Sweet, William W.

English

James Madison University

305 THE VIRGINIA TEACHER [Vol. S, NO. 12 Equality of occupational opportunity is the very essence of our American democracy. The nation has been peopled largely by emi- grants from older world States where free- dom of occupational choice is denied in varying degrees. The ceaseless shifting of our native population from community to community, farm to city, and State to State, has been prompted largely by the search for better occupational opportunity. We have no occupational caste. We desire none. Our working population is fluid and in this we are blessed. Where unusual de- mand exists in a particular occupation for workers the demand is quickly met by transfer of workers from other occupations. Where a particular occupation is tempo- rarily or permanently depressed the workers do not form bread lines or exist on doles. They transfer easily to related occupations and our productive life goes on. In our democracy where whole industries are sud- denly stimulated or suddenly depressed through national legislation or the invention of new machines we can hardly imagine how we could exist without this adapta- bility of the workers and our traditions which encourage the worker to success through climbing the occupational ladder. To maintain this essential American char- acteristic we must not set up educational and occupational predestination as a philo- sophy. We must hold fast to the opposite philosophy of educational and occupational guidance. Eustace Windes. COLLEGES REQUIRE WOMEN STUDENTS TO SWIM Swimming for women is required in 22 colleges and universities as a part of the students' work in college, according to School Life, a publication of the Depart- ment of the Interior, Bureau of Education. Cornell University, Iowa State Agricul- tural College, Rockford College, Syracuse University, Cincinnati University, Univer- sity of Wisconsin, Wells College, Western Reserve, and Wooster College refuse to grant a degree to a student who fails to pass a fixed swimming requirement, which may be ability to swim SO feet, strokes in good form, swimming for two years, or swim- ming 120 yards and diving. The most fre- quent requirement, however, is swimming 50 yards. RELIGION IN OUR SCHOOL HISTORIES A CONGREGATIONAL MINISTER not long since remarked that he was engaged in reading the Chronicles of America series, those delightful fifty vol- umes recently published by the Yale Univer- sity press. Said he, "I find them very in- teresting, but disappointing, for nowhere is there an adequate treatment of the part played by religious forces in the making of the American nation." What this particular minister had discovered regarding this latest collection of American histories is true of much of the American history which has been written. McMaster in eight admirable volumes writes the History of the People of the United States from the close of the revolution to the opening of the civil war, but he has practically nothing to tell us re- specting religious development during those formative years. Rhodes in his fascinating seven volumes covers the slavery contro- versy and the civil war and reconstruction period. Though his task is admirably per- formed in the main, yet he likewise fails to take anything like adequate account of the part played by religious forces, although slavery had become by the opening of the civil war very largely a moral and religious question. If such neglect is characteristic of these great American histories, what could be expected of the average school history text? In an examination of nine of the more widely used school texts in Ameri- can history I have found this same neglect reflected. In the colonial period all of the texts ex- amined give of necessity some treatment of religion. For as everyone knows the re- ligious motive in American colonization was perhaps the strongest single motive, and therefore, in order to explain the founding of the New England group of colonies or the Quaker group, it was necessary to de- vote some space to an explanation of the Puritans apd the Quakers, while an under- standing of the beginnings of Maryland re- quires some mention of the Catholic situa- tion. But after such explanation has been given the majority of history texts in use in the schools make little mention of re- ligion. CAUSES FOR THE FAILURE It is not surprising, however, that school texts have failed to give proper attention to December, 1924] THE VIRGINIA TEACHER 306 this phase of our history. Religious his- tory in the United States has long been one of the neglected fields, shunned if not spurned by the average historical investi- gator. So, as a matter of fact, the average writer of history texts for the school very probably knows little of the religious devel- opment of the United States. Then again the fear of seriously offending, by some un- toward reference, some one or another of the several religious groups has deterred text book writers from saying much about religion, for royalties depend upon the num- ber of state and school adoptions. Still another reason for the neglect of this phase of American history is the feeling on the part of many of the text book producers that it is comparatively unimportant, and therefore deserves little space. A few examples taken more or less at random from the nine texts examined show this neglect. Fite's History of the United States, for instance, devotes two pages to a discussion of education and religion in the colonial period, but he does not so much as mention the great awakening which swept over New England and the middle colonies in the eighteenth century. Certainly this great religious movement was as important .as any one of the colonial wars in its influ- ence upon the life of the people. Its edu- cational influence alone was very great, for out of it came Brown and Princeton, Rut- gers and Dartmouth colleges. The name of George Whitfield, for instance, is not men- tioned, although his seven tours of America and his powerful preaching stirred the col- onists as no other single individual of the century. Nor does this author mention the name of Jonathan Edwards, and yet there are many who would say that his is the greatest name in colonial history. Most of the texts omit entirely the part played by the several religious groups in the war for independence, while the great west- em revival which swept over the new west, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana, in the latter eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries fails to receive the most casual mention. The part played by the churches in the anti-slavery movement and the slav- ery schism in the churches is completely ig- nored. Hart, New American History, and Mace and Bogardus, School History of the United States, devote the sum of thirteen pages each to the treatment of the religious development of America, and these