Religion in Education
Until around 1962, prayer was allowed to be practiced in schools across the nation. Most segments of society had no problem with school prayer before then. Prayer recitations and Bible readings were a common occurrence in schools. However, Catholic adherents were opposed to the state sponsored observation of Protestant practices in public schools and sometimes took legal action against the public school system as was the case in Weiss v. District Board (1890). This had been established by Massachusetts educationist Horace Mann who is widely considered to be the pioneer of public schools. The Mann paradigm saw state-sponsored reading of the King James Version of the Hebrew Bible in public schools. By implementing this trend, Mann hoped to …show more content…
The limited capacity of these sectarian institutions however meant that some Catholic children still had to attend state schools, where they were subjected to Protestant indoctrination.
The mid twentieth Century saw an upsurge in opposition to religion in school. Most of the landmarks of the shift towards secularization of schools date back to this era. One notable case was Everson v. Board of Education (1947) which resulted in the highest court in America banning religious teachings in schools. In 1955, the state of New York introduced a common prayer, commonly referred to as the ‘Regent’s Prayer’, for use in schools (Marshall, 1997). This precipitated the monumental court case of Engel v. Vitale in 1962 that would forever change the approach to religious observation in schools. Steve Engel was a Jew and a renowned civil rights advocate in the state of New York. He moved to court to oppose the compulsion of non-protestant children, chiefly his son to observe protestant traditions in government run schools. This, he argued was a violation of the civil liberties of the students as enshrined in the First Amendment. New York courts upheld the state’s decision to recommend the Regent’s Prayer in schools,
Until around 1962, prayer was allowed to be practiced in schools across the nation. Most segments of society had no problem with school prayer before then. Prayer recitations and Bible readings were a common occurrence in schools. However, Catholic adherents were opposed to the state sponsored observation of Protestant practices in public schools and sometimes took legal action against the public school system as was the case in Weiss v. District Board (1890). This had been established by Massachusetts educationist Horace Mann who is widely considered to be the pioneer of public schools. The Mann paradigm saw state-sponsored reading of the King James Version of the Hebrew Bible in public schools. By implementing this trend, Mann hoped to …show more content…
The limited capacity of these sectarian institutions however meant that some Catholic children still had to attend state schools, where they were subjected to Protestant indoctrination.
The mid twentieth Century saw an upsurge in opposition to religion in school. Most of the landmarks of the shift towards secularization of schools date back to this era. One notable case was Everson v. Board of Education (1947) which resulted in the highest court in America banning religious teachings in schools. In 1955, the state of New York introduced a common prayer, commonly referred to as the ‘Regent’s Prayer’, for use in schools (Marshall, 1997). This precipitated the monumental court case of Engel v. Vitale in 1962 that would forever change the approach to religious observation in schools. Steve Engel was a Jew and a renowned civil rights advocate in the state of New York. He moved to court to oppose the compulsion of non-protestant children, chiefly his son to observe protestant traditions in government run schools. This, he argued was a violation of the civil liberties of the students as enshrined in the First Amendment. New York courts upheld the state’s decision to recommend the Regent’s Prayer in schools,