FIVE

PAROCHIAL OR SECTARIAN?

THE OLD SCHOOL ALTERNATIVE TO SECULARIZED EDUCATION

The antebellum common school movement began with attention to the problem of undereducated children. Virginia’s Watchman of the South estimated that there were 3.5-4 million school age children, and that somewhere between 600,000 to one million were not receiving a basic education.[1] As William Swan Plumer, editor of the Watchman and pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Richmond, argued, “if we wish to transmit our republican government to posterity, we must extend the opportunities of intellectual and moral instruction. Intelligence and Virtue are the only safe-guards of our free institutions.”[2] The American experiment depended upon education, for the character of the nation would determine its future.

The contours of the development of the common schools are well-known. From their roots in New England in the 1820s, the common schools spread throughout the north and west during the antebellum era. With wide-ranging support from businessmen, labor organizations, commercial farmers, religious leaders, and politicians–each for their own reasons–the common school was an engine of market values and national identity.[3] In an era of heated political contests and ethnic riots,[4] many of which had a strong religious component, the common school was also designed to provide a common Protestant moral tone to the nation. If the goal had merely been the economic benefit of a well-educated public, or the altruistic vision of elevating the lower classes, then a variety of educational systems could have fit the bill; but the vision for the common school was to provide a common moral vision. As immigration brought an increasing number of German and Irish Roman Catholics, Protestants hoped to acculturate them to republican values through the generic Protestant education offered in the common schools.

Old School Presbyterians demonstrated the same concern over these matters as others. Presbyterian newspapers regularly published educational statistics both local and national. The 1840 census, for instance, suggested that only one-fifth of school-age children in Kentucky were actually in school,[5] and that those states that had developed common schools had the best literacy rates in the country.[6] The South and the West (except for Michigan) could not compete with New England.

The solution, for most Protestants was to establish common schools that would provide a public Protestant education for all children. Presbyterians were frequently involved in early discussions of how to conduct common schools, especially since Presbyterian ministers often conducted schools of their own.

But some Presbyterians expressed ambivalence about the common schools. The Old School Presbyterians had forced a division of the Presbyterian church in 1837, at least in part over the importance of the church’s control over missions and ministerial education. The New School preferred to see individual Christians work together across denominational lines, but the Old School insisted that the institutional church was the proper agent for both missionary activity and the training of ministers. Indeed Howard Miller has argued that this denominational shift signaled the end of Presbyterian interest in public life, and an increasingly narrow focus on its own denominational interests.[7] But this is not borne out by the arguments that Old Schoolers used to support their more ecclesiastical vision.

Presbyterians had expressed concerns about the religious content of public education as early as 1812.[8] Sporadic discussion of parochial education seems to have occurred over the next couple of decades, but it was only during the national educational debates of the 1830s and 1840s that the Old School developed its own position. True to the New School concept of catholicity (individual Christians working together across denominational lines), few New School Presbyterians liked the concept of parochial schools. In the Old School General Assembly of 1839, John Breckinridge (PTS 1822), secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions (and former secretary of the Board of Education, 1831-36), recommended the creation of a committee of Samuel Miller (his father-in-law), Archibald Alexander, Charles Hodge, Joseph Addison Alexander (the faculty of Princeton Seminary), and Samuel Carnahan (president of the College of New Jersey) to study proposals for Christian education. That committee returned in 1840 suggesting that every congregation should have a school for ages 6-10, and every presbytery should have at least one Grammar School or Academy. Weekly catechizing in the church should be overseen by the session, and Sunday schools should be placed under sessional oversight. The report was accepted by GA in 1840 and adopted in 1841. The report suggested that a better educational system would produce greater attachment to the Presbyterian doctrine, and hopefully would increase the number of ministerial candidates. Most telling, however, was their conviction that the secularization of public education resulted in the removal of religious content and church control.[9]

1. Background

A. The Role of Rome

But the immediate occasion for the development of parochial schools was identical to the rationale for repudiating Roman Catholic baptism: the influx and growing power of Roman Catholics. “Papists” and “infidels” were the chief targets of Old School educational rhetoric (and in that order). Presbyterian newspapers responded with alarm when Bishop Hughes of New York claimed public funds for Roman Catholic schools in New York City. Arguing that the public schools lacked adequate religious teaching for Roman Catholics, Hughes claimed that since the State of New York gave money to schools that taught the Protestant bible, Roman Catholics schools should also receive a portion of common school funds.[10]

Early in 1840 New York Catholics had failed to “secure a portion of the Common School fund for the support of their separate and exclusively Roman Catholic schools.” Sidney E. Morse, editor of the New York Observer granted that Roman Catholics had the right to train their children in their own ways, but questioned “the right of this State to grant the public money to aid Roman Catholics or Presbyterians, or Episcopalians, or any other denomination, in the support of sectarian schools.” Initially Morse’s response was conciliatory, suggesting that any offensive books be removed from the curriculum. Nonetheless he was repulsed by Hughes’ suggestion that the entire Roman Catholic vote in New York City might be given to a political party simply because they would give them money for their schools.[11]

