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Wide Eyed in Wonder <kands00@hotmail.com> wrote:
>:|For this religion in schools post, consider the words of Thomas
>:|Jefferson in this from the Minutes of the Board of Visitors,
>:|University of Virginia, 1822-1825 - a Report to the President and
>:|Directors of the Literary Fund.
>:|
>:|It was written by Thomas Jefferson as Rector of the meeting. Present
>:|in that meeting Thomas Jefferson (Rector), James Breckenridge, Joseph
>:|C Cabell, John H. ****e and James Madison.
>:|
>:|The summary, below, of the meeting shows them in agreement that
>:|religion should be taught on the campus alongside the other buildings.
>:|The students would have the right and ability to opt to be instructed
>:|in those buildings on campus. This is equal to the concept of
>:|teaching religion as an optional elective class. There would be no
>:|constitutional problem with that, according to these founders. Here
>:|is their words on it.
>:|
>:|Note, also, that Madison was present and in agreement with this
>:|conclusion of Jefferson.
>:|
>:| "In the same report of the commissioners of 1818. it was stated by
>:|them `that in conformity with the principles of our constitution,
>:|which place all Sects of religion on an equal footing, with the
>:|jealousies of the different Sects in guarding that equality from
>:|encroachment or surprise, and with the sentiments of the Legislature
>:|in favor of freedom of religion, manifested on former occasions, they
>:|had not proposed that any Professorship of Divinity should be
>:|established in the University; that pro vision however was made for
>:|giving instruction in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Languages, the
>:|depositories of the originals and of the earliest and most respected
>:|authorities of the faith of every Sect, and for courses of Ethical
>:|lectures, developing those moral obligations in which all sects agree.
>:|
>:|"That proceeding thus far, without offense to the constitution, they
>:|had left, at this point, to every sect to take into there own hands,
>:|the office of further instruction in the peculiar tenets of each.[']
>:|
>:|"It was not however to be understood that instruction in religious
>:|opinions and duties was meant to be precluded by the public
>:|authorities, as indifferent to the interests of Society. On the
>:|contrary, the relations which exist between man and his maker, and the
>:|duties resulting from those relations are the most interesting and
>:|important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study
>:|and investigation. The want of instruction in the various creeds of
>:|religious faith existing among our citizens presents therefore a chasm
>:|in the general institution of useful Sciences. ...Such an arrangement
>:|would complete the circle of useful Sciences embraced by this
>:|institution, and would fill up the chasm now existing on principles
>:|which would leave inviolate the constitutional freedom of religion,
>:|the most unalienable and Sacred of all human rights, over which the
>:|people and authorities of this State, individually and publicly, have
>:|ever manifested the most watchful jealousy: and could this jealousy be
>:|now alarmed, in the opinion of the legislature, by what is here
>:|suggested the idea will be relinquished on any surmise of
>:|disapprobation which they might think proper to express. "
>:|
>:|I want to draw attention to one section from above...again...
>:|
>:|"It was not however to be understood that instruction in religious
>:|opinions and duties was meant to be precluded by the public
>:|authorities, as indifferent to the interests of Society. On the
>:|contrary, the relations which exist between man and his maker, and the
>:|duties resulting from those relations are the most interesting and
>:|important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study
>:|and investigation."
>:|
>:|Even though Jefferson believed this to be a church-state issue (as
>:|seen above), he said religion must still be taught in the public
>:|square. This is directly contradictional to current day liberals that
>:|think a "liberal education" CANNOT be religious and think that the
>:|Bible MUST be removed from schools, a position Jefferson argued
>:|AGAINST here. Indeed, Jefferson, above, said the circle of useful
>:|sciences INCLUDES religion.
>:|
>:|Also, to head off an objection I see coming, whether YOU think
>:|religion at the college level is a church-state issue, Jefferson
>:|clearly DID. Thus, this gives a good overview of his application of
>:|that issue.
>:|
>:|Kenneth Clifton
>:|christiansuperhero.com
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Hide options Oct 20 2005, 9:17 am
Newsgroups: alt.politics.liberalism, alt.politics.usa.constitution,
alt.politics.usa.republican, alt.education, alt.religion.christian
From: buckeye-...@nospam.net
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 10:17:45 -0400
Local: Thurs, Oct 20 2005 9:17 am
Subject: Re: Let's break down wall between church, state
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"The Fool" <kand...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>:|
>:|buckeye-...@nospam.net wrote:
>:|> >:| Further, it
>:|> >:|should be noted, that a teacher would be sued for saying in their
>:|> >:|official capacity what Jefferson wrote here in this same letter in his
>:|> >:|official capacity.
>:|>
>:|> Further it should be noted
>:|> (1) Jefferson was totally against combining religion and schools
>:|>
>:|
>:|I posted this on the groups years ago, so it's time to bring it out
>:|again. Read and be educated, because your knowledge of Jefferson is
>:|obviously flawed...
>:|
FALSE
>:|
>:|
>:|Consider this from the Mintues of the Board of Visitors, University of
>:|Virginia, 1822-1825 - a Report to the President and Directors of the
>:|Literary Fund.
>:|
>:|It was WRITTEN BY Thomas Jefferson as Rector of the meeting. Also,
>:|present in that meeting Thomas Jefferson (Rector), James Breckenridge,
>:|Joseph C Cabell, John H. ****e and James Madison.
>:|
>:|The summary of the meeting shows them in agreement that religion
>:|should be taught on the campus alongside the other buildings. The
>:|students would have the right and ability to opt to be instructed in
>:|those buildings on campus. This is equal to the concept of teaching
>:|creationism as an optional elective class. There would be no
>:|constitutional problem with that, according to these founders. Here
>:|is their words on it.
>:|
Gee dude, You forgot to include the words
but here:
MY TURN
EVIDENCE
ITEM # 1
Thomas Jefferson supported Bible reading in school; this is proven
by his service as the first president of the Washington, D.C. public
schools, which used the Bible and Watt's Hymns as textbooks for reading.
(The aove is false as you will see from the following URL)
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/arg6.htm
ITEM # 2
Historical Data Against "Vouchers"
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/vouchist.htm
There is info at the above regarding UVA
ITEM # 3
JEFFERSON ON EDUCATION AND RELIGION:
A summation of Jefferson's views on education and religion by Leonard W.
Levy can be found at the following:
Jefferson, Religion, and the Public Schools.
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/jeffschl.htm
Jefferson, Religion, and the Public Schools.
