\nreligion, we learn who some of the prophets of the new religion are:\nThe basis of my faith, beliefs, and values is humanism; this essentially\nmeans respect and love for man, faith in his inherent goodness and perfecta-\nbility, and confidence in his capability to ameliorate some of the banes of\nthe human condition. Included in my faith is the belief that, apart from the\nissue of the existence or non-existence of a supernatural being, the pre-\noccupation with such an object-being has been functionless and diversionary;\nthat it has reflected principally the lack of imagination and courage of man;\nthat it has been inimical to man defining his highest ideals; and that it has\nbeen pernicious to the individual integrity and moral purpose necessary to\nachieve those ideals. I have faith in man, and concommitantly, what may\nbe called ultimate concern for man. My beliefs concern the value, dignity,\nand particularly the growth of man -- ideas found in disparate sources.\nThey may be found in what has been termed \"earthly salvation' by certain\nChristian sects, \"personal integration or self-actualization\" by Rationalists,\n\"being\" by existentialists, \"neogenesis\" by Teilhard, \"the courage to be\"\nby Tillich, and \"affirmation and rebellion 11 by Camus. Humanism is eclectic\nbut at the same time simple and singular: and whether it be labeled a reli-\ngion, movement, philosophy, or creed, it is the sustaining and directing\nforce in my life.\nIt is, of course, impossible for me to state the entire content of my\nhumanist faith in a paragraph, but the communalities that exist among the\nwritings of men such as Camus, Tillich, Huxley, Fromm, Potter, Russell,\nPike, Lippmann, Cummings, Buber, and Teilhard offer an indicant of this\ncredo. 6\n5\nThe Humanist, July/August 1967.\n6\nHumanist, July/August, 1967, p. 130.\n42\nMoreover, there are two U.S. Supreme Court decisions cited by the\nHumanist magazine which gives legal sanction to the claim that Humanism\nis a religion. One is the Torcaso case, 1961, and the other the Seeger case,\n1964. 7 In The Fellowship of Humanists V. the County of Alameda, (153 C. A. L.,\nA. P.P. 2nd 673) September 17, 1957, a California court agreed that the\nfellowship was a church in the sense that their facilities were used as a church\nand therefore tax exempt. The Humanist won its claim by arguing that \"the\nstate has no power to decide the validity of the beliefs held by a humanist group.\nThe court agreed that religion fills a void that exists in the lives of most men'\nand accepted the arguments of the defendants, the Humanists:\n(13) Id. Exemptions - - Property Used for Religious Worship. - The proper\ninterpretation of \"religion\" or \"religious\" in tax exemption laws should\nnot include any reference to whether the beliefs involved are theistic or\nnontheistic; religion simply includes (1) a belief, not necessarily referring\nto supernatural powers; (2) a cult involving a gregarious association openly\nexpressing the belief; (3) a system of moral practice directly resulting from\nadherence to the belief; and (4) an organization within the cult designed to\nobserve the tenets of the belief.\nHUMANISM AND PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION\nIf we keep in mind the yardstick for measuring American traditions and\nheritage as defined in chapters III and IV, we will be better able to grasp the\nsubtle and challenging nature of dealing with secular Humanism in the public\nschools:\nHumanism is, by definition, a religion.\nHumanists meet in places which have the legal status of \"churches.\"\nHumanists claim pacificism as a religious tenent, and it has been\nconceded to them by the courts of our nation,\nMore important, since the Humanist religion is solely materialistic, the\ngoals of the Humanists are also solely materialistic. This means that \"the\nthings of this world' dominate all aspects of the Humanist personality.\nThis purely secularist philosophy of life, entrenched in high places, has\ncreated an intellectual confrontation within the educational system which must\nbe recognized, especially as it touches on the issue of morality in school\ncurriculum and on the question of sectarianism in the schools.\nThe one name that stands out in the signatures of the \"Humanist Manifesto'\nis that of John Dewey, known commonly as the high priest of \"progressive\neducation. 11 Many writers have, over the years, critically examined the\n7 Ibid., p. 115.\n43\n\"philosophy\" of John Dewey and concluded that it is incompatible with the\nAmerican Tradition. But few have openly asserted that Dewey's disciples\nare teaching a religion in the public schools of our nation, Says Albert Lynd:\nMany of Dewey's educational disciples may be copy or confused,\nbut the master himself is clear enough in his writings about the implica-\ntions of his philosophy. It excludes God, the soul, and all the props of\ntraditional religion. It excludes the possibility of immutable truth, of\nfixed natural law, of permanent moral principles. It includes an attitude\ntoward social reform which is anti-Communist, but unmistakably\nsocialist. 8\nIn the Turning of the Tides, 9 Congressman Paul Shafer and John H. Snow\npointed out how progressive education had penetrated nearly every discipline\nof the public school system through the national professional organizations.\nIn 1950 William Buckley, Jr., hammered at the theme in his Man and God\nat Yale:\nThe teachings of John Dewey and his predecessors have borne fruit.\nAnd there is surely not a department at Yale that is uncontaminated with\nthe absolute that there are no absolutes, no intrinsic rights, no ultimate\ntruths. The acceptance of these notions, which emerge in courses in\nhistory and economics, in sociology and political science, is psychology\nand literature, makes impossible any intelligible conception of an omnipotent,\npurposeful, and benign Supreme Being who has laid down immutable laws,\nendowed his creatures with inalienable rights, and posited unchangeable\nrules of human conduct. 10\nHUMANISM AND \"SEX EDUCATION\"\nHow has the rejection of the American premise that we are a people\n\"grateful to Almighty God for our Freedom\" affected the curriculum of the\npublic schools?\nPut another way, has the religion of Humanism penetrated the curriculum\nof the schools without being classified as a religion, and therefore subject\nto the limitations of all religions; that is, that it should be identified and\nstudied as a religion?\nThe controversy over \"sex education\" in California's public schools has\nbeen shown to be closely associated with the recent affirmation of a \"new\nmorality. \" Both of these movements are in turn connected with the \"sex\nrevolution, 11 which has been a planned program of indoctrination underway on\n8\nAugustin G. Rudd, Bending the Twig, American Book-Stratford Press, Inc.,\nNew York, 1957, p. 135.\n9\nPaul W. Shafer and John Howland Snow, The Turning of the Tides. New\nCanaan, Conn.: Long House, Inc., 1956.\n10\nRudd, op. cit., p. 167.\n44\nmany college campuses for many years. Any cursory examination will\nreveal all three movements to be connected with leading personalities in\nHumanist or allied organizations of one type or another. 11 Often the sex\neducation programs for the K-12 years follow upon the heels of these well-\nplanned \"sex revolution\" programs, such as that conducted in Sacramento\nthe week of February 26 through March 1, 1968, and sponsored by the\ncolleges of the community. Entitled \"The Sexual Revolution, 1968, the\nprogram featured a number of well-established \"sexologists\": Ira Reiss;\nJames E. Elias, an associate of Alfred C. Kinsey; a newcomer, but very\npopular, Anson Mount, Public Affairs Manager of Playboy magazine; plus\nthe granddaddy of all sexologists, Albert Ellis, a man who has devoted his\nlife and fortune to \"urge young Americans to perpetrate almost any sexual\nact their cunning little minds can devise. \"12\nA member of the staff of the State Department of Education and two legis-\nlators attended one of Mr. Mount's lectures at American River College on\nFebruary 27, 1968, and reported the following to the Superintendent of\nPublic Instruction:\nThroughout his address Anson Mount referred to \"situation ethics,\"\nthat right and wrong in the old sense is dead. Medicine and modern\nscience have made sex relatively safe. 11 That premarital sex is dangerous\nis old hat, and guilt feelings about \"illicit sex\" are ridiculous.\nThe new measure for right and wrong is whether \"it affects the human\nhappiness of others. Intercourse OK among students if it doesn't violate\ntheir own moral standards. It is immoral only when it interferes with\nhuman welfare or happiness. \" The only evil in life is a lack of love for\nfellow man. Nothing is wrong except as it affects people. \"The older\ngeneration is unqualified to judge\" since they have actually rejected\nChristian morality and are \"sick, inhuman, unchristian, boobs and\nbabbits. 11 The New Morality is a rebellion against this phoney parental\nauthority.\nMount discusses \"morality\" of business, of war, of greed, etc., and\nclaims adults are shocked at \"one little 'dirty' deed of a boy and a girl\nout in the woods. 11\nHis address is colored with the words Humanistic and Secular, which\nholds that \"The Highest Good is Human Welfare and Happiness. The\n11\nSee the publication \"Sex/Family Life Education and Sensitivity Training--\nIndoctrination or Education presented to the California State Board of Educa-\ntion, February, 1969, by the Citizens for Parental Rights, P.O. Box 241,\nSan Mateo, California 94401. This document has become part of an overall\nReport of the State Department of Education as a result of the series of reports\nand hearings conducted by the State Board between January and April, 1969.\n12\nRobert A. Liston, \"Biographical Sketch of Albert Ellis, 11 The Man's\nMagazine, (March 1966).\n45\nreligions of your parents are fossilized\nbetter to join the Peace Corps,\nor the \"Southern Christian Leadership Conference\"\nMount's heroes are Bishop James Pike and the English Bishop, Robinson,\nlately of the English Anglican Church. He mentioned the Hippie retreat at\nEsalon at Big Sur and confirmed at the end of his speech that \"OUR RELIGION\nIS OUR LOVE AFFAIR WITH LIFE. 11\nIf one calculates that such teams of \"sexperts\" are storming the ivy walls\nof college campuses across the country preaching this \"religion,\" there is\nlittle wonder demands are now made to prepare adolescents for the environ-\nment into which they will step upon graduation from high school.\nOne of the apostles of Humanism and of sex education who joins the secondary\nlevel and higher education with the various noneducational organizations is\nLester Kirkendall, formerly of Oregon State University. Dr. Kirkendall is\nnow devoting full time to preparing teachers how to teach \"sex education' K-12.\nThe fact that Dr. Kirkendall is an officer of the American Humanist Associa-\ntion and of the Sex Information Educational Council of the U.S. (SIECUS) as\nwell as an editor of the Humanist makes his work particularly important for\nus to analyze. The following orientation for discussing the sticky questions\nabout right and wrong are from a position paper he issued to teachers at a\ntraining session in southern California. The paper is entitled \"A Morality\nfor Twentieth Century Living.'