State v. Bartels
Decision Date | 12 February 1921 |
Docket Number | 33509 |
Citation | 181 N.W. 508,191 Iowa 1060 |
Parties | STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, v. AUGUST BARTELS, Appellant |
Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
REHEARING DENIED JUNE 25, 1921.
Appeal from Bremer District Court.--M. F. EDWARDS, Judge.
THE defendant was convicted of a violation of Chapter 198 of the Acts of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly, which prohibits the use of any language other than English, in teaching secular subjects in the public or private schools of this state. From such conviction and sentence thereon, this appeal is prosecuted. The opinion states the facts.
Affirmed.
Pickett Swisher & Farwell and F. P. Hagemann, for appellant.
H. M Havner, Attorney General, F. C. Davidson, Assistant Attorney General, and W. H. Wehrmacher, County Attorney, for appellee.
FAVILLE, J. STEVENS, ARTHUR, and DE GRAFF, JJ., concur. EVANS, C. J., WEAVER and PRESTON, JJ., dissent.
An information filed with a justice of the peace charged that the defendant, on or about November 10, 1919, "did use a language other than English, to wit, the German language, as a medium of instruction in the teaching of a secular subject, to wit, reading, to Selma Steege, Cordelia Griese, and Lawrence Phipo, the said persons then and there being scholars in a private school in the aforesaid township, county and state, and receiving said instruction below the eighth grade in said school from said defendant, who was then and there a teacher in said school." He was found guilty, and, on appeal to the district court, the case was submitted on stipulation of facts, from which it appeared that:
(1) "A rural church known as 'St. Johns Evangelical Lutheran Church,' located in Maxfield Township, Bremer County, owns and uses a church edifice and parochial school building, and other property in connection therewith, of the value of approximately $ 40,000, and, during the period in question, had a congregation of about 300, of whom 200 were communicants; that it is a religious organization, affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa and other states; and that the said church and its parochial school have been continuously supported and maintained by the members for religious purposes, in accordance with the beliefs and practices of the said Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa and other states; that among the beliefs and practices of the said church and the synod with which is it affiliated is the belief and practice of having the children of the members and communicants attend its parochial school until after their confirmation and acceptance into the church as communicants thereof; and that the object and purpose of the parochial school is to give the said children of the members and communicants a Christian education in the catechism, beliefs and practices of the said church at the same time that they are receiving their secular education in the common branches, and to conduct daily in said school devotional exercises, in accordance with said beliefs and practices.
(2)
(3) The defendant, Bartels, is "the duly appointed, employed, and acting teacher of said parochial school continuously during the last 5 years; that said defendant is a competent teacher, possessing the necessary qualifications and moral character for that purpose."
(4) The members of the said church whose children attend this school are of foreign extraction, but they, as well as their children and this defendant, are citizens of this country.
(5)
(6) Part of the communicants and members
(7) The defendant, through the medium of the English language, taught the common school branches heretofore mentioned, and also taught reading in the German language to the pupils named in the indictment and others, who were of ages
German was used as the medium of instruction by defendant in teaching reading in the German language. This German reading was taught at the request and with the full consent of the parents of the said children, and for the purposes of teaching said children to read the German language sufficiently to enable them intelligently to read the catechism and Bible in that language, and to understand and to take part in religious services conducted in said language in the church and Sunday school and in the home.
The facts so stipulated were held to establish defendant's guilt, and he was sentenced to pay a fine of $ 25. He appeals.
From the foregoing it will be observed that the accused taught in a parochial school connected with St. Johns Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Bremer County, and had so done from the middle of September to November 10, 1919. The instruction was in branches below the eighth grade. He employed English as a medium of instruction in all the common school branches, but taught the pupils to read in the German language, and used German in so doing. The textbook...
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