Scarlet Letter Unit Resources
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Section 1: Lessons 1-7
Text: Excerpts from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards
Text: “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Lesson handouts
Section 2: Lessons 8-11
Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Pages 2 - 7
Pages 8 - 21
Pages 22- 39
Text: excerpt from Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Lesson handouts
Section 3: Lessons 12-14
Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Section 4: Lessons 15-16
Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Section 5: Lessons 17-19
Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Text: “John Brown’s Speech to the Court at his Trial” by John Brown
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Section 6: Lessons 20-21
Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Section 7: Lessons 22-23
Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Section 8: Lessons 24-27, Practice Cold Read Task
Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Section 9: Lessons 28-31, Culminating Writing Task
Text: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Section 10: Lessons 32-33
Text: Wisconsin v. Yoder (No. 70-110) Supreme Court of the United States
Text: Gallup Poll results on Religion
Text: “Americans Say More Religion in US Would Be Positive” by Frank Newport
(Gallup)
Lesson handouts
Section 11: Lessons 34-39, Extension Task,
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Section 12: Lessons 40-41, Cold-Read Task
Pages 40 - 49
Pages 50 - 67
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Pages 68-72
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Pages 73 - 74
Pages 75 - 80
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Page 81
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Pages 82 -83
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Page 84
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Pages 85 - 88
Pages 89 - 129
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Page 130
Page 131 - 144
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Excerpts from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
Jonathan Edwards
Paragraph 18
All wicked Men's Pains and Contrivance which they use to escape Hell, while they
continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked Men, don’t secure ‘em from Hell one
Moment. Almost every natural Man that hears of Hell, flatters himself that he shall escape
it; he depends upon himself for his own Security; he flatters himself in what he has done,
in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every one lays out Matters in his own
Mind how he shall avoid Damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself,
and that his Schemes won’t fail. They hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that
the bigger Part of Men that have died heretofore are gone to Hell; but each one imagines
that he lays out Matters better for his own escape than others have done. He don’t intend
to come to that Place of Torment; he says within himself, that he intends to take Care that
shall be effectual, and to order Matters so for himself as not to fail.
Paragraph 19
But the foolish Children of Men miserably delude themselves in their own
Schemes, and in Confidence in their own Strength and Wisdom; they trust to nothing but a
Shadow. The bigger Part of those who heretofore have lived under the same Means of
Grace, and are now dead, are undoubtedly gone to Hell; and it was not because they were
not as wise as those who are now alive: it was not because they did not lay out Matters as
well for themselves to secure their own escape. If we could speak with them, and inquire
of them, one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and when they used to hear
about Hell, ever to be the Subjects of Misery: we doubtless, should hear one and another
reply, "No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out Matters otherwise in my Mind; I
thought I should contrive well for myself -- I thought my Scheme good. I intended to take
effectual Care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that Time, and in
that Manner; it came as a Thief -- Death outwitted me: God's Wrath was too quick for me.
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Oh, my cursed Foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain Dreams
of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, Peace and Safety, then sudden
Destruction came upon me."
Paragraph 20
God has laid himself under no Obligation, by any Promises to keep any natural
Man out of Hell one Moment. God certainly has made no Promises either of eternal Life,
or of any Deliverance or Preservation from eternal Death, but what are contained in the
Covenant of Grace, the Promises that are given in Christ, in whom all the Promises are Yea
and Amen. But surely they have no Interest in the Promises of the Covenant of Grace that
are not the Children of the Covenant, and that don’t believe in any of the Promises of the
Covenant, and have no Interest in the Mediator of the Covenant.
Paragraph 21
So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about Promises made to
natural Men's earnest seeking and knocking, ‘tis plain and manifest, that whatever Pains a
natural Man takes in Religion, whatever Prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is
under no manner of Obligation to keep him a Moment from eternal Destruction.
Paragraph 22
So that, thus it is that natural Men are held in the Hand of God, over the Pit of
Hell; they have deserved the fiery Pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is
dreadfully provoked, his Anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually
suffering the Executions of the fierceness of his Wrath in Hell, and they have done nothing
in the least to appease or abate that Anger, neither is God in the least bound by any
Promise to hold ‘em up one moment; the Devil is waiting for them, Hell is gaping for them,
the Flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow
them up; the Fire pent up in their own Hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no
Interest in any Mediator, there are no Means within Reach that can be any Security to
them. In short, they have no Refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that preserves them every
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Moment is the mere arbitrary Will, and uncovenanted, unobliged Forbearance of an
incensed God.