\nThe moral code must concentrate upon what behavior, attitudes and\nexperiences will do to actualize man's sociality, rather than upon maintain-\ning prescribed or proscribed patterns of behavior. The practice of consider-\ning moral standards wholly in terms of acts which are acceptable or which\nare to be renounced has become completely impractical as a result of the\ncultural intermingling which is now occurring and growing rapidly. This\nfactor in particular emphasizes the need to undercut various differences as\nthey are reflected in overt acts, and find a common ground which will\nenable us to interpret all behavior in its context.\nIt is these considerations which have crystallized for me the idea that\nmorally our first concern should be for the development of effective inter-\npersonal relationships. It was this which led me to write:\nWhenever a decision or a choice is to be made concerning behavior,\nthe moral decision will be the one which works towards the creation of\ntrust, confidence, and integrity in relationships. It should increase the\ncapacity of individuals to cooperate, and enhance the sense of self-\nrespect in the individual. Acts which create distrust, suspicion, and\nmisunderstanding, which build barriers and destroy integrity, are\nimmoral. They decrease the individuals sense of self-respect, and\nrather than producing a capacity to work together they separate people\nand break down the capacity for communication.\nThis concept may be set up in chart forin.\n46\nBASIS FOR MORAL JUDGEMENTS\nThose actions, decisions and attitudes are\nRight\nWrong\n1. increased capacity to trust people\n1. increased distrust of people\n2. greater integrity in relationship\n2. deceit and duplicity in relationships\n3. dissolution of barriers separating\n3. barriers between persons and groups\npeople\n4. cooperative attitudes\n4. resistant, uncooperative attitudes\n5. feelings of faith and confidence in\n5. exploitive behavior toward others\npeople\n6. enhanced self-respect\n6. diminished self-respect\n7. fulfillment on individual potentialities 7. thwarted and dwarfed individual\nand a zest for living\ncapacities and disillusionment\n13\nAn examination of several guides from various school districts indicate that\nthis foundation for \"moral\" behavior has been adopted by some school districts. 14\nTo put it another way, the Humanist religion is being used as the basis for\nmoral judgments, whether it be in sex education or those sessions called\n\"interpersonal relationships. \"\nFor example, Ashley Montague, a self-described \"social biologist\" who has\nbeen promoting \"the sex revolution for some decades, reflects this amoral\nreligion in \"The Pill, The Sexual Revolution, and the Schools' when he wrote:\nYoung unmarried individuals who are sufficiently responsible will be\nable, in the new dispensation [sic], to enter into responsible sexual rela-\ntionships in a perfectly healthy and morally acceptable and reciprocally\nbeneficial manner which will help the participants to become more fully\ndeveloped human beings than they would otherwise have stood a chance of\nbecoming. The dead hand of ugly traditional beliefs (such as the nastiness\nand sinfulness of sex, the wickedness of premarital sex), which has been\nresponsible for untold human tragedies, will be replaced by a new flowering\nof human love.\n15\n13\nObtained at the Charter House inservice training session, Anaheim,\nCalifornia.\n14\nReview Committee, Supplementary Evaluation of Curriculum Guides on\nFamily Life and Sex Education and an Overview of the Guides, State Depart-\nment of Education, Sacramento, March 5, 1969.\n15\nTo balance this kind of \"morality\" one could reach into history's great\nstorehouses and select many works on moral theology to propose as an antidote.\nWe think The Handbook of the Militant Christian, by the Christian Humanist\nDesiderus Erasmus would be a real challenge to this generation.\n47\nWhat is important for educators to remember is that such indoctrination\nis not labeled as \"religious instruction. 11 If Dr. Kirkendall's seven command-\nments of Humanism were placed alongside the Ten Commandments, \"right\nand wrong\" could be more properly analyzed. In other words, Humanism,\nas a religious approach to life, must be identified as such, studied as such,\nand taught as one of many creeds which form the fabric of our American\ncivilization. To teach Humanism's \"moral code\" any other way is tantamount\nto indoctrination in a religion and contrary to public policy according to\nEducation Code Section 8453.\nThe State Board of Education accumulated huge quantities of materials\nabout SIECUS and its adherents during its lengthy investigation of sex educa-\ntion in California's schools. The investigation was completed on April 10,\n1969, after which the Board adopted the following resolution:\nRESOLUTION\nWHEREAS, The California Constitution prescribes \"moral improvement\"\nas one of the principal purposes of the public schools;\nWHEREAS, The traditional institutional sources of family and sexual\ninformation and guidance for young people are often inadequate and absent;\nWHEREAS, The local public schools as one social institution accessible\nto all young people reflect broad community support and with sufficient\nintellectual and material resources, can aid substantially in the development\nof sound and individual codes of family life and sexual behavior;\nWHEREAS, Too much misinformation is being learned by our children\nwho receive no formal instruction in Family Life and Sex Education, and\nmany are truly damaged emotionally and psychologically; now, therefore\nbe it\nRESOLVED: That a Family Life and Health Education program be\nincluded as a necessary part of our over-all educational system (grades\nK-12) in order to aid in the carrying out of the full intent of the Constitution;\nand\nBE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the local school district maintain the\nlocal control over materials and methods needed in achieving this program in\nits proper perspective and fulfillment for the needs of the community by\nutilizing guidelines as recommended by the State Board of Education.\n1. The primary responsibility for sex education is that of the home.\nHowever, the school, along with the church, has a secondary role in support-\ning and supplementing the home's responsibility.\n2. That instruction concerning sex education programs be conducted by\na team of qualified instructors, including professionals who have shown an\naptitude for working with young people and who have received special\n48\ntraining; and utilizing physicians as recommended by local medical societies\nas consultants, advisors, and resource persons in the development and\nguidance of such curriculum.\n3. All materials to be used to be studied by a citizens committee with\navoidance of materials not approved. Suggest members of committee\ninclude:\na. medical doctors approved by local medical society and/or public\nhealth department\nb. registered nurse (school nurse)\nC. representatives of administration of school districts\nd. representatives of PTA and/or other responsible parent groups\ne. representative of clergy (all major faiths)\nf. representatives of police department -- - especially juvenile\nprobation officers\ng. other concerned members of the community\n4. Programs dealing with sex education should be voluntary and not be\nmandatory.\n5. Harmful effects of premarital sex, etc. and a code of morals be\nemphasized with no derogatory instruction relative to religious beliefs\nand ethics, and to parents' beliefs and teachings. Emphasize family unit -\nand especially moral values.\n6. Earliest instruction relative to human reproduction not to be intro-\nduced prior to age of 9.\n7. Acquaintance and instruction of parents with materials (not just an\noutline) to be utilized in home and in the classroom with re-evaluation of\nobjectionable materials.\n8. Evaluation of sex education, as well as in-service training of per-\nsonnel involved, should be a continuing process.\n9. Successful programs such as that in San Diego could well be used as\nguidelines for other districts.\n10. Elimination of SIECUS materials from California schools.\nThese Guidelines for Moral Instruction are thus to be considered an integral\npart of the Family Life and Sex Education program suggested for use in California\nschools. Moreover, SIECUS is to be eliminated as a source of materials for\nthose schools which choose to teach sex education. But how then does the cur-\nriculum specialist select materials? What about such nonconnected Humanists\nas Margaret Mead, who has taught a couple of generations of American teachers?\n49\nIn her most famous book, The Coming of Age in Samoa, first published in\n1928, Miss Mead described the lives of 50 Samoan girls whom she observed\nin childhood over a period of nine months. Forty years later she revisited\nthe island and reestablished contacts. She apparently believes as firmly\ntoday as she did 40 years ago that \"moral relativism is the only solution to\nthe human problem. In her last chapter, \"Education for Choice,\" she\nreduces the formula to this:\nThe home must cease to plead an ethical cause or a religious belief\nwith smiles or frowns, caresses or threats. The children must be\ntaught how to think, not what to think. And because old errors die slowly,\nthey must be taught tolerance, just as today they are taught intolerance.\nThey must be taught that many ways are open to them, no one sanctioned\nabove its alternative, and that upon them and upon them alone lies the\nburden of choice. Unhampered by prejudices, unvexed by too early con-\nditioning to any one standard, they must come clear-eyed to the choices\nwhich lie before them. 16\nMoreover, after having promoted the \"open ended\" society for so many\ndecades, Miss Mead brings us up-to-date in \"The Generation Gap\" by lamenting:\nnow, nowhere in the whole world are there any elders who know what\nthe children know, no matter how remote and simple the societies in which\nthe children live. In the past there were always some elders who knew\nmore in terms of experience, of having grown up within a system than\nany children. Today there are none. It is not only that parents are no\nlonger a guide, but that there are no guides, in the older sense of the term,\nwhether one seeks them in one's own country, or in China, or in India. 17\nAgain, she says, \"We have to realize that no other generation will ever expe-\nrience what we have experienced. In this sense we have no descendants. At\nthis breaking point between two radically different and closely related groups,\nboth are inevitably very lonely, as we face each other knowing that they will\nnever experience what we have experienced and that we can never experience\nwhat they have experienced. 11\nIt is hard to say how representative Miss Mead's ideas are in her profession\nor whether the vibrant American people grasp what she is saying. The similari-\nties between her views and those of Anson Mount and Dr. Kirkendall cannot be\nlost to the critic. The crisis of our time is that these people have not bothered\nto examine the guides which history and experience offer to us. Their rejection\nof our traditions begs the questions: Can a child in a school system dedicated\nby law to the affirmation of a religious and moral heritage be taught to question\n16\nMargaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Morrow, William and\nCo., 1961, p. 246.