Religion still the Key to History 231 J)e long and doubtful. There are still therefore Ics deux Frances, -ever in conflict. The King — the thought of a restored monarchy — has almost disappeared as a constitutive force. But so has the Revolution. To that the corporate influences of the Republic have succeeded, and to-day it is the France of the Church contending with the France of the Republic. If the Church should learn to ■encourage the individual initiative of its followers — to let French- men direct the course in France of the Roman church — the France of the Blacks may yet prevail. The history of any people will be largely governed by its means •of education. How far shall it extend? By whom shall it be furnished and controlled ? " Educate your masters " is the com- mand of political philosophy to the modern state. X'o education ■can be deemed complete which does not treat to some extent of religion. Yet if it be given at public expense, the cost will bo borne by some who scout at all religion, and many who disagree with the prevailing forms of it. The position which the world is gradually taking on this sub- ject rests on principles foreshadowed in colonial Maryland and Rhode Island ; first formally asserted by any government on purely humanitarian grounds in 1786 by JeflFerson's statute of religious liberty in 'irginia ; and spread over a wider field by the Constitu- tion of the United States. The utmost point that had been previously reached was that religious liberty should be as great as the safety of the state per- mitted. Xow it was declared that no limitations were required by the safety of the state. Yet here more than almost anywhere else is seen the difficulty of reconciling it with religious sentiment. The King of Bavaria, in a state paper early in the last century, ■declared that in public education religion was not to l>e taught at the cost of learning, nor yet learning at the cost of religion. There are still many, however, who believe it to be to the cost of learning for the state to assume to teach that, without making religion a part of it. More than a million children are being educated in the United States every year in the various schools of the Roman Catholic Church. The cost of this can hardly be less than twenty-five or thirty million dollars. Those who pay it are also required by the state to contribute as much as any other tax-paying citizens to the support of the public schools. It is no small force which leads -these men to assume such burdens. It is the conviction that educa-
Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/241
This page needs to be proofread.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/American_Historical_Review%2C_Volume_12.djvu/page241-1024px-American_Historical_Review%2C_Volume_12.djvu.jpg)