The State Must Be Secular

Given before the Chamber of Deputies, 3 June 1876

1 pronounce the words secular state without any trepidation, even though, for some of our honorable colleagues they would seem to have a certain radical, anarchist, or revolutionary flavor. Yet I am not saying anything new, revolutionary, or anarchist when I maintain that the state must be secular, that the totality of society is necessarily represented by secular organizations.

What, exactly, is this principle? It is a doctrine that [the Catholic church] prides itself on having introduced into the world: the doctrine of the separation of temporal and spiritual power. Yes, Christianity introduced the doctrine of the separation of these two domains, the realm of the state and that of conscience, the temporal and the spiritual. It was successful, after centuries of struggle, in the midst of full-blown paganism. However, there is one reproach we could make against the church in this matter. After taking four or five centuries to introduce this doctrine, the church has then spent seven or eight centuries vehemently attacking it.

Gentlemen what was the key accomplishment, the major concern, the great passion and service of the French Revolution? To have built this secular state, to have succeeded in making the social organisms of society exclusively secular, to have taken away from the clergy its political organization and role as a cadre within the state-that, precisely, is the French Revolution in its full reality. Welll now, we do not presume to convert the honorable members seated on this side of the Chamber [i.e., on the right] to the doctrines of the revolution. We only wish it to be well understood that we do not deviate from these doctrines. Convinced that the first concern, the first duty of a democratic government is to maintain incessant, powerful, vigilant and efficient control over public education, we insist that this control belong to no authority other than the state. We cannot admit, we will never admit, and this country of France will never admit that the State can be anything but a secular one.

Letter to Teachers

(17 November 1883)

The law of 28 March' is marked by two tendencies that complement without contradicting each other: on the one hand, the law excludes the teaching of any particular dogma from the required program; on the other, it accords moral and civic education the highest rank. Religious instruction belongs to the home and the church; moral instruction belongs to the school. The legislator thus did not intend to undertake a purely negative project. Undoubtedly, his first goal. was to separate school and church, to assure the freedom of conscience for both masters and pupils, to distinguish at last between two domains that have been for too long confused: that of beliefs, which are personal, free, and variable; and that of knowledge, which is common and indispensable to all, consensual. But there is something else in the law of 28 March. It, is a declaration of our will to found our own national education and base it on those notions of duty and right that the lawmaker does not hesitate to place among the first truths no one can fail to know. For this keystone of education, it is upon you, gentlemen, that the public powers have counted.

By dispensing you from religious instruction, we have no thoughts of freeing you from the teaching of morals. That would be removing the dignity of your profession. On the contrary, it seemed completely natural that the teacher, while teaching children to read and write, teach them as well the elementary rules of the moral life, which are no less universally accepted than those of grammar and mathematics.

... You do not, strictly speaking, have to teach anything new, anything that is not already as familiar to you as it is to all good people. And when we speak to you of your mission and apostolate, you should not misunderstand us. You are not the apostles of a new gospel. The legislator did not wish to transform you into philosophers or makeshift theologians. He asks of you what one may ask of any man of heart and sense. It is impossible for you to see all these children who gather around you every day to listen to your lessons, who observe your conduct and are inspired by your example, at the age when the mind awakens, the heart opens, the memory becomes enriched, without your having the idea of taking advantage of this docility and this confidence for purposes of moral instruction. You cannot help but give, along with what is strictly speaking, scholarly knowledge, the very principles of morality-by which I mean that good, simple, and ancient morality that we received from our parents and that in our relationships in life we all pride ourselves on following without troubling to examine its philosophical basis.

You are the auxiliary and, in some respects, the substitute for the father of the family. Speak then to his son as you would wish one to speak to your own: with force and authority every time it is a question of an incontestable truth, of a matter of common morality: with the greatest reserve the moment you risk touching upon a religious feeling of which you are not the judge.

If at times you are at a loss to know exactly how far you may go in your moral teaching, here is a practical rule for you to follow. The moment you are planning to propose any precept or maxim to your students, ask yourself if you know of any good man who could be offended by what you are going to say. Ask yourself if any family man present in your class and hearing you could with good faith refuse to assent to what you say. If the answer is yes, refrain from saying it. If not, speak boldly, for what you are going to communicate to the child is not your own wisdom, but that of the human race. It is one of the ideas of a universal order that centuries of human civilization have bequeathed us. However narrow this circle of action may seem, make it a point of honor never to leave it. Remain within its boundaries rather than overstepping them. You can never be too scrupulous about touching that delicate and sacred thing that is a child's conscience. But, once you are thus loyally confined to the humble and secure role of everyday morality, what do we ask of you? Speeches? Wise explanations? Brilliant expos6s, scholarly teaching? No! Family and society ask you to help raise their children, to make honest people of them. That is to say that they expect not words but acts, not another course added to the program but a completely practical service that you can render to the country more as a man than as a teacher.