\n17\nScience, April 11, 1969, Volume 164, No. 3876.\n50\nthe substance of that heritage? Can children be taught to judge \"right or\nwrong\" as the unsteady product of their individual consciences?\nIs this not in violation of Education Code Section 13556. 5 (formerly\nSection 7851)? Is it not also in violation of more recent legislation designed\nto protect the child's (and parent's) morality from attack by secular Humanists?\nIt was the consensus of the State Board of Education that morality, the\nmorality of America's religious heritage, be part and parcel of whatever\nfamily life and sex education is inaugurated in California's schools. There\nare books which approach the issue from this viewpoint, and they are the\nbooks that properly fit the suggestions of the State Board of Education,\nHUMANISM AND THE BEHAVIORISTS\nAnother area of public school endeavor which should be examined according\nto our traditionalist yardstick and put in proper perspective is the tendency to\nlook upon the schools as a kind of psychiatric or mental health center. To the\nbehaviorists, education is no longer the mastering of a specific discipline;\ntheir goal is to achieve \"adjustment\" of the individual to the group. \"Group\nconsensus, 11 \"self analysis, and \"interpersonal relationships\" are terms\ncommonly used by this school. The most widespread term today is \"sensi-\ntivity training.'\nThe drive to introduce these \"counseling\" techniques into the schools was\nlaunched with great zeal at the end of World War II when the first president\nof the newly organized World Health Organization (a part of the United Nations),\nR. Brock Chisholm, participated in a symposium on \"The Psychiatry of\nEnduring Peace and Social Progress. \"18 The goals of the UN and of the WHO,\nobserved the speakers at this symposium, were to abolish war and to redistribute\nthe world's economic wealth through world government. The way to do this is\nto win the minds of the people of the world to think as world citizens, that is,\nto embrace Humanism.\nThere was one major \"hangup,\" however, which impeded this development,\naccording to Dr. Chisholm. Mankind through the centuries, he said, has been\nobsessed by the concept of \"sin\" and of morality:\nWe have been very slow to rediscover this truth and to recognize the\nunnecessary and artificially imposed inferiority, guilt and fear, commonly\nknown as sin, under which we have almost all labored and which produces\nso much of the social maladjustment and unhappiness in the world. For\nmany generations we have bowed our necks to the yoke of conviction of sin.\n18\nThe complete text of this speech can be found in Psychiatry (February,\n1946). A review of its meaning for our generation can be found in Triumph,\n(October, 1968), 11-14.\n51\nThe objective, therefore, should be to eradicate this awful mental distor-\ntion for all mankind. And only psychiatrists know how to do this. Whatever\nhampers or distorts man's thinking ability works against him and even \"tends\nto destroy him. \" And this is why, proclaimed Dr. Chisholm, that \"an effective\npsychotherapy' had to be prepared for an all-out attack against the concept of\nright and wrong. His goal was to change the human psyche, man's basic person-\nality, through psychotherapy.\nIf this means ripping the child away from the values and traditions of his\nparents, then so be it. A mature person, says Dr. Chisholm, has the quali-\nties of adaptability and compromise, and he chastises those parents who bring\nup their children to be absolutely loyal and obedient to the local concept of\nvirtue whatever that happened to be\nIt almost always happened that among\nall the people in the world only our own parents and perhaps a few people they\nselected, were right about everything. We could refuse to accept their rightness\nonly at the price of a load of guilt and fear, and peril to our immortal souls.\nThis training has been practically universal in the human race; variations in\ncontent have had almost no importance. The fruit is poisonous no matter how\nit is prepared or disguised.\"\nThe behaviorists solution is, as follows, according to Dr. Chisholm:\nThe re-interpretation and eventually eradication of the concept of right\nand wrong which has been the basis of child training, the substitution of\nintelligent and rational thinking for faith in the certainties of the old people,\nthese are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy.\nWould they not be legitimate objectives of original education? Would it not\nbe sensible to stop imposing our local prejudices.and faiths on children and\ngive them all sides of every question SO that in their own good time they\nmay have the ability to size things up, and make their own decisions.\n\"If the race is to be freed from its crippling burden of good and evil, \" adds\nDr. Chisholm, \"it must be psychiatrists who take the original responsibility, 11\nbecause \"freedom from moralities means freedom to observe, to think and\nbehave sensibly, to the advantage of the person and of the group, free from\noutmoded types of loyalties and from the magic fears of our ancestors.\"\nIt can be seen that the vocabulary of Dr. Chisholm, of Margaret Mead, of\nMary Calderone, of Lester Kirkendall has a good deal in common, and it\npervades the world of American education and psychology. There is much\nevidence that teachers are being trained in this school and are destined to\nbecome, not disseminators of knowledge, but directors of a child's behavior\ndevelopment. Dr. Chisholm called for collective action around the\nHumanist philosophy. His design was to organize the young parents, teachers,\nparent teacher associations, service groups, and so forth around the Humanist\ngoal of world government through the abolition of national cultures and their\nvalue systems. The means is through group therapy. Recent revelations\nabout the successes of \"sensitivity training' in the colleges, and now in the\nhigh schools, suggest that those dedicated to this goal, however well-meaning\nthey may be, are in fact aligned with revolutionary groups acting contrary to\npublic policy; that is, they intend to use the schools to destroy American culture\nand traditions.\n52\nThe technique of sensitivity training on the campus at the University of\nCalifornia at Berkeley was brought to public attention during the 1968 hearings\non sensitivity training held in the State Capitol, Sacramento. 19\nOne of the witnesses speaking at the hearing was Hardin Jones, Professor\nof Medical Physics and Assistant Director of the Donner Laboratory at the\nUniversity of California, Berkeley. Dr. Jones' testimony shocked a good\nmany listeners and is so crucial to an understanding of the forces dedicated\nto the destruction of American institutions that we include it here in its\nentirety.\nSensitivity Training is being promoted on a massive scale in the United\nStates. Some of this promotion already involves educational institutions.\nA recent national meeting of representatives of college fraternal organiza-\ntions had a whole session devoted to these techniques. A training convention\nfor this purpose was just held in San Francisco (American Association for\nHumanistic Psychology, Sixth Annual Meeting, Fairmont Hotel, August, '68).\nVarious institutions, including the administrative offices of the Davis campus\nof the University of California, have held instruction for the staff in these\nmethods.\nThe training consists of creating physical awareness of other people.\nThis awareness is highly related to such physical contacts as between\nmother and infant and sexual feelings between persons. The idea is to\nbecome aware of the other person through touch and other forms of direct\ncontact. The impact of the \"training\" is enhanced by removal of clothing\nSO as to expose the skin to view and to contact and, as the training advances,\nthis step in awareness can be reached in most people. The techniques of\ncontact are dramatically effective in awakening alert attention to the presence\nof another person through animal feeling.\nSensitivity training is a powerful form of Pavlovian conditioning by which\nsexual-emotional types of response can be substituted for intellectual con-\nsideration of any proposition common to the group, developing a surge of\nanimalistic mob-response. At U. C., Davis, sensitivity training appears to\nbe the motive for the disrobing to complete nudity which took place in mixed\nclasses. It is not unusual to have the participants of sensitivity training\nsessions go on to consummation of sexual contacts, as was observed and\nreported about the nude parties held under the Left's umbrella at Berkeley.\nThis conditioning through emotional, animalistic responses has been\ndeveloped by the Communoid forces, who apply these techniques to control\nof group behavior. It has also been adapted, in milder forms, by some\nreligious groups as a means to intensify group dedication. On a massive\nreaction basis, its equivalent has always occurred spontaneously in countries\nin the first stages of warfare, when mutuality, comradeship, and sexuality\n19\nA Hearing on Mandatory Sensitivity Training for Public Employees,\nState Capitol, Room 2117, September 10, 1968.\n53\nreach much more intensive levels than during peacetime. Sensitivity\ntraining is, in fact, a recently publicized variation of Group Dynamics,\nwhich is a systematized assembly of psychological techniques applied\nfor the purpose of directing and influencing group action without recourse\nto intellectual persuasion.\nMany of those interested in group dynamics and sensitivity training are\nbent upon applying these emotional responses to increase a feeling of\nbrotherly love with regard to international brotherly love in the antiwar\nmovement and to generate a similar feeling of admiration between the\nwhites and the blacks. The rise of Black Power and black racism has\ntended to interrupt the \"love movement\" between black and white. This\nand a beginning of awakening of the white liberals to the need for progress\nthrough rational process have now diminished this trend markedly, but\nit was quite evident in 1964, '65, and '66. Those who are pushing for such\nshortcuts to interpersonal feelings through passion disregard the importance\nof intellectual understanding as a means to create stable human relations.\nApparently, too, they do not understand that the animalistic mass reaction\ncan change direction rapidly, since it lacks intellectual and moral stability.\nThe youth movements of the 1930s in Germany are a terrifying example\nto recall. These began with the \"sensitivity\" -awakening indoctrination of\nthe young by radical socialists and Communists for political purposes.\nThe animalistic mob-culture was rapidly taken over by Hitler and became\nthe Hitler Junge (Youth) who, as a political army, were unthinking, obedient,\nand conditioned to give prompt reflex responses such as Pavlov studied.\nHitler actually organized massive sexual contacts as well as mass meetings\nfor the Junge; these social activities were nothing more than intensively\napplied \"sensitivity training. 11 He sought to disguise these affairs by declaring\nthem to be necessary to increase the numbers of Nordic peoples.