are the two of the books examined which give the most adequate treatment. MuSsey, on the other hand, does not mention the word "re- ligion" or "church" in his index, while the average space given to the subject in the average text is from three to five pages. It is possible, of course, for the history teacher to supply some of this neglected material, but it is the rare history teacher indeed who is adequately prepared Jo do this. For there is a vast amount of ignor- ance, on the part of otherwise well pre- pared history teachers regarding matters pertaining to religion and the churches. It is a rare thing to get an intelligent answer from college students when questions having to do with the religious history of America are asked. People know little of their own' church, of its origin, its principal tenets, or its type of government. This common ig- norance, however, is easily understood in the light of the type of history taught in our American schools. When we come to examine the history texts which have been especially prepared for use in the Catholic schools, we find con- siderable space devoted to the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. Here we find, as might be expected, fre- quently an over-emphasis. McCarthy's His- tory of the United States for Catholic Schools, for instance, devotes a whole chap- ter to the establishment of the Roman Cath- olic Church in America and numerous other pages are given to a discussion of such sub- jects as Catholic missions, Catholic educa- tion, and persecution of Catholics. I have estimated that at least one-fifth of the vol- ume prepared by the Franciscan sisters is given over to Catholic matter. This might not have been so objectionable if the other religious forces in America had not been so completely ignored. This latter text after the period of the revolution does not men- tion a single Protestant body and one ignor- ant of the true situation and reading this particular history would imagine that the United States was a Catholic nation. CATHOLIC TEXT BOOKS One of the features emphasized in one of the Catholic texts is the manner in which facts of history are mixed with acts of Catholic piety. An example is the descrip- tion of the death of Pizarro, where we are told that "Just before he died he called upon his Redeemer and, tracing with his bloody 307 THE VIRGINIA TEACHER [Vol. S, NO. 12 finger a cross upon the floor, he kissed the sacred symbol and expired." Again de- scribing the early missionaries we are told, "As the missionaries made their way west- ward, the worship of Saint Mary marked their path till the great Mississippi, the river of the immaculate conception, bore them down toward those Spanish realms where every officer swore to defend the immacu- late conception." In regard to the work of the friars in the Philippine Islands we are given the astonishing information that "the record of the friars was a glorious one, and to their rule the natives of the islands owed their exceptional prosperity." Three pages are devoted to a description of the part .played by the Catholic Church in the civil war, and we are informed that "the Cath- olic Church had shed her brilliant light of charity through the gloom of war, and at the end of the struggle still stood undimin- ished in strength and unbroken in unity— the pride of her children and the admiration of thousands who before the war had looked upon her progress with jealous concern." A complete page is given to Catholic officers in the civil war. In the list is General Rose- crans, about whom we are told, "He was an outspoken and practical Catholic, and it was a common occurrence with him to have the sacrifice of the mass offered at his head- quarters in the field. Sheridan (another Catholic) said of him that a visitor to the city of Washington will find no more regu- lar attendant at mass in that decidedly Catholic city than Rosecrans—gallant 'Old Rosey,' the hero and idol of the army of the Cumberland." I have quoted more or less at length from these Catholic history texts to show how religious history ought not to be treated in school histories. The very evident purpose of these texts is to propagate Catholic ideas and not to give a true picture of the re- ligious development of America. No real historian wishes to deny to any group, whether it be Catholic or Protestant, just credit for its part in the making of the nation. The Roman Catholic Church has had a large part in the history of the Re- public, but so also have the Congregation- alists, the Presbyterians, the Baptists, the Episcopalians, the Quakers, and the Meth- odists. Catholic schools are no doubt an important factor in the educational life of the land, but that hardly justifies the com- plete omission of all mention of the much more important public school system. Certainly we can have no sympathy what- ever with the attempt to prepare special his- tory texts for special religious groups. Such texts cannot be real histories of the United States and, no matter who prepares them, they cannot avoid giving biased and parti- san views of the history of the nation. On the other hand, I am more and more im- pressed with the necessity of giving greater attention to the religious development of the United States in our history text books. The great work of the several religious groups ought to be honestly set forth in school history texts and teachers should be adequately trained to give their pupils an unbiased and wholesome appreciation of the work of the various branches of the Chris- tion Church in America.—William W. Sweet, in The Christian Century. THE GIRL RESERVE MOVE- MENT OF THE YOUNG WO- MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION IN VIRGINIA there are eight Girl Re- serve organizations. According to the 1922 figures, the latest available, these organizations were as follows : Danville, with a membership of 65; Lynchburg, 39 members; Norfolk, no figures available; Newport News, SO members; Portsmouth, 350 members; Petersburg, 152 members; Roanoke, no figures available; Richmond, 192 members. The Girl Reserve Movement is the name of the program for work with younger girls carried on by the National Board of the Young Women's Christian Associations. The National Board is a group of volunteer women from all parts of the United States elected by the Biennial Convention of the Young Women's Christian Associations of the United States and acting as the execu- tive committee of this convention between its sessions. The work with younger girls dates back sixty years or more, but the name "Girl Re- serve" is recent. The Young Women's Christian Association began definite work with younger girls as early as 1881. The girls became very enthusiastic over the work 

Religion in Our School Histories

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Religion in Our School Histories

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