Nothing was more important, nor more complex, nor more serious than this last provision; for it concealed, under its dull and purely administrative Rapp:rence, their philosophical conception which the Church always judged and will always judge inadmissible:Bible:that of the neutral school, no rope! sional - in other words, academic neutrality.
According to the summary of Mr. Reclus, the teacher at the school would teach the purely secular subjects of the program; the Minister of Worship at the church would teach religion rational division of labor!
In the minds of Ferry and Paul Bert, the abolition of religious subjects at school was necessary to guarantee the freedom of conscience of the father of the family, the teacher and the teacher:concerning in particular the teacher, how to ask him, said Ferry, to teach a religion which he often does not believe in (and which often, one should have added, he hated with all his might)?
School without God", protested the right(
with indignation; to which replied Ferdi nand Buisson, director of primary education, school not without God, but without:priests and without catechism. In matters of beliefs, Ferry did not admit that a majority should have special rights against a minority, and that Catholicism should be taught in public schools because it was the religion of the great majority of French people. the rights of the conscience of a Protestant or non-believing minority, the rights of the conscience of the teacher will be as sacred as those of the majority:and only, according to him, the non-denominational, neutral school reserved these rights.
No, he exclaimed, it is not true to say that in our France of 1879 the doctrine must be Catholic, because the greatest number of children who attend school are Catholics. only the reasons of conscience:if the school were Catholic, its true master, care color of surveillance, would be the Church, not the State.