On the other hand, the church-related and other private schools should be far better appreciated by that large part of the public which has not had direct association with them.

2. Church-Related Schools and the Public Welfare

The church-related school, teaching largely the same curriculum as the public school for the general education of the citizen, is not an intruding latecomer on the American educational scene. It represents, rather, our original source of popular education and, far from being a distractive force deviating from the American educational tradition, it stands instead at the core of that tradition and as a force which emphasizes certain moral and spiritual values with which that tradition is identified.

The elementary schools in all the colonies had the teaching of religion as their chief aim and as their main component. And Massachusetts, in 1647, enacted what has been described as "the first system of public education in the colonies." Known as the "Old Deluder" Act, it provided:

It being one chiefe proiect of ye ould deluder, Satan, to keepe men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures . . . . It is therefore ordred, yt evry towneship in this iurisdiction, aftr ye Lord hath increased ye number to 50 housholders, shall then forthwth appoint one wth in their towne to teach all such children . . . .8 New York, a nontheocratic colony, adopted a similar law. Education in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and throughout the South, was emphatically religious. One of the earliest tasks to which French and Spanish missionaries in America devoted themselves was the founding of schools. They were among the first in the land, and, while they offered training in secular subjects, they were religious in nature generally.

The end of the colonial era and the coming of the Republic witnessed no change with respect to the strongly religious character of the American people, and it is not therefore surprising that hospitality to the religious upbringing of their children should have marked public attitudes toward education. The third article of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 directly linked religion with good government and the wellbeing of society, and thus stated a major purpose of education: "Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government

8 The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts (1648) at 47 (1929). 9 See Dunn, What Happened to Religious Education? 16 (1958).

and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." The document has been described as "second only in importance to the Bill of Rights of the Constitution as a guarantee of religious freedom." The Northwest Ordinance was re-enacted August 7, 1789 by the first session of the First Congress,10 the same Congress to which a few weeks later, on September 26, 1789, the Conference Committee report proposed the final draft of the first amendment. It was later praised in the highest terms by Webster11 and by Lincoln.12 The Southwest Ordinance, passed by the First Congress in 1790, applying to Tennessee and eventually to the entire Mississippi Territory, contained the same provision.

Nor did the new education movement launched by Horace Mann in the 1830's seek the abolition of religion in the schools. To the contrary, it was definitely intended that the new schools should provide knowledge of religion along with traditional moral training. While Mann desired sectarianism kept out of the public school curriculum-what he called "special and peculiar instructions respecting theology"-he defined education to include moral and religious upbringing. He concluded his lecture in 1838 on "The Necessity of Education in a Republican Government" by stating:

And, finally, by the term education I mean such a culture of our moral affections and religious sensibilities, as in the course of nature and Providence shall lead to a subjection and conformity of all our appetites, propensities, and sentiments to the Will of Heaven.18

Similar expressions from American educational leaders are to be found in abundance over the remaining decades of the nineteenth century and, indeed, down to the present.

There is no purpose here to suggest criticism of the reasons why public school education in America became to a considerable extent secular rather than religious, nor is it suggested that it is inevitably true that certain trends toward sterilizing the public schools of any minimal efforts to acquaint children with God or the Commandments or prayer will continue. It is, on the other hand, merely pointed out that it can

10 1 Stat. 549.

14

11 Quoted in 1 Am. Hist. Ass'n Rep. 56 (1896).

12 Speech in Columbus, Ohio, Sept. 16, 1859, in 1 Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln 549 (ed. Nicolay-Hay 1894).

13 2 Life and Works of Horace Mann 144 (1891).

14 See Resnick v. Dade County Bd. of Pub. Instruction, No. 59C 4928 and No. 59C 8873, Cir. Ct. of 11th Judicial Cir., Fla., May, 1961; Murray v. Curlett, No. 64708, Balti

not with any accuracy be said that the American tradition of education is somehow a tradition of irreligion. On the contrary, it is a stubborn fact of our history that that tradition is one of hospitality to religious values and to a religiously based moral training.

Today, church-related schools of the United States are making a vast and patent contribution to the public welfare. Considering the largest of the groups of these-the schools under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church-the extensiveness of citizen education which it supplies is remarkable. The phrase of the preceding sentence-"citizen education which it supplies"-bears repeating, since, as will later be stressed herein, these schools supply not some form of special or eccentric training, of which society can take no notice, but education recognized by the state as meeting essential citizen needs.

In 1960 there were enrolled in Catholic elementary schools 4,401,824 pupils.15 In the same year Catholic secondary schools had an enrollment of 885,406 students. It is estimated that in 1961 Catholic elementary schools are providing education to approximately four-and-a-half million children and Catholic secondary schools to approximately one million children. In 1960 Catholic elementary and secondary schools were educating 12.6% of the total school population, and for 1961 the percentage is believed to be slightly higher. In a number of states and the District of Columbia Catholic schools are educating considerably higher percentages of the children in school-in Rhode Island 25.8%, Wisconsin 23.3%, Pennsylvania 21.9%, Massachusetts 21.9%, Illinois 21.3%, New Hampshire 21%, New Jersey 21%, New York 20.8%, Delaware 18%, Minnesota 16.9%, Vermont 15.6%, Ohio 15.4%, Maryland 15%, Missouri 14.8%, Connecticut 14.7%, Michigan 14.4%, Louisiana 14.3%, Nebraska 14.1%, District of Columbia 13.8%, Iowa 12.9%.

