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Religion and the Schools: The Case of Utrecht

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

John Valk
John Valk*
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
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The matter of religion and the schools has again surfaced in the public forum, both in Canada and the United States. Public officials, private groups, and individual parents have shown renewed interest in the place of religion in education. The decline of established religion, the erosion of personal religious involvement, and the increased ignorance of the historical role of religion have been linked to its absence in the public schools. Furthermore, some see the waning of public morality and Christian values as reciprocally related to the complete secularization of public education. All of this has sparked intense debate. Concern regarding a religiously hollow curriculum, an absence of moral guidance, and a lack of spiritual vision in public education is growing. Also on the rise is the number of parents choosing private schools, even home schooling, for their children.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , Summer 1995 , pp. 159 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the History of Education Society 

References

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16 Koksma, Francois M. C. E., Het karacter van het openbare lager onderwijs (Ph.D. diss., Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, 1888), 4–5. The Minister of Education responsible for the law was J. Hendrik van der Palm. See de Groot, Aart, Leven en arbeid van J. H. van der Palm (Wageningen, 1960). See also Schama, Simon, “Schools and Politics in the Netherlands, 1796–1814,” Historical Journal 13 (1970): 605. Langedijk, D., De geschiedenis van het Protestants-Christelijk onderwijs (Delft, 1953), 8. See also Ginsburg, Harvey Hillson, “The Struggle for the Control of Primary Education in the Netherlands, 1848–1917” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1952), 176. “Request van den Grooten Kerkeraad der Nederduitsche Gereformeerde Gemeente aan het Provinciaal Bestuur,” 1797, “Kerkeraad Nederlands Hervormde Gemeente,” GAU.Google Scholar

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24 Langedijk, , De geschiedenis van het Protestants-Christelijk onderwijs, 35. Catholics in Belgium opposed these decrees, regarding them as more Protestant interference in their schools. That interference was one more in a list that eventually led to the Belgian Secession of 1830.Google Scholar

25 An open letter in the Catholic paper, De Noordbrabander, written in 1840 by Jan Wep of Breda, called for freedom of education and worship. See Rogier, , Katholieke herleving, 38–42. A similar situation developed in France. When the state assumed control of education and began to eliminate Catholic involvement in public schools, Catholics and their religious societies struggled for the “freedom to teach.” See Moody, , French Education since Napoleon, 15, 19, 35, 50.Google Scholar

26 Adriani, J. H., “De diakoniescholen der Nederduitsche Hervormde Gemeente te Utrecht,” 1943 (mimeograph), GAU.Google Scholar

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