\nTo the extent we begin to be influenced by animalistic tendencies and mob\npsychology, we certainly lose the structure of a society based on solving its\nproblems rationally. There is danger that the rational aspects of democracy\nmay be lost completely due to the magnitude of the concerted effort from\nradical politicians in the ranks of our educators and clergymen, pushing\nsociety witlessly in the direction of substitution of emotion for moral prin-\nciples and intellectual judgment. The extent of the danger yet to become\nevident can be judged from a few examples (see appendix) of the extent of\nsocial subversion from radical elements.\nThe possibility of the use of applied mass psychology to condition political\nbehavior stemmed from the discovery of the conditioned reflex by the distin-\nguished Russian physiologist, Pavlov. He had an important influence on all\nof Russian biological and social science. American scientists have tended to\nneglect this area of study, and American politicians have made comparatively\nlittle use of its capabilities because, until now, the politics of the country\nwere very stable. The leaders of world Communism have relied heavily on\nthe social methodology developed from Pavlov's principle of conditioning. It\nis a way that satisfaction of animalistic human needs, such as food, affection,\ndiscipline, and sexual activities, can be controlled so as to condition a person\n54\nto actions and beliefs without intellectual evaluation. The possibility of\nmassive application of biology and psychology to change and regulate human\nlife was described in vivid science-fiction accounts by the English scientist\nJ.B.S. Haldane in the novel, Daedalus, by Aldous Huxley in the novel,\nBrave New World, and by George Orwell in the novel, 1984. These authors\nhave been heroes to the radical Left, and it is obvious that some of these\nprinciples are being applied by Leftist forces, almost on schedule with\nthe timetable of the nightmarish novel, 1984. It also appears that Americans\nare inordinately susceptible to such conditioning and that our social institu-\ntions have added to the problem of spreading the social subversion rather\nthan being anchor positions of sanity and leadership to keep the moral fiber\nvital.\nIn part, the severity of the problems having to do with social subversion\nthrough the educational establishments was clearly set down by Richard\nWeaver, who foresaw the nature of the difficulties as a cultural clash between\nAmerican and Western European culture on the one hand and the culture of\nsome East European-Asians whom he identifies as the \"gnostics of education. 11\nWeaver states that they have radical social goals and have come to reside in\nconsiderable numbers in our educational institutions. The following excerpts\nare from Weaver, Visions of Order:\nIt is not too much to say that in the past fifty years public education\nin the United States has been in the hands of revolutionaries. To grasp\nthe nature of their attempted revolution, we need only realize that in\nthe past every educational system has reflected to a great extent the\nsocial and political constitution of the society which supported it. This\nwas assumed to be a natural and proper thing, since the young were to\nbe trained to take places in the world that existed around them. They\nwere \"indoctrinated\" with this world because its laws and relations\nwere those by which they were expected to order their lives. In the\nperiod just mentioned, however, we have witnessed something never\nbefore seen in the form of a systematic attempt to undermine a society's\ntraditions and beliefs through the educational establishment which is\nusually employed to maintain them. There has been an extraordinary\noccurrence, a virtual educational coup d'etat carried out by a specially\ninclined minority. This minority has been in essence a cabal, with\nobjectives radically different from those of the state which employed\nthem. An amazing feature of the situation has been how little they have\ncared to conceal these objectives. On more than one occasion they have\nissued a virtual call to arms to use publicly created facilities for the\npurpose of actualizing a concept of society not espoused by the people.\nThe result has been an educational system not only intrinsically bad but\nincreasingly at war with the aims of the community which authorizes it,\nas we are now forced to recognize.\nThis subversion has gone SO far that gnostics of education until very\nrecently [until the threat of nuclear warfare]constituted the greatest\nsingle threat to our culture. In the discredit that they have cast upon\nthe higher faculties, in the way they have cut the young off from knowledge\n55\nof the excellencies achieved in the past, and in the way they have turned\nattention toward transient externals and away from the central problem\nof man, they have no equal as an agency of subversion. Their schemes\nare exactly fitted, if indeed they are not designed, to produce citizens\nfor the secular communist state, which is the millenial dream of the\nmodern gnostic. To put an end to this adventure into fantasy and to\nprevent the cruel awakening which would follow, we should do all we can,\neducationally and politically, to hasten the decline of their influence.\nThe antidote to this kind of education, of course, is to return to the basic\npurposes of public education: the teaching of skills and the cultivation of love\nand respect for our heritage and traditions. The opposite point of view of\nDr. Chisholm and his many friends in the behaviorist world is that posed by\nRussell Kirk in an essay entitled \"Prescription, Authority and Ordered\nFreedom. \"20 It says in a few pages what must be said about the American\nexperiment and reflects a point of view of millions, of Americans were they\nable to articulate it as well.\nA grotesque example of the technique to identify \"sick\" people was related\nby Martha White Washington in the April, 1969, issue of Triumph magazine.\nShe tells how the New York City Mental Health Center made a survey of\n175, 000 souls and \"found that 81. 5 percent of the neighborhood inhabitants\nwere mentally ill. 11 But, says Mrs. Washington, the article did not reveal\nthat the neighborhood survey was predominately, a black community, precinct\n19 on the upper eastside of New York City. \"In the light of that knowledge,\nit becomes clearer what may be crazy about those people: they are black,\nand they act differently than 'normal' people that is, the white political\npsychiatrists.\"\nSome other interesting facts contained in that article: the number of\npsychiatrists in the U.S. has grown from 4, 000 in 1945 to 22, 680 at last\ncount, \"a growth rate more than eight times that of the overall population.\"\nAs of June, 1968, there were 331 mental health centers in 49 states of the\nUnion. Funds have been proposed to increase these centers to 1, 500 by the\nend of the 1970s.\nEspecially does Mrs. Washington sense a danger in the rise of \"political\npsychiatrists\" and their ultimate effect on the natural freedoms of all\nAmericans. She quotes several statements of the Deputy Director of the\nNational Institute of Mental Health, Bertram S. Brown, who has approved\nthe terminology \"political psychiatrist. \"As men seek for answers to the\nproblems of our times, he writes in a professional journal, \"they increas-\ningly turn to psychiatry. In the Senate debating war and peace, a psychiatrist\nis there; in the court considering guilt and innocence, a psychiatrist is there;\nin the mayor's committee room holding a post mortem of the urban riot, a\npsychiatrist is there.\"\n20\nWhat Is Conservatism? (First edition). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and\nWinston, 1964, p. 242.\n56\nThe effort to reduce all men to the a priori standards of psychiatrists\nsought by Dr. Chisholm and his school is harshly judged. Asks Mrs.\nWashington:\nWhat use to the black man are his newly-won \"civil rights\" -- his\nequal housing, his equal job opportunity, his equal voting rights if the\npolitical psychiatrists can sweepingly reduce him to an animal? This is\nwhat blacks have learned, thanks to being so profusely blessed with the\nbenefits of psychiatry: blacks are able to recognize chattel slavery when\nthey see it, no matter what disguise it wears. They know that the slave\nmentality is the product of the break-up of the family, the denial of literacy\nand the confiscation of earnings. Having questioned and tested the schemes\nof civil rights, they have finally rejected them because the powers of\npolitical psychiatry can betray all the promises of civil rights.\nWhat is the solution? \"Only rediscovery of and respect for man's identity\nhis nature -- can do that. To this end, there is no reason why blacks, Chris-\ntians, conservatives, youth all those alienated from the mental hygiene\nestablishment cannot join, despite all their differences, in demands for\nrestraint of political psychiatrists, before it succeeds in making America\nliterally a nation of madmen.\nHUMANISM AND SOCIAL SCIENCES\nThere is yet another technique of undermining our heritage and reversing\nthe progress of human dignity as reflected in American history. This is the\nprevalence of a school of teachers and scholars who are professionally anti-\ntraditionalists. They are the \"debunkers\" of American institutions, those who\nconcentrate on American failings rather than on American achievements. Some\nof the views of these gentlemen have found their way into the curriculum of our\nschools. We cannot here describe the extent of this penetration, but if we\nexamine the orientation of one of their high priests, we can readily see how\nsuch views are finding their ways into our schools. We can also suggest that\nto reverse this trend, the school of the antitraditionalist must also be objectively\nexamined in the universities and colleges, rather than to allow the universities\nand colleges to reflect this view as the quasi-official view of public educational\ninstitution.\nIn the Metaphysical Foundations of American History by Roland Van Zandt,\nreferred to in Chapter II, we have something of an outline of the Humanist\nphilosophy as applied American history. Mr. Van Zandt blithely rejects the\nnatural law theory which underlies the whole structure of American thought\nand which gives force to its continuity. Mr. Van Zandt calls it the one \"dogma\"\nwhich infects American history. He claims that the American Revolution built\nnothing, that it was a movement to destroy history in order to rebuild a new\nhistory, and that not until our day, with a new intellectual leadership, are\nAmericans free to fulfill their obligations to construct a new history of the\nworld. The intellectuals of our day, he claims, have rejected the antiquated\nassumptions\" of the traditional order. The new order is that of science -- a\nmoving, changing, relative world of truths and values. He models his historical\n57\nviews upon the scientific formulations of Einstein and laments that \"the\nQueen of sciences, political science, has not yet come into its own. America\nhas lost its bearings, he claims, and must reject its own history and intel-\nlectual establishment in order to create a new history. Mr. Van Zandt's\nprimary target is Thomas Jefferson, upon whom he levels most of his\ncriticism as if Jefferson were alone responsible for those verbal formula-\ntions he gave the world in the Declaration of Independence.\nMr. Van Zandt thinks Jefferson's \"career was all a mistake\nin a way,\nfor instance, that American history throughout his lifetime was somehow a\nmistake. (p. 197)\nMr. Van Zandt's arguments are in the Marxian style of thesis and antithesis.