The Necessity of teaching Religion in Public Schools

Media

Part of The Carolinian

Title: The Necessity of teaching Religion in Public Schools
Creator: Alvarado, Eugenio J., Jr.
Language: English
Year: 1953
Rights
Fulltext: The Necessity of Teaching Religion in Public Schools (~r I HE investigations recently f made by the government in connection with the charges against our three top Department of Education officials of obstruction ism of the constitutional provision for the religious instruction of the youths in public schools have just been completed. Whatever may have been said, whatever judgment on the case will have been passed, there remains the fact' that one of the primordial necessities in our schools today is the teaching of religion. The need of religious instruction is especially imperative at the pres ent time, in the face of the grave perils of Godless communism which threatens our very national survival. Dr. Jose P. Laurel emphasized the necessity of religious education for the Filipinos when he said, "Today, we are in the midst of an era of intense ideological conflict in which communism attempts, through de vious ways and means, to destroy and completely annihilate human personality and its divine endow ments, the better to make of peoples it can subjugate slaves and auto matons who shall blindly serve a godless and ruthless government, established through class hatred and strife, in a supposedly classless and godless society. "Thus, the Philippines, caught at the vortex of the continuing move ment of communism towards the Far East, must respond to the im perative need for an educational The Author ★ Mr. EUGENIO J. ALVARADO. Jr. is finishing his M.A. course this year. He studies at USC during summers and works as Registrar of Immaculate Conception College of Baybay, Leyte during regular semesters. He is an ex perienced school teacher having taught in the public elementary schools two years, In public high school for three years, and in private high school and college for three years. He is also poet by his own right, preferring classical poetry style to modern poetry. See his two sonnets on page 10. —EDITOR philosophy whose sublime purpose must rest on the bedrock of a moral hypothesis — the recognition and dignification of the human person ality; the worth of the individual as an individual, created by and an swerable to God, whence springs his faith in his uniqueness as the source of all the possible good, and the possible contributions that he may' make to himself and to his kind — to society." This imperative need for an educational philosophy can have its ready answer in the teaching of religion in our schools besides what are being taught today. Un fortunately, in the Philippines, the teaching of religion in the public schools has been relegated to the background because of the consti tutional mandate that religion may only be taught in our public schools upon the option of the pupils' pa rents or guardians. As a result, the implementation, of the teaching of religion has not been carried to such an extent- as to make it a contributing factor for the betterment of the individual and of the nation. In this regard, Dr. Pedro T. Orata, one of the lead ing educators in the country, said, "I believe it is safe to say that of all countries the world over, Chris tian, Mohammedan, Buddhist, or any other, the Philippines stands unique in regard to the so-called religious instruction. .. In enrollment, it is almost negligible — less than 350,000 in a total school population Sorento rftevtado, ft. * Graduate School of 4,879,979, or roughly 7 pupils out of every 100. In other words, 4,537,592 or 93 of every 100 pupils enrolled are without religious in struction. Compare the ratio with Buddhist Thailand, Catholic Ireland, Protestant Scotland, to say nothing of France, Egypt, Israel, and Burma, where nearly every pupil enrolled in school is given an effective and well supervised religious instruction." Dr. Orata continued, "That is quantitatively speaking. In quality, ours is also unique. We place high value in the fact that we are a Christian nation, but instruction in Christian principles is less, much less effective, than instruction in arithmetic or geography. We pay more attention to folk dancing or physical education. In fact, we pay more attention in everything else we do in school than to reli gious instruction. We give to God 'un-Godly hours,' and of course, supervisors are either eating lunch or taking a nap during these hours. We do not have courses in the teaching of religion in normal schools and colleges of education. In short, in theory we value religion in our lives, but in practice, religion is unimportant as a school subject." Consequently, due to this lack of. religious instruction in our schools, there has been moral de cadence and increase of lawless ness in our country. Justice Luis P. Torres, chairman of the Integrity Board, assailed the inadequate provision being made for the re ligious or at least moral education of our youth, thus neglecting the formation of the character of our young citizens. Stressing the im portant role of the youth as future leaders, he stated that with the lack of religious education, one cannot say that "the Filipino youth is the hope of the country." Justice Torres said, "I am con cerned particularly about those boys (Continued on next page) SUMMER, 1953 Page 13 It's summer time folks, and here's a grand parade of U.S.C. s 1953 Summerians............. Gracing the corridors every summer is ENDRING ANOVER, ... a public school marm of Leyte. Endy hopes to finish her B.S.E. course by the end of I this term to brace up for the grind ahead. ROSETTA FERNANDEZ, VIC LEE, I and PAT KRIECKENBECK, armed with elevated I.Q.'s are rarin' for top honors. I Still at it, girls? Summer’s offensive y' know. I Bright-eyed PANCHING NUNEZ," is back again