Overview

An ambitious and timely look at the role of religion in New York State's early public schools.

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9780791462119

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Reviews

"""Exploiting sources never before consulted, Benjamin Justice explodes a number of long-cherished 'truths' regarding religious conflict, local control, and the nature of nineteenth-century common schools. He moves the focus of inquiry from the overheated rhetoric of national discourse to the local level, examining how questions of Bible reading, religious exercises, and public support for sectarian education were acted upon in the thousands of school districts of New York State. His findings are surprising and exciting; they also raise a host of new questions about the many faces of democracy and the forms of social and political life we lost many decades ago. Best of all, Justice commits his iconoclastic revisionism with modesty, humor, and grace."" - Ronald E. Butchart, coeditor of Classroom Discipline in American Schools: Problems and Possibilities for Democratic Education; ""Justice provides a nuanced and sophisticated revision of the warfare thesis that has governed writing about religion and public education in nineteenth-century America. In doing so, he avoids the trap of consensus theory by arguing instead that common schools succeeded in mediating religious conflict."" - Gregory L. Kaster, Gustavus Adolphus College"""

Exploiting sources never before consulted, Benjamin Justice explodes a number of long-cherished 'truths' regarding religious conflict, local control, and the nature of nineteenth-century common schools. He moves the focus of inquiry from the overheated rhetoric of national discourse to the local level, examining how questions of Bible reading, religious exercises, and public support for sectarian education were acted upon in the thousands of school districts of New York State. His findings are surprising and exciting; they also raise a host of new questions about the many faces of democracy and the forms of social and political life we lost many decades ago. Best of all, Justice commits his iconoclastic revisionism with modesty, humor, and grace. - Ronald E. Butchart, coeditor of Classroom Discipline in American Schools: Problems and Possibilities for Democratic Education; Justice provides a nuanced and sophisticated revision of the warfare thesis that has governed writing about religion and public education in nineteenth-century America. In doing so, he avoids the trap of consensus theory by arguing instead that common schools succeeded in mediating religious conflict. - Gregory L. Kaster, Gustavus Adolphus College

""Exploiting sources never before consulted, Benjamin Justice explodes a number of long-cherished 'truths' regarding religious conflict, local control, and the nature of nineteenth-century common schools. He moves the focus of inquiry from the overheated rhetoric of national discourse to the local level, examining how questions of Bible reading, religious exercises, and public support for sectarian education were acted upon in the thousands of school districts of New York State. His findings are surprising and exciting; they also raise a host of new questions about the many faces of democracy and the forms of social and political life we lost many decades ago. Best of all, Justice commits his iconoclastic revisionism with modesty, humor, and grace."" - Ronald E. Butchart, coeditor of Classroom Discipline in American Schools: Problems and Possibilities for Democratic Education; ""Justice provides a nuanced and sophisticated revision of the warfare thesis that has governed writing about religion and public education in nineteenth-century America. In doing so, he avoids the trap of consensus theory by arguing instead that common schools succeeded in mediating religious conflict."" - Gregory L. Kaster, Gustavus Adolphus College""

Author Information

Benjamin Justice is Assistant Professor of Education and History at Rutgers University.

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