\nHe avoids the exaltation of the spirit in human existence like the plague. His\nview of history is existential. He even denies that an American history ever\nexisted. American history is now defined as that which is not, he says.\nAmericans have come to the point where they must renounce the knowledge of\ntheir forefathers because their knowledge was circumscribed by ignorance.\nThe dogma of natural law, he claims is a myth. It is the greatest single\nobstacle to the rational control of man's own life. What Mr. Van Zandt will\nsubstitute for American history or any other history is a \"unity of process. 11\nIt applies only to the human scene, because it is only the human scene that is\nimportant in history.\nSuch an approach to American history and culture, should it spread any\nfurther, would as assuredly destroy America's concepts of moral standards\nas it would America's faith in its political and cultural institutions. Such instruc-\ntion, should it penetrate the lower grades, would be in direct contradiction of\nthose state laws which mandate reverence and respect for our heritage. While\nthe antitraditionist view is not a view which teaches Communism per se, it is\na school which teaches the destruction of the American way of life. Certainly\nit would be a view \"contrary to public policy, which is the policy of a people\ndetermined to protect and cherish their heritage.\nHow one copes with this problem is rather the task of the universities and\ncolleges than it is the public schools. And yet, since the teachers of our\nchildren are trained in the public colleges and universities, it is logical that\nthe State Board of Education should have a concern about the kind of orientation\nteachers of social sciences are receiving. Teachers need a yardstick by which\nto judge dangerous theories. They can get that yardstick only if the higher\ninstitutions of education provide them with it. Hamilton Long, in his American\nYardstick, related how Jefferson and Madison dealt with the problem in 1825\nand which could be a good example for our generation. These two former\npresidents wrote and caused to be adopted by the Board of Visitors of the\nUniversity of Virginia the following resolution:\nWhereas it is the duty of this board to the government (of the United\nStates) under which it lives, and especially to that (of Virginia) of which\nthis University is the immediate creation, to pay especial attention to the\nprinciples of government which shall be inculcated therein, and to provide\nthat none shall be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which\n58\nthe Constitutions of this State, and of the U.S. were genuinely based in the\ncommon opinion: and for this purpose it may be necessary to point out\nspecifically where these principles are to be found legitimately developed.\nIf California's universities and colleges followed this example, they would\nnot be allowed to \"inculcate\" ideas alien to our heritage and tradition, although\nsurely they would be encouraged to study them. As Mr. Long comments:\n\"\nsound teaching does not preclude, indeed it requires, students being taught\nabout conflicting principles in order to enable them to understand the unsoundness\nof the latter\njudged by the sound standard of the American principles, with\nwhich the students must, of course, first be made familiar SO as to have a yard-\nstick by which to judge soundly. 11\nThe antitraditionalists should be studied and compared within the context of\nthe American intellectual heritage. To ignore that heritage and simply pass\njudgments on it is hardly the function of higher education.\nHUMANISTS AND MARXISTS\nThe following section of the Education Code was referred to in the State Board's\nresolution of July 14, 1968, and is significant to our analysis of the problem of\nsubversion:\nAdvocacy or Teaching of Communism; \"Communism\" Defined\n8455. No teacher giving instruction in any school, or on any property\nbelonging to any agencies included in the Public School System, shall advo-\ncate or teach communism with the intent to indoctrinate any pupil with, or\ninculcate a preference in the mind of any pupil for communism.\nThe Legislature in prohibiting the advocacy or teaching of communism\nwith the intent to indoctrinate any pupil with or inculcate a preference in the\nmind of any pupil for, such doctrine does not intend to prevent the teaching\nof the facts of the above subject but intends to prevent the advocacy of, and\ninculcation and indoctrination into communism as is hereinafter defined,\nfor the purpose of undermining the patriotism for, and the belief in, the\nGovernment of the United States and of this State in the minds of the pupils\nin the Public School System.\nFor the purposes of this section, communism is a political theory that\nthe presently existing form of government of the United States or of this\nState should be changed, by force, violence, or other unconstitutional\nmeans, to a totalitarian dictatorship which is based on the principles of\ncommunism as expounded by Marx, Lenin and Stalin.\nThe task of identifying activity alien to our heritage and/or contrary to\npublic policy is easier when we focus our sights on this specific case of\n'prohibitive instruction. The recent publicity given to the national student\n59\norganization called Students for a Democratic Society makes it abundantly\nclear that America's youth is being bombarded with Communist propaganda\nand organized by trained Communist agitators. Recently, the Superintendent\nof Public Instruction made it clear that all such activities as planned by SDS\nare already illegal, that administrators need only act to enforce the laws on\nthe books in order to prevent subversion on high school campuses.\nIt is the opinion of the advisory committee, therefore, that if the tide of\nred indoctrination of our youth in college or in the lower grades is to be\nstemmed, some sort of instructional guidelines on the teaching of Communist\ntheory and tactics has to be prepared by the Department of Education for use\nin all of California's schools. There are already many programs in existence,\nthe best of which use the basic documents from the congressional investigative\ncommittees which have been recording the progress of Communist subversion\nsince 1935. There is little evidence that the laws which have been in existence\nfor some 15 years have been successful. Much of the problem arises from\nthe respectability given to professional Communists when the University of\nCalifornia Regents agreed to allow Communists and advocates of Communism\nthe use of campus facilities and easy contact with students. One member of\nthe Board of Regents in 1963 spoke sharply against rights of Communists to\nspeak freely, but few citizens apparently listened. He was Jerd Sullivan, a\nSan Francisco banker. In the November 1, 1963, issue of the California\nLegionnaire, the Sullivan letter was published with the editorial statement:\nSince the university has not released Mr. Sullivan's views, the California\nLegionnare reproduces his letter with his permission.\"\n60\nThe letter is as follows:\nMr. Gerald H. Hagar, Chairman\nBoard of Regents\nUniversity of California\nLos Angeles 24, California\nDear Gerry:\nAs I told you on the phone last week, I am extremely sorry but I cannot\nget to the June meeting of the Regents at Los Angeles because of a legal\nsituation which requires my presence here.\nI was particularly anxious to attend as I understand the matter of pre-\nventing communist speakers on campus will be reopened. I personally am\nunalterably opposed to granting such a privilege. I do favor the objective\nstudy of Communism on our various campuses so long as that study is con-\nducted by reputable and discerning educators. But to allow an agent of the\nCommunist Party to peddle his wares to students of an impressionable age\nis just as wrong, in my estimation, as it would be to allow Satan himself\nto use the pulpit of one of our great cathedrals for the purpose of trying to\nproselyte new members.\nThe conflicting opinions and concepts of the radical right and the radical\nleft must be given expression just as expression is given to the more tradi-\ntional philosophies of our society. But Communism is not the radical left.\nIt is not a natural outgrowth of our economy or our philosophy of human\nrelations. It is a foreign ideology; a subversive conspiracy dedicated to\nthe overthrow of our form of government, by force if necessary. Their\nsales ability has been well demonstrated by the strides they have made in\nmany parts of the world. Therefore, if we as a country feel that our ideol-\nogy is superior, why leave our youth open to the narcotic influence of that\nsalesmanship.\nFurther, at a time like this when the greatest portion of our enormous\ntax burden is spent for defense against Communism, it is to me unreason-\nable to argue that we should allow Communist agents to plead their case\nto the youth of this country in our tax supported institutions of learning.\nThe most precious possession of the University is the good name, and\nthe respect it has generated among the people who provide its financial\nsupport. To tarnish that good name and dilute that respect would be an\nirresponsible act far beneath the character of our Board of Regents.\nI sincerely hope the Board will see fit to reaffirm its stand at the\ncurrent meeting.\nSincerely yours,\n/s/ Jerd Sullivan\n61\nThree years after Mr. Sullivan was rebuffed, three years after the Regents\nrejected his plea for sanity in confronting Communist subversion, Professor\nLewis S. Feuer, upon resigning from Berkeley and taking up residence at the\nUniversity of Toronto, wrote his devastating article, \"The Decline of Freedom\nat Berkeley, 11 for Atlantic Monthly, (August, 1966). The faculty had resolved\nthat \"the content of speech or advocacy should not be restricted by the univer-\nsity. The original idea, says Dr. Feuer, was to allow Marxists to express\ntheir views while the more than sufficient scholars on campus would defend the\ntraditional position. But it turned out quite differently. \"Freedom of discussion\npresupposes that the chief sides in any national debate will be represented. In\nBerkeley, the supporters of President Johnson's foreign policy are, in effect,\ndenied a forum on the Berkeley campus. The New Left has made it nearly\nimpossible for the national administration's standpoint to be presented to\nBerkeley students. In January, 1966, he notes, Chancellor Roger Heyns\nbecame probably the first university head in America to be taken to task by a\ncounty grand jury for condoning \"the deliberate violation of criminal laws' on\nthe campus. The Alameda Grand Jury declared that Berkeley had become \"a\nstaging area for unlawful off campus activities\" and proceeded to cite some 34\nexamples of recent years. Berkeley, wrote Dr. Feuer, became the first\n\"political university\" in the United States. \"This is a development of the highest\nsignificance. For the first time, the intellectual class of the United States is\nundertaking to enter politics directly, and to offer to the electorate, through the\nagency of faculty-student activities, something akin to an Intellectual's Party.'