and for good measure. For i one semester she made her exit and matriculated in Ateneo de Cagayan. Why, I Ching? Can't make USC your alma mater? Even a post-grad student (whose supposed to peer absent-mindedly behind specs and to appear old as grandma) isn't safe from prowling wolves who give whines at every pretty lass they feast their eyes on. And Hildy Gocor is no exception. She's decidedly wolf-bait! LETTY REYES is a new addition to the Carolinian world but she's beginning to like it here. Sweet and companionable Letty has told us that she has been bitten by the Carolinian bug. (We wouldn’t know if the bug was a he or she). KEILAN PALACIOS. . . gunning after the 1953 Mr. Philippines trophy with ! his extensor femoris and such stuff, breezed thru to the finals but failed to land a berth. Too bad, huh? A walking hunk of masculine eye-catcher is RAMON | MECIANO whose gait is strictly PMA-ed. Planning to fight Huks, Ramon? Or wuzzit Korea. Tall, slim PORTIA BUNUAN, conspicuous in her inconspicuousness. I (How’s that again?) Portia is back from heaven knows where. Some drawing I card must have attracted her here. What's the low-down, Por? Morolandia's kind donation for this summer's parade are the twin glo ries—PADILLA and CARDONA. Glor Padilla intends to stay here only this summer. . . unless she changes her mind. Which is not unusual for a woman. FRUCTUOSO RODRIGUEZ, that handsome, curly-haired jam-session hai bitue. Fruc talks like an authority on women and their idiosyncracies or ■ whaddayacallit but at the end of every discourse on the obverse sex, he will i confess that he has no g.f. (grandfather?), and that he would to heaven like I one cute dream gal. Very nice companion certainly. . . Fruc, you need more I legwork. ANITA CLAVERIA, whose mild and engaging disposition is a rarity I hereabouts. Nice girl too, otherwise VENCIO (yak! yak!) wouldn't be hanker ing for her. Terribly in love, huh? Gosh, we never knew what was brewing all along. We need to poke our noses into more people's businesses. . . LO VARELA. . . the enigma in black who seems very inscrutable in her sim plicity. Highly intelligent and reads books avidly. We want to be in on who's the fortunate benedict-to-be. NGR. . . tall, fair and smart. Lawyer and editor of a local weekly is a very kind soul. (Ask Narciso Bacur. . . ). A hard-hitting ; penpusher who makes no bones and minces no words. ESTRING JAO comes i to bone up on summer classes. Combine beauty, brains, a bank note and an impeccable grace in dancing and you have in your mind. Quite a combinaj tion, we would say. PACHING BOLLOZOS will have her last stint in note-taking, this summer. Gosh, it was fun to have you in USC ching! For music lovers. Little Menuhin, DANILO CANETE, always has the wel come rug at his feet. One fling at his rendition of Massenet's "Thais" and you II swear it was a sure-fire weapon to disarm stubborn hearts. A group of would-be commerciantes find lots of headaches in their ac(Continued on page 22) Zke Necessity of... and girls of indigent families, of those who are in the slums of the big centers of population like Manila, and of those who have little or no notion of Divine Providence. Under this situation, youths easily fall prey to criminality and the vultures of communism. It seems that the sole purpose of our edu cational system is to cultivate only the mind of the pupil or student, to make him a wise man, a scientist in his own profession or calling, thus neglecting the other and most important part of the human being, his soul. Under such a system of instruction, it is not strange that a highly educated man, instead of being a worthy member of society, instead of using the knowledge ac quired by him for some worthy purpose, becomes a criminal or an enemy of society. The writer maintains that it is necessary that religion should be taught by compulsion in the public schools, for three main reasons. In the first place, from the viewpoint of the individual, religion should be taught, because it makes him feel secure in his relation with God. With this feeling of security, he can have peace of soul, and positively, as long as he is in good terms with God, he feels all right and is guided in the right path in life. In the second place, from the standpoint of the State, divine se curity is important. The individuals in the State, who have no feeling of kinship with God, as can be es tablished by the teaching of reli gion to them, will have no inhibi tions in themselves. Within this kind of State, one does not have respect for the rights and property of others, because nothing will in hibit him from trespassing over these rights and property not his. The result would be chaos and dis order in the State. In the third place, from the point of view of the Creator or Maker, religion should be taught. Religion is important because it IS so; it cannot be otherwise. There exists God; God must exist and this must is so strong that He insists on His honor. Therefore, we must give Him that honor, and to give Him that honor, we must have religion, which, to have adequately, must be taught in our public schools. Religion cannot be separated from education. Sectarianism must be kept out of the public schools, but it is neither possible nor desir(Continued on page 24) Page 14 THE CAROLINIAN The Necessity of Teaching • • • (Continued from page 14) able to keep religion separated from education. The opponents of the suggestion for the compulsory instruction of religion in the public schools advance the theory that this would result in chaos and tur moil. They say that the group in the' majority would force their will on the minority. They aver that if a Catholic public school teacher is assigned to teach religion as an ad ditional subject, it will make him feel prejudiced to the pupils in his class who might be Protestants. However, the writer believes that