In an attempt to resolve the tensions, the trustees of the Public School Society suggested that the city could follow the Irish practice of having a committee of Roman Catholic, Episcopal and Presbyterian clergy approve of all religious teaching, but Hughes refused.[12] At a Common Council meeting in the fall of 1840, Hughes claimed to represent one-fifth of the New York population “whose rights of conscience contended were crushed by the present school system.” Arguing that the common schools led to both infidelity and Protestantism (which in his mind were virtually interchangeable), he insisted that the Council remove the Protestant Bible from the schools, along with any books that were offensive to Roman Catholics.[13]

The Trustees of the Public School Society declared that they had removed all offensive literature from the schools, but they would not remove the Bible. Theodore Sedgwick insisted that Catholics were not discriminated against any more than any other denomination.[14] Hiram Ketcham argued that the Bible could not be removed from the schools. He pointed out that the trustees had sought to find an approved list of passages, but Hughes had refused to consent because the Pope had not yet ruled. Given the Pope’s status as the political ruler of Italy, Ketcham used this for all it was worth. Would a foreign ruler determine what may be taught in American schools?[15]

As the Council deliberated during the fall and winter of 1840, Morse gave them something to think about. In a rare threat of civil unrest, he warned that if Protestants were to be taxed to support Roman Catholic schools, “let them rest assured, that the fires of Smithfield will be rekindled in front of the City Hall, before this monstrous proposition will be submitted to the free people of this country.”[16] Did the Common Council wish to provoke riots in the streets of New York? If not, then they had better decide against Hughes’ petition. Three weeks later the Council voted 15-1 against the petition.[17]

When Hughes took his case to the state legislature the following month, supported by Governor William H. Seward,[18] Morse warned his readers that he was also “sustained in his plans by the contributions of societies in Italy and Austria that hate Republicanism and defend despotism with their best blood.” They want sectarian schools to be supported by public money. In reply Morse declared that New York must see “liberty of conscience preserved.”[19] For Morse, liberty of conscience did not refer to each individual doing as he or she pleased. Rather, liberty of conscience was a corporate concept that required protection from all despotic and anarchic threats. When the New York legislature permitted any group to organize a school, Morse howled in anger. This would allow not just sectarian schools, but would permit any social or political group to organize a school. Morse trembled at the thought of Fanny Wright schools, or even schools opposed to republican government. “Papists will teach Popery, and Presbyterians will teach Calvinism, and Infidels will teach infidelity. And we submit it to the good sense of the republicans of this city and state and Union (for the question will soon be general), whether it is consistent with the genius of our government to allow such schools to derive their support from the common treasury.”[20]

The end result in New York City was the removal of the Bible from the city’s common schools. Philadelphia followed in 1843.[21] In seeming confirmation of Protestant fears that Roman Catholics were seeking to control American education, the Baltimore Provincial Council of 1843 called upon Roman Catholics to endeavor to make all public education conformable to Catholic views.[22] Presbyterians all over the United States joined their fellow Protestants in objecting to these developments and solidifying their commitment to a common school system that would maintain the basics of a generic Protestant moral teaching.[23]

Robert J. Breckinridge spoke for many when he expressed his fears that Roman Catholics would use tax money to create a system of schools that would work to subvert not only Protestant religion, but also republican institutions.[24] The pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, and editor of the anti-Catholic Baltimore Literary and Religious Magazine, spoke at the American Bible Society in New York City in 1839 in support of his resolution to encourage the use of the bible in schools throughout the country. Breckinridge argued that religious training was essential to moral formation, and that Roman Catholic schools could not adequately train the moral faculties because they inculcated error.[25] Breckinridge championed public schools with a distinctively Protestant flavor as the best way to combat Rome.

Concern over Roman Catholic influence in education was not merely an eastern phenomenon. James Wood, professor at New Albany Theological Seminary, wrote to the Foreign Missionary Chronicle in 1843 that the West would soon “hold the balance of power in the government of the United States; and if religion does not exert a controlling influence here, what will become of the liberties of our country?” The Pope, he claimed, was trying to take over the west–especially through education. He pled with the east to “furnish us with the means necessary to carry on a successful warfare against Despotism and Infidelity--against Popery and Sin; and to fortify and adorn every state and country, every village and neighborhood, with schools and churches--with Bibles and ministers.”[26] The five western Old School anti-Catholic papers started in 1844-45 all devoted significant energy to promoting the general Protestant character of the common schools.[27]

But not all Old School Presbyterians approved of the common school system. Indeed many centered around Princeton Theological Seminary thought that Hughes’ claim to a portion of the educational funds was just. They argued that if the state would support all schools, regardless of their religious teaching, the end result would be a better system of education for all concerned.[28] Their zeal for a system of Presbyterian parochial schools led to one of the most ambitious educational programs of the antebellum era.