\nGiven the pace of events since Dr. Feuer's article in 1966, there is much\nthat could be added to give substance to his charges that an \"intellectual revo-\nlutionary class\" seeks political power. How much of this revolutionism is due\nto Communist-connected professors only the FBI knows for sure. The other\nquestion, however, is more academic and important to the secondary school\nadministrators: How does one combat the scholarly Marxists who are not\nCommunist conspirators?\nOne can only answer, of course, that Marxism should be taught within the\ncontext of \"The American Yardstick\" and as destructive to everything Americans\nhold dear. But if Marxism is taught by teachers favorable to the Communist\nsystem, and if by implication the pupil (whether in college or junior high school)\nis inculcated \"with a preference in the mind of any pupil for Communism\" then\nthat student's respect for American institutions is undermined, and the teacher\nis guilty of indoctrination.\nWe enter a dangerous arena when we delve into such questions for the simple\nreason that there is danger of making blanket statements governing all Humanists\nand putting them into the same kettle of fish with Marxists or Communists. And\nyet, the Humanist magazine itself is an excellent source to establish the point of\ncontact between them because of that magazine's frequent articles dealing with\nthe fusion of their ideologies. In a recent article in the January/February, 1969\nissue of the Humanist, Yugoslav Communist Mihailo Markovic wrote about The\nBasic Characteristics of Marxist Humanism\":\n62\nMarxist humanism is nowadays the main spiritual inspiration for very\nbroad liberation movements. To be sure, these movements have some-\ntimes been used for selfish and inhuman ends and still their very existence\nshows that Marx's humanist ideal is not only the continuation of a great\ntradition and not only the expression of revolt against all that is inhumane\nin the present day world, but also a dream that might come true.\nThere is, in short, a great deal of communication and interrelationship\nbetween known Humanists and known Marxists on the intellectual level; such\nintellectuals as Erich Fromm, for instance, and of Professor Paul Baran\nof Stanford, both of whom have preached since the 1950s that it is foolish to\nbelieve that Soviet Communism is aggressive or that they are an \"international\nthreat. 21\nJ. Edgar Hoover, in his recent series \"On Communism\" which were\nserialed in the Copley newspapers, described how Marxists use Humanism\nas a semantic device to spread their Communist propaganda. Perhaps he\nwas referring to Corliss Lamont, one of the editors of Humanist and the\nauthor of the much vaunted book The Philosophy of Humanism. But Mr.\nLamont has also been associated with Communist causes for several decades\nand was identified as a fellow Communist by former editor of the Daily Worker,\nLouis Budenz. (See Senate Internal Security Report, September 28, 1958.)\nThus, it is a necessary task to use \"the American Yardstick\" and measure\ncarefully those differences between Humanists and Marxists and to identify\nthem as carriers of ideas alien to our heritage and/or contrary to public\npolicy. Marxists like Sidney Hook may be solely intellectual in their approach\nand hence nonactivists. But Communists are Marxists of whatever political\npersuasion, be it the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, or Yugoslav variety. Humanists\nindeed may not be Marxists. But Marxists are, ipso facto, Humanists. The\npoint, for teachers, is that the differences and allegiances must be examined\nand taught by teachers trained to distinguish the differences and to teach it in\nan objective manner against the backdrop of the American experience. Upon\nAmerica's ability to learn to do this rests the answer to the question of that\nAmerican GI who posed the ultimate question: Which way America?\nHUMANISTS AND EVOLUTIONISTS\nIt has been noted above that Humanists hold that \"man is a part of nature\nand that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process, 11 that is, by\nevolution. In the more recent Humanist magazine, we are told that \"Humanists\nsee man as a product of this world -- of evolution and human history -- and\nacknowledge no cosmic mind or supernatural purpose or forces.\"\n21\nSee L.A. Times, January 21, 1962, wherein Prof. Baran, is reported\nto have told a U. C.L.A. audience that the U.S. Foreign Policy is the world's\ngreatest threat.\n63\nEvolution, in other words, is an a priori assumption of the Humanist\nreligion. Evolution is thus inseparable from John Dewey's progressive\neducational theories. As Augustin Rudd points out, 22 Dewey had to deny the\ndualistic theory of man as mind and body; therefore, the concept of the soul\nis patently false; therefore, there is no reason at all to include the spirit and\nits source (theology) as a subject of study; therefore, there are no eternal\nverities, but only changing conditions to which man must adjust, and therefore,\ntraditional beliefs are largely hindrances in the broad evolutionary movement\nof man who is something continuously changing and \"becoming.\"\nIn recent years there has been growing concern among scientists them-\nselves concerning the teaching of evolution as fact instead of as a theory which\nrequires continuous proof. In fact there has developed since 1963 an organiza-\ntion called the Creation Research Society, a nationwide association of Christian\nscholars who call themselves \"creationists\" and who are attempting to dispute\nthe \"dogma\" of evolutionism as enunciated by Charles Darwin and which is often\ntaught in the public schools as fact and not theory. The major concern of these\nmen of science is that the origins of man are still too hazy to be accepted as\nfact, especially if they exclude all other theories. In a paper entitled \"Dis-\ncoveries Since 1859 Which Invalidate the Evolution Theory,\" Walter Lammerts,\nDirector of Research, Germain's Horticultural Research Division, Livermore,\nCalifornia, explains why discoveries in recent decades have caused many sci-\nentists to reexamine the postulations so readily acceptable for nearly a hundred\nyears. The \"creationists,\" in short, have organized and are attacking the\ncensorship\" of their own colleagues. Writes Henry M. Morris, the author\nof \"The Twilight of Evolution:\"\nOne reason for the apparent dearth of anti-evolutionary sentiment is\nthat the major scientific publishing houses and periodicals are completely\nand exclusively under the control of leaders who are evolutionists. If\nanyone questions this, let him try to get a serious scientific article or book\npublished refuting evolution\nthe only outlet for such literature seems\nto be through conservative or private media.\n\"Similarly,\" he adds, \"it is almost an impossibility for a convinced cre-\nationist to obtain or to retain an influential position on a university faculty\nin the various disciplines now dominated by the evolution concept, such as\nanthropology, geology, biology, psychology, and psychiatry. The writer has\nknown some men personally, and heard of others, who were refused graduate\ndegrees in geology, for example, primarily on the basis of their rejection of\nLyellian uniformitarianism and Darwinian evolutionism. 23\n22\nRudd, Ibid., p. 21.\n23\nHenry M. Morris, The Twilight of Evolution, Nutley, N.J. : Presbyterian\n& Reformed Pub. Co., 1963, p. 28.\n64\nThe teaching of evolution as a part of the religion of Humanism, therefore,\nis yet another area of concern to parents and teachers alike who wish to abide\nby the mandates of the laws and of the State Board Resolution that \"Christian\nparents\nare protected by law against any attempt to destroy or weaken\ntheir children's faith in their particular church.' In this instance, as with\nother areas of controversial instruction, it is how the subject is treated by\nthe teachers, what materials the teacher uses that matters. If the origins\nof man were taught from the point of view of both evolutionists and creationists,\nthe purpose of education would be satisfied. By concentrating on only one theory\nand ignoring others, it is tantamount to indoctrination in one special religious\nviewpoint.\nChapter VI\nTeaching About Religion in the Public Schools\nIt is evident to the Department staff and to the advisory committee that the\nmajor obstacles confronting public education is not that the problems are\nunfathomable, but that implementation of the programs in the schools required\nto protect the American heritage and its traditions, established by custom and\nprotected by law, are not allowed to get started. The State Board made it\nbluntly clear following the school prayer decisions of the early 1960s that the\nstate is forbidden to promote a Godless religion just as it is forbidden to promote\nany one sect. The solution the Board adopted then, and which is still state policy,\nis that all religions and all creeds should be studied and evaluated within the con-\ntext of the American heritage. The Board resolution of December 17, 1963,\nquotes Justice Brennan:\nThe holding of the Court plainly does not foreclose teaching about the\nHoly Scriptures or about the differences between religious sects in classes\nof literature or history. Indeed, whether or not the Bible is involved, it\nwould be impossible to teach meaningfully many subjects in the social\nsciences or the humanities without some mention of religion. To what\nextent, and at what points in the curriculum religious material should be\ncited, are matters which the courts ought to entrust very largely to the\nexperienced officials who superintend our nation's public schools. They are\nexperts in such matters, and we are not.\nThe awful truth is that the \"experts\" have failed to come forth with a program\nwhich would be positive and acceptable to everyone. It is likely for this reason\nthat a group of private citizens have accepted the challenge thrown down by the\ncourts and have developed what the Department staff and the advisory committee\nbelieve to be the only practical solution to America's future. In Religion Goes\nto School: A Practical Handbook for Teachers, by James V. Panoch and David\nL. Barr, 1 the schools have provided for them a source book of materials and\nbibliography which they can adopt for inservice training programs. Some 70\npertinent and basic questions about teaching in this delicate area are posed and\nanswered. The authors explain their understanding of the present situation\non page 5 of the handbook:\nThe Supreme Court did not remove religion from the public schools.\nWe did. Uninformed teachers, an unconcerned public, unconscious\nchurchmen all have had their hand in systematically eliminating all\nmention of the Bible and religion from significant areas of school life.\nThe church, largely unconscious of the good that could come from the\nproper use of the Bible and religion in the schools, has withdrawn from\npublic education. The public, apparently unconcerned, has been content\nto think that there could be no mention of religion in a public school.\nTeachers, uninformed about the legal uses of Bible and religion, have\ntended to use them illegally or not at all. It is apparent that our real\nproblem with religion in the school is simply a misunderstanding of the\nproblem itself. Once it is really understood, most of the difficulties\n1\nHarper & Row Pubs., 49 East 33rd Street, New York, N.Y.\n65\n66\ndissolve. The purpose of this book is to identify the problem clearly and\nto make a positive contribution toward its solution.