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Religious Values IN PUBLICEDUCATIONRichard Boyd Ballou aa Professor of Education , School of Education, RutgersUniversity , New Brunswick, N. J.Published online: 25 May 2006.

To cite this article: Richard Boyd Ballou (1954) Religious Values IN PUBLIC EDUCATION,Religious Education: The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 49:5,317-324, DOI: 10.1080/0034408540490502

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II

Religious ValuesIN PUBLIC EDUCATION

RICHARD BOYD BALLOUProfessor of Education, School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N. J.

"OELIGIOUS conviction has played an im-JA. portant part in the evolution of publiceducation in the United States — in the inti-mate relationship between belief and school-ing in the colonial settlements; in the en-couragement the founding fathers sought togive religion and morality through theschools; and later in the way the followers ofthe Judaeo-Christian tradition contributed tothe public school movement in the 19th cen-tury. Indeed, the central concept of humandignity, imbedded in the Constitution andthe Bill of Rights, and dramatized in "theAmerican dream," is essentially a derivativeof religious conviction. These significantrelationships were not historic accidents.

However, as the nation began to lose itsethnic and cultural homogeneity in the mid-dle of the 19th century, it became apparentthat new distinctions were necessary in pub-lic education. Horace Mann replied to anadvocate of the teaching of doctrinal religionin the public schools,

"It is easy to see that the experimentwould not stop with having half a dozenconflicting creeds taught by authority oflaw in different schools of the same townor vicinity. Majorities will change in thesame place. One sect may have theascendance today; another tomorrow. Thisyear there will be three Persons in theGodhead; next year but one; and the thirdyear the Trinity will be restored to holdits precarious sovereignty until it shall beagain dethroned by the worms of the dust ithas made."1

Although public education was graduallyand generally removed from sectarian con-

trol during the 19th century, the presump-tion remained that education was concernedwith basic ends of the Christian ideal. It wasonly in the 20th century that this perspectivebegan to diminish, largely because of whatis usually described as the increasing secu-larization of life in the United States.

The forces which slowly undermined theclassical-humanistic tradition in public edu-cation helped to re-direct the work of theschools toward more secular ends, frequentlyclustered around the idea of education forresponsible citizenship in a democracy.However, the pressure of events during thedepression and World War II, and the grimrealities, of the post-war world have led to awidespread inquiry as to the actual valueswhich public education is supposedly seekingto encourage. It is reasonable to ask, assome have done, whether the public schoolsshould not restore systematic emphasis onthe Judaeo-Christian tradition which con-tributed so much to the foundation andgrowth of democracy in the United States.However, to suggest that even this traditionbe "taught" in the schools of a free peopleis to confuse religion and man's spirituality.It is one of the happy co-incidences of historythat the United States has recognized and en-couraged both, that is, man's right to believeas he sees fit and his right to the free exerciseof religion to express that belief.2

It is the purpose of this paper to suggestthat public education can and must nurturethe spiritual side of human beings as well astheir biological and psychological sides, butit must do this without "teaching religion"which in the American tradition is a strictly

*Reply to Rev. H. H. Smith (Boston 1847),quoted in E. P. Cubberley, Readings in PublicEducation in the United States. Boston, 1934.p. 208.

2See Jacques Maritain, Man and the State. Chi-cago, 1951. The observations of this distinguishedcontemporary Catholic philosopher with his Euro-pean perspective are highly relevant to the presentdiscussion.

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private matter, quite beyond the competenceof government. In recent years many re-sponsible groups have sought to re-define theissues involved and to indicate how best pub-lic education can encourage the moral andspiritual sides of young people without tres-passing on their private rights of belief andof the exercise of their religious convictions.The result of the work of these groups haspointed toward a general agreement whichoffers a clue to a way of resolving an old di-lemma with which public education isnewly faced.3 Although this agreement isfar from universal, it is substantial and maybe said to include at least six basic elements:

(1) a conviction that the American tra-dition will not permit instruction inthe public schools, colleges, or uni-versities designed to prescribe to anindividual what he should believe.By constitutional proscription andlegislative enactment, belief in theUnited States is exclusively a privatematter, reserved wholly to the indi-dividual.