Cortlandt Van Rensselaer was one of a few Old School Presbyterians who agreed with Hughes. Reviewing Horace Bushnell’s Common Schools in 1853, he disagreed that the common schools were the only defense of morality and civil order. Indeed, he agreed with the Roman Catholic claim that parochial schools should receive a portion of state funding. It was simply a matter of justice. No religious group should be taxed for the support of any other group–therefore each taxpayer should be allowed to select which schools (parochial or secular) his tax money should support.[29] When the New York Independent claimed that Presbyterians and Papists were joining forces against the common schools, William Engles of the Presbyterian replied that no Old School Presbyterian wished to see the common school system abolished unless a better system was substituted.[30]

But Van Rensselaer spoke for a minority in the Old School. When, also in 1853, Bishop O’Connor (of Pittsburgh) argued that Roman Catholic schools should be supported by tax money with the common schools, Melanchthon W. Jacobus (professor of oriental and biblical literature at Western Theological Seminary) replied by claiming that this would require Protestants to subsidize Roman Catholic schools. In a two-part letter that took up six columns in the Presbyterian Advocate, Jacobus argued that “our public school system, which is the pride, not of Pennsylvania alone, but of our whole land, is truly an AMERICAN system. It is framed for the masses. Its kind and wise object is to amalgamate from such various elements, all national interests, and to run into the new mould of our Institutions the children of all others with our own.” It was crucial that all children be educated in that system. While Roman Catholics argued that everyone setting up a school should be allowed to draw from the state treasury, Jacobus warned that this would result in swarms of Jesuits establishing dozens of schools where there should be one. The end result would be the destruction of the public school.[31] Jacobus wrote a letter to the editor (William Annan) a month later suggesting that the timing of Bishop O’Connor’s proposal, just after returning from Rome, was ominous. Jacobus declared that O’Connor was “a sworn official of that political power which rules at Rome,” and was “duty bound. . . [to] do battle, after his measure, against our republican institutions and our popular liberties.”[32]

This is plainly a far cry from Van Rensselaer’s argument that the Roman Catholics were correct to seek public funding. Old School Presbyterians were divided. Was it best to work together in education with other Protestants? Or would parochial schools prove more effective?[33]

B. The Example of Scotland

As often was the case, when a crisis developed in the Old School, one of the first thoughts was to inquire what the Mother Kirk in Scotland had done. At the end of 1837, as the education debates were heating up in New York, the New York Observer published a study of “Education in Scotland,” which was reprinted in the Presbyterian, praising the Scottish system of parochial schools. The author pointed out that ever since the First Book of Discipline, the Reformed Church of Scotland had urged every kirk to have a school, and every leading town to have a college.[34] William Swan Plumer added his praise in the Watchman of the South, arguing that the parochial school was the instrument for Scotland’s “extraordinary degree of mental culture, for its uniform and wide diffusion, and for the tenacity with which it has maintained Calvinistic soundness, while other churches of the same confession have lapsed into error and heresy.” The public schools in America cannot maintain the high level of religious teaching that the Scots maintained. Therefore, if “we would secure the complete religious education of the children of the church, we must have schools under the patronage of our Church sessions.”[35]

Samuel Miller’s 1841 report to the Old School General Assembly gave the details. From 1560 the Church of Scotland had urged every parish to have a church school with an orthodox and qualified teacher. The General Assembly of 1642 had ordered the erection of grammar schools in every presbytery, and in 1706 the Kirk required presbyteries to visit the grammar schools within their bounds twice a year. As recently as 1838 the Scottish Assembly had ratified these acts, urging the church to pay careful attention to the education of the youth of the church.[36] Could the American Presbyterian church modify this system to fit the new world?

While discussions continued throughout the first half of the 1840s, Old School Presbyterians do not seem to have been convinced that parochial schools were practicable on a large scale until the development of the Free Church of Scotland’s school system. The Free Church established 513 schools in the five years after the Disruption of 1843, in spite of the fact that they had lost their buildings and their ministerial stipends by leaving the established church. They required all teachers to be examined by presbytery, in order to ensure the quality and orthodoxy of the religious education, and had established two normal schools in order to train teachers. Cortlandt Van Rensselaer and other Presbyterian editors regularly kept the American church informed of the progress of the Scottish educational system in order to prompt Old School Presbyterians to their own endeavors. One result, as Van Rensselaer pointed out, was that while American Presbyterians had nearly two churches per minister, the Scottish churches had more ministers than parishes.[37]

Benjamin Gildersleeve published an article in 1845 expressing concern that “education has of recent years been lamentably divorced from the church, her only safe and legitimate foster mother.” Reminding the church of the days when ministers ran all the schools in the South, and appealing to the example of the Free Church, he suggested that “the great secret of the Scotch character. . . [is] that the church assumes and controls the education of her children from infancy to manhood. And I may say this principle is potent for evil as well as for good. The power of the Papal church is the result of her system of education.” But the lesson was clear: the future of Presbyterianism depended upon what she did for her children.[38]