there is no difficulty of teaching religion in the school even if the students belong to different religious sects. The objection of prejudice is only theoretical and does not act What is Rnssian Communism? force you to answer if it embarras ses you, Mr. Foster. Mr. Foster: It does not embarrass me at all. I stated very clearly the Red flag is the flag of the revolu tionary class, and we are part of the revolutionary class. Chairman: I understood that. Mr. Foster: And all capitalist flags are flags of the capitalist class, and we owe no allegiance to them. (Writer's note: This last answer means plainly that Communists in the U.S.A, claim to owe no alle giance to the Stars and Stripes, and profess allegiance only to the flag of the proletarian revolution, which is guided, controlled, and ordered from Moscow. In other words, Fos ter's admission means that Commu nists throughout the world own no allegiance to the lawfully elected government of their respective coun tries, but, on the contrary, profess unswerving allegiance and blind obedience to Soviet Russia!) USING FREEDOM TO CRUSH FREEDOM Here in free America, as in other free countries, we find a contempt ible organization, the Communist Party, taking advantage of dem ocracy to overthrow democracy; using freedom of speech to exter minate freedom of speech; availing themselves of freedom of assembly to eliminate freedom of assembly. Just suppose that in Soviet Russia a party attempted to organize in order to introduce the American form of government and destroy the Soviet system! We cannot make ually exist. Let us say a Catholic teacher teaches English only, and he does not feel any prejudice to wards his Protestant student. If this teacher is assigned to teach religion, will it necessarily mean that he will feel prejudiced towards the Pro testant students? Will the assign ing of religion as an additional sub ject for him to teach change his at titude of non-prejudice and fairness towards his Protestant students? The answer is "No." Hence, the objec tion of prejudice is only in theory. With all the foregoing argu ments, we can, therefore, say that if the aim of education is not to produce children and youth who are merely well-informed and skilled but without moral and reli (Continued from page 11) everyone who is conversant with the Soviet system knows well that no such attempt would be tolerated, and that even those who, without aiming at the overthrow of the So viet government, merely strove to introduce a truly democratic system of voting would be promptly liqui dated. No papers could possibly be published advocating any but the despotic Soviet system; no meet ings could be convened to launch a democratic system; no speeches could be delivered to advocate free elections. To suppose such an in vestigation in the U.S.S.R. as I have been describing, which was a reality in the U.S.A., and to ima gine in addition that, as in the ad vocated another form of government was allowed to pursue his way and continue his propaganda, would be to suppose or imagine an impos sibility. Yet here in our midst, in "the land of the free and the home of the brave," here in a country that is known throughout the world for its democracy and liberty; here in a land where workmen have singu lar advantages and effective means of redressing any grievances; here in a Republic where flourish freedom of religion, freedom of speech, free dom of assembly, freedom of voting for whom one wishes, freedom to express one's opinion and to cri ticize the government and even the President, we find despicable trait ors who, while refusing to give alle giance to the flag of their homeland which guarantees such freedom, pledge their complete loyalty to a gious; if the aim of education is to produce citizens of deep and in telligent convictions; if in this age of materialism, in this period of human life when the struggle for human existence seems to be the only goal towards which humanity's efforts are directed to attain its hap piness, all other considerations, particularly those of spiritual value, are ignored and forgotten; if we are to prevent the tide of communism from engulfing us; if we are to maintain rightfully our place as the "only Christian country in the Orient;" then, religion must be given a paramount place in our national life, and the teaching of it must be made necessary, better still com pulsory, in our schools. horrible alien power and use (or, rather, abuse) the very freedom of their homeland in order to crush out the vestige of that freedom and establish in its place the Soviet system, which has emerged from the bowels of hell and strives with diabolical ingenuity and infernal power to pollute the entire world. America is very tolerant; but there is such a thing as being too tolerant when it comes to the ques tion of dealing with the worst kind of criminals. Freedom must not be allowed to grow into unbridled license. As the gangster and the murderer are checked by drastic laws, or at least severely punished by the State, so also those who are disseminating the worst kind of dis loyalty to the State, the most terri ble form of treachery to their coun try, and the most awful species of enmity to society, and who are actively striving to attain their in iquitous ends under the aegis of an alien government, should be effect ively checked and, if they stride to persist, put where they can no longer exercise their baneful in fluence. By all means let them, if they so desire, migrate to their be loved U.S.S.R. — and remain there "for the term of their natural lives." A mother gives her children whatever freedom is advisable; but we cannot imagine any sane mother allowing a wayward child to take from a shelf his father's razor when she knows that the child's intention and avowed purpose is to slash her own throat at the very first oppor tunity! Page 24 THE CAROLINIAN