(2) a recognition, however, of the rightof parents to send their children tonon-public schools to be educated un-der the pattern of their own religiousbelief. The exercise of this right,however, does not relieve parents oftheir obligations as citizens to publiceducation.

(3) an appreciation of the debt of pub-lic education to the support of reli-gious groups, and a consequent de-sire to maintain healthy relationshipsbetween religious institutions and the

The agreement may be seen best in a series ofstatements by responsible groups explicitly con-cerned with public education. Among the moreimportant of such statements are: The WhiteHouse Conference on Children in a Democracy,Children in a Democracy. Washington, n.d.; JohnS. Brubacher, ed. the Public Schools and Spirit-ual Values (Yearbook of the John Dewey Society),New York, 1944; The American Council on Edu-cation, Committee on Religion and Education, TheRelation of Religion to Public Education: TheBasic Principles. Washington, 1947; The Depart-ment ef Elementary School Principles (Yearbook),Spiritual Values in the Elementary School. Wash-ington, 1947; The Educational Policies Commis-sion, Moral and Spiritual Values in the PublicSchools. Washington, 1951; The Committee ofthe American Council on Education, The Functionof the Public Schools in Dealing with Religion.Washington, 1953.

public schools to strengthen theirseveral contributions to the moral andspiritual vitality of young people.

(4) a realization that the public schoolsmust increase "religious literacy"among young people — specificallythat is, an awareness of the historiccontribution of religion to civiliza-tion, and of its role in contemporarylife.

(5) a conviction that public education hasto encourage in young people a recog-nition of and a respect for the partbelief plays in the life of man.

(6) a conviction that public educationhas a mandate to honor, and to per-suade young people to honor in them-selves their own private quest formeaning in life. The public schoolsmust be meticulously neutral as toany religious sanctions used in thequest, but they cannot be neutralabout the quest itself, nor to the wayit endows the legitimate ends of pub-lic education with vitality and direc-tion.

With reference to this last element, Dr.Ordway Tead has observed,

"How absolute each individual findsthese values to be is in the first in-stance, a matter of his own judgmentand his background of education.But it is my own profound convictionthat we find in human experiencethat the mandate to achieve, to strug-gle to realize values of a progressivelyqualitative character, is an absoluteand not a relative demand which lifemakes upon us."4

For education to fail to recognize the im-portance of that demand is to cut out theheart of the educational process. Since theprotection of the liberty of Amercan democ-racy requires the deepest and fullest allegianceof which its citizens are capable, public edu-cation has to imbue young people with a senseof dedication and commitment to the moraland spiritual values which are the bulwarkof that liberty fully as much as are the valuesin the social, political, and economic realmsof human activity.

'Ordway Tead, "Religion in the Municipal Col-leges," in F. Ernest Johnson, ed., American Educa-tion and Religion. The Problem of Religion inthe Schools. New York, 1952. pp. 122-123.

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However, since we are so heterogeneous apeople, it would be unthinkable to seek toaccomplish that end by hoping that any onereligion might be "taught." For example,there are those who see promise in a "com-mon denominator," and in the words ofFather Paul Reinert, in "weaving those com-mon truths into a curricular content thatwould be acceptable to everybody."5 FatherReinert quite properly points out the futilityof such a course because in a free society be-lief is concrete, specific and positive. Only ina highly homogeneous society would such acourse be at all possible, and even then it isquestionable whether it would be desirable.Man's spirituality is antecedent to his reli-gion, and the end in the public schools is notto endow young people passively with a uni-form pattern of belief, but to instill in theman awareness of the importance of their be-liefs. Public education by invigorating theircapacities for belief can enhance the integrityof young people, leaving the question of thecontent of beliefs and the sanctions for themto the individual, his family, and his religiousaffiliation.