This extract is taken from Leonard Levy's book, Jefferson and Civil
Liberties: The Darker Side, pp. 8 - 15, footnotes pp. 188 - 189.
Jefferson's consistency in applying the principle of the separation
of church and state was also evident in the field of education. It has been
contended that he advocated the use of public funds in Virginia for a
school of theology for the training of clergymen; that he approved of
elaborate arrangements for the students of private theological schools to
share the facilities of the University of Virginia; that he recommended
that a room in the university be used for worship; and that he did not
protest against the use by Virginia of tax monies on behalf of religious
education. It has been contended, in other words, that his principle of
total separation was not put into practice. (15)
In matters of education, however, Jefferson was a complete
secularist, never deviating in any significant degree. In 1778 he
submitted, in a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, a
comprehensive plan for public education at the primary and secondary
levels.(16) Religious instruction was completely absent from the proposed
curriculum at a time when it was a prominent feature in schools everywhere
else. The omission was deliberate; Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the
State of Virginia: "Instead therefore of putting the Bible and Testament
into the hands of the children, at an age when their judgments are not
sufficiently matured for religious enquiries, their memories may here be
stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European and
American history."(17) Religion was also conspicuous by its absence from
Jefferson's plan of 1817; his Bill for Establishing a System of Public
Education enumerated only secular subjects. In an effort to eliminate
possible religious influence in the public schools, Jefferson specified
that ministers should not serve as "visitors" or supervisors, and provided
that "no religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practised" in violation of the tenets of any sect or denomination.(18)
Clearly, Jefferson opposed the use of public funds for the teaching of
religion in the public schools.
Jefferson's first proposal on higher education came in 1779. His Bill
for the Amending of the Constitution of the College of William and Mary
stated that the college consisted of "one school of sacred theology, with
two professorships therein, to wit, one for teaching the Hebrew tongue, and
expounding the holy scriptures; and the other for explaining the
commonplaces of divinity, and controversies with heretics." There were six
other professorships divided among a school of philosophy, one of classical
languages, and another for teaching Indians reading, writing, and "the
catechism and the principles of the Christian religion." Jefferson proposed
to abolish both the school of theology with its professorships of religion
and the school for teaching Indians. In place of the school for Indians he
proposed that a missionary be selected by a newly constituted faculty who
would not teach religion but investigate Indian "laws, customs, religions,
traditions, and more particularly their languages." Jefferson's missionary
was to be an anthropologist charged with reporting his findings to the
faculty and preserving his reports in the college library. In place of the
school of theology and the professorships of religion, Jefferson proposed
simply a professorship "of moral philosophy" and another "of history, civil
and ecclesiastical."'(19)
Jefferson's proposed bill failed because of Episcopalian opposition.
However, in the same year, 1779, he and Madison as visitors of the college
instituted such changes as could be made by executive authority without
legislative approval. In 1821 he summarized the changes by writing: "When I
was a visitor, in 1779 I got the two professorships of Divinity ... put
down, and others of: law and police, of medicine, anatomy, and chemistry,
and of modern languages substituted."(20) A comparable statement appeared
in his Notes on the State of Virginia where he remarked that the school of
divinity was "excluded."(21)
Jefferson was never satisfied with the education offered by the
College of William and Mary. Failing to achieve adequate reform of the
college, he turned to the establishment of a new state university. He also
attempted in 1814 to transform Albemarle Academy, a small private school.
He wanted an enlarged institution, offering instruction from the primary
grades through college and post-graduate training, that would be supported
in part by public funds. At no point in the entire curriculum before the
professional level was there any provision for religious education.
However, one of the "professional schools" was to be devoted to "Theology
and Ecclesiastical History," to which would come the "ecclesiastic" as
would the "lawyer to the school of law."(22) Here is an inconsistency,
indicating Jefferson's support of the use of tax monies on behalf of
religious education, although only at the graduate level. It is not
irrelevant to stress, however, that Albemarle was privately established and
endowed, though it was to be aided by public funds. More to the point is
the fact that never again, after the failure of this proposal, did
Jefferson renew it.
In 1818, for instance, his academic plan for the newly authorized
state university included ten professorships and thirty-four subjects, none
of them relating to religion. This curriculum, which was adopted, was laid
out in a report, written by Jefferson as chairman of the commissioners for
the University of Virginia, which stated: "In conformity with the
principles of our Constitution, which places all sects of religion on an
equal footing... we have proposed no professor of divinity ... Proceeding
thus far without offence to the Constitution, we have thought it proper at
this point to leave every sect to provide, as they think fittest, the means
of further instruction in their own peculiar tenets." The report also
stated: "It is supposed probable, that a building ... may be called for in
time, in which may be rooms for religious worship ... for public
examinations, for a library."(23) The very conditional phrasing of this
sentence suggests that Jefferson was seeking to fend off an anticipated
barrage of criticism against the university as a "godless" institution. In
fact he was under constant pressure from church groups to make suitable
provision for theological training and religious worship at the university.
The "supposed probable" room which might in time be a place for worship was
a concession to those, who, as Jefferson reported in a letter to Dr. Thomas
Cooper, used the absence of a professorship of divinity to spread the idea
that the university was "not merely of no religion, but against all
religion."(24)
Opposition to the secular character of the university resulted in a
postponement of instruction, forcing additional concessions to religious
interests. In 1822 Jeffer- son, as rector of the university, and the Board
of Visitors, among them Madison, proposed in the most reluctant language to
accept a suggestion "by some pious individuals... to establish their
religious schools on the confines of the University, so as to give their
students ready and convenient access and attendance on the scientific
lectures of the University." This report noted also that the religious
schools would offer places where regular students of the university could
worship as each other." The report concluded that 'if the legislature
questioned "what here is suggested, the idea will be relinquished on any
surmise of disapprobation which they might think proper to express."(25)
The legislature did not, however, take the eager hint to scrap the plan
which involved no public expense.