\nThe authors of the handbook are officials of a nationwide organization known\nas the Religious Instruction Association, 2 an organization which serves as a\nclearinghouse for information. It provides its subscribers with information\non a variety of techniques used in various states of the Union to implement\nprograms about religion. In what might be identified as a statement of modus\noperandi, they assert the following:\nMATERIALS CLARIFYING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELIGION AND\nPUBLIC EDUCATION\nReligion may be practiced or studied. The practice is what makes\nreligion meaningful. The study is largely a study of the practice. In\nprivate life the practice and the study of religion may be combined.\nBut in public life they must be kept separate. The public school must\nnot sponsor the more important practice of religion, but must sponsor the\nless important study of religion. Though the study of religion is less\nimportant, it is not unimportant. And a proper study of religion will\nmake the practice of religion more meaningful. The school may study\nwhat is practiced, but not practice what is studied.\nThe school should sponsor the study of religion, but should not sponsor\nthe practice of religion.\nThe school should expose students to all religious views, but should not\nimpose any particular view.\nThe schools' approach to religion is one of instruction, not one of\nindoctrination.\nThe schools' approach to religion is academic, not devotional.\nThe school should study what all people believe, but should not\nteach a pupil what he should believe.\nThe school should strive for student understanding of all religions,\nbut should not press for student acceptance of any one religion.\nThe school should seek to inform the student about various beliefs,\nbut should not seek to conform him to any one belief.\nTo implement a program with such ends will obviously require a drastic\nchange of thinking on the part of many citizens, teachers and laymen who have\nbeen under the impression for several years that \"you can't talk about God\n2 Religious Instruction Association, Inc., 4001 Fairfield Avenue, Fort\nWayne, Indiana 46807.\n67\nin the schools. 11 The major need of course will be the training or retraining\nof teachers who can handle such a program. This may require changes in the\ntraining of teachers at the college level. It may involve the hiring of consul-\ntants with the qualifications of Messrs. Panoch and Barr to service colleges\nand local districts in the techniques. Certainly it will necessitate a reevalua-\ntion of curricula of the state's teacher training institutions if these programs\nare instituted.\nThere are essentially two ways the schools can teach about religion and\nhence reflect a moral heritage. One method is demonstrated in Chapter IV\nwhere John Swett outlined the course materials for the early grades, as well\nas the orientation of its teachers. The other method, for high school students,\nis to sponsor courses in comparative or world religions. In Claremont, Cali-\nfornia, shortly after the 1963 resolution by the State Board, history teacher\nJoseph Forcinelli received nationwide attention because of the methodology he\nuses in his course. He describes it as follows:\nIt is at present part of the social science curriculum, offered as an\nelective to juniors and seniors only and carrying six units of credit.\nSessions are held three times weekly for forty-five minutes. The course\nruns for a full year. During the last two years, we have made a wider\nuse of religious art as well as films and film strips. Outside lecturers\nwho are specialists in their fields are frequently brought in to speak. A\nbibliography of the best works on the various religions is integrated into\nthe course, for additional readings. We feel we have an excellent library\nand we are continuing to add to this resource\nWe have been able to\nattend as visitors Hindu, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant worship services.\nThis year we hope to include a visit to a Buddhist Temple. Research papers\nand comprehensive examinations also make up a part of the course. In other\nwords, grades are not given on the basis of one's piety.\n3\nMr. Forcinelli, in effect, preceded the Panoch and Barr orientation by\nmore than ten years. In 1955 he finished his master's dissertation at Claremont\nGraduate School on the topic \"School Administration and Religious Education\nin the Public Schools of the United States of America. \" In this lengthy and\nwell-documented study, he examined all the controversies surrounding the issue\nup to that time, and especially those many studies made by the professional\norganizations on \"moral and spiritual values.\" Forcinelli rejected, just as George\nWashington rejected, the views that such values could be taught without refer-\nence to religion. Such values would have no roots; they would be merely sus-\npended from the reality of man as explained by his history. Accordingly, he\nreasoned, all moral values must be evaluated as they are traced to the religious\nbeliefs of man. \"Religion,\" affirmed Forcinelli, \"can and should be considered\nas an empirical study. Though some religions have their ultimate source\nembodied in a transcendent power, all religions are manifest by empirical\n3\nJournal of Secondary Education, April, 1967, Vol. 42, N4.\n68\nfact in the stream of history. As such, religion in its all-inclusive form can\nbe examined, studied, considered, and integrated into conscious thought just\nas any empirical science might be 114\nArmed with such an attitude and given the proper training, any teacher\ncould thus implement the approach identified by Panoch and Barr. Each\ncountry or culture could be examined phenomenologically and compared to\nall others. Secularist doctrines and religions would be included and analyzed\nand contrasted with 'the faith that undergirds our [American] way of life as\nthe Board resolution of 1963 encouraged. What would emerge from such\nobjective studies would be a better understanding of the freedoms all Americans\nenjoy.\nIn the Seeger case mentioned in Chapter V, for instance, the Court granted\nthe young man's plea for conscientious objection because he was religious and\nbecause his human dignity was dependent upon a divine entity. \"It has been\nnoted, said the Court, \"that the principal distinction between the free world\nand the Marxist nations is traceable to democracy's concern for the rights of\nthe individual citizens; as opposed to the collective mass of society.\nThe Court said in effect what the staff identified as the law of the State in\nChapter II: Californians live under the protection of God, and the individual\ncitizen's worth is measured because of his worth to God, not to man. \"We\nthe people of the State of California,\" says the Preamble, \"grateful to Almighty\nGod for our freedom, and in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do\nestablish this Constitution.\"\nIf such legal and traditional affirmation of man's divine image and worth\nare inculcated in our social science and literature and history courses,\nAmericans will have no trouble recognizing their uniqueness as a people and\nas a nation. In effect, when the Court declares as it did in Zorach V. Clauson,\nthat we are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being,\"\nthe Court is proclaiming something that 199 million Americans already know\nand that perhaps a million Americans may also know but refuse to accept,\nbecause they are 'minds of peculiar structure.\nThe need today is to contrast the American genius and the American's\nreliance on Almighty God with the cold, dreary utilitarianism of the Secular\nHumanists or Marxists. Humanists who look at man as the Supreme Being\nhave real grounds to fear for their own future as well for the faithful because\nthey cannot deny that civilizations which in the past erased God from their\nvalue systems have also erased whatever dignity was left of man. This thesis\nis examined in an interesting essay, Atheism, The Enemy of Civilization by\nW. B. Riley, former president of Northwestern University. One need only\nrecall the civilizations of the ancient Pharaohs, of the Roman Caesars, or\n4\nJoseph Forcinelli, \"School Administration and Religious Education in the\nPublic Schools of the United States of America 11 A thesis presented to the\ngeneral faculty of the Claremont Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the\nrequirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Claremont, Calif. February\n19, 1955, p. 25.\n69\ntwentieth century atheist societies of the Nazis and Communists as examples.\nBy contrast, the little pledge of those Americans who gather every July 4th\nat the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia (and more recently in Sacramento) projects\na grandeur of man that no tyrant can ever assault. They solemnly read\nThe Liberty Pledge:\nOn July 4, 1776, the Founders of our Republic breathed a spirit\ninto American Government totally dependent upon Revealed Truth.\nThis Divine Spirit affirmed the sovereignty of the citizen as the just\nand reasonable consequence of the sovereignty of the soul. To this\nproposition, the essence of the Declaration of Independence and the\nConstitution of the United States of America, we pledge our support\nand, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we\nmutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred\nhonor.\nAbout a hundred years ago, John Henry Cardinal Newman observed the\nencroachments of science as the new \"religion\" of the future. He wrote\nin The Idea of a University: \"In word, in deed, and in idea, it is easy enough\nto divide knowledge into human and divine, secular and religious, and to lay\ndown that we address ourselves to the one without interfering with the other;\nbut it is impossible in fact.' Newman was defining the science of theology\nand that all knowledge, including theology, had to be studied as one vast\ncomposite if man were to comprehend the world and his place in it. Continued\nNewman: Granting that divine truth differs in kind from human, so do human\ntruths differ in kind one from another. If the knowledge of the Creator is a\ndifferent order from knowledge of the creature, so in like manner, metaphysical\nscience is in a different order from physical, physics from history, history from\nothers. Newman's point was that to strip divine knowledge from the memory\nof man. You will soon break up into fragments, he insisted, the whole circle\nof secular knowledge if you begin the mutilation with the divine. \"15\nThe successful flight of Apollo 8 has become an echo of Cardinal Newman's\nwords. As Frederick D. Wilhelmsen observed in a recent article, man had to\ntravel 500, 000 miles into space to rediscover that earth indeed was his home.\n\" Apollo 8 has not led upwards to a secular paradise awaiting us tomorrow.\nThe arrival at the Moon, out there in a space byond physical comprehension\nhas hurtled us all backwards into time through the vortex of the imagination;\nit took all America and most of the world, on those fateful Christmas days, to\nGenesis and to beginnings -- to the creation of all things from nothing.\nBecause knowledge begs for more knowledge, all men know that the horizons\nof space offer new frontiers for physical conquest. And as man learns to flit\nfrom planet to planet, always an alien figure and perhaps never finding other\nliving creatures such as he, man will continue to look to the green earth as\nhome. He will continue to signal home for information about the Creator, even\nwhile he continues to search for information about creation.