The Case for Aiding Non-Public Schools:

...But surely no special deficiency in this matter can be ascribed to an education which expressly and constantly presents as a compelling moral truth the duty to see God's creation and image in every one of our fellow men...

...The function of the public school thus becomes the imparting of an epistemological skepticism hostile to ethical, religious and philosophical certainty...

...It is painful for one who has received a portion of his education in a parochial school to have to answer this charge...

...In this and many other areas of public welfare the American tradition has consistently been one of cooperation between the public and private sectors...

...But any attempt to show that the private character of parochial schools should not suffice to disqualify them from public aid is actually irrelevant, because parochial elementary and secondary schools are not uncontrolled by public authorities...

...Were these students inferior in citizenship, in sympathy and charity for their neighbors...

...Now we are faced with the question whether the point at which the balance must be struck will be moved far to the right, in the direction of a greatly enlarged conformity...

...Only then shall we succeed in giving expression to the true spirit of our constitutional heritage...

...In any event, it is rather unedifying to see disparate political groups, moved by the school issue, joining in a Birchite retreat from the risks of democracy...

...A curious aspect of this latterday Americanism is that it usually comes from persons who sincerely claim to glory in the richness and diversity of our natural life...

...The drive to exclude parochial school children from public aid seems to paralyze the sense of fair play which usually characterizes our natural actions...

...It is probably fair to say that the intermingling of public money and private agencies is rapidly growing...

...The Senate has already passed a bill under which all of these children will be counted when the allotments of Federal aid for education are made to each state, but not a single penny may be spent for their benefit...

...To one familiar with these facts, it is ironic to hear impassioned pleas to preserve the "wall of separation" by keeping parochial schools distinct from public education...

...We know that the Constitution forbids the underwriting of religion by either the Federal government or a state government...

...Yet we cannot share the common enterprise of this adventuresome form of government unless we have faith in the ultimate good judgment, balance and sense of fairness of the electoral majority...

...It is true, of course, that an activity which is entirely under public control is presumptively entitled to full public support, while one which is wholly privately controlled is presumptively entitled to no public support...

...Nor will it come to the fore as long as the principal preoccupation must be with countering changes of unconstitutional aims and divisive and anti-social schools...

...When it gains its voice the Catholic community will articulate the support of public education which it has always practiced...

...We all know that there is too incomplete an eradication of primitive prejudice among men...

...Are we beginning to abandon the habitually pragmatic quality of the American liberal movement and to banish those whose theory of truth does not meet the negative test of the philosophical skeptic...

...Some of the ideas being expressed during the current debate bear a strange parallel to the simplistic patriotic sentiments one has come to expect at such affairs as conventions of the American Legion or the Daughters of the American Revolution...

...This is strikingly illustrated today in the field of higher education...

...in dispensing public support for education we should take account of this fundamental reality...

...Let us now consider their sectarian character...

...When we do so I am sure we shall not persist in ignoring the realities of our pluralistic society...

...During the last century, through subtle social processes plus a very light touch of the law, we struck a balance by effectively requiring that all Americans learn to speak and write the same language and be introduced to a basic common knowledge of our history and political institutions...

...We also know that the Constitution does not prohibit public support of activities sponsored by churches which are directed to the welfare of the people...

...Worse still, are American liberals discarding their proud record of consistent concern for all the people, including the minorities...

...should it be taken as an argument for identical treatment of all schools in dispensing tax funds...

...Of course, the issue is not posed in these terms in the public forum, but no realist can view the advent of Federal aid to public schools in any other way...

...It presents no bill of particulars and it refers to attitudes and outlooks wholly alien to my experience...

...In his June 26 article, "Aid to Religious Schools...

...One cannot form a school and educate a child for any annual sum that is not at least a thousand per cent greater than the maximum per capita Federal aid proposals...

...American constitutional scholars reputed for their special knowledge of the religion clauses of the First Amendment have expressed themselves on this matter and, with a single exception, have unanimously agreed that there are constitutional methods of giving substantial Federal aid to parochial school pupils and their parents...

...According to President Nathan M. Pusey's most recent annual report, Harvard University (our richest educational institution and one which is wholly free of public control) received 25 per cent of its entire budget from the Federal government...

...Conant made the allegation when he was still president of Harvard, and he leveled it against private schools generally, not simply parochial schools...

...James B. Conant in the immediate postwar period...

...There are many important reasons why the public schools should be fully taxsupported and private schools (especially church-related schools) should not be fully tax-supported...

...In addition, Federal fellowships and loans made possible some of the tuition revenues received from students...

...Even this generalization, though, is subject to innumerable exceptions in the public interest...

...Here Thomas J. O'Toole, Vice Dean of Villanova University's Law School, answers Lekachman...

...The suggestion that any or all of the proposals for aid which are currently being considered threaten the existence of public education is patently absurd...

...NL, June 26), Robert Lekachman argued against aid to parochial schools and used as his "most important" argument a line of reasoning which can fairly be described only as an interpretation of public schools as teachers of the religion of democracy...

...In a real sense, this has always been a central problem in American society...

...if the school needs of our nation make federal aid imperative...

...In an enormously pluralistic society the universal availability of a public school is absolutely essential...

...That this is the real issue has here and there been made explicit...

...The one exception is Dr...

...But the basic point is that the education of the young, being promotive of the general welfare, can legitimately make demands upon public funds...

...In any case, there is no ground for the pervasive insinuation that anyone who suggests federal aid should be given to parochial schools is trying to undermine our basic institutions...

...These are economic realities, not unconstitutional subventions...

...Perhaps, in the fullness of time, we can come to a rational consideration of the full range of educational needs of our people...

...Leo Pfeffer of the American Jewish Congress who cordially admits, with his characteristic intellectual honesty, that he has not yet succeeded in persuading the Supreme Court of the wisdom of his own constitutional interpretation...

