Religious Heritages in America Influenced

¶ … religious heritages in America influenced the philosophical roots of American education?

Unlike many nations, the divide between church and state established in the First Amendment mandates that religious education and secular education must be divided in the United States. However, religious traditions present in U.S. culture and history have had a profound influence upon the evolution of American education. Many of the finest private academies that once acted as feeder schools into the nation's major private universities, such as Phillips Exeter and Andover, have Protestant origins, as do the universities themselves. Historically, religion was part of every true gentleman's higher education, and individuals who were not Protestant had difficulty obtaining entrance to many of the nation's most elite universities.

Even in learning the 3Rs through the McGuffey reader, the primer of choice in American schools, had a religious quality: the readers stressed the value of hard work and discipline as well as introduced the ABCs. The concept of the Protestant worth ethic, and the value placed upon individualism was manifest in every McGuffey lesson. This suggests that even with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, to create a morally neutral zone where religious influence does not permeate is a challenge. Progressive educational philosophers, such as John Dewey, who stressed that a child's inclination should guide the educational process and that educational principles should be grounded in practical applications of interest to the child, manifest the Protestant, pragmatic 'work ethic' and the American concept of individualism in their approach (Neil 2005). Even when not explicitly religious in nature, American, Protestant ideological roots are evident in the academic debates about how to school the young.

Public education has always been linked to moral education and civic virtue. When Horace Mann created the first major comprehensive system of urban schooling, it was partially in reaction to fears spawned by waves of recent immigration. Many new immigrants came from different faith traditions from those of the Protestant majority, such as Irish and Italian Catholics. While public education had a positive, democratizing influence upon the citizenry as a whole, many have criticized Mann's attempt to create a homogenized culture that denied religious difference (Horace Mann, 2010, PBS).

The spread of public education in the 20th century gave rise to even greater tensions about the appropriate role of religion within the public education system. The Supreme Court declared that mandated prayers in public schools were unconstitutional, yet the words 'under God' were inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance (Prayer, 2010, Religious Tolerance). Students can wear religious clothing and jewelry to school, and teachers can teach about religion -- but not preach to their students. Walking the fine line between endorsing certain religious traditions within an officially secular community can be tricky, and the definition of what is secular and what is religious continues to evolve with the passage of time. Today, the debates about religion rage on -- the role of so-called 'creationist' science in biology classes that teach about evolution and the right of religious groups to hold meetings on school grounds are two recent examples of divisive public issues about the role of religious philosophy in American public schooling.