In western Pennsylvania the Presbyterian Advocate echoed the call to learn from Scotland. Indeed, JWF went so far as to suggest that “The result of this plan of education in Scotland, would almost reconcile me, American as I am, for two and three generations, to the State establishment of the church.” Whereas many Americans were arguing for the separation of education from the church, he suggested that an Americanized version of the Scottish model might require the separation of education from the state, putting schools under the oversight of the church.[39]

C. Regional Discussions before 1846

One of the first extended arguments for denominational education was printed in the Protestant and Herald by David Monfort, pastor at Franklin, Indiana. Echoing the 1840 Assembly report, Monfort argued that every congregation should operate a grammar school under the supervision of the session. While acknowledging that western churches were generally poor, he argued that this matter was too important to allow money to get in the way. He admitted that Presbyterians might be called illiberal by their neighbors, but he insisted that “a desire to please the world, which is enmity to God, is like a pernicious leaven corrupting the whole mass. If it continues, (mark what I say) it will, before long, bring on a universal reign of infidelity and terror in Church and State.”[40] Parochial education was not a way of withdrawing from society, as Howard Miller has claimed,[41] but a way of preserving society from its self-destructive tendencies. Monfort called for a reform of the curriculum that would orient classical studies towards the scriptures, the fathers, and the Reformers–and away from the Greek poets, whom Monfort considered peripheral at best to a solid moral and literary education.[42]

In the South, commonly considered the bastion of private education, Benjamin Gildersleeve, editor of the Charleston Observer, noted that Charleston’s Episcopalians had established a primary school in 1841, and chastised Presbyterians for falling behind in education.[43] “Melville” commented three years later that as other denominations had founded schools, some Presbyterian children had ended up joining those denominations through the school’s influence. Presbyterians, he argued, should show more denominational spirit and establish their own system of schools.[44]

James L. Pettigrue spoke to the literary societies of the Presbyterian Oglethorpe University that fall. Gildersleeve commented that the “Legislature of Georgia, then in Session, adjourned to attend upon the exercises.” Arguing from the disestablishment of the church, Pettigrue claimed that “Experience has shown that religion can not only dispense with the patronage of State, but that it is better without it. And may we not hope that education also will feel the same heathy influence, and rejoice in the soil of freedom.”[45]

Thomas Smyth, the Ulster born and trained pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina, added his voice to the chorus of calls for denominational education. Like Monfort his first concern was collegiate education (his address was also given at Oglethorpe University), but his argument drew upon his wide-ranging study of patristic, medieval, and Reformed history to argue for the necessity of church oversight of education. He argued that the church had always operated schools, and claimed that denominational education “is as practicable as it is essential to the purity and permanence of our free institutions.” Indeed, Smyth agreed with Van Rensselaer that the state should support denominational schools, since there is no such thing as nonsectarian education. “Bigotry and Sectarianism are the invariable results of an ill-informed, ignorant, and mere nominal christianity; while liberality, charity, and mutual forbearance, are as surely the fruits of a deep, sincere, and thoroughly instructed piety.” An education that is thoroughly grounded in religion is the “true foe to intolerance, persecution, and illiberality towards a difference of opinion.” In other words, for Smyth, a truly catholic education provided the context for liberty of conscience. He insisted that Presbyterian education “is not sectarian education.” A Presbyterian college should not focus on all the minutiae of Presbyterian doctrine and polity, but should build on “that truly Catholic foundation,--the Bible, the whole Bible,--including which we have all religion, and excluding which we have none.” But since the Bible is construed in so many different ways, “it must be exhibited thro' the interpretation of some one denomination” in order to provide coherence in education. While Presbyterians were often accused of being narrow and bigoted, Smyth replied that “she is in reality most Catholic and liberal, and eminently adapted to be the guardian and patron of a religious education,” because Presbyterian distinctives are not required for membership, but only for the eldership. “Since, therefore, our only terms of communion are the fundamental truths of the gospel and the evidences of personal piety, our basis for a denominational education is as broad, as free, and as catholic, as that of God's own blessed word.” The Shorter Catechism, he claimed, did not inculcate any uniquely Presbyterian doctrines, but Augustinian views affirmed by “the most learned, and the most pious party in the Romish Church,” all the Reformed churches--including the Church of England and the orthodox parties of Congregationalists and Baptists.[46]

2. The General Assembly of 1846

The General Assembly of 1845 had appointed a committee, chaired by James W. Alexander, pastor of Duane Street Presbyterian Church in New York City (and son of Archibald Alexander), to report on the subject of parochial schools. Its report to the Assembly of 1846 (moderated by Charles Hodge, one of the authors of the 1840 report) concluded with a series of resolutions calling for a system of education that would seek to mingle “the doctrines of our church with the daily teachings of the school” as closely as “may comport with the circumstances of this country,” and recommended that the whole church consider founding new parochial schools. John C. Young, president of Centre College in Kentucky, added a resolution from the floor, referring the matter to the Board of Education, “that they may, from time to time, report to the General Assembly any further action that may be needed for extending through our churches a system of Parochial Schools,” in order to provide a mechanism for maintaining further discussion at the General Assembly level.[47]

