by Curt Kovener
Today nearly every state has laws enacted by their legislatures on what teachers can and cannot teach. This is nothing new.
A much covered trial (and heretofore taught in school history classes) took place in 1925 on the same cultural matter.
Tennessee high school science teacher John Scopes was put on trial for breaking recently enacted Tennessee law making it unlawful to teach human evolution.
The trial drew national publicity as it pitted two high profile lawyers—William Jennings Bryan (a devout Presbyterian) for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow (a devout agnostic) defended Scopes.
The case was a cultural & theological battle nearly 100 years ago. History keeps repeating itself as these are battles legislatures seemingly still want to fight today.
Darrow, who lived from April 18, 1857 to March 13, 1938, was a colorful orator and has been credited with a number of observant quotations on life which still have application today.
•True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.
•The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything.
•As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.
•If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.
•When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I’m beginning to believe it.
•I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of.
•The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.
•To think is to differ.
•No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.
•In spite of all the yearnings of men, no one can produce a single fact or reason to support the belief in God and in personal immortality.
•I don’t like spinach, and I’m glad I don’t, because if I liked it I’d eat it, and I just hate it.
•If a man is happy in America, it is considered he is doing something wrong.
•Depressions may bring people closer to the church but so do funerals.
•None meet life honestly and few heroically.
•Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.
•Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.
•The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.
•You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom.
•History repeats itself, and that’s one of the things that’s wrong with history.
•The pursuit of truth will set you free; even if you never catch up with it.
•Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.
•The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
•I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.
•Laws should be like clothes. They should be made to fit the people they serve.
•Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.
And quite possibly my favorite:
•I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.