In March of 1890, the Wisconsin
State Supreme Court ruled, in conclusion to the Weiss
v. the District Board case, that bible readings and devotionals in
public schools were unconstitutional. Justice H.S. Orton of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin noted the following after the ruling:
“There is no such source and cause of strife,
quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in
the state, as religion. Let it once enter our civil affairs, our government
would soon be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be
destroyed….Those who made our Constitution saw this, and used the most apt and
comprehensive language in it to prevent such a catastrophe.”
While
Orton is “civically” correct, according to the civic philosophies of John Locke (made
constitutional
through Thomas
Jefferson), I argue that he
couldn’t be more wrong about religion within our education (or our “common schools,”
as he puts it). 