This called forth some opposition from Robert J. Breckinridge, president of Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, who argued briefly against parochial schools, urging the duty of every evangelical denomination to influence the public schools. He claimed that since Presbyterians had an influence in education disproportionate to the church’s numbers, it should be the last to withdraw from this general partnership. If the Presbyterian church “would prosper they must enter heart and hand in the common enterprises of the country, in which they have an interest, and not attempt to set up for themselves.” Two Presbyterian college presidents from the south immediately replied. Samuel K. Talmage, president of Oglethorpe University in Georgia, defended the principle of parochial education, as did Dr. John C. Young, president of Centre College, Danville, Kentucky).[48] Young argued that natural religion was insufficient for the education of children. If Presbyterian children were not receiving adequate religious training, then it was the church’s fault. Presbyterians could not expect the state to teach the knowledge of God properly to their children. Both in Protestant and Papal countries in Europe the church was in charge of overseeing the religious education of the schools. The error of Rome was not in “incorporating religion with early education, but in teaching a false system of religion.” Indeed, he suggested that the states should permit any religious group to draw money from the public fund for their schools.[49] But if the state would not allow Presbyterians a portion of the common funds, then they must go our own path: “The Free Church of Scotland has taught us that it is not only in established churches that the system of parochial schools is feasible.” Hodge’s hope was that “if the several denominations adopt the plan of parochial schools, the state will soon be forced to the obviously just method of a proportionate distribution of the public funds, whether derived from taxation or lands or a capital stock.”[50]

Without much more debate, the Assembly passed the resolutions almost unanimously, pledging to develop a system of Presbyterian parochial schools. After such sweeping resolutions, the church newspapers were busy for much of the following year discussing education.[51] Not surprisingly, the New School Presbyterians thought that this was simply more evidence of Old School bigotry and sectarianism. The Christian Journal, the New School paper in Columbus, Ohio, suggested that parochial schools were contrary to American republican institutions. This called forth a response from Nathan L. Rice, editor of the Presbyterian of the West, who argued that republican institutions “secure to every man and to every denomination, the right to educate their children in their own way.” The common schools offered an insufficiently religious education. But most objectionable to Rice was the Journal’s argument that Protestantism leaves “it to every mind to come to its own conclusions on the teachings of the Bible, without attempting to bias it early in favor of any particular creed.” Rice objected that this was not Protestant but infidel! Parents were not to leave their children free from “bias,” but were to catechize their children.[52]

3. From Theory to Practice: Hodge’s Sermon on Education

As the outgoing moderator in 1847, Charles Hodge used his retiring sermon to endorse the principle of parochial education, and several reviewers hailed it as winning the hearts of the church to the idea.[53] Hodge grounded the need for religious education in human depravity. “It is precisely because the mind is by nature dark, that it needs illumination from without; it is because the conscience is callous and perverse, that it needs to be roused and guided; it is because evil propensities are so strong, that they must be counteracted. To leave a fallen human being, therefore, to grow up without religious instruction, is to render its perdition certain.”[54]

The responsibility for this education devolved first upon the parents. “But while it is universally conceded that the obligation to provide for the religious instruction of the young, rests primarily on parents, it is almost as generally acknowledged that the responsibility does not rest on them alone.” If parents cannot feed their children, then others must do it; likewise with education. Some parents are either unable or unwilling to provide a religious education for their children. Some parents “need themselves to be taught what are the first principles of the oracles of God.” Others from poverty do not have the time to teach their children. “If, therefore, the work must be done; if the best interests of society, the prosperity of the church, the salvation of souls, demand that the young should be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, others, besides parents must undertake the work.”[55]

But who? For Hodge, as for other Presbyterians, there were only two other communities to consider–the state and the church. Hodge reviewed several different conceptions of how the state and the church should relate in education:

1. The Church and State Plan–which Hodge identified as “the common doctrine of Christians, under all forms of government.” For Hodge, the fact that it was the common doctrine of the Reformed churches in all of Europe carried much weight. “The State just so far as it discharges its recognized duty, provides and establishes schools, prescribes the course of instruction, requires that the doctrines of the Church should be taught, and taught in the form and from the books, and by the agents determined or appointed by the Church.” This system requires a pure and faithful church, a religious state, and that the state and the church are essentially coterminous. However desirable it might be, Hodge concluded that such a plan was not possible in America.[56]

2. Independent Plan of Church and State–in which the state sees that schools are established, that competent teachers are hired and paid, but leaves religion up to the school district (the early New England system). Hodge suggested that the disadvantages were the tendency toward centralization, and the increasing lack of agreement on the local level. “Since the great increase of the population, its division into sects, and the prevalence of indifference and error, it has been found impracticable to secure a general and efficient religious education of the young, by means of schools whose character was determined by the mixed community in which they are placed. The impossibility of pleasing all, has led to the general determination to do nothing–to banish religion almost entirely from the public schools.”[57]

