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Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Speeches in Stirring Times, and Letters to a Son
Richard Henry Dana Jr Speeches in Stirring Times and Letters to a Son Author:Richard Henry Dana General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1910 Original Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co. Subjects: Slavery Fugitive slaves United States History / United States / General History / United States / 19th Century History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877) Juvenile Fiction / Historical / General ... more » Social Science / Slavery Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Ill THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS [Mr. Dana's argument was in defense of a school committee of a Maine town, that had refused a child permission to attend the local public schools, on the ground that the child refused to be present when the English version of the Bible was being read. The father, a Roman Catholic, was a citizen of the town and a taxpayer, and he brought suit against the committee. The defense was that members of a school committee were public officers, that the law and constitution of the State of Maine gave these officers discretion as to what should be read and studied in the schools under them, that the law was clear that "a public officer, exercising a discretion, judicial in its character, cast upon him by law, is not liable to private action for damages unless he acts in bad faith or from malice." Mr. Dana then maintained that, as the Bible had always been read in the public schools of Maine, as the teachers omitted those passages in the Bible in which the translation was contested by the Roman Catholics, and as there was no evidence of special bad faith or malice, the members of the school committee were not liable in damages to the father. So much of the argument as regarded the constitution and statutes of Maine at the time (which have since been altered as to the reading of the Bible in the public...« less