The balance of this paper is divided intotwo parts, one examining the theoreticalbases of a proper public school program foremphasizing religious values, and the otherpointing out some of the practical implica-tions of the theory.

IIf anything of real importance is to be

done, through public education, to enhancethe moral and spiritual vitality of the na-tion, it must be done under the direction ofresponsible public school authorities and byproperly qualified and appointed publicschool personnel. Furthermore if this em-phasis on values is as important as it is sug-gested here that it is, it is important through-out the life of the school. The whole of thecurriculum is involved, and all extracurricularactivities. The nature and quality of theschool's administration and supervision, and

'Paul C Reinert, S. J, in Religious Education,March-April 1954, p. 72. See also "Religion andPhilosophies of Education," by George N. Shuster,Theodore M. Greene, and Isaac Berkson, ibid.pp. 78-92.

of its counseling services, and the whole pat-tern of examinations by which the schoolevaluates the work of children, all have animpact on the values created in and by chil-dren. Finally, any program worthy of thename will have to draw heavily on the com-munity at large for support and help. Indeed,it is unlikely that any proper program is atall possible unless it is a reflection of deep-seated convictions and understanding in thecommunity.

The agreement referred to above actuallypoints to a three-fold responsibility for publiceducation — to provide for all children (1)what might be called religious literacy, (2)maximum possible psychological poise, and(3) essential moral and spiritual integrity.A few words about each are in order.

Religious Literacy

It is actually impossible to imagine a properprogram of education which fails to recog-nize the intricate and far-reaching relation-ship between man's religious beliefs andhis quest for a better life. Public educationmust then — from the first days of school-ing through the last years of the university —in ways appropriate to the maturity of thestudents help to acquaint them with the his-toric contributions of religion to civilization.

The record of history, for example, to avery important degree is the story of man'ssearch to find and realize meaning in life.To treat in the schools the Middle Ages, theReformation, or the growth of democracy inGreat Britain or the United States with onlycasual reference to the religious dimensionsof the narrative is to be guilty of a seriousdistortion.

Likewise in literature and art, both interms of reference, imagery, and idiom, andin the more fundamental terms of the aspira-tions of the artist, religious concerns havebeen powerful sources of motivation. Wehave been guilty not only of minimizing ourown cultural history in this respect, but alsoof ignoring the great religions of the MiddleEast and the Orient. One need go no furtherthan the immediate problems of our relation-ships with the Indian, Chinese, and Moslempeople of the world to realize the tragedyof such an omission.

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The practical problems involved here arelegion — the over-crowded curriculum, lackof adequate textbooks, deficiencies in thetraining of teachers, etc. — but they are prob-lems amenable to reason and will. Thequestion, to take one example, of which textof the Bible to use in a school can readily beanswered once the necessity is recognized ofhaving children of widely diverse religiousbackgrounds develop an appreciation of theBible at all. The choice is not between anideal solution, and one less ideal, but betweensome contact with this great repository andnone at all for millions of children.

The case for encouraging religious literacyin children is a radically different matterfrom urging sectarian control of public edu-cation.6 It is one thing to "teach the beliefs"of a particular religion, and quite anotherto teach children to appreciatate how pro-foundly important has been the impact ofreligion upon the course of civilizaton. Jus-tification of the latter in the final analysisis found in the need for awakening theAmerican people to the necessity of clearbeliefs as they tackle the complex problems ofour global, technological civilization.

Psychological Poise

All human activity or behavior is a func-tion of some value sought or acknowledged.The second emphasis suggested by the aboveagreement concerns the public school's re-sponsibility to help all children appreciatethat their lives constantly demand of themmoral and spiritual judgments, which vary,of course, with the complexity of the behaviorand its relationship to one's self and to others.