3. The Compromise Plan–in which the State permits the teaching of those doctrines on which all denominations agree (as in England and Ireland). The problem is that in our country the sects are so divided that there is very little upon which they agree. “Besides this, it is obvious that the inculcation of religion in the general but not under any definite form, is not mere neutrality. From the nature of the case it is a rejection of positive doctrines.”[58]

4. The Secular Plan–which was the result of the rejection of the first three. “It proposes to confine the instruction given in schools supported by the State to the secular branches of education; and to leave the religious instruction to parents and churches.” Hodge admitted that almost all political leaders supported this approach, and most denominations (except Roman Catholics). But, Hodge argued that

Second, Hodge claimed that the education of the public schools is often the only education that a child will get, so it leaves thousands of children without any religious education whatsoever. Third, he argued that irreligious education was a dangerous risk. “The experiment which we are making is a novel one in the history of the world, and one of fearful risk. We can hardly venture to hope, contrary to all experience, that Christianity can ever take firm hold of the public mind, or form the public character, unless it is taught in the public schools.” Fourth, he added, it is unscriptural. “God has required his people to teach their children his word. . . . We therefore go counter to his commands, when we resign our children to the operation of a system which necessarily makes religion altogether subordinate; which banishes it from the place of education.” Fifth, the state has no authority to forbid the teaching of religion. “This is saying to the people, you must either consent to have your children brought up irreligiously, as far as the school is concerned in their education, or you shall be disinherited, cut off from all participation of the public property. If Presbyterians conscientiously believe they are bound to mingle religion in the secular education of their children, are they to be refused any portion of the school fund, and taxed to sustain it; forced to support schools to which they cannot send their children, and whose influence they regard as directly opposed to all religion? This is obviously unjust. The Romanists in New York, have forced the authorities to this admission. Believing the public schools system to be anti-Christian, they refused to send their children to the public institutions and having established schools of their own, they demanded their portion of the educational funds.”[60]

5. The Church Plan–since neither parents nor the state can be relied upon to provide the proper sort of education, only the church remains. “Her very vocation is to lead men to the knowledge of the truth. For this purpose she is bound to use all appropriate agencies. . . . Her work is to teach, and the school is, therefore, her peculiar and appropriate province.” The gifts of teaching are not given to the State, but to the Church. In establishment countries, the State taught because the church was coterminous with it. “By a strange perversion, after long enlisting the State in this service as her agent, she has come in a measure to think that education was the work of the State, and to forget her own immediate obligations on this subject.” The great irony, for Hodge, was that Rome “set us the example of declaring off from the control of the State, and of asserting the right of children to be taught religion. This they have done, at the risk of losing all assistance from the public funds. And this we must do, let the State take what course it may.” Hodge called for a system of Presbyterian schools with “one or more schools in every parish, a classical academy in every Presbytery, and a college in every Synod.”[61]

While the debate at the Assembly of 1846 was not extensive, many in the church were ready for action, and in such places the initial response was enthusiastic. Within a year of Hodge’s Assembly sermon, thirty-nine schools had begun. Newspaper articles and presbytery and synod reports generally encouraged the founding of parochial schools and presbyterial academies, especially as fears of “infidel and papist” power continued to rise.[62] Georgia’s Southern Presbyterian voiced the general sentiment of North and South alike in declaring that the church could not “put out her children. . . to the world, to receive from it their religious training.”[63] The parochial school plan would save the church “from the sin of sending her offspring to the world for their training.”[64]

Indeed Thomas Smyth claimed that to reject parochial education was to repudiate “the honoured name of Old School. . . at least in its educational principles.”[65] Since baptized children belong to God, they must be trained under the oversight of the church. “As Parents, we must see to it that our children are 'trained up' under the supervision, direction and control of the church, through the whole course of their education, until they grow 'old' and are fitted for their calling in life.” Recognizing that some considered parochial schools to be “unrepublican,” he argued that parochial schools left the matter to the dictates of the parents’ conscience and, if the state would appropriate a proportionate amount of funds for such schools, would not result in double taxation.[66]

In 1848 the Indianapolis Presbytery responded to the movement in Indiana to establish free schools without religious teaching. Declaring that “God has committed the education and training of children to the parent, they feel assured that no earthly power has the just right to interpose between the parent and that education he believes it his duty to give to his child, unless it is manifestly injurious to the public welfare.” Further, they argued that “every parent who is taxed to support the schools has a just right to send to the school of his choice, and have the portion of the fund so raised, to which his children would be entitled, applied to its support.” Therefore they “recommend to all their congregations to petition the Legislature that, if a system of free schools be established, any persons who may associate to establish a school shall be entitled to a portion of the public funds in proportion to the number of their children.”[67]

4. The Rise of Opposition to Parochial Schools

While the initial response to the project of parochial education was positive, by 1850, the chorus of approval faced increasing opposition. The Board of Education had been given the task of organizing support for parochial schools, so long as funds were given especially for that purpose, and Cortlandt Van Rensselaer, the secretary of the Board, energetically devoted himself to the support of Presbyterian schools.[68] But many objected that this took too much time and energy away from ministerial education–the Board’s first priority. Others objected that it was not the church’s job to operate schools. But few objected so long as the parochial school movement was viewed as supplementary and merely of local interest. Presbyterians had long held that in matters of liberty of conscience, one did not impose one’s personal views on the whole church.

