Dear Editor:
I read with great interest the two articles dealing with the problem of education in the January, 1965, TORCH AND TRUMPET. I was pleased to note that Rev. Mahaffy and Dr. Palmer express a basic agreement in principle although they diverge in application. Please allow a few observations bearing on these articles.
After careful reading, I assume that Rev. Mahaffy refers to Dr. Palmer’s CEF when he says that many have “joined cause to seek a federal subsidy for private schools.” To the best of my knowledge (and as explicitly stated in Dr. Palmer’s article) there is no advocation of federal support of education by CEF. In fact, if I am properly informed, certain tax credit bills advocated by CEF members would precisely limit and/or prevent the intervention of the federal government into the field of education. This is the very argument advanced by Rev. Mahaffy when he says that “the most economical method is for parents directly to pay for the schools of their choice.”
There is apparently some confusion in Rev. Mahaffy’s presentation of the “two basic tenets” of those who seek tax equality for all school pupils. As to the first of these “tenets.” I doubt that any Reformed Christian could effectively argue from the Scripture that the government (regardless of the level of government) acts illegitimately in asking that its citizens seek a certain minimum education. The very welfare of the state demands this. But this is quite different from saying, as Rev. Mahaffy does in the second half of the so-called “tenet,” that the state itself must establish such schools. This basic assumption of many of our fellow citizens is the very thing challenged by CEF. And, in this connection, it is interesting to note that histOrically the development of the public school system did not come about from the “top down” but by local communities seeking a broader base for its educational system. It is true that the broader base was advocated with an improper theory of “common religious values” but this does not belie the fact that the public school has been, and still largely is, a community school. In many instances the state government exercises no more control over the public school than it does over our own independent schools. The matter of the “legitimate function of the government” and the establishment of a state school system are not co-relative principles by any means. Thus, although Rev. Mahaffy makes an excellent argument for the rationale of Christian education, he fails to establish how “the first belief’” denies the responsibility of the parent.
In this connection, another question is raised in my mind by these articles. I wonder, if it is wrong for the state to “subsidize” (a term inaccurately used in the articles) independent education in any way, is it proper and morally possible for us to accept our tax exempt status on properties, to participate in the school lunch and milk programs, to take part in community health services, use bus transportation provided by all taxpayers, etc.? Are not all of these a form of “subsidy”? It seems to me that we must be consistent. And if consistent in refusing these aids and paying the taxes on our real property, for example, many or most of our schools would be forced to close at once. Perhaps one of the writers can tackle this thorny issue some time.
From my acquaintance with CEF, I do not believe that it advocates the second of the so-called “basic tenets” advanced by Rev. Mahaffy. All of the literature I have seen from this organization advocates the very thing Rev. Mahaffy proposes: “those who prefer private schools should not be required to pay taxes to support state schools.” None of the literature of those seeking tax equality advocates more taxation—only the return of a legitimate proportion of the tax dollar so that the independent school supporter is not forced to pay a tax for secular education. Is not the best and most equitable way to assure that we are not forced to pay taxes for secular education found in the return of a fair portion of our own tax dollar for the education of our own children?
I have had many opportunities in the past to discuss this matter with Dr. Palmer. He realizes that we do not always agree 100% in this area. But it does seem to me that the best way—the most practical, hopefully successful and constitutional way—to implement the basic positions of both Rev. Mahaffy and Dr. Palmer is that proposed in Dr. Palmer’s article. This places the emphasis right where it belongs: equitable treatment of the child citizen (student) and not favoritism for the citizen who chooses (religious) secularism.
Kindly permit one other brief observation. For those of us who are so deeply concerned with the continued encroachment of big and bigger government; is it not true that the broad distribution of the tax dollar provides more built in protection from government control than will be possible when ALL tax monies are channeled through a small and entrenched group of public school administrators? Our precious freedoms are more likely to be preserved if the tax dollar is distributed on an individual basis to ALL involved citizens than it is if given in lump sums to a few powerful administrators.
Please have more discussion of these important practical issues in the future.
Sincerely yours, ELTON PIERSMA
Dear Editor:
The Rev. Mr. Francis E. Mahaffy calls our attention in the January issue of TORCH AND TRUMPET to the “inequality” existing where parents “by their taxes…already are paying for the support of state schools and yet must pay for the private school as well.” For this we arc thankful. But can we also be appreciative of the solution which he has to offer?
has to offer? “The solution to the problem,” he writes in his article Education—Government or Christian, “is to seek to disestablish the government schools.” And because he sees little hope of achieving this, he offers an alternative. “Apart from disestablishment,” he says, the solution “lies in charging the people for the services.” “Those who use state schools should pay for that service.”
How does Mr. Mahaffy come to these radical and impractical proposals? Why does he reject the simple solution advocated by Citizens for Educational Freedom of replacing inequality with equality by treating every student alike, regardless of whether he attends a public or a private school—the simple solution of equitable distribution of tax monies set aside for educational purposes?
He quite correctly understands the nature of education, rejecting completely the idea of neutrality and denying the propriety of the state engaging in the task of education. One must agree completely with the important observation that “education is essentially a religious activity.” And of course one must agree that “it is the responsibility of parents and not of the state to educate their children…”
It is a disappointment, then, to read the following faulty advice at the close of an article which contains the above important and sound insights: “If we directed our energies and substance toward voluntarily supporting true Christian education instead of toward seeking tax money paid by others to enable us to fulfill our God-given duty to educate our children in the fear of the Lord, we would better glorify our covenant God and advance the cause of Christian education.” For the most part it has been just those who work the hardest for the support of private education who have taken up the cause of CEF. To many of them CEFs program seems to be just that course of action which is essential to the survival of private education and to the forestalling of the type of state education Mr. Mahaffy so correctly deplores.
How then does Mr. Mahaffy come to these radical and impractical proposals?
Concerning the state, he takes the scriptural idea that it properly bears “the power of the sword to suppress evil” and then draws the unscriptural conclusion that the state is essentially the power of the sword and nothing else. It even becomes “the pagan state” from which the Christian school cannot “in good conscience accept subsidy.” Apparently a Christian citizen has no civil rights.
Concerning education, he takes the scriptural idea that it is properly the responsibility of the parents and then draws the unscriptural conclusion that the parents and no one else has any proper concern for or responsibility in the matter of education. He seems to think that parental responsibility includes the parental right not to educate one’s children if, for example, he thought he could not afford it. Apparently the idea of universal, free education for the provision of an educated citizenry to preserve democratic government, so thoroughly rooted in American history, is completely set aside.
Besides drawing these unscriptural conclusions, Mr. Mahaffy seems misinformed about at least some of those who are working for tax subsidy of private education. Certainly not an “seek a federal subsidy for private schools,” and few if any “insist that the state has no right to define the content of that education” which is subsidized. The state not only has the right but the duty to require certain minimum scholastic and curricular standards in its compulsory education laws, regardless of whether or not it provides the funds for that education through taxation.
Let us not follow the ill-considered advice of Mr. Mahaffy of burying our head in the sand along with our rights of citizenship, or of setting out on a program of wrecking the public school system and the state-sponsored program of universal free education. We must rather strive to see that all citizens in our republic are treated equitably in the distribution of governmental tax monies for the purpose of education and that freedom of religious direction is guaranteed and protected for us and all our fellow citizens. As Christian citizens we must call upon the power of the state, which is ordained of God, to treat all of its citizens with that justice and equity which will guarantee the preservation of religious liberty in the all-important area of education.
G.A. ANDREAS, PELLA, IOWA