Beginning with the simple efforts in thelower grades to temper the relationships ofchildren with consideration for others

"The author is thoroughly convinced of thevalidity and the desirability of the historic Ameri-can tradition of separation of church and state ineducation, as in other areas of our life. That tra-dition has been so well analyzed that no discussionof it seems necessary here. See R. Freeman Butts,The American Tradition in Religion and Educa-tion. Boston, 1950; Leo Pfeffer, Church, Stateand Freedom. Boston, 1953; and Ansom PhelpsStokes, Church and State in the United States.3 vol. New York, 1950.

through mature discussions in high schooland college of the rights and responsibilitiesof citizenship in a democracy, education isdealing with issues which are moral andspiritual as well as intellectual. The demo-cratic verities certainly are convenient, usefuloperating principles, but they are also moreimportant as tangible evidence of an inspir-ing vision of man and of the human com-munity.

Likewise the exacting moral demands ofmathematical and scientific proof must berecognized along with the significance ofthe right of free inquiry which in westerncivilization owes so much to the struggle ofman for religious and political liberty. Noth-ing is to be gained by distorting the recordwhich has its bleak pages, to be sure, butone thing seems certain: the human spirit ispossessed of an unquenchable curiosity. Thatcuriosity is made coherent and productive bya value system. Science after all is based on aconviction which has a religious quality to itthat the search for truth is worthy of man'sbest efforts.

The reasonable, mature individual is onewho has gathered his values together in co-herent form and is able and willing to liveby them. The quality of those values may besaid to be either moral or spiritual, but whatgives them their creative efficacy is the senseof dedication and commitment, religious incharacter, which the individual gives to them.It is a foolish, if harmless exercise to try toprove that our way of life is better than — say— the life of a South Sea islander. Thepragmatic test may provide extremely usefulcomparisons, but it is our faith in our valueswhich endows our way of life with validityfor us. Sanctions for that faith, that is reli-gion, are strictly of no concern to public edu-cation, but the public schools must help chil-dren develop that poise which comes only asthey fashion a synthesis of their values anddevelop the faith to live by them.

Moral and Spiritual IntegrityThe final emphasis is a culmination of the

first two. It concerns the responsibility ofpublic education to encourage young peopleto honor their own quest for meaning andtheir struggle to define their values; to help

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them determine which ideals are true andwhy, and to help them find a sense of dedica-tion and commitment to those values. Theprocess is tortuously slow and education hasliterally to lead children out of their legiti-mate lesser and more immediate purposes in-to a concern for the transcendent mysteriesof life.

The child who aspires to be a physicianmay be pursuing a very appropriate goal forhim, but the school has to help him see thatthe choice is a valid one. The criteria forestablishing that validity include many im-mediate questions of value — the student'sabilities, the seriousness of his interests, andthe likely demands on him of such a calling.Beyond these relatively simple values, how-ever, lies the question of whether such achoice promises to draw forth the fullest ex-pression of his humanity. An affirmativeanswer to such a question is an exacting mea-sure of the individual's moral and spiritualintegrity.

IIPurely for the purpose of illustration, four

basic areas of school studies have been se-lected to make clear the implications of thethree emphases just described. There is nopretense that the suggestions offered here arethe only or necessarily the best way of ac-complishing the end in view.

(1) The social sciences. — Whether aschool has studies in the social sciences run-ning in sequence from one year to the next,or whether it offers only a series of unrelatedcourses, e.g. American History, modern Eu-ropean History, Problems of Democracy,etc., the problem of selecting materials hasbecome critical. The body of knowledge inthe socal sciences is so vast that the questionsof what to teach, and when, and how are realand pressing. In the light of the commit-ment to moral and spiritual values soughthere, public education ought in selecting ma-terials for the social sciences to use a criterionsuch as, "What have been man's abidingproblems and how has he attempted to solvethem?"

This criterion can bring into clear per-spective the range of values man has livedby. For example, questions of how he has

sought survival in the struggle for existenceinvolve economic and technological facts andthe values behind them. Likewise, man's re-lationships with his fellow men, always athorny problem, can introduce the study oflaw and custom, of the role of constitutionsand political institutions, and of the ethicaland psychological necessities of social life.Running through these and many other areasis the basic question of why man's beliefshave led him to move in one direction in-stead of another. Specifically, it is more im-portant to know why Luther took the coursehe did than it is to know that he lived in the16th century and helped to initiate a wave ofreligious protest.