But long before parochial schools developed, many Old School Presbyterians were thoroughly committed to the public school system. Support for parochial schools could coincide with efforts for public education as well. William Swan Plumer, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia, and editor of the Watchman of the South, was on the Virginia committee to draft resolutions encouraging a system of popular education, even while supporting parochial schools in his newspaper.[69] In North Carolina and Virginia, Old School Presbyterians zealously supported common schools. The Watchman and Observer reported on the progress of common schools in North Carolina, encouraging Virginia to consider similar measures,[70] and numerous Old School ministers served as superintendents of public education in the west and south, as well as in Pennsylvania.[71]

Name Dates Birth College Sem. Pastorate State

State Superintendents

Joseph Bardwell (1828-1893) NC CNJ 50 CTS 54 Meridian Mississippi 1876-77

William Bishop (1823-1900) Scot Illinois C 47 PTS 50 Kansas 1870-74, 1878-82

Robert J. Breckinridge (1800-71) KY Union C 19 PTS 32 Kentucky 1847-53

Jonathan C. Gibbs (1831-1874) PA Dartmouth C 52 PTS 54 Florida 1872-74

John D. Matthews (1809-1884) VA Jefferson C 27 PTS 31 Kentucky 1853-59

William H. Ruffner (1824-1908) VA WashC VA 42 PTS 47 Virginia 1870-82

Calvin H. Wiley (1819-18??) NC UNC 40 priv 55 North Carolina 1852-68

County Superintendents

Southeastern County

Alexander L. Hogshead (1816-80) VA WashC VA UTS 46 Green Spring Wash Co VA 70-9

Benjamin M. Smith (1811-1893) VA HSC 29 UTS 33 Prof, UTS Prince Edw. Co VA 71-82

James Kelly (1832-1906) NC UNC 60 priv Elizabethtown Blado Co NC 80-9

William H. Crane (1818-1894) NJ PTS 44 miss Gadsden Co FL, 69-70

Southwestern

Thomas Morrow (1805-1885) SC Centre C 28 UTS 33 miss Morgan Co AL 60-1, 67-74

Benjamin F. Peters (1818-1903) SC U Virgina 39 UTSNY 47 Fayette Co AL 72-9

James H. Alexander (1826-1906) TN Oglethorpe U 49 CTS 52 Kosciusko Attala Co. MS ca. 70

Stevenson Archer (1838-1916) MS Oakland C DTS 60 Greenville Wash. Co. MS 75-96

John C. Graham (1826-1901) PA Centre C 50 PTS 54 Pike Co MS 60s

Michael H. Bittinger (1826-1913) DC CNJ 49 PTS 52 Centreville Monroe Co. WV 74-5

Julius Spencer (1831-1903) MO Amherst C 53 PTS 58 Irondale Wabash Co MO 73-5

David A. Wilson (1821-1912) PA Marshall C 45 PTS 51 Ironton Iron Co MO 68-9

Northeastern

Hallock Armstrong (1823-1904) NY Lafayette C 48 PTS 51 Sullivan Co. PA 59-62

Charles J. Collins (1825-1906) PA Williams C 45 PTS 54 Wilkes-Barre PA 66-74

Cornelius R. Lane (1820-1894) NJ Lafayette C 43 PTS 48 Tunkhannock Wyoming Co PA 54-6

Robert W. Orr (1808-1857) PA Jefferson C 33 PTS 37 Mt Tabor Clarion Co PA 54-7

Benjamin F. Patterson (1835-1906) PA Lafayette C 60 PTS 63 Pottsville PA 67-1906

James Williamson (1795-1865) PA WashC PA 17 PTS 20 Little Valley Mifflin Co PA 60s

Garret Van Artsdalen (1816-1881) PA CNJ 39 PTS 42 German Valley Morris Co NJ 53-4

John Squier (1823-1892) Scot Lafayette C 48 PTS 50 Smyrna Port Deposit MD 68-92

Northwestern

Thomas A. Grove (1823-1896) PA MuskingumC 48 WTS53 Woodsfield Woodsfield OH 63-7,70-3

Alexander S. Milholland (1834-1906) OH MuskingumC 60 WTS63 Millersburg Holmes Co OH 67-70

Mordecai M. Travis (1827-1901) OH Jefferson C 56 WTS59 Hibbardville Athens OH 59-63

Travis Brownsville Newark OH 63-8

William A. Starrett (1834-1887) PA Jefferson C 58 PTS 62 Lawrence Douglas Co KS 69-71

Richard H. Jackson (1829-1907) PA Jefferson C 55 WTS60 Atchison KS 70-6

John M. McElroy (1830-1908) OH Jefferson C 51 PTS 55 Ottumwa Wapello Co IA 64-5

Western

Henry R. Avery (1828-1901) NY CNJ 53 PTS 56 miss Contra Costa Co. CA 63-7

In the deep South, Presbyterians also took the lead. The Georgia state education convention appointed the Rev. Alonzo Church (president of the University of Georgia) to a committee of three to encourage the development of common schools in the state.[72] The Southern Presbyterian Review ran an article encouraging a common school system for South Carolina in July of 1850.[73] South Carolina’s history of “poor schools” resulted in poor education as well. The leading editors of the Review, Thornwell and Adger, were becoming increasingly convinced that only full Presbyterian participation in public education could preserve the Christian character of the state.