Jefferson explained that in order to silence the calumny that the
university was atheistic, "In our annual report to the legislature, after
stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any
religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the
different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of
their own tenets, on the confines of the University.'(26) In 1824, shortly
before the first classes, Jefferson and the Board of Visitors adopted
formal regulations which provided that the "religious sects of this State"
might "establish within, or adjacent to, the precincts of the University,
schools for instruction in the religion of their own sect." Students of the
university were "free, and expected to attend religious worship" at the
"establishment" of their choice on condition that they did so in the
mornings before classes, which began at 7:30 A.M. The same regulations also
provided for the use of one of the university's rooms for worship as well
as for other purposes, although the students were enjoined by the
regulation of the previous paragraph to attend services in the theological
seminaries surrounding the university."(27)
No part of the regular school day was set aside for religious
worship. Possibly the proposal that a room belonging to the university be
used for worship was intended originally as a makeshift arrangement until
the various sects established their own schools of theology. None in fact
did so for several decades, and Jefferson did not permit the room belonging
to the university to be used for religious purposes. In 1825 he rejected a
proposal to hold Sunday services on university property. The Board of
Visitors, he wrote, had already turned down an application to permit a
sermon to be preached in one of the rooms on the ground that "the buildings
of the Univ. belong to the state, that they were erected for the purposes
of an Univ., and that the Visitors, to whose care they are commd [commanded
or committed] for those purposes, have no right to permit their application
to any other." His position was that the legislature had failed to sanction
a proposal to use university facilities for worship and that, consequently,
an alternative plan had been adopted "superseding the Ist idea of
permitting a room in the Rotunda to be used for religious worship."(28) The
alternative plan was the one permitting the different sects to establish
their own divinity schools, without public aid, independently of the
university. The university did not even appoint a chaplain while Jefferson
was its rector. "At a time when, in most colleges and universities of the
country, ministers were presidents and common members of boards of control,
daily chapel attendance was compulsory, courses in religion were required,
and professors of theology and doctors of divinity had a prominent place on
the faculties, the University of Virginia stood out sharply in contrast
with its loyalty to the principle of separation of church and state."(29)
Jefferson cared very deeply about religious liberty. Diligent study
and thought had given him a systematic theory, the most advanced of his
age, and he put it into practice. His position was clearly defined,
publicly stated, and vigorously defended. Although it exposed him to
abusive criticism he carried on his fight for separation of church and
state, and for the free exercise of religion, throughout his long public
career without significant contradictions. In sum his thought on religious
liberty was profoundly libertarian, and his actions suited his thought.
------------
l3. Edward S. Corwin, "The Supreme Court as National School Board,"
Law and Contemporary Problems, 14:14 (Winter 1949).
14. Jefferron to Levi Lincoln, Jan. 1, 1802, in Lipscomb. X, 305.
15. See, for example, O'Neill, pp. 76-77, 205-206.
16. Boyd, II, 526-535.
17. Notes on Virginia, ed. by Peden, p. 147.
18. Lipscomb, XVII, 425.
19. Boyd, II, 535-542.
20. Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, Feb. 22, 1811, in Nathaniel F.
Cabell, ed., Early History of the University of Virginia (Richmond, 1856),
p. 207.
21. Notes on Virginia, ed. by Peden, p. 151.
22. Jefferson to Peter Carr, Sept. 7, 1814, in Lipscomb, XIX,
211-221. See also Roy J. Honeywell, The Educational Work of Thomas
Jefferson (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), pp. '5-'6. 39-42; the letter to Carr is
reprinted in Appendix E.
23. "Report of the Commissioners appointed to fix the site of the
University of Virginia," in Honeywell, Educational Work of Jefferson,
Appendix J, pp. 256, 249.
24. Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, Nov. 2, 1822. in Lipscomb, XV, 405.
25. Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia,
Oct. 7, 1822, in ibid., XIX. 414-416.
26. Jefferson to Cooper, Nov. 2, 1822, in ibid., XV, 405
27. Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia,
Oct. 4, 1824, in ibid., XIX, 449.
28. Jefferson to A. S. Brockenbrough, April 21. 1825, quoted in R.
Freeman Butts, The American Tradition in Religion and Education (Boston.
1950), p. 129, citing Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, vol. 229, fol.
40962.
29. Ibid., 130.
ITEM # 4
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.christian/msg/9b4fdcbcf4a...
Your shorter link is: http://makeashorterlink.com/?V5603640C
buckeye-...@nospam.net Oct 9, 11:28 am
Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian, alt.politics.democrats.d,
alt.politics.usa.constitution, alt.politics.liberalism,
alt.society.liberalism, alt.education, alt.atheism
From: buckeye-...@nospam.net - Find messages by this author
Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 11:28:25 -0400
Local: Sun, Oct 9 2005 11:28 am
Subject: Re: Keep religious theory out of class
"fred" <clar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>:|
>:|buckeye-...@nospam.net wrote:
>:|> "fred" <clar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>:|>
>:|> >:|buckeye-...@nospam.net wrote:
>:|> >:|> http://ydr.com/story/op-ed/87727/
>:|> >:|>
>:|> >:|> Keep religious theory out of class
>:|> >:|> THE REV. BARRY W. LYNN
>:|> >:|> Sunday, October 2, 2005
>:|> >:|>
>:|> >:|>
>:|> >:|> "Intelligent design" should not be taught in public school science classes
>:|> >:|> because it violates the Constitution, undercuts America's commitment to
>:|> >:|> diversity and jeopardizes our children's future.
>:|> >:|
>:|> >:|Beware of generalizations like "because it violates the Constitution".
>:|> >:|This bottom line is that people who attack our freedom of religious
>:|> >:|expression often can't point to anything specific in the Constitution
>:|> >:|to prove that the Constitution is being violated. They have to resort
>:|> >:|to strawman generalizations to pull the wool over everybody's eyes.
>:|> >:|
>:|> >:|The bottom line is that an examination of the 1st, 10th and 14th
>:|> >:|Amendments will show you that the 14th Amendment prohibits the states
>:|> >:|from using their power to legislate religion to abridge our personal
>:|> >:|federal rights as US citizens. So the states do have the
>:|> >:|constitutional power to authorize public schools to lead classroom
>:|> >:|discussions on issues like the pros and cons of evolution, creationism
>:|> >:|and irreducible complexity, for example. However, I disagree with
>:|> >:|Jefferson that religion classes should be mandatory:
>:|>
>:|> LOL, Jefferson believed the opposite. You just got exposed again for your
>:|> dishonesty
>:|
>:|If you are talking about the line below which starts with, "No
>:|religious reading," then please read in carefully. Jefferson is not
>:|saying that religion cannot be taught in schools.
No troll I am talking about Jefferson's over all views about education and
religion
You know. all fhe the following you didn't bother to look over.
BTW, since you singled this one out let me do it first:
This was a reply to Barclay but will work here since you and him are clones
of each other basically:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ahem, he meant exactly what he said.