...Taking the Constitution as it is written and as it has been interpreted by the courts and other agencies of government in a long national tradition, one must admit that there are a variety of ways in which substantial Federal aid can be given to private schools (including parochial schools) without violating the Constitution...

...its range and variety has not been heard in the public forum...

...True, if parents of parochial school children enjoy a lessening of their financial burden by reason of Federal aid, they will be in a position to increase the support of the religious activities of their church, including religious instruction...

...In this country we have never had a monolithic system of education...

...This is a charge, deeply offensive to Catholics, which has been widely aired ever since it was given currency by Dr...

...Professed enemies of a narrow civic orthodoxy, they now succumb to the neo-orthodoxy of the public school movement as the instrument of a philosophical skepticism they claim is essential to the survival of a democracy which had entirely different philosophical roots...

...More recently, in these pages ("Aid to Religious Schools...

...Does the parochial school, then, by reason of its sectarian character, in some way fail adequately to train its students for citizenship in a pluralistic society...

...However, I have long felt that both sides in the current controversy have been so insistent upon wrapping themselves in the Constitution that the genuine issues have never been explored...

...The basic question is nothing less than this: What is the future of pluralism in the American democratic society...

...All citizens can properly be expected to support this, and any fair appraisal of the record of Catholic taxpayers (whose children are excluded even from free bus rides in many states) will reveal a truly remarkable fidelity to the needs of public education...

...As one who has been committed to the liberal side of public issues, I am particularly distressed to see that the explicit attacks upon pluralism and diversity come almost exclusively from traditionally liberal quarters...

...But even if one were tempted to use economic coercion to restrict their liberty of choice, it cannot seriously be doubted that they will continue to attend parochial schools in such substantial numbers as constantly to challenge the wisdom and the justice of the American majority who bar them from the public benefits which their parents help finance...

...The public schools will be the General Motors of the industry and what chance will private manufacturers have to prosper in such a setting...

...Potentially, the area of public control extends to all the secular parts of the curriculum, to teacher qualifications, to building and space standards and to the whole gamut of educational specifications...

...indeed we may be witnessing the birth of a doctrinaire Americanism...

...Catholic opinion on the school question has long been hidden...

...Yet Harvard during his tenure turned to non-public Schools for approximately half the students it accepted...

...If there is a crisis in American education today...

...In these debates over aid to non-public schools we must never forget that we are talking about the education of some six million American children...

...The ethical and religious neutrality of the public school is viewed by Lekachman as implying—and as teaching—antagonism to notions of ultimate truth and to dogma...

...The Case for Aiding Non-public Schools By Thomas J. O'Toole The case in favor of federal aid to private schools, including parochial schools, is exactly the same as the case in favor of aid to public schools...

...To say that the case for aid to parochial schools is the same as the case for aid to public schools is not to deny that there are very real and significant differences between the two systems, nor...

...What curious notions of justice and fairness, of parental freedom and of social diversity have led us to this monstrously unfair device for the allocation of taxes collected from all the people...

...Is it in danger of losing its historic openness and eclectism, and of becoming monolithic and doctrinaire...

...Even a moment's reflection on such an elementary matter as the compulsory school attendance law, which all of our states enforce and which can be complied with by attending parochial schools, should demonstrate the merely rhetorical appeal of those numerous Henry the Fifths who constantly summon us "once more unto the breach...

...And with a jealous regard for the relative freedom of their parochial schools, Catholics themselves will reject any formula of public aid so substantial as to give the Government crucial power over private education...

...Private hospitals, for example, have received as much as 40 per cent of their construction costs from the Federal government...

...The nation must now come to grips with the crucial matter of striking a balance between variety and conformity, between pluralism and unity...

...Last spring an editorial in the New Republic declared flatly that it was the business of the state to discourage private schools...

...The public schools will receive money for each child they educate, and also for each child whom they do not educate but who attends a private school...

...Robert Lekachman argued that such Federal support would weaken the public schools' effort to promote "cultural diversity," and advocated preserving "the historic American compromise," which allows church schools tax exemptions, bus transportation and school lunches...

...The enormous bulk of our non-public elementary and secondary schools are threatened with economic competition for the tools and manpower for teaching on terms which are grossly unequal...

...While couched in philosophical terms they suggest that there is only one way to be a 100 per cent genuine American, and that is to attend the public schools...

...There are some six million children in this country who attend schools outside the public systems...

...We are also warned to be wary of the future...

...No concrete evidence of any sort has ever been presented to substantiate such a charge...

...There remains a widespread but unfounded fear that aid to private schools will threaten the integrity of our public school system...

...Underlying the school aid debate is a very much larger problem, of which the present controversy is simply one surface manifestation...

...This raises a serious question concerning what is happening to American liberalism...

...We have long given a substantial degree of public monetary assistance to a wide variety of ventures which are virtually wholly controlled by private agencies...

...This is always a major problem for any society, it is said, especially a democracy...

...Some 90 per cent of the children who attend nonpublic institutions are Catholics, and in the exercise of freedom their parents elect not to send them to public schools...

...Non-Catholic parents, relieved of school expense because of free public education, or escaping from increases in local property taxes because of Federal aid, also have their ability to support religious activities enhanced...

...Were they less than completely American...

...If parochial schools are to be denied public aid, therefore, it cannot be by reason of their private quality...

...if an accelerated program of modernization, expansion and teacher improvement is urgently required—these vital wants and needs are found not simply among 85 per cent of our school children but among 100 per cent of them...

...But surely this cannot properly be viewed as an argument against Federal aid...

...In actual practice, public control varies considerably from state to state, but it is substantial everywhere and is growing...

...We can no more ignore their talents and occupations than we can ignore those of any other minority...