Likewise in the North, opposition to Roman Catholicism led to strong support for the public schools. In Ohio, when Archbishop Purcell tried to convince Cincinnati to reject the common school system as a godless approach to education, the Presbyterian of the West championed common schools in a steady stream of articles emphasizing the common Protestant heritage that could be taught in the public schools. After the election of 1853 returned supporters of the common schools to the city councils, the editor rejoiced that “Hereafter, he [Purcell] will be a much smaller man in this city than he has been.”[74]

The first major article opposing parochial schools came from the pen of Robert J. Breckinridge in the Southern Presbyterian Review.[75] He began by affirming the traditional triad of “God-ordained” powers: the family, the state and the church. These three institutions “exhaust completely, the susceptibilities and powers of man, when united with his fellows, and to comprehend absolutely, all his duties and obligations, that are not purely individual.”[76] Breckinridge read the reports of the Board of Education, which affirmed that the church should supervise “the whole of education,” claiming that the historic practice of the church “in its pure days” (i.e., the patristic and reformation periods) should be followed by churches in the United States.[77] To Breckinridge, this was tantamount to saying that education belonged to the church, “to the total exclusion of the civil power.” As Superintendent of Public Education for the State of Kentucky (1847-1853),[78] Breckinridge became increasingly frustrated with the state legislature, accusing it of sabotaging his efforts, but still poured himself into the schools. By 1853, when he accepted a call as professor of theology at Danville Theological Seminary in Kentucky, he had transformed education in Kentucky. In 1845 there were virtually no public schools in Kentucky, but by 1851 every county had reported some established. In 1847 there were 20,000 children in public schools; in 1852 there were 194,963. Presbyterian Herald 22.42 (June 30, 1853). It helped that his old friend John J. Crittenden had been elected governor in 1848 and vigorously supported his policies, but Crittenden was appointed as Millard Fillmore’s attorney general in 1850. Albert D. Kirwan, John J. Crittenden: The Struggle for the Union (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1962) 243, 265. Breckinridge’s successor was the Rev. John Matthews (PTS 1831)–another Old School Presbyterian minister. Breckinridge was convinced that common schools were necessary. The government could leave certain things to individual initiative, but “can any community, as such, safely, justifiably, omit to provide for the universal education of the people?”[79] Indeed Breckinridge denied the fundamental premise of the Board of Education by arguing that “education is an affair purely civil, purely temporal.” No church supervision was needed--any more than church supervision over any other sort of work is needed. If we must have church oversight over the selection of teachers (due to concern over moral influence), then church oversight over the election of magistrates should follow. Breckinridge reminded his readers that the Scottish example cut both ways. The rise of moderatism in the eighteenth-century Church of Scotland was largely due to the college professors who were under church oversight![80]

Having banished the church from any active oversight, Breckinridge argued that Christian involvement in the public schools was essential. In most places, concerted Christian effort could bring about Bible reading and prayer in the public schools, and he insisted that the church should be “content to allow God to speak for himself in our schools, to the hearts and minds of our children--reserving for the fireside, the Sabbath schools, the pulpit and the press, comment, elucidation, and thorough systematic instruction.”[81]

Breckinridge concluded by asserting the catholicity of his views, and the sectarian character of his opponents. Presbyterians could not be so narrow as to withdraw from the national schools. Calling his readers to remember the Presbyterian involvement in the American Revolution, he gloried in his vision of Presbyterian catholicity: “Narrow views may be put forth in her name; they are not hers. . . . Weak, timid or selfish counsels may appear for a time to gain her consent, but the calm, final, settled purpose, the true, earnest, cordial action she will take at last, will be in full accord with the spirit of the age.” While Breckinridge had been a champion of the Old School against the New School, his view of education shared the New School emphasis on individual cooperation. With a parting thrust, he decried denominational education as sectarian and bigoted, sacrificing “all hope of the general education of mankind.”[82] For some, catholicity was developing into a particular form of American nationalism.[83]

The following year, at the General Assembly of 1850, Breckinridge fired a warning shot across the bow of the Board of Education, warning that parochial education would detract from the testimony of the Presbyterian Church by withdrawing her resources into a corner.[84] For the next four years, the education question would be one of the most fiercely contested issues in the church.[85]

A second front in the educational war was developing in Virginia. In August of 1851, the Watchman and Observer ran a series on education from the youthful Robert L. Dabney (UTSVA 1846), pastor of Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church in Fishersville, Virginia, opposing the plans of the Board of Education. Writing under the pseudonym “Chorepisoc