The question of who is to define "man'sabiding problems" has to be answered by re-sponsible school authorities including espe-cially the teachers. They will naturally haveto look to the best thought in the social sci-ences for guidance, but they can not escapethe necessity of making the basic decision.In such an approach, it must be noted, therole of belief in history will necessarily beone, and of course not the only item to con-sider. Similarly, the ways in which variousreligious beliefs have affected man's historywill inevitably have to be asked. These sug-gestions are- simply illustrations of what isgenerally called the factual study of religion,but a study related to the whole context ofhuman life and thought, in so far as thesocial sciences are concerned.

(2) Mathematics and the natural sci-ences— The problem here is more compli-cated than in the social sciences because ofthe exacting demands of the natural sciences.It would be presumptuous of a public schoolto attempt to provide opportunities for largenumbers of children to engage in bona fidescientific experimentation. Genuine experi-mental situations are costly to devise. How-ever, the meaning of the scientific method,and its role in solving problems may profit-ably be explored. Simple experimental situa-tions can be devised, as they have been in somany schools, through which children inlarge numbers may be introduced directly tothe complex problems of scientific proof,

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of the nature of experimentation, and of themeaning of the concepts of science.

In fact, it may be that a proper clue to theteaching of mathematics and science can befound in a consideration of the concept ofnature, whether earthly or supernatural. Ifthis were started early enough and carriedthrough the junior high school years, thefoundation might be laid for serious studiesin the upper years of very advanced quality.The unfortunate pre-occupation with rotememory, drill, and mechanical solutions ofexercises, characteristic of some contemporarymathematics and science teaching can hardlybe construed as increasing either a student'sunderstanding of science or his respect for thedemands of free inquiry, the prime mover ofscientific discovery.

In contrast, the approach suggested wouldencourage the curiosity of children about theimportant ethical and social questions whichoccur persistently to them. It would invitesystematic attention to that abiding questionchildren have— "why" is this or that so, andalmost certainly would lead to clarification ofthe crucial questions of proof, belief, andfaith. After all, science is in a very realsense a reflection of man's faith in his abilityto comprehend the vast mystery of the uni-verse.

To those who fear that this approach wouldfail to "train the scientists of the future,"there is a simple answer. It is doubtful thatthe world's great scientists owe their compe-tence to the perfunctory rendering of twentyrepetitive algebra problems daily, or to thebalancing of chemical equations ad nauseam.Quite on the contrary, this approach wouldbe interested in cultivating the very curositythe scientist needs, and it might make possi-ble some really advanced scientific and mathe-matical studies for those who will do thecreative scientific and technical work of manin generations to come. And it would meanfor all children an appreciation of and ac-quaintance with nature and human nature farmore substantial than the sadly diluted anddistorted version of the lore of the scientistswhich is so often all they get out of mathe-matics and science.

(3 and 4) Languages and the Arts Includ-ing literature—In order to identify the lasttwo areas, a distinction needs to be made.Traditionally, public education has offeredstudies in language and literature, and as asideline, in some of the arts. As emphasis onforeign languages has declined recently, therehas been a parallel increase in the attentiongiven the vernacular. Literature which untilquite recently was English "classical litera-ture" has come to include more emphasis onAmerican literature, although with the de-cline of foreign language teaching, there islittle or no place left for any non-Englishliteratures in either the original or in transla-tion. In the arts a disastrous ambiguity hasexisted. The historical or comparative studyof art has had a modicum of respectabilitybut artistic expression as the manifestation ofa healthy outlet for normal children has beengiven proper recognition only grudginglyuntil quite recently, especially at the second-ary level. And yet the arts express man'sspirit at its best.

