James Frasers book, Between Church and State: Religion and Public Education in a Multicultural America is a book that he hopes will make a “small contribution” toward the kind of understanding that will help the United State to “function as a tolerant, intellectually informed, and dynamic democracy in the twenty-first century” (Fraser 1999, pg.3). In this book Fraser tries to answer the central question of “How should a diverse and democratic society deal with issues of religion in public schools” (Fraser 1999, pg.4) and I think he does an excellent job at answering this question.
In Chapter two Frasers focuses on the introduction of the common school and universal religious instruction by Horace Mann, Stowe, and Beecher’s efforts. His main argument in this chapter is that the common school is taking on a common culture, Protestantism. Mann wanted to teach general Protestantism is schools. Therefore this idea was “the common schools should provide “religious education” of a general and tolerant nature” (Fraser 1999, pg.25). This meant…show more content… His argument is that there is a lack for educational possibilities for Catholics as well as other religions. “By 1850 Catholics were the largest single religious denomination of the nation” (Fraser 1999, pg. 49). This was due to the vast amount of immigrants coming to America. Since the common school was solely Protestant, the Catholic community did not like this very much. The common schools essentially discriminated against Catholicism and so did the teachers and textbooks by calling them “barbarians.” Due to the ongoing issue of Catholic discrimination in public schools Catholic schools were created. In 1806 these schools were originally funded by the state, however that did not last very long and the funds were cut off. In 1875 the Blaine Amendments were established and states that state laws make it illegal to give public funding to private