Paragraph 23
The Use may be of Awakening unconverted Persons in this Congregation. This that
you have heard is the Case of every one of you that are out of Christ. -- That World of
Misery, that Lake of burning Brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the
dreadful Pit of the glowing Flames of the Wrath of God; there is Hell's wide gaping Mouth
open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any Thing to take hold of; there is nothing
between you and Hell but the Air; ‘tis only the Power and mere Pleasure of God that holds
you up.
Paragraph 24
You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of Hell, but do not
see the Hand of God in it; but look at other Things, as the good State of your bodily
Constitution, your Care of your own Life, and the Means you use for your own
Preservation. But indeed these Things are nothing; if God should withdraw his Hand, they
would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin Air to hold up a Person that is
suspended in it.
Paragraph 25
Your Wickedness makes you as it were heavy as Lead, and to tend downwards with
great Weight and Pressure towards Hell; and if God should let you go, you would
immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless Gulf, and your
healthy Constitution, and your own Care and Prudence, and best Contrivance, and all your
Righteousness, would have no more Influence to uphold you and keep you out of Hell,
than a Spider's Web would have to stop a falling Rock. Were it not for the sovereign
Pleasure of God, the Earth would not bear you one Moment; for you are a Burden to it;
the Creation groans with you; the Creation is made Subject to the Bondage of your
corruption, not willingly; the Sun don’t willingly shine upon you to give you Light to serve
Sin and Satan; the Earth don’t willingly yield her Increase to satisfy your Lusts; nor is it
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willingly a Stage for your Wickedness to be acted upon; the Air don’t willingly serve you for
Breath to maintain the Flame of Life in your Vitals, while you spend your Life in the Service
of God's Enemies. God's Creatures are Good, and were made for Men to serve God with,
and don’t willingly subserve to any other Purpose, and groan when they are abused to
Purposes so directly contrary to their Nature and End. And the World would spew you out,
were it not for the sovereign Hand of him who hath subjected it in Hope. There are the
black Clouds of God's Wrath now hanging directly over your Heads, full of the dreadful
Storm, and big with Thunder; and were it not for the restraining Hand of God, it would
immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign Pleasure of God, for the present, stays
his rough Wind; otherwise it would come with Fury, and your Destruction would come like
a Whirlwind, and you would be like the Chaff of the Summer threshing Floor.
Paragraph 27
The Bow of God's Wrath is bent, and the Arrow made ready on the String, and
Justice bends the Arrow at your Heart, and strains the Bow, and it is nothing but the mere
Pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any Promise or Obligation at all, that
keeps the Arrow one Moment from being made drunk with your Blood.
Paragraph 28
Thus all you that never passed under a great Change of Heart, by the mighty
Power of the SPIRIT of GOD upon your Souls; all you that were never born again, and made
new Creatures, and raised from being dead in Sin, to a State of new, and before altogether
unexperienced Light and Life, (however you may have reformed your Life in many Things,
and may have had religious Affections, and may keep up a Form of Religion in your
Families and Closets, and in the House of God, and may be strict in it,) you are thus in the
Hands of an angry God; ‘tis nothing but his mere Pleasure that keeps you from being this
Moment swallowed up in everlasting Destruction.
Paragraph 29
However unconvinced you may now be of the Truth of what you hear, by and by
you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like Circumstances
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with you, see that it was so with them; for Destruction came suddenly upon most of them;
when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and Safety: Now they
see, that those Things on which they depended for Peace and Safety, were nothing but
thin Air and empty Shadows.
Paragraph 30
The God that holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some
loathsome Insect over the Fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his Wrath towards
you burns like Fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the
Fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his Sight; you are ten thousand Times
more abominable in his Eyes, as the most hateful venomous Serpent is in ours. You have
offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn Rebel did his Prince; and yet it is
nothing but his Hand that holds you from falling into the Fire every Moment. It is to be
ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to Hell the last Night; that you was suffered to
awake again in this World, after you closed your Eyes to sleep. And there is no other
Reason to be given, why you have not dropped into Hell since you arose in the Morning,
but that God's Hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have
not gone to Hell, since you have sat here in the House of God, provoking his pure Eyes by
your sinful wicked Manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that
is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into Hell.