Perhaps the clue to the place of moral andspiritual values in language and the arts is toask two questions: why do human beingstry to communicate with each other, and whatis it they seek to communicate? These ques-tions lead to a wholly different appraisal ofthe educational value of the teaching of lan-guage, literature, and the arts.

From a negative point of view, they tendto diminish to the vanishing point some ofthe absurdities perpetrated in the name oflanguage and literature. Stated positively,the answers help to bring into proper focusthe degree to which man is an aspiring beingand the importance to his life and well-beingof expressing those aspirations clearly. Arenot those two ideas simply concrete examplesof the purpose of teaching moral and spiritualvalues in the schools?

For example, the Christian Bible, and theliterature of the other great religions of manare both important historical documents andinspiring sources for the studies of children.Of course, it is ridiculous to deny that thereis disagreement as to what the Bible is. Prot-estant, Catholic,' and Jew may each have pro-foundly serious reasons for his conception of

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what it is and why it is important. It seemsabsurd, however, to ignore both the docu-ment itself and its impact on human history,literature, and art, not to say language.

Public schools must not deal with thevalidity which various religions or sects at-tach to their sacred literature. However, ifthey can not discuss dispassionately the factthat such literature exists, and as much of itscontent as may be relevant and meaningful topupils, then it is futile to profess to teachliterature and art in public education. Forthe religious aspirations of man and his moraland spiritual insights are one, and admittedlynot the only one, of the main springs fromwhich his literature and art have flowed.

In fact, one difficulty here is the dangerof construing the concept of literature toonarrowly. Some of the great documents ofcivilization, though political in their import,are literary masterpieces even though theyhave not had the benediction of being in-cluded in text books of English literature.Their debt to the Bible and to the vision ofman which emerges from its pages is all tooseldom acknowledged.

The distinction, previously referred to, isnow seen to involve the difference betweenmethods of communication and the sub-stance of what man tries to communicatethrough those methods. The "language ofwords" is more immediately useful to manthan that of the oils of the painter, or of theharmonies of the composer. They are alllanguages, however, each with a contributionto make to man's quest for truth.

The public schools must provide the bestpossible education for children in the sev-eral "languages"—verbal, graphic, andaural. Such education in the skills of lan-guage must not be divorced from what manhas sought and is seeking to communicatethrough those skills. Language study atbest is a demanding task, but it becomes hope-lessly deadly to children if it is isolated fromthe meaning language seeks to convey. Inthis area, as with the social and natural sci-ences and mathematics, it is essential to seethe teaching of moral and spiritual values intheir proper relation to the whole of man'sactivity.

The child scribbling with his crayons maynever become a Van Gogh, nor his neighborwho toys with blocks a da Vinci. Yet bothchildren are manifestations of an eternallyvital spirit in man and the cosmos. Theircreations, nurtured through the formativeyears, may one day have a relevance beyondthe imagination of any teacher.

This is not to say that at the proper timeand in sympathetic ways children should notbe introduced to thoughtful and exactingcriticism, both of their own work and of theworks of the masters. Children really preferto work toward higher standards when theysee the reasons for and relevance of thosestandards. All human beings, but especiallychildren, have ideal images of what they maybecome, and it is the school's highest re-sponsibility to help children deepen and en-rich the nature of those ideal images whichin essence are moral and spiritual.

To expect a child to admire Shakespeare'splays because Shakespeare is great involvesa tragic confusion. Shakespeare is "great"only because his books contain the record ofgreatness. The books themselves after allare only a record of what he wrote, of theaspirations he sought to narrate. The issueis rather one of asking what it was thatShakespeare, or any other human being soughtto communicate, and how did he do it.Stated in this manner, the pedagogical prob-lem becomes far more clear, if much moredemanding of the school and its teachers.

The emphasis on moral and spiritualvalues envisaged here in the languages, litera-ture, and art, and in the natural and socialsciences admittedly involves the danger oftrespass by the public school on private rightsof faith and belief or individuals. Continualvigilance, and consummate tact, patience, andhumility are obviously necessary on the partof teachers, parents, and the children them-selves. The alternatives to accepting therisks of such a program are not other idealsolutions. There is rather the frighteningpossibility of the denial of values themselvesby omission and neglect on the part of theschool.

