Role of Religion
Religion played a significant role in the early American republic. Christianity was a popular following of the American people, shaping their perspectives on political and social issues and their morals. Through the development of the education system, differences in opinions on the impact of religion in schooling occurred.
Throughout the United States, religion was viewed differently based on importance to people's identities. Northern and middle states in America valued religion more. Lutheran and Reform churches advocated for a combination of church and schools. Quakers and Baptists had their own perspectives of Christianity and worked to persevere their values in the church through schooling.4 Because different regions in the United States varied in their perspective of religions, this caused division over whether religion should be allowed in schools.
The different regions throughout the young United States took varying action in implementing religion in American schools. The middle region of the United States, including New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, took the most initiative of merging school and church. Many churches in these states began creating schools within their beliefs, revealing a clear motive. A journal article states that the creation of these schools was "in an attempt to hold its children to the old ways and to the old language."5 The author of this journal took the perspective that different regions in the United States viewed church and school combined differently. He expanded on the idea that the variations between regions created distinct values in American children. Children that received education through church were presented interpretations of social, political, and economic issues that aligned with their religious beliefs.
However, while it was common to combine church and school, not everyone believed this was beneficial to students. The New Hampshire Gazette published a newspaper that argued for the dangers of religion in school. The publishers explained how religious values instilled in children in an educational setting gave them a narrow perspective of society. The newspaper states, "It may be worth adding here, that a narrow education…will probably produce equal evils of a contrary nature."6 The intention of this newspaper was to portray to Americans that no teacher was qualified to teach what they believed was the truth. Education should not have had an attachment to opinion. Religion played a significant, yet divisive, role in early American education and various groups disagreed with attempts to combine school and church.
__________
4 Middlekauff, Robert. “Education in Colonial America.” Current History 41, no. 239 (1961): 5–14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45310546. (6)
5 Ibid., (7)
6Fowle's New-Hampshire gazette and general advertiser. [volume] ([Portsmouth, N.H.]), 18 March 1785. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025586/1785-03-18/ed-1/seq-1/