APPENDIX.

A.

REPORT

Of the Law Committee of the Common Council, to whom were referred the Petitions of Trustees of Church Schools for Participation in the Distribution of the School Fund.

[The law of November 19, 1824, gave to the Common Council the power to appoint ten commissioners of common schools, and to designate the institutions which should be the recipients of the school money. The trustees of St. Patrick's and St. Peter's Roman Catholic schools, the Methodist, and other church schools, submitted their petitions for a continuance of the apportionment to these schools, which were referred to the Law Committee, together with the fourth section of the law. On the 28th of April, 1825, the committee submitted their report.]

The Committee on Laws, to whom were referred the fourth section of the act of the Legislature of this State, relating to common schools in the city of New York, passed the 19th of November, 1824; the memorials of the trustees of the charity schools attached to the Reformed Dutch Church of the city of New York; of the trustees of the First Protestant Episcopal charity school in the city of New York; and of the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, praying respectively for a participation in the common school fund; and also the report of a committee of the trustees of the Free-School Society, on the distribution of the said fund, proposing a change in the constitution of that Society, so as to admit children of all classes to their schools, for a compensation not exceeding fifty cents per quarter, with power to remit in proper cases, REPORT:

That the subject referred to them is one of vital importance to this community, involving, as it does, the high and essential interests of education and of public benevolence in their application to the numerous poor children of our city. The various institutions which have been established for, or have undertaken from the best of motives the relief of this portion of our inhabitants, have been represented before your committee; and their respective claims to a participation respectively in the public bounty have been urged, on the part of their delegates, by all the obligations and motives

which could be drawn from the sources of piety and philanthropy, and with all the force and energy of the most persuasive eloquence and the most cogent argument.

These discussions have instructed your committee, and have, at the same time, proved the depth of talent, the eminent virtue, and the laudable public spirit which distinguish those of our fellow-citizens who deservedly take the lead in meliorating the condition of the human race, and especially that of the poor and destitute among the rising generation.

These institutions consist, on the one hand, of the churches and religious societies, many of which maintain charity schools; and, on the other, of societies whose members are of different religious persuasions, and whose exclusive object is the gratuitous instruction of the poor.

On the part of the churches, it has been maintained that the charity schools are of long standing, and have heretofore received the fostering care of the Legislature; that the children are taught in them the branches of a plain, ordinary education, with little or no difference as to efficiency when compared with the other institutions, and in support of this, they offer to submit them to a fair examination; and it is superadded, with much emphasis, that, in these schools, the children receive also the advantages of religious instruction.

On this latter subject it is urged, in the first place, by the advocates of the churches, that for this they receive no compensation; and, in the second, that religion is the best and only foundation of all private happiness, of all sound morality, and of all capacity for public usefulness; and, in answer to the charge of efforts on their part to promote sectarian influence, they deny that such is their intended object; and they further reply and explain, that religion cannot exist but according to some specific form and system; that no religious sentiment can be advanced except of the most general nature, about which professing Christians will not differ; and that the objection would exclude all practical religious instruction whatsoever, since religion must be presented in some definite shape, or it can hardly find access to the heart and become influential on the conduct. And it has, in turn, been argued, "Show me a man of no sect, and I will show you a man of no religion," and that it is better to have a community of conscientious sectarians, than a community of nothingarians. And it is further added, that the children attached to the charity schools are habitually instructed in the observance of Sunday, not only by causing them to be kept out of the streets, and to be removed from the temptations and dangers to which they would be there exposed, but by causing them to go to church, and to engage in the duties of that sacred day.

It is further insisted by the churches, that they and the lay corporations together are the only associations for the benevolent purpose of instructing the poor of this city; and that, under the act of the Legislature as it now stands, each will alike be subject to a constant and wholesome supervision on the part of the commissioners appointed by the Common Council. They further contend that there can be no danger of a church establishment growing out of the assistance they wish to receive from this fund, which will fall

far short of a support, and that the rendering of such assistance only is different altogether from endowing or entrusting them with public funds, without a definite and specified object. Under this head, it is maintained that no danger is felt by the General or State Government from the growth of clerical influence, or of its tendency to church establishments, as the employment of chaplains by the House of Representatives, and in the Army and Navy, and also in the State Legislatures, is still continued with the general approbation. The instance of the employment of a chaplain by this board is also mentioned, to prove that no such apprehension is here entertained. It is urged, further, that the State has heretofore directed the division of this fund among the churches maintaining charity schools, and the other lay corporations, as the former wish it still to continue to be divided. That the Legislature of this State has heretofore made to churches considerable grants, and a prominent instance is mentioned of a donation of $4,000 to one of the churches of this city (sec. 37, p. 144); and a further and general argument is drawn, favorable to the high literary and intellectual qualifications of the clergy of our country, from the fact that in very many, if not in the large majority of instances, the presidents of colleges and seminaries of learning are chosen from that body by the general consent and approbation of the community at large.

In regard to the argument that children ought to be instructed in catechisms and forms of religion at home, as is the case with those taught in the ordinary pay schools, they insist that the situation of poor children, such as are taught in the free and charity schools, does not admit of instruction at home on any subject that is useful, much less that of religion in any form; and they say that the trustees of the free schools, conscious of this, do teach the children under their care some religion, but of that kind and in that degree which is calculated to meet the views of numerous and influential sects of Christians. And on the subject of the prevalence of sectarianism, and the common anxiety to extirpate it, it has been very strenuously insisted that, should either of the lay corporations have the entire benefit of this fund, the so much apprehended effects of sectarian jealousy and animosity would soon be experienced by that body, and that its members would become the subjects, and its place of meeting be transformed into the arena, of their baneful operations. Assuming, therefore, what is predicted of them, the delegates of the churches contend that this sectarian tendency, if it be an evil, is now kept within reasonable limits by encouraging all religious denominations; whereas, by placing its now divided forces into a more concentrated form, its native intensity would be excited, and the consequences would be fatal to the body or the association which it might infect.

These are some of the most prominent reasons on which the claims of the churches are rested for a participation in this fund.

On the other hand, and in behalf of those institutions not of an ecclesiastical description, but formed out of all religious persuasions indiscriminately, it is insisted that the common school fund will soon become of very large amount, and the annual distribution be consequently greatly increased.

And it is asked, Shall such a portion of the public moneys be placed in any degree under clerical influence? A proposition to tax the people for the support of religion, it is said, would never have been sustained by the Corvention of 1777, nor by that of 1821; and the Common Council is now called upon officially to act, as those bodies would have acted had they been called upon to settle this question. The churches, it is alleged, ought not to participate in this fund, because it would be in violation of that rule of civil policy admitted to be prevalent, which forbids all connection between matters of Church and those of State, and upon which the fourth section of the seventh article of the present Constitution, and which is reenacted from the old, is founded, forbidding any minister of the gospel from holding any civil or military office.

It is strongly contended that the trustees of churches are irresponsible to, and independent of, any civil authority, being appointed not by a spe cial law of the Legislature, but by their own act, under the general law for the incorporation of religious societies. That this state of irresponsibility and independence is calculated to produce relaxation in discipline, and an enfeebled attention on their part to the minute and perplexing business of education; and that, as to this branch of their duties, there is no control over them whatsoever.

That part of this fund is raised by tax, and to devote any portion of it, so that by possibility it may be turned into sectarian channels, would be to compel one portion of the community, without their consent, to become the supporters of the religious opinions of others. That to pay teachers of sectarian schools out of this fund, is the same thing, in effect, as to pay the clergymen of the congregations; and that sectarian purposes may be equally promoted by teaching children as by maintaining clergymen.

That, when it is maintained that religion is taught in the charity schools, it must be understood that the catechisms and confessions of the churches are taught, and that, though religious creeds and dogmas are equally tolerated by the law, it by no means follows that all are equally true and equally entitled to support; and that it is impossible they should all be true and equally entitled to support, since some are directly opposed and contradictory to the others. It is further maintained, that one system or the other must be the best, and entitled to a preference; and that, therefore, if a religious education be the best, and entitled to such preference as relates to this fund, the institutions promoting and inculcating it ought to be established, and every other prostrated and condemned.

That churches and religious societies have no common standard, no common principle, and can be subjected to no common superintendence or inspection; and that the school fund, which is founded on taxation and public income, shall be applied indiscriminately to the support of all holding such conflicting and irreconcilable tenets, it will follow, not only that error will be placed on the same ground with truth, and receive at least an equal share of support with it, but that it will produce an unequal, and consequently unjust bearing on different members of the same community,

who contribute in the same proportion to this as to the other public burdens.

It is maintained that religious societies do not admit of visitations as such; and in reply to any proposed discrimination between the churches or their schools, it is said that any provision in favor of one must be founded on a principle which, in its operation, will admit all alike-the long-established with the one of yesterday-the one venerable for its antiquity and its well-acquired reputation for piety and usefulness, with another which may be the offspring of cupidity and speculation, and under the direction of an individual of questionable morality, and set up for the very purpose of depredating on the public charity and munificence, and, consequently, on the hard earnings of the people, which are the sources of that charity and munificence. On the subject of aiding in the support of churches, which, it is contended, results from the late law, and the practice under it, it is strongly urged that true religion requires and admits of no aid from the secular power; that her only resources are from heaven, and the contributions of willing hearts; that she seeks only for protection, and not for support; and that the arm of the State, though strong, has no potency or legitimate control beyond such protection.

These propositions, it is contended, are unanswerable in themselves, and derive great strength from the example of every other county in this State where the common school fund is confined in its application to the purposes of a common or literary education alone, and is not permitted to receive the least share of religious or clerical influence in its distribution; and also from the examples of some of our sister States, who, in the recent revision of their constitutions, have severally struck from these instruments the provision formerly incorporated in them, favorable to ecclesiastical participation in similar funds in these States.

And it is further contended that, on this very subject, we are admonished and instructed by an act which passed the Assembly (though not the Senate of this State) in the year 1824, founded on the report of a committee of that body, in which the committee state that "the city of New York is the only part of the State where the school fund is at all subject to the control of religious societies. This fund is considered by your committee purely of a civil character, and therefore it ought never, in their opinion, to pass into the hands of any corporation or set of men who are not directly amenable to the constituted civil authorities of the Government, and bound to report their proceedings to the public." And that committee more than intimate that, in their opinion, it would be "a violation of a fundamental principle of legislation to allow the funds of the State, raised by a tax on the citizens, designed for civil purposes, to be subject to the control of any religious corporation."

In regard to religious instruction, it is contended, on the part of the civil or lay corporations, that they cause to be communicated, in imitation of the Bible Society, who publish the Scriptures without note or comment, such precepts, in the form of reading-lessons and catechisms, in the original language of the Bible, on such interesting and familiar subjects of human duty