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of
any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary
School Act, 1817. ME 17:425
QUERY XIV
The Administration of Justice and the Description of the
Laws?
To establish religious freedom on the broadest bottom.
[pp 236-237]
[EMPHASIS ADDED]
Another object of the revisal is to diffuse knowledge more
generally through the mass of the people. . . The first stage of this
education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass of the
people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations of future
order will be laid here. INSTEAD, THEREFORE, OF PUTTING THE
BIBLE AND TESTAMENT INTO THE HANDS OF THE CHILDREN AT
AN AGE WHEN THEIR JUDGMENTS ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY
MATURED FOR RELIGIOUS INQUIRIES, THEIR MEMORIES MAY
HERE BE STORED WITH THE MOST USEFUL FACTS FROM
GRECIAN, ROMAN, EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN HISTORY. . .
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. The Life and
Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Adrienne Koch and William
Peden. Random House, New York, (1993) pp 243-246)
[babclay said ]
>So much for your claims that you follow proper historical methodology. It
>is NOT proper historical methodology to completely ignore the primary
>source material that is most immediately applicable to a particular issue
>and focus entirely on less directly >applicable material.
Hehehehehehe Nice try but no cigar.
The two quotes above are PRIMARY SOURCE
This quote
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of
any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary
School Act, 1817. ME 17:425
which is also pron]mary source requires a certain understanding of the
period (known today as the history of the period)
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or
denomination. "
There were approx 20 religions, sects, denomination etc at that time.
perhaps that many, perhaps not that many in Virginia. However, it might be
beyond your comprehension today, but those religions, sects, denominations
did not get along. People were put in jail deprived of their civil rights,
banned etc for being a member of the "wrong" religion, sect or
denomination.
THERE COULD HAVE BEEN NO RELIGIOUS READING, INSTRUCTION
OR EXERCISE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN PRESCRIBED OR PRACTICED
THAT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN INCONSISTENT WITH SOME RELIGION, SECT OR
DENOMINATION THAT EXISTED AT THAT TIME. Thus under his Elementary
School Act, 1817. there could have been "No religious reading, instruction
or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced. . . " in any elementary
school.
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of
any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary
School Act, 1817. ME 17:425
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUERY XIV
The Administration of Justice and the Description of the
Laws?
To establish religious freedom on the broadest bottom.
[pp 236-237]
[EMPHASIS ADDED]
Another object of the revisal is to diffuse knowledge more
generally through the mass of the people. . . The first stage of this
education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass of the
people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations of future
order will be laid here. INSTEAD, THEREFORE, OF PUTTING THE
BIBLE AND TESTAMENT INTO THE HANDS OF THE CHILDREN AT
AN AGE WHEN THEIR JUDGMENTS ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY
MATURED FOR RELIGIOUS INQUIRIES, THEIR MEMORIES MAY
HERE BE STORED WITH THE MOST USEFUL FACTS FROM
GRECIAN, ROMAN, EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN HISTORY. . .
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. The Life and
Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Adrienne Koch and William
Peden. Random House, New York, (1993) pp 243-246)
[barclay said]
>:|Keep in mind that in between Jefferson's 1778 proposal and his 1817
>:|proposal, almost forty years had passed. He was in his 30's when he wrote
>:|the former proposal, and in his 70's at the time of the second. People's
>:|thinking can change during that much time, both in their principles and,
>:|probably more importantly in Jefferson's case here, in their willingness to
>:|compromise in order to get at least some of what they want. Historians and
>:|would-be historians have to allow for that possibility.
Ahem, 1781-82
QUERY XIV
The Administration of Justice and the Description of the
Laws?
To establish religious freedom on the broadest bottom.
[pp 236-237]
[EMPHASIS ADDED]
Another object of the revisal is to diffuse knowledge more
generally through the mass of the people. . . The first stage of this
education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass of the
people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations of future
order will be laid here. INSTEAD, THEREFORE, OF PUTTING THE
BIBLE AND TESTAMENT INTO THE HANDS OF THE CHILDREN AT
AN AGE WHEN THEIR JUDGMENTS ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY
MATURED FOR RELIGIOUS INQUIRIES, THEIR MEMORIES MAY
HERE BE STORED WITH THE MOST USEFUL FACTS FROM
GRECIAN, ROMAN, EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN HISTORY. . .
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1817
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of
any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary
School Act, 1817.
Both are saying the same thing.
now all the rest you didn't feel like addressing:
Religion Intermeddling in Government
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1650.htm
"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their
congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical
affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or
conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving
their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and
giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would
rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science."
--Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281
"Ministers of the Gospel are excluded [from serving as Visitors of the
county Elementary Schools] to avoid jealousy from the other sects, were
the public education committed to the ministers of a particular one; and
with more reason than in the case of their exclusion from the legislative
and executive functions." --Thomas Jefferson: Note to Elementary School
Act, 1817. ME 17:419
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any
religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School
Act, 1817. ME 17:425
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
Jefferson founded his unique vision of education at the University of
Virginia, then one of the first universities in the world to completely
separate higher learning from religious doctrine.
EDUCATION - HISTORY-U.S.
Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government
40. Publicly Supported Education
Jefferson developed an elaborate plan for making education
available to every citizen, and for providing a complete education through
university for talented youths who were unable to afford it. He considered
his most important accomplishment, after Author of the Declaration of
Independence and the Statute for Religious Freedom, to have been the
father of the University of Virginia.
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1370.htm
Thomas Jefferson and Education, By Son H. Mai
http://clioseye.sfasu.edu/jefferson/education.htm
Thomas Jefferson and the Education of a Citizen. Edited By James Gilreath.
Library of Congress, (1999)
>:|> >:|"Thus we have teachers of languages, teachers of mathematics, of
>:|> >:|natural philosophy, of chemistry, of medicine, of law, of history, of
>:|> >:|government, etc. Religion, too, is a separate department, and happens
>:|> >:|to be the only one deemed requisite for all men, however high or low."
>:|> >:|--Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815.
>:|>
BTW, the above isn't properly cited.
University of Virginia was charted in 1819, thus if you are trying to pass
off the above letter as how he had set up UVA, you are incorrect and
dishonest.
The entire letter can be read below
Thomas Jefferson: The Sphere of Religion
Primary Source Document
http://www.britannica.com/presidents/article-9116916
Religion In The Public Schools: A Joint Statement Of Current Law
http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/04-1995/prayer.html
Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS
>:|For this religion in schools post, consider the words of Thomas
>:|Jefferson in this from the Minutes of the Board of Visitors,
>:|University of Virginia, 1822-1825 - a Report to the President and
>:|Directors of the Literary Fund.
