All day yesterday, I was absorbed in reading newspaper accounts put into a disintegrating scrapbook by a member of my great great grandfather's family.
The shot is of the articles (many just crumbled when touched in the disintegrating scrapbooks. I am so grateful for whoever put them together as I would never have been able to follow the story.
I'm so struck by the courageous calm that Maier Zunder exhibited all the while contributing to his community according to his own maxim:
Wirken und wachen fur Menschen und mit Menschen
As best I can translate:
Working and caring for the people, with the people
Shortening up the story taking place in New Haven in 1877-78.
A number of school board members felt that the somewhat casual devotional exercises they were using to open the school day really weren't contributing much. The population was diverse and there really was no guidance. So several school members suggested that they be eliminated. So the board voted.
When word got out, petitions were received by the Board in protest. The Board voted to restore the rule regarding devotional exercises and refer to the matter to their Committee on Schools; Maier Zunder as one of the three members. The committee came back and again recommended for the devotional exercises be removed. Their report was published and a minority report was also included.
During the next Board election, a Bible party organized to challenge for the open positions with the mandate to restore the Bible to the New Haven schools. A number were elected. During the first meeting in 1878, the new members moved to restore the devotional exercises. The matter again went before the Committee on School which consisted of Maier Zunder and two Bible party members. Meanwhile, august distinguished clergyman from throughout the city and from Yale appointed themselves to come up with an appropriate devotional exercises "repugnant to no one" which is a pretty low standard in my opinion. They were not formally asked by the Board to do so. They decided that if 30 per cent of the school was Catholic then the Catholic children could withdraw and have their own devotion. The rest would do the Protestant service as written by all of these powerful clergyman including Rev. Woolsey past president of Yale.
Though the Board had not asked for this, the Committee on Schools agreed to consider the suggestions.
The subject was picked up by the New York Times and beyond.
On Nov 15, the Committee gave their opinion. Maier managed to turn one of his Bible party colleagues to his side and reject the whole thing. In front of God and country and all the clergy and the esteemed Yale officers.
I would like to share the entire majority opinion:
To the Board of Education:
The Committee on Schools to whom was referred various plans and suggestions regarding conduct of devotional exercises, beg leave to report by a majority of their number that having considered the matters referred to them, they recommend that no change be made at present in the mode in which they are now conducted.
Accompanying the report, we make the following statement:
In obedience to what they understand the expressed wish of the people, the Board of Education, on the 21st day of September last, restored the rule requiring that the morning sessions of the schools be opened with appropriate devotional exercises.
Under this rule, before its repeal in December last, there had existed a practice which was simple, tolerably uniform, and which so far as your committee can learn had never considered any serious irritation or trouble.
Your committee being charged with the duty of putting the rule into operation directed the superintendent to instruct the teachers to resume devotional exercises in accordance with the former practice. This has been done and your committee have obtained from each of the teachers a report of the manner in which they were conducting them. The resumption of devotional exercises, in the manner described, has not caused any difficulty or complaint so far as your committee are informed, and we believe that its continuance would not do so. The teachers ought to be, and are competence to exercise some discretion in this matter as they do in many other important matters of discipline, punishment and instruction. Besides they are subject to the constant supervision of a well-qualified and vigilant superintendent and always under the control of the Board of Education. And thus the practice is wisely rendered flexible enough to meet the requirements of the varying classes in the schools.
Various plans and suggestions were referred to your committee and we have given a careful consideration of the subject. That which was presented by Rev Drs. Bacon and Harwood, with the sanction of nearly every clergyman in New Haven, providing that in any school in which Roman Catholics numbered 30 per cent of the whole, they should be allowed to have separate devotional exercises was urged upon our favorable consideration by those with so much earnestness by those distinguished gentleman and has attracted so much attention, not only in New Haven but elsewhere, that we cannot dismiss it without indicating some reasons for doing so.
Apart from the practical difficulties attending its adoption, we think it's not judicious at present to make a change so radical and unexpected. If a separation of children according to their religious faith is demanded as a right, arising out of conscientious scruples (and that seemed to be the ground on which it was urged upon us), it is certainly a right which each individual possesses, and which should be accorded to every one who demands it, and no agreement among the clergy can make its recognition dependent upon an arithmetical computation. Moreover, if this be once conceded to be a right, there is no limitation which can be put upon the subdivisions of the schools.
But it is not heretofore been claimed as a right by those in whose behalf it is now described (sic) not does it seem to us that to be present with respectful silence, without being required to participate, while a devotional exercise like that in use is performed, is a real invasion of religious liberty. If it is not claimed as a right and only rested upon the ground of wise policy we still think it would be undesirable to accord to those of one religion's faith privileges that are denied to all others, and that such an arrangement would lead to constant complaint, criticism and dispute.
But practical objections occur to us in the way of carrying out such a plan as that proposed.
1. The school buildings of the district have no common room in which the children can assemble for devotional exercises. They are all, except for the high school building, divided into small classrooms.
2. In each room, a desk is assigned to each child where he places his books and school apparatus, of which he has the care and for which he is responsible, and the invasion of the school room by other scholars would produce confusion and disorder.
3. In some of the schools, there are no teacher who would be willing to conduct the proposed separate exercises on account of their conscientious scruples.
4. The ascertainment of the proposed 30 per cent, a number likely to vary from day to day or from term to term would be sources of uncertainty and dispute.
5. In a given school, 30 per cent of the whole number might not be Catholics, while in some of the classes there might and probably would be 30 per cent of Catholics.
For these and other reasons your committee are not prepared to recommend that so radical a change be made now nor until the people have had the opportunity to discuss the plan and express their opinion upon it, in the choice of the members of the Board of Education.
At the recent election, no suggestions were made indicating, as far as we know, than anything beyond the restoration of the rule repeated with the practice under it, was expected or demanded.
We therefore recommend none of the plans proposed and without further instruction from the Board shall continue the practice now in operation.
Arthur D. Osborne
Maier Zunder
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