Public Support for Religious Education in the Nineteenth-Century United States

This study investigated the efforts to find public support for religious education. A history of education in the United States prior to 1800 is presented to show that the majority of the schools were denominational, whereas at the end of the nineteenth century, the majority of schools were public, and, their supporters claimed, secular. The second part of the study investigated the efforts in the early part of the 19th century to establish publicly supported religious schools. As a consequence of the conflict between those who were in agreement for publicly financed denominational schools and those who argued for nonsectarian public schools, the "godless" public school gradually emerged, as explored in the third section. The last part analyzes efforts (such as the Poughkeepsie Plan and the Savannah Plan) to establish religious public schools. As the relationship between religion and public schools is considered in the present, it is important to ask what can be learned from the past. References contain 17 primary sources, 16 court decisions, and 46 secondary sources. (JMD)