>:|
>:|It was written by Thomas Jefferson as Rector of the meeting. Present
>:|in that meeting Thomas Jefferson (Rector), James Breckenridge, Joseph
>:|C Cabell, John H. ****e and James Madison.
>:|
>:|The summary, below, of the meeting shows them in agreement that
>:|religion should be taught on the campus alongside the other buildings.
>:|The students would have the right and ability to opt to be instructed
>:|in those buildings on campus. This is equal to the concept of
>:|teaching religion as an optional elective class. There would be no
>:|constitutional problem with that, according to these founders. Here
>:|is their words on it.
>:|
>:|Note, also, that Madison was present and in agreement with this
>:|conclusion of Jefferson.
>:|
>:| "In the same report of the commissioners of 1818. it was stated by
>:|them `that in conformity with the principles of our constitution,
>:|which place all Sects of religion on an equal footing, with the
>:|jealousies of the different Sects in guarding that equality from
>:|encroachment or surprise, and with the sentiments of the Legislature
>:|in favor of freedom of religion, manifested on former occasions, they
>:|had not proposed that any Professorship of Divinity should be
>:|established in the University; that pro vision however was made for
>:|giving instruction in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Languages, the
>:|depositories of the originals and of the earliest and most respected
>:|authorities of the faith of every Sect, and for courses of Ethical
>:|lectures, developing those moral obligations in which all sects agree.
>:|
>:|"That proceeding thus far, without offense to the constitution, they
>:|had left, at this point, to every sect to take into there own hands,
>:|the office of further instruction in the peculiar tenets of each.[']
>:|
>:|"It was not however to be understood that instruction in religious
>:|opinions and duties was meant to be precluded by the public
>:|authorities, as indifferent to the interests of Society. On the
>:|contrary, the relations which exist between man and his maker, and the
>:|duties resulting from those relations are the most interesting and
>:|important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study
>:|and investigation. The want of instruction in the various creeds of
>:|religious faith existing among our citizens presents therefore a chasm
>:|in the general institution of useful Sciences. ...Such an arrangement
>:|would complete the circle of useful Sciences embraced by this
>:|institution, and would fill up the chasm now existing on principles
>:|which would leave inviolate the constitutional freedom of religion,
>:|the most unalienable and Sacred of all human rights, over which the
>:|people and authorities of this State, individually and publicly, have
>:|ever manifested the most watchful jealousy: and could this jealousy be
>:|now alarmed, in the opinion of the legislature, by what is here
>:|suggested the idea will be relinquished on any surmise of
>:|disapprobation which they might think proper to express. "
>:|
>:|I want to draw attention to one section from above...again...
>:|
>:|"It was not however to be understood that instruction in religious
>:|opinions and duties was meant to be precluded by the public
>:|authorities, as indifferent to the interests of Society. On the
>:|contrary, the relations which exist between man and his maker, and the
>:|duties resulting from those relations are the most interesting and
>:|important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study
>:|and investigation."
>:|
>:|Even though Jefferson believed this to be a church-state issue (as
>:|seen above), he said religion must still be taught in the public
>:|square. This is directly contradictional to current day liberals that
>:|think a "liberal education" CANNOT be religious and think that the
>:|Bible MUST be removed from schools, a position Jefferson argued
>:|AGAINST here. Indeed, Jefferson, above, said the circle of useful
>:|sciences INCLUDES religion.
>:|
>:|Also, to head off an objection I see coming, whether YOU think
>:|religion at the college level is a church-state issue, Jefferson
>:|clearly DID. Thus, this gives a good overview of his application of
>:|that issue.
>:|
>:|Kenneth Clifton
>:|christiansuperhero.com
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Hide options Oct 20 2005, 9:17 am
Newsgroups: alt.politics.liberalism, alt.politics.usa.constitution,
alt.politics.usa.republican, alt.education, alt.religion.christian
From: buckeye-...@nospam.net
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 10:17:45 -0400
Local: Thurs, Oct 20 2005 9:17 am
Subject: Re: Let's break down wall between church, state
Reply to author | Forward | Print | View thread | Show original | Report
this message | Find messages by this author
"The Fool" <kand...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>:|
>:|buckeye-...@nospam.net wrote:
>:|> >:| Further, it
>:|> >:|should be noted, that a teacher would be sued for saying in their
>:|> >:|official capacity what Jefferson wrote here in this same letter in his
>:|> >:|official capacity.
>:|>
>:|> Further it should be noted
>:|> (1) Jefferson was totally against combining religion and schools
>:|>
>:|
>:|I posted this on the groups years ago, so it's time to bring it out
>:|again. Read and be educated, because your knowledge of Jefferson is
>:|obviously flawed...
>:|
FALSE
>:|
>:|
>:|Consider this from the Mintues of the Board of Visitors, University of
>:|Virginia, 1822-1825 - a Report to the President and Directors of the
>:|Literary Fund.
>:|
>:|It was WRITTEN BY Thomas Jefferson as Rector of the meeting. Also,
>:|present in that meeting Thomas Jefferson (Rector), James Breckenridge,
>:|Joseph C Cabell, John H. ****e and James Madison.
>:|
>:|The summary of the meeting shows them in agreement that religion
>:|should be taught on the campus alongside the other buildings. The
>:|students would have the right and ability to opt to be instructed in
>:|those buildings on campus. This is equal to the concept of teaching
>:|creationism as an optional elective class. There would be no
>:|constitutional problem with that, according to these founders. Here
>:|is their words on it.
>:|
Gee dude, You forgot to include the words
but here:
MY TURN
EVIDENCE
ITEM # 1
Thomas Jefferson supported Bible reading in school; this is proven
by his service as the first president of the Washington, D.C. public
schools, which used the Bible and Watt's Hymns as textbooks for reading.
(The aove is false as you will see from the following URL)
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/arg6.htm
ITEM # 2
Historical Data Against "Vouchers"
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/vouchist.htm
There is info at the above regarding UVA
ITEM # 3
JEFFERSON ON EDUCATION AND RELIGION:
A summation of Jefferson's views on education and religion by Leonard W.
Levy can be found at the following:
Jefferson, Religion, and the Public Schools.
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/jeffschl.htm
Jefferson, Religion, and the Public Schools.
