Although the Supreme Court only recently struck down school prayer in Engle v. Vitale (1962) and mandatory Bible readings in Abington v. Schempp (1963), legal scholar Green (Willamette Univ.) argues that the origins of these legal battles are grounded in earlier 19th-century educational battles regarding Bible reading in public schools and government funding of parochial schools. Catholics challenged nonsectarian Bible reading as Protestant oriented, and Protestants countered with no-funding legislation to sever government funding from parochial schools. Green disputes the argument that nonsectarian and no-funding policies were simple anti-Catholic posturing, contending that they drew from more principled constitutional and philosophical arguments over church and state policy that grew in sophistication throughout the century. Increasing educational secularizing trends culminated in the Blaine Amendments, which sought to amend the Constitution to prohibit states from funding public education. Although it failed to pass, several states adopted its core principles and divorced public funds from religious education. In summary, Green reminds readers that modern Supreme Court rulings were not products of sudden secularizing trends in the 20th century, but rather were grounded in a more than century-long debate over the separation of church and state. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries. M. S. Hill Gordon College

From 1863 to 1876, education reformers, religious leaders, ordinary people, and legal experts grappled with "the School Question": whether Bible reading belonged in public education, and if religious schools could receive public funds. Green, a professor of law and history at Willamette University, has provided an extremely dense but rigorous assessment of this tumultuous period that witnessed the Civil War, the emergence of a public system of education, and an influx of immigration. Catholics accused the ostensibly secular public schools of promoting Protestantism because some influential education reformers equated Republicanism with Protestantism. While it was inconceivable to some that students could learn moral virtue without reading the Bible, other states like Ohio banned unmediated reading of the Bible in public schools during "the Cincinnati Bible War." Meanwhile, anti-Catholic animus suffused the debate over public funding of parochial schools, with prominent ministers like Lyman Beecher stoking nativist fears that Catholics would dominate the Midwest. Deftly guiding the reader through this cacophony, Green reveals how a factious American public engaged with constitutional principles that still resonate in today's controversies over school prayer and creationism. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.