Paragraph 35
How awful are those Words, Isa. 63:3, Which are the Words of the great God. "I
will tread them in mine Anger, and will trample them in my Fury, and their Blood shall be
sprinkled upon my Garments, and I will stain all my Raiment." It is perhaps impossible to
conceive of Words that carry in them greater Manifestations of these three Things, viz.
Contempt, and Hatred, and fierceness of Indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, he will
be so far from pitying you in your doleful Case, or showing you the least Regard or Favor,
that instead of that, he will only tread you under Foot. And though he will know that you
cannot bear the Weight of Omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that,
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but he will crush you under his Feet without Mercy; he will crush out your Blood, and
make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his Garments, so as to stain all his Raiment. He will
not only hate you, but he will have you in the utmost Contempt: no Place shall be thought
fit for you, but under his Feet to be trodden down as the Mire of the Streets.
Paragraph 42
And you, children, who are unconverted, do not you know that you are going
down to Hell, to bear the dreadful Wrath of that God, who is now angry with you every
Day and every Night? Will you be content to be the Children of the Devil, when so many
other Children in the Land are converted, and are become the holy and happy Children of
the King of Kings?
Paragraph 44
Therefore, let every one that is out of CHRIST, now awake and fly from the Wrath
to come. The Wrath of Almighty GOD is now undoubtedly hanging over a great Part of this
Congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: "Haste and escape for your lives, look not
behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed."
This text is in the public domain.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
“The Minister’s Black Veil”
Nathaniel Hawthorne
THE SEXTON stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house, pulling busily at the
bell-rope. The old people of the village came stooping along the street. Children, with
bright faces, tripped merrily beside their parents, or mimicked a graver gait, in the
conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty
maidens, and fancied that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on weekdays.
When the throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll the bell,
keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper's door. The first glimpse of the clergyman's
figure was the signal for the bell to cease its summons.
"But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?" cried the sexton in
astonishment.
All within hearing immediately turned about, and beheld the semblance of Mr.
Hooper, pacing slowly his meditative way towards the meeting-house. With one accord
they started, expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were coming to dust
the cushions of Mr. Hooper's pulpit.
"Are you sure it is our parson?" inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton.
"Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper," replied the sexton. "He was to have
exchanged pulpits with Parson Shute, of Westbury; but Parson Shute sent to excuse
himself yesterday, being to preach a funeral sermon."
The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a
gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical
neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from his
Sunday's garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. Swathed about his
forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr.
Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to consist of two folds of crape,
which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and chin, but probably did not
intercept his sight, further than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate
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things. With this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper walked onward, at a slow
and quiet pace, stooping somewhat, and looking on the ground, as is customary with
abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still waited on the
meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were they that his greeting hardly met with a
return.
"I can't really feel as if good Mr. Hooper's face was behind that piece of crape,"
said the sexton.
"I don't like it," muttered an old woman, as she hobbled into the meeting-house.
"He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face."
"Our parson has gone mad!" cried Goodman Gray, following him across the
threshold.
A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded Mr. Hooper into the
meeting-house, and set all the congregation astir. Few could refrain from twisting their
heads towards the door; many stood upright, and turned directly about; while several
little boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again with a terrible racket. There
was a general bustle, a rustling of the women's gowns and shuffling of the men's feet,
greatly at variance with that hushed repose which should attend the entrance of the
minister. But Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation of his people. He
entered with an almost noiseless step, bent his head mildly to the pews on each side, and
bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner, a white-haired great-grandsire, who occupied
an arm-chair in the centre of the aisle. It was strange to observe how slowly this
venerable man became conscious of something singular in the appearance of his pastor.
He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder, till Mr. Hooper had ascended the
stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his congregation, except for the
black veil. That mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook with his
measured breath, as he gave out the psalm; it threw its obscurity between him and the
holy page, as he read the Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his
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uplifted countenance. Did he seek to hide it from the dread Being whom he was
addressing?
Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than one woman of
delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced
congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them.
Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one: he
strove to win his people heavenward by mild, persuasive influences, rather than to drive
them thither by the thunders of the Word. The sermon which he now delivered was
marked by the same characteristics of style and manner as the general series of his pulpit
oratory. But there was something, either in the sentiment of the discourse itself, or in the
imagination of the auditors, which made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had
ever heard from their pastor's lips. It was tinged, rather more darkly than usual, with the
gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper's temperament. The subject had reference to secret sin, and
those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal
from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them. A
subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the congregation, the most
innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon
them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought.
Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. There was nothing terrible in what Mr.
Hooper said, at least, no violence; and yet, with every tremor of his melancholy voice, the
hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. So sensible were the
audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister, that they longed for a breath of
wind to blow aside the veil, almost believing that a stranger's visage would be discovered,
though the form, gesture, and voice were those of Mr. Hooper.
At the close of the services, the people hurried out with indecorous confusion,
eager to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the
moment they lost sight of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles, huddled closely
together, with their mouths all whispering in the centre; some went homeward alone,
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wrapt in silent meditation; some talked loudly, and profaned the Sabbath day with
ostentatious laughter. A few shook their sagacious heads, intimating that they could
penetrate the mystery; while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery at all, but
only that Mr. Hooper's eyes were so weakened by the midnight lamp, as to require a
shade. After a brief interval, forth came good Mr. Hooper also, in the rear of his flock.
Turning his veiled face from one group to another, he paid due reverence to the hoary
heads, saluted the middle aged with kind dignity as their friend and spiritual guide,
greeted the young with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on the little
children's heads to bless them. Such was always his custom on the Sabbath day. Strange
and bewildered looks repaid him for his courtesy. None, as on former occasions, aspired
to the honor of walking by their pastor's side. Old Squire Saunders, doubtless by an
accidental lapse of memory, neglected to invite Mr. Hooper to his table, where the good
clergyman had been wont to bless the food, almost every Sunday since his settlement. He
returned, therefore, to the parsonage, and, at the moment of closing the door, was
observed to look back upon the people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the
minister. A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his
mouth, glimmering as he disappeared.
"How strange," said a lady, "that a simple black veil, such as any woman might
wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face!"
"Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper's intellects," observed her
husband, the physician of the village. "But the strangest part of the affair is the effect of
this vagary, even on a sober-minded man like myself. The black veil, though it covers only
our pastor's face, throws its influence over his whole person, and makes him ghostlike
from head to foot. Do you not feel it so?"
"Truly do I," replied the lady; "and I would not be alone with him for the world. I
wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself!"
"Men sometimes are so," said her husband.
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The afternoon service was attended with similar circumstances. At its conclusion,
the bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady. The relatives and friends were assembled in
the house, and the more distant acquaintances stood about the door, speaking of the
good qualities of the deceased, when their talk was interrupted by the appearance of Mr.
Hooper, still covered with his black veil. It was now an appropriate emblem. The
clergyman stepped into the room where the corpse was laid, and bent over the coffin, to
take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner. As he stooped, the veil hung straight
down from his forehead, so that, if her eyelids had not been closed forever, the dead
maiden might have seen his face. Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of her glance, that he so
hastily caught back the black veil? A person who watched the interview between the
dead and living, scrupled not to affirm, that, at the instant when the clergyman's features
were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap,
though the countenance retained the composure of death. A superstitious old woman
was the only witness of this prodigy. From the coffin Mr. Hooper passed into the chamber
of the mourners, and thence to the head of the staircase, to make the funeral prayer. It
was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with celestial
hopes, that the music of a heavenly harp, swept by the fingers of the dead, seemed
faintly to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister. The people trembled,
though they but darkly understood him when he prayed that they, and himself, and all of
mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been, for the dreadful
hour that should snatch the veil from their faces. The bearers went heavily forth, and the
mourners followed, saddening all the street, with the dead before them, and Mr. Hooper
in his black veil behind.
"Why do you look back?" said one in the procession to his partner.
I had a fancy," replied she, "that the minister and the maiden's spirit were
walking hand in hand."
"And so had I, at the same moment," said the other.
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That night, the handsomest couple in Milford village were to be joined in
wedlock. Though reckoned a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper had a placid cheerfulness for
such occasions, which often excited a sympathetic smile where livelier merriment would
have been thrown away. There was no quality of his disposition which made him more
beloved than this. The company at the wedding awaited his arrival with impatience,
trusting that the strange awe, which had gathered over him throughout the day, would
now be dispelