Cincinnati Bible War | 1 2 3

So the Cincinnati Bible War takes a place in history books as the beginning of school secularization; however, University of Cincinnati history professor Linda Przybyszewski's most recent research disproves that claim. "From what I can tell, we're not talking about secularization. This law suit didn't change the substance of what was going on. They just maneuvered around it."

In reality, the Bible may have been stricken from the curriculum, but God wasn't. Her most recent research leads her to believe that while the appeal process was underway, local educators found ways to incorporate religion into the schools without the Bible.

	Cartoon by Walt Handelsman, A&S '79, Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist at Newsday. Copyright, 2004, Tribune Media Services. Reprinted with permission.

As late as 1887, the school day still contained "sacred song," "the literature of Christendom" and "faithful and fearless Christian teachers," according to a speech that Cincinnati superintendent E.E. White gave to the National Education Association that year. He concludes that "the only way to teach children to revere both the school and society is by teaching them about God," Przybyszewski says.

"To him, that's the foundational belief. Most of the men who spoke at the meeting, superintendents from all over the country, were utterly committed to the idea that you needed children trained to believe in God to have a society that functions."

Of course, White's revised curriculum failed to address the original controversy. After all, sacred songs were usually sectarian at the time, meaning they were either Protestant or Catholic. And Christian literature would be slanted depending upon its source. Furthermore, potential Jewish concerns were totally ignored.

"Their version of the separation of church and state was that you aren't forced to attend a particular church; you aren't forced to pony up money for it," she explains. "But they see absolutely no reason why that should include the removal of religious influence from public sectors of life. To us, that's not separation of church and state, but we have a far stricter and higher standard today."

The professor's first hint that the Supreme Court had little impact on the typical school day came when she could find no documented public outcry after the ruling. "It was way too quiet in 1872, as opposed to this huge public response in 1869," she says.

Discovering the superintendent's speech will provide important information in the book she is writing because it changes assumptions scholars have held for a long time. "If scholars are pointing to this 1872 case as the end of Bibles in Ohio public schools and as a big step forward in secularization, which we repeatedly do, then we've screwed up. The idea that it was always onward and upward toward secularization is far too simple."

READ MORE: How far is far enough in keeping church and state separate?