This extract is taken from Leonard Levy's book, Jefferson and Civil
Liberties: The Darker Side, pp. 8 - 15, footnotes pp. 188 - 189.
Jefferson's consistency in applying the principle of the separation
of church and state was also evident in the field of education. It has been
contended that he advocated the use of public funds in Virginia for a
school of theology for the training of clergymen; that he approved of
elaborate arrangements for the students of private theological schools to
share the facilities of the University of Virginia; that he recommended
that a room in the university be used for worship; and that he did not
protest against the use by Virginia of tax monies on behalf of religious
education. It has been contended, in other words, that his principle of
total separation was not put into practice. (15)
In matters of education, however, Jefferson was a complete
secularist, never deviating in any significant degree. In 1778 he
submitted, in a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, a
comprehensive plan for public education at the primary and secondary
levels.(16) Religious instruction was completely absent from the proposed
curriculum at a time when it was a prominent feature in schools everywhere
else. The omission was deliberate; Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the
State of Virginia: "Instead therefore of putting the Bible and Testament
into the hands of the children, at an age when their judgments are not
sufficiently matured for religious enquiries, their memories may here be
stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European and
American history."(17) Religion was also conspicuous by its absence from
Jefferson's plan of 1817; his Bill for Establishing a System of Public
Education enumerated only secular subjects. In an effort to eliminate
possible religious influence in the public schools, Jefferson specified
that ministers should not serve as "visitors" or supervisors, and provided
that "no religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practised" in violation of the tenets of any sect or denomination.(18)
Clearly, Jefferson opposed the use of public funds for the teaching of
religion in the public schools.
Jefferson's first proposal on higher education came in 1779. His Bill
for the Amending of the Constitution of the College of William and Mary
stated that the college consisted of "one school of sacred theology, with
two professorships therein, to wit, one for teaching the Hebrew tongue, and
expounding the holy scriptures; and the other for explaining the
commonplaces of divinity, and controversies with heretics." There were six
other professorships divided among a school of philosophy, one of classical
languages, and another for teaching Indians reading, writing, and "the
catechism and the principles of the Christian religion." Jefferson proposed
to abolish both the school of theology with its professorships of religion
and the school for teaching Indians. In place of the school for Indians he
proposed that a missionary be selected by a newly constituted faculty who
would not teach religion but investigate Indian "laws, customs, religions,
traditions, and more particularly their languages." Jefferson's missionary
was to be an anthropologist charged with reporting his findings to the
faculty and preserving his reports in the college library. In place of the
school of theology and the professorships of religion, Jefferson proposed
simply a professorship "of moral philosophy" and another "of history, civil
and ecclesiastical."'(19)
Jefferson's proposed bill failed because of Episcopalian opposition.
However, in the same year, 1779, he and Madison as visitors of the college
instituted such changes as could be made by executive authority without
legislative approval. In 1821 he summarized the changes by writing: "When I
was a visitor, in 1779 I got the two professorships of Divinity ... put
down, and others of: law and police, of medicine, anatomy, and chemistry,
and of modern languages substituted."(20) A comparable statement appeared
in his Notes on the State of Virginia where he remarked that the school of
divinity was "excluded."(21)
Jefferson was never satisfied with the education offered by the
College of William and Mary. Failing to achieve adequate reform of the
college, he turned to the establishment of a new state university. He also
attempted in 1814 to transform Albemarle Academy, a small private school.
He wanted an enlarged institution, offering instruction from the primary
grades through college and post-graduate training, that would be supported
in part by public funds. At no point in the entire curriculum before the
professional level was there any provision for religious education.
However, one of the "professional schools" was to be devoted to "Theology
and Ecclesiastical History," to which would come the "ecclesiastic" as
would the "lawyer to the school of law."(22) Here is an inconsistency,
indicating Jefferson's support of the use of tax monies on behalf of
religious education, although only at the graduate level. It is not
irrelevant to stress, however, that Albemarle was privately established and
endowed, though it was to be aided by public funds. More to the point is
the fact that never again, after the failure of this proposal, did
Jefferson renew it.
In 1818, for instance, his academic plan for the newly authorized
state university included ten professorships and thirty-four subjects, none
of them relating to religion. This curriculum, which was adopted, was laid
out in a report, written by Jefferson as chairman of the commissioners for
the University of Virginia, which stated: "In conformity with the
principles of our Constitution, which places all sects of religion on an
equal footing... we have proposed no professor of divinity ... Proceeding
thus far without offence to the Constitution, we have thought it proper at
this point to leave every sect to provide, as they think fittest, the means
of further instruction in their own peculiar tenets." The report also
stated: "It is supposed probable, that a building ... may be called for in
time, in which may be rooms for religious worship ... for public
examinations, for a library."(23) The very conditional phrasing of this
sentence suggests that Jefferson was seeking to fend off an anticipated
barrage of criticism against the university as a "godless" institution. In
fact he was under constant pressure from church groups to make suitable
provision for theological training and religious worship at the university.
The "supposed probable" room which might in time be a place for worship was
a concession to those, who, as Jefferson reported in a letter to Dr. Thomas
Cooper, used the absence of a professorship of divinity to spread the idea
that the university was "not merely of no religion, but against all
religion."(24)
Opposition to the secular character of the university resulted in a
postponement of instruction, forcing additional concessions to religious
interests. In 1822 Jeffer- son, as rector of the university, and the Board
of Visitors, among them Madison, proposed in the most reluctant language to
accept a suggestion "by some pious individuals... to establish their
religious schools on the confines of the University, so as to give their
students ready and convenient access and attendance on the scientific
lectures of the University." This report noted also that the religious
schools would offer places where regular students of the university could
worship as each other." The report concluded that 'if the legislature
questioned "what here is suggested, the idea will be relinquished on any
surmise of disapprobation which they might think proper to express."(25)
The legislature did not, however, take the eager hint to scrap the plan
which involved no public expense.
