When schools first opened hundreds of years ago prayer was always enforced, and the Bible was the only book most schools had to read. Our first constitutional right states that we have the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and as our right the government can not tell us when it is appropriate to pray. The government is only taking away yet another right making us weaker and themselves stronger. The bible being the first book in education, the first amendment, moment of silence in school, the religious freedom amendment, and how society have reacted to this situation help to reach my opinion on prayer in schools.
             The oldest known system of education was to teach religion and promote traditions of people. In the western world education was based on Biblical traditions of the Old Testament. The first school in America was in Jamestown in 1607. Schools were church related or private, including universities. Yale, Harvard, Brown, and Dartmouth were all established by church groups. In the early 1800's four of every 1000 people were illiterate. Greek and Latin were taught in grammar school. Protestantism permeated the textbooks, which caused the Catholics to create their own schools. In the early 1800's, Horace Mann, as president of the senate in Massachusetts, initiated the first state board of public instruction. He wanted public education to be Unitarian and did not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. He wanted state education with no Christian influence. Mann followed Germany's Hegelian philosophy, which claimed nothing was absolute and man's ideas were superior to Biblical principles. This was the important shift from objective realities to subjective realities. (Mel Gablers) In the early 20th century, John Dewey, a university professor trained teachers in "progressive education". Teachers today are instructed in this philosophy. Mr. Dewey was a signer of the Humanist Manifest #1, and bel...