Thus in nineteen states (and the District of Columbia) having a total school population of 21,868,683, and whose school population represents 51.9% of the total national school population, Catholic parochial schools are performing the public service of educating 18.6% of all children in elementary and secondary schools.

While one child out of every ten American children in Hawaii receives in a Catholic school the complete education deemed adequate by the more Super. Ct., April 28, 1961; Engel v. Vitale, 10 N.Y.2d 174, 176 N.E.2d 579, 182 N.Y.S.2d 659, cert. granted, 30 U.S.L. Week 3177 (U.S. Dec. 5, 1961) (No. 468).

15 The statistics for which no other reference is given in the following paragraphs are contained in, or computed from, the figures given in the General Summary of The Official

state, approximately one out of five does so in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Hampshire, while approximately one out of four does so in Wisconsin and Rhode Island.

Catholic elementary schools are conducted in all of the fifty states, with a total, in 1960, of 10,662 schools throughout the nation. The number of such schools per state varies from eight in Alaska to 1,136 in the state of New York. In the Archdiocese of Chicago alone are 426 Catholic elementary schools. 16 In the city of Pittsburgh, Catholic elementary schools educate 44% of the entire elementary school population. There were in 1960 2,426 Catholic secondary schools in the United States.

In 1960 there were 152,948 teachers staffing the Catholic secondary and elementary schools, the number being composed of 113,527 religious teachers and 39,421 lay teachers, the percentage of lay teachers now increasing rapidly in the Catholic schools (from, for example, 5.2% out of the total in 1948 to 25.8% of the total in 1960).

Here it should be noted that the religious aspect in church-related schooling is an addition to, and that it is not a subtraction from, basic citizen-education requirements. The pupil in the church-related school learns essentially the same arithmetic, spelling, English, history, civics, foreign languages, geography, and science which it is required that the pupil in the public school learn. He learns religion in addition, and the religious dimensions of secular knowledge. But let it be again stressed: this is in addition, not in subtraction.

Recalling that this study is at this point discussing simply the public welfare function of the church-related schools rather than the question of constitutionality of aid to such schools, it may be further noted that Catholic educational efforts-like many nonpublic educational effortshave evolved over the years numerous schools of special achievement and schools for exceptional groups, such as the gifted and the mentally or physically handicapped, and have pioneered many valuable new teaching methods.18

Catholic Directory (1961). See Appendix A of this study for a state-by-state summary of statistics on elementary and secondary school enrollment in the United States for 1960. 16 See The Official Catholic Directory 57-58 (1961).

17 Statistics on file in the Catholic Schools Office of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

18 See Directory of Catholic Facilities for Exceptional Children in the United States (1958), listing facilities under Catholic auspices throughout the nation which are accommodating a total of more than one million exceptional children. The 1958 edition of this Directory is currently being revised.

The Catholic school, moreover, has always stressed patriotism and other civic virtues. It is an important force for social democracy in the nation. Historically, Catholic education proved a beneficent bridge by which immigrant passed to the status of American.19 Typically, the Catholic school has been a meeting place for children of different ethnic and economic backgrounds. Although the schools are primarily for the education of Catholic children, non-Catholic children are admitted as a matter of universal policy where there is room. The record of Catholic schools generally with respect to Negro and other nonwhite children has been distinctly creditable. These schools have for the most part not been located according to de facto zoning which divides neighborhoods racially or economically. Thus the Catholic school has been an invaluable training ground to prepare citizens for full participation in a pluralist society. It has been stated:

If, as seems reasonable, the preservation and perpetuation of private and parochial schools are indispensable to the preservation of a pluralistic society, then those committed to a pluralistic America owe a great debt to the Catholic Church, just as those committed to a secular public school system owe it a great debt.20 No fact can be more obvious than the fact that the graduates of the Catholic schools are found in all classes, occupations and activities of American life, contributing commonly21 with all other citizens, publicly and privately, to the sustenance and development of the American society. From these schools have come men and women who have been faithful public servants, fruitful scientists, creative artists. Upon the coming of the wars in which the nation has been involved, the man of Catholic school training has never been classified as alien in loyalty or divisive in inclination; and as in peacetime he is agreeably known in all neighborhoods and all occupations, so in times of national peril he has been found in all theatres of war and upon every beachhead and place of struggle. It is assuredly a late day for argument respecting the value of the training which Catholic and other church-related schools have conferred upon the country through their graduates.

19 Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew 162 (1956).

20 Pfeffer, Creeds in Competition 82 (1958).

21 This is noted by the Rossis: "We could find no evidence that parochial schools tend to alienate individual Catholics from their communities. Parochial school Catholics are as involved in community affairs as anyone else of comparable educational position." Peter and Alice Rossi, Some Effects of Parochial School Education in America, Daedalus 323 (Spring 1961). See also Fichter, Parochial School: A Sociological Study 109-31, 427-53 (1958).

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