Waterbury School Board Says Religious Training in Schools Backed by U.S. Constitution

Far from being unconstitutional the religious plan for school children, approved by the Waterbury Board of Education on the petition of the Protestant and Catholic churches, is supported by the Constitution of the United States, according to a report made by the board committee.

The committee report is in answer to the protest by the Jews of that city through the Hebrew Institute against the plan which is to be inaugurated with the opening of the new school year in September and which will permit pupils to be excused from school one hour a week to be instructed in religious places outside of school property. The board accepted the report, the only dissenting vote being made by Nathan Freedman, a Jewish member. Injunction proceedings will be brought to block the plan with the inauguration of the new school term.

JEWS WANT PUBLIC HEARING

The Jews, with Attorney Herman Weisman and Rabbi Isadore Breslau as chief spokesmen, have insisted that the plan should not have been adopted without a public hearing. The Jews are claiming that the plan is unconstitutional. In answer to the latter charge, the board committee says:

“The one sentence in the Constitution of the United States touching on the matter not only does not prohibit the privilege; it actually ends by prophetically presupposing that the privilege might some time be necessary. This sentence occurs in the first amendment to the Constitution which runs as follows:

“‘Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’

“The spirit of the first amendment to the Constitution is that Congress— and the elected representatives of the people all the way down, including this honorable board—shall yield every possible point in order to favor the free exercise of religion. It is in this spirit that the Board of Education of Waterbury many years granted a like privilege. That grant of favor excused pupils from attendance at school on the holy days of certain churches. Orthodox Russian Catholics and Episcopalians are included in this. But it is the Jewish pupils of the schools whose privilege is most absolute. On all the holy days of their church they are not only excused all day, but by force of the effort made in their favor, they are not even marked absent from school.”

PLAN OPERATING IN 600 CITIES

The report recites that the plan is in operation in 600 cities and towns in this country, two of them being in this state, New Britain and Bridgeport.

“Does anyone in his senses believe that there is any danger of the actual establishment of a religion now?” the committee declares. “Isn’t the danger entirely in the opposite direction now? Isn’t there fear among those who know the condition of the world now that we shall have too little religion, not too much? Isn’t that the honest fear of church leaders who have asked for this privilege?”

The report goes on to point out that while the Jewish petitioners say they do not favor the use of school time for sectarian instruction, Jewish pupils are nevertheless out seven days a year for religious reasons. When this point was brought out in previous discussions, the Jewish leaders answered that the same privilege is granted the Christian pupils during Easter, which is not a Jewish holy period, and that the Jewish pupils obtain their religious instruction in Hebrew schools after school hours.

With regard to the use of school time for sectarian instruction, the point is also made by the committee that the state requires but 20 hours a week in school, whereas a schedule of 25 hours a week is maintained in Waterbury schools. The extra time, the board thinks may quite rightly be utilized for religious instruction.

“The Jews will not be required to leave; the others, by supposition, want to leave. There is no compulsion on the part of the school in either case. There is no possible union of church and state. It will be the parents in control and doing the compulsion in the over-plus hours. There is abundance of proof in American history that such liberty rests upon sound American foundations.”