Religious Education

Questions respecting the religious education of children arise not infrequently by reason of applications to the courts for either restraining or mandatory process intended to control the religious education of children where differences exist between the parents or where the relations of a deceased parent seek to control the direction given to the mind of the child. Where the husband was a Roman Catholic and the wife a Protestant, and by an antenuptial agreement the children were to be brought up as Roman Catholics, but they had been educated as Protestants, and it appeared that the father gave way to drink and two girls of fifteen and eleven were before the court on the application of the father, who had reformed, to restore them to his charge and educate them at a Papist school, it was held that the children should remain at the Protestant school where they theif were; [1896] 1 Ch. 740. Courts or those who have the guardianship father and, unless under very special cir- a society; Silsby v. Barlow, 16 Gray (Mass.) cumstances, should see that the child is 329. Membership in jthe church is not ordibrought up in his religious faith; L. R. 6 narily a prerequisite to membership in the Ch. 539. corporation, and the excommunication of a Where both father and mother were Ro- member who was trustee of a religious soman Catholics and, after the death of the ciety did not disqualify him from holding father, a posthumous child was born, and that office; Bouldin v. Alexander, 15 Wall. five years after the father’s death, the moth- (U. S.) 131, 21 L. Ed. 69. This distinction er became a Protestant and, until the child between the church and the society has been was about nine years of age, educated it in stated by Judge Cooley, who said that the that faith, the court refused to order the statute under consideration contemplates a child to be brought up in the father’s belief; church connected with the corporation, 8 D. M. & G. 760. though that may not be essential. The Where no abandonment by the father is church is not incorporated and does not conshown, the mere fact that a child will be trol the property or the membership of the better off or more contented under other peo- society, while the corporation has nothing ple’s care will not justify his instruction in to do with the church except to provide for a creed other than the father’s; but when its temporal wants; Hardin v. Second Bapabandonment is proved, the question turns tist Church of Detroit, 51 Mich. 137, 16 N. upon the welfare of the child; L. R. 8 Ch. W. 311, 47 Am. Rep. 555. The unincorporat- 622. See 24 Ch. Div. 317. The pecuniary ed ecclesiastical body has power to control welfare of the child will be weighed together and discipline its membership, but the reliwith its moral welfare, but the danger of gious corporation has no power to try or making the former all important must be disfranchise a corporator for moral delinguarded against; 4 My. & Cr. 688. quency, and in case of an attempt to do so, The practice of the courts of having in- he has his remedy at law; People v. Church, terviews with the children is discouraged as 53 N. Y. 103. tending to encourage controversial opinions Their powers, like those of other corporain their tender minds, and because the child tions, are construed with reference to the is often so nervous that the court can* form object of their corporate existence and exno useful opinion in that way; [1893] 1 Ch. tend so far, and so far only, as necessary 143. to effectuate them. It has been held that See Custody; Infant; Parent and Child. a church corporation the object of whose As to the Bible in schools, see Schools. incorporation was “the more efficient wor-