Those who challenge the idiom of thisposition, lamenting in particular the termi-

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nology, religious values, must not overlookwhat this paper suggests as crucial for de-mocracy in the United States — a dedicationand a commitment by young people, religiousin character, to the moral and spiritual valuesof democracy. Systematic formulation ofsuch commitments, and of the sanctions tobuttress them is die province of the the-ologian, the religious philosopher, and thepastor, priest or rabbi. However, that factdoes not diminish a bit the religious qualityof the commitment itself.

It may be that one day public educationwill find a way of expressing the essentialtruths of all religion, for there are those whoare persuaded with Prof. Paul Tillich that

"Others are waiting for a religious an-swer which does not destroy reason butpoints to the depths of reason; which doesnot teach the supernatural, but points tothe mystery in the ground of the natural;which denies that God is a being andspeaks of Him as the ground and depth ofbeing and meaning; which knows aboutthe significance of symbols in myth andcult, but resists the distortion of symbolsinto statements of knowledge. A the-ology which takes this position, which pre-serves the intellectual honesty of the in-tellectual and expresses at the same time,the answers to questions implied in man'sexistence and existence generally — sucha theology is acceptable to the intellectual.(and to many non-intellectuals as well).It prevents the turn of the intellectual to-ward religion from becoming a matter ofromantic concessions or of self-surrenderto authority."7

Meanwhile, public education must con-tinue its effort to make young people compe-tent in the exercise of their rights and dutiesas members of a democratic community.Recognizing that the crux of that process isthe faith young people have in themselvesand in the power of the human spirit, theschools must help them make that faith ex-plicit— in their regard for integrity andhonesty, in their allegiance to the right ofman to inquire freely, in their self-respect andrespect for the person and beliefs of others,

'Paul Tillich, in "Religion and the Intellectuals,"Partisan Review, series No. 3, New York, 1950,pp. 138-139.

and in the humility with which they acceptthe grand design of the infinite, howeverprivately they elect to define that design. Awise student of contemporary American life,Prof. Lyman Bryson, has drawn attention toa perspective the public schools need forthis great responsibility. He wrote, in speak-ing of a world civilization,

"Our social and political democracy wasfounded on a spiritual democracy and thosewho cannot be democratic about the ulti-mate sanctions by which men live and actcannot really believe in freedom, exceptas an arena where their absolute truth willprevail. It is difficult to discuss this ques-tion with most men because they are madeuneasy when anyone suggests a reallysearching tolerance. They want to be tol-erant on the level of conduct, since on thatlevel their virtue is not much more thangood manners or amiability. They are notbrave enough to be tolerant on the levelof belief and ultimate sanctions when tol-erance is a great virtue and a great achieve-ment."8

Teachers who in the last analysis are theones who have to accomplish the task willfind inspiration for their work in Perry Mil-ler's estimate of Roger Williams,

"By exposing false conceptions of purityand loyalty, he opened the way for self-distrusting, undogmatic and yet firm reso-lution to seek for those goals in whichalone the soul of man finds fulfillment.So indeed he does remain the symbolic em-bodiment of that heroism which resists allthose who, under whatever slogan, wouldforce the conscience to things it cannotabide. . . . In the end, it may be that he ismost valuable to us because he incarnatesthe fighter for ends who keeps always pres-ent to his consciousness a sense of his ownfallibility, of his own insignificance, with-out ever for that reason giving over, with-out ever relaxing, the effort."9

8Lyman Bryson, The Next America. New York,1952. p. 226. See also Carl L. Becker, Freedomand Responsibility in the American Way of Life.New York, 1945, and Robert Ulich, Man andReality. New Haven (The Hazen Foundation),n.d.

"Perry Miller, Roger Williams. His Contribu-tion to the American Tradition. New York, 1953.p. 257.

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