\n5\nThe Idea of a University, Garden City, N. Y: Image Books, 1959, p. 66.\n6\nFrederick D. Wilhelmsen, \"The Good Earth,\" Triumph, (February, 1969),\np. 11.\n70\nThe testimony of America's three astronauts as they swung around the\nmoon on Christmas Eve, 1968, may well be the inauguration of a new beginning\nfor Americans, because the humility reflected in their performance reflects\nthe ties which bind together the whole human race: Genesis, or mankind's\ncommon origin.\nWilliam Anders:\nIn the beginning God created the heaven and the\nearth. And the earth was without form and void; and\ndarkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit\nof God moved upon the face of the waters. And God\nsaid, Let there be light: and there was light. And God\nsaw the light, that it was good: and God divided the\nlight from the darkness.\nJames Lovell:\nAnd God called the light Day, and the darkness he\ncalled Night. And the evening and the morning were\nthe first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament\nin the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters\nfrom the waters. And God made the firmament, and\ndivided the waters which were under the firmament\nfrom the waters which were above the firmament; and\nit was SO. And God called the firmament Heaven. And\nevening and morning were the second day.\nFrank Borman:\nAnd God said, Let the waters under the heaven be\ngathered together unto one place, and the dry land\nappear: and it was so. And God called the dry land\nEarth; and the gathering together of the waters called\nhe Seas: and God saw that it was good\nMerry Christmas and God bless all of you - - - all\nof you on the Good Earth.\nAppendix A\nTeaching About Religion in the Public Schools\n1\nThe State Board of Education at its meeting in Los Angeles on December 12,\n1963, authorized issuance of the following statement:\nBible-reading and prayer in the public schools has become a sharp issue\nsince the Supreme Court decision of June 17, 1963, in the case of Abington\nSchool District versus Schempp. Because of uncertainty as to what the\ndecision implied, the California State Board of Education presents this brief\nsummary of what the Supreme Court did and did not say. It is hoped that\nthis will be of help to school administrators, teachers, and parents.\nThe issue was whether or not the \"establishment\" clause of the First\nAmendment to the U.S. Constitution was violated by the Board of School\nCommissioners of Baltimore and by a Pennsylvania statute. The Commis-\nsioners had adopted a statute requiring reading from the Bible without com-\nment at the opening of each school day, and the recitation of the Lord's\nPrayer by the students in unison. The Court decided eight to one that such\nschool exercises violate the First Amendment.\nSome parents have expressed fear that the door is opened to the teaching\nof secularistic and atheistic doctrine. It has been said that in the United\nStates God has been taken out of our public education and the rights of a\nminority have been raised over the rights of the majority. Some are con-\nfused as to whether or not the Bible can be referred to in any way and\nwhether any mention of religion or churches is allowable in the classroom.\nThat there is no prohibition against such mention seems obvious from a\nreading of the Supreme Court decision and the comments made by four of\nthe justices who have written concurrences,\nIt may be well to begin with what the decision did not say. Justice Clark,\nwho wrote the majority opinion, says:\nIt is insisted that unless these religious exercises are permitted a\n\"religion of secularism' is established in the schools. We agree, of\ncourse, that the state may not establish a \"religion of secularism\" in\nthe sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion,\nthus \"preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do\nbelieve.\nHe quotes Judge Alphonzo Taft with approval who said nearly a hundred\nyears ago:\nThe government is neutral and while protecting all, it prefers none,\nand disparages none.\nSo if the state is forbidden by the Constitution to promote the Christian\nreligion, it is also forbidden to promote a godless religion of secularism\n1 Memorandum from California State Board of Education to School Adminis-\ntrators, Dec. 17, 1963 (Sacramento).\n71\n72\nor atheism. It would seem to follow, therefore, that no teacher is at\nliberty to teach a point of view denying God any more than a teacher is\nat liberty to promote a particular religious sect.\nThe objection of the Supreme Court was to religious service, but Justice\nClark makes it plain that the Bible may be available in libraries and may be\nused as a reference book whenever it is appropriate. He says that one cannot\nstudy history without referring to the Bible nor can one study mankind without\nreferring to religion. So, while it is clearly unlawful to use the Bible in a\ndevotional service in the schools, it is expected that the Bible shall be open\nto all students.\nThere is not found in the decision any tendency to discount the importance\nof religion in general or of Christianity in particular. Justice Clark says,\n\"The place of religion in our society is an exalted one.\" He refers with\napprobation to the Engle versus Vitale case in which the court said, \"We\nare a religious people. 11\nMr. Justice Goldberg with Mr. Justice Harlan concurring says the\nrealization of religious liberty means that the government shall effect \"no\nfavoritism among sects or between religion and non-religion\" and that it\nshall \"work deterrence of no religious belief. These two justices go\nfurther and recognize the danger of a non-interference and non-involvement\nwith religion which might promote a \"passive or even active, hostility to\nthe religious. 11 \"Such results, says Mr. Justice Goldberg, \"are not only\nnot compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by\nit.\" It seems quite clear that the Supreme Court recognized and warned\nagainst the danger of creating passive attitudes of hostility toward religion.\nMr. Justice Brennan also concurring speaks of the line separating secular\nfrom sectarian as an \"elusive\" one. Then he goes on to say:\nThe holding of the Court today plainly does not foreclose teaching\nabout the Holy Scriptures or about the differences between religious\nsects in classes of literature or history. Indeed, whether or not the\nBible is involved, it would be impossible to teach meaningfully many\nsubjects in the social sciences or the humanities without some mention\nof religion. To what extent, and at what points in the curriculum religious\nmaterial should be cited, are matters which the courts ought to entrust\nvery largely to the experienced officials who superintend our Nation's\npublic schools. They are experts in such matters, and we are not.\nThe Justices' opinions in this case recognize the importance of religion\nand reflect a great respect for it. They are men who would not willingly\nweaken religion in any way nor substitute a godless philosophy for it.\nThe California Attorney General's opinion given to the State Superintendent\nof Public Instruction is in this same spirit. He says, \"Those constitutional\nand statutory provisions that provide 'no sectarian or denominational doctrine'\nshall be 'taught or instruction thereon be permitted directly or indirectly in\nany of the common schools of this state' apply equally to all forms of religious\nbelief irrespective of whether they embody a belief in the existence of God.\n73\nThus the 'teaching of' atheism or agnosticism in the public schools is\nprohibited if by the words 'teaching of' it is meant the teaching of doctrine\nwith a view toward obtaining an acceptance as to the truth of that doctrine\n11\nHe goes on to say that there are penalties in the State Education Code which\nwould apply to \"the making of statements, in such schools and colleges,\nwhich advocate, tend to advocate, or implant in pupils minds a preference\nfor, atheism or agnosticism or which reflect unfavorably upon any particu-\nlar religion, upon all religions, or upon any religious creed. 11\nThe State Board of Education believes that these matters need to be\nbrought to the attention of parents as well as to school officials. While\nreligious worship services are not to be held in the schools nor is any\nreligions group to be given the right to promote its own beliefs over another,\nneither is the irreligious person given the right to promote his particular\npoint of view. Christian parents, therefore, are protected by law against\nany attempt to destroy or weaken their children's faith in their particular\nchurch. The religious faith of the majority is protected as well as the\nfreedom of the minority.\nOur schools should have no hesitancy in teaching about religion. We urge\nour teachers to make clear the contributions of religion to our civilization,\nthrough history, art and ethics. We want the children of California to be\naware of the spiritual principles and the faith which undergird our way of\nlife. We are confident that our teachers are competent to differentiate\nbetween teaching about religion and conducting a compulsory worship\nservice. This point of view, we believe, is in accordance with the tradi-\ntion handed down by our fathers and reaffirmed by the United States Supreme\nCourt.\nAppendix B\nEducation in Depth\nMAX RAFFERTY\nOF\nSuperintendent of Public Instruction\nand Director of Education\nSTATE OF CALIFORNIA\nDEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION\nSTATE EDUCATION BUILDING, 721 CAPITOL MALL, SACRAMENTO 95814\nJune 16, 1965\nThe official philosophy of the State Department of Education is the\nphilosophy of Education in Depth.\nEducation in Depth maintains that there are positive, eternal values, and\nthat the main purpose of Education is to seek out these lasting values, and\nto identify them, and to explore them to the greater benefit of the individual\nand the nation.\nEducation in Depth holds that the teaching of organized, disciplined, and\nsystematic subject matter is the principal objective of the schools.\nEducation in Depth intends to regard the individual as the be-all and the\nend-all of the educative process.\nEducation in Depth teaches that committing important names, places,\nevents, dates, and passages of poetry and prose to memory is a necessary\npart of instruction.\nEducation in Depth wants a curriculum to provide for the individual the\ntools and skills he needs to be a cultured, productive, patriotic American\ncitizen.\nEducation in Depth believes that the very survival of our country and the\nsuccess of the individual in later life depends upon how well he is taught to\nhold his own in a highly competitive world.\nThe purpose of an educational institution is not to make pupils popular or\nwell-adjusted or universally approved. It is to make them learned. It is to\nteach them to use the tools which the race, over the centuries, has found to\nbe indispensable in the pursuit of truth. If the schools do not so teach subject\nmatter, the children are never going to learn it.\nThis is Education in Depth. This is the philosophy of the State Department\nof Education.\nD8-116 5-69 2M\n74"
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