Jefferson explained that in order to silence the calumny that the
university was atheistic, "In our annual report to the legislature, after
stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any
religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the
different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of
their own tenets, on the confines of the University.'(26) In 1824, shortly
before the first classes, Jefferson and the Board of Visitors adopted
formal regulations which provided that the "religious sects of this State"
might "establish within, or adjacent to, the precincts of the University,
schools for instruction in the religion of their own sect." Students of the
university were "free, and expected to attend religious worship" at the
"establishment" of their choice on condition that they did so in the
mornings before classes, which began at 7:30 A.M. The same regulations also
provided for the use of one of the university's rooms for worship as well
as for other purposes, although the students were enjoined by the
regulation of the previous paragraph to attend services in the theological
seminaries surrounding the university."(27)
No part of the regular school day was set aside for religious
worship. Possibly the proposal that a room belonging to the university be
used for worship was intended originally as a makeshift arrangement until
the various sects established their own schools of theology. None in fact
did so for several decades, and Jefferson did not permit the room belonging
to the university to be used for religious purposes. In 1825 he rejected a
proposal to hold Sunday services on university property. The Board of
Visitors, he wrote, had already turned down an application to permit a
sermon to be preached in one of the rooms on the ground that "the buildings
of the Univ. belong to the state, that they were erected for the purposes
of an Univ., and that the Visitors, to whose care they are commd [commanded
or committed] for those purposes, have no right to permit their application
to any other." His position was that the legislature had failed to sanction
a proposal to use university facilities for worship and that, consequently,
an alternative plan had been adopted "superseding the Ist idea of
permitting a room in the Rotunda to be used for religious worship."(28) The
alternative plan was the one permitting the different sects to establish
their own divinity schools, without public aid, independently of the
university. The university did not even appoint a chaplain while Jefferson
was its rector. "At a time when, in most colleges and universities of the
country, ministers were presidents and common members of boards of control,
daily chapel attendance was compulsory, courses in religion were required,
and professors of theology and doctors of divinity had a prominent place on
the faculties, the University of Virginia stood out sharply in contrast
with its loyalty to the principle of separation of church and state."(29)
Jefferson cared very deeply about religious liberty. Diligent study
and thought had given him a systematic theory, the most advanced of his
age, and he put it into practice. His position was clearly defined,
publicly stated, and vigorously defended. Although it exposed him to
abusive criticism he carried on his fight for separation of church and
state, and for the free exercise of religion, throughout his long public
career without significant contradictions. In sum his thought on religious
liberty was profoundly libertarian, and his actions suited his thought.
------------
l3. Edward S. Corwin, "The Supreme Court as National School Board,"
Law and Contemporary Problems, 14:14 (Winter 1949).
14. Jefferron to Levi Lincoln, Jan. 1, 1802, in Lipscomb. X, 305.
15. See, for example, O'Neill, pp. 76-77, 205-206.
16. Boyd, II, 526-535.
17. Notes on Virginia, ed. by Peden, p. 147.
18. Lipscomb, XVII, 425.
19. Boyd, II, 535-542.
20. Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, Feb. 22, 1811, in Nathaniel F.
Cabell, ed., Early History of the University of Virginia (Richmond, 1856),
p. 207.
21. Notes on Virginia, ed. by Peden, p. 151.
22. Jefferson to Peter Carr, Sept. 7, 1814, in Lipscomb, XIX,
211-221. See also Roy J. Honeywell, The Educational Work of Thomas
Jefferson (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), pp. '5-'6. 39-42; the letter to Carr is
reprinted in Appendix E.
23. "Report of the Commissioners appointed to fix the site of the
University of Virginia," in Honeywell, Educational Work of Jefferson,
Appendix J, pp. 256, 249.
24. Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, Nov. 2, 1822. in Lipscomb, XV, 405.
25. Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia,
Oct. 7, 1822, in ibid., XIX. 414-416.
26. Jefferson to Cooper, Nov. 2, 1822, in ibid., XV, 405
27. Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia,
Oct. 4, 1824, in ibid., XIX, 449.
28. Jefferson to A. S. Brockenbrough, April 21. 1825, quoted in R.
Freeman Butts, The American Tradition in Religion and Education (Boston.
1950), p. 129, citing Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, vol. 229, fol.
40962.
29. Ibid., 130.
ITEM # 4
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.christian/msg/9b4fdcbcf4a...
Your shorter link is: http://makeashorterlink.com/?V5603640C
buckeye-...@nospam.net Oct 9, 11:28 am
Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian, alt.politics.democrats.d,
alt.politics.usa.constitution, alt.politics.liberalism,
alt.society.liberalism, alt.education, alt.atheism
From: buckeye-...@nospam.net - Find messages by this author
Date: Sun, 09 Oct 2005 11:28:25 -0400
Local: Sun, Oct 9 2005 11:28 am
Subject: Re: Keep religious theory out of class
"fred" <clar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>:|
>:|buckeye-...@nospam.net wrote:
>:|> "fred" <clar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>:|>
>:|> >:|buckeye-...@nospam.net wrote:
>:|> >:|> http://ydr.com/story/op-ed/87727/
>:|> >:|>
>:|> >:|> Keep religious theory out of class
>:|> >:|> THE REV. BARRY W. LYNN
>:|> >:|> Sunday, October 2, 2005
>:|> >:|>
>:|> >:|>
>:|> >:|> "Intelligent design" should not be taught in public school science classes
>:|> >:|> because it violates the Constitution, undercuts America's commitment to
>:|> >:|> diversity and jeopardizes our children's future.
>:|> >:|
>:|> >:|Beware of generalizations like "because it violates the Constitution".
>:|> >:|This bottom line is that people who attack our freedom of religious
>:|> >:|expression often can't point to anything specific in the Constitution
>:|> >:|to prove that the Constitution is being violated. They have to resort
>:|> >:|to strawman generalizations to pull the wool over everybody's eyes.
>:|> >:|
>:|> >:|The bottom line is that an examination of the 1st, 10th and 14th
>:|> >:|Amendments will show you that the 14th Amendment prohibits the states
>:|> >:|from using their power to legislate religion to abridge our personal
>:|> >:|federal rights as US citizens. So the states do have the
>:|> >:|constitutional power to authorize public schools to lead classroom
>:|> >:|discussions on issues like the pros and cons of evolution, creationism
>:|> >:|and irreducible complexity, for example. However, I disagree with
>:|> >:|Jefferson that religion classes should be mandatory:
>:|>
>:|> LOL, Jefferson believed the opposite. You just got exposed again for your
>:|> dishonesty
>:|
>:|If you are talking about the line below which starts with, "No
>:|religious reading," then please read in carefully. Jefferson is not
>:|saying that religion cannot be taught in schools.
No troll I am talking about Jefferson's over all views about education and
religion
You know. all fhe the following you didn't bother to look over.
BTW, since you singled this one out let me do it first:
This was a reply to Barclay but will work here since you and him are clones
of each other basically:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ahem, he meant exactly what he said.
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of
any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary
School Act, 1817. ME 17:425
QUERY XIV
The Administration of Justice and the Description of the
Laws?
To establish religious freedom on the broadest bottom.
[pp 236-237]
[EMPHASIS ADDED]
Another object of the revisal is to diffuse knowledge more
generally through the mass of the people. . . The first stage of this
education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass of the
people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations of future
order will be laid here. INSTEAD, THEREFORE, OF PUTTING THE
BIBLE AND TESTAMENT INTO THE HANDS OF THE CHILDREN AT
AN AGE WHEN THEIR JUDGMENTS ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY
MATURED FOR RELIGIOUS INQUIRIES, THEIR MEMORIES MAY
HERE BE STORED WITH THE MOST USEFUL FACTS FROM
GRECIAN, ROMAN, EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN HISTORY. . .
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. The Life and
Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Adrienne Koch and William
Peden. Random House, New York, (1993) pp 243-246)
[babclay said ]
>So much for your claims that you follow proper historical methodology. It
>is NOT proper historical methodology to completely ignore the primary
>source material that is most immediately applicable to a particular issue
>and focus entirely on less directly >applicable material.
Hehehehehehe Nice try but no cigar.
The two quotes above are PRIMARY SOURCE
This quote
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of
any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary
School Act, 1817. ME 17:425
which is also pron]mary source requires a certain understanding of the
period (known today as the history of the period)
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or
denomination. "
There were approx 20 religions, sects, denomination etc at that time.
perhaps that many, perhaps not that many in Virginia. However, it might be
beyond your comprehension today, but those religions, sects, denominations
did not get along. People were put in jail deprived of their civil rights,
banned etc for being a member of the "wrong" religion, sect or
denomination.
THERE COULD HAVE BEEN NO RELIGIOUS READING, INSTRUCTION
OR EXERCISE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN PRESCRIBED OR PRACTICED
THAT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN INCONSISTENT WITH SOME RELIGION, SECT OR
DENOMINATION THAT EXISTED AT THAT TIME. Thus under his Elementary
School Act, 1817. there could have been "No religious reading, instruction
or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced. . . " in any elementary
school.
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of
any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary
School Act, 1817. ME 17:425
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUERY XIV
The Administration of Justice and the Description of the
Laws?
To establish religious freedom on the broadest bottom.
[pp 236-237]
[EMPHASIS ADDED]
Another object of the revisal is to diffuse knowledge more
generally through the mass of the people. . . The first stage of this
education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass of the
people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations of future
order will be laid here. INSTEAD, THEREFORE, OF PUTTING THE
BIBLE AND TESTAMENT INTO THE HANDS OF THE CHILDREN AT
AN AGE WHEN THEIR JUDGMENTS ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY
MATURED FOR RELIGIOUS INQUIRIES, THEIR MEMORIES MAY
HERE BE STORED WITH THE MOST USEFUL FACTS FROM
GRECIAN, ROMAN, EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN HISTORY. . .
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. The Life and
Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Adrienne Koch and William
Peden. Random House, New York, (1993) pp 243-246)
[barclay said]
>:|Keep in mind that in between Jefferson's 1778 proposal and his 1817
>:|proposal, almost forty years had passed. He was in his 30's when he wrote
>:|the former proposal, and in his 70's at the time of the second. People's
>:|thinking can change during that much time, both in their principles and,
>:|probably more importantly in Jefferson's case here, in their willingness to
>:|compromise in order to get at least some of what they want. Historians and
>:|would-be historians have to allow for that possibility.
Ahem, 1781-82
QUERY XIV
The Administration of Justice and the Description of the
Laws?
To establish religious freedom on the broadest bottom.
[pp 236-237]
[EMPHASIS ADDED]
Another object of the revisal is to diffuse knowledge more
generally through the mass of the people. . . The first stage of this
education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass of the
people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations of future
order will be laid here. INSTEAD, THEREFORE, OF PUTTING THE
BIBLE AND TESTAMENT INTO THE HANDS OF THE CHILDREN AT
AN AGE WHEN THEIR JUDGMENTS ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY
MATURED FOR RELIGIOUS INQUIRIES, THEIR MEMORIES MAY
HERE BE STORED WITH THE MOST USEFUL FACTS FROM
GRECIAN, ROMAN, EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN HISTORY. . .
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1817
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of
any religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary
School Act, 1817.
Both are saying the same thing.
now all the rest you didn't feel like addressing:
Religion Intermeddling in Government
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1650.htm
"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their
congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical
affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or
conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving
their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and
giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would
rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science."
--Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281
"Ministers of the Gospel are excluded [from serving as Visitors of the
county Elementary Schools] to avoid jealousy from the other sects, were
the public education committed to the ministers of a particular one; and
with more reason than in the case of their exclusion from the legislative
and executive functions." --Thomas Jefferson: Note to Elementary School
Act, 1817. ME 17:419
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any
religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School
Act, 1817. ME 17:425
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
Jefferson founded his unique vision of education at the University of
Virginia, then one of the first universities in the world to completely
separate higher learning from religious doctrine.
EDUCATION - HISTORY-U.S.
Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government
40. Publicly Supported Education
Jefferson developed an elaborate plan for making education
available to every citizen, and for providing a complete education through
university for talented youths who were unable to afford it. He considered
his most important accomplishment, after Author of the Declaration of
Independence and the Statute for Religious Freedom, to have been the
father of the University of Virginia.
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1370.htm
Thomas Jefferson and Education, By Son H. Mai
http://clioseye.sfasu.edu/jefferson/education.htm
Thomas Jefferson and the Education of a Citizen. Edited By James Gilreath.
Library of Congress, (1999)
>:|> >:|"Thus we have teachers of languages, teachers of mathematics, of
>:|> >:|natural philosophy, of chemistry, of medicine, of law, of history, of
>:|> >:|government, etc. Religion, too, is a separate department, and happens
>:|> >:|to be the only one deemed requisite for all men, however high or low."
>:|> >:|--Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815.
>:|>
BTW, the above isn't properly cited.
University of Virginia was charted in 1819, thus if you are trying to pass
off the above letter as how he had set up UVA, you are incorrect and
dishonest.
The entire letter can be read below
Thomas Jefferson: The Sphere of Religion
Primary Source Document
http://www.britannica.com/presidents/article-9116916
Religion In The Public Schools: A Joint Statement Of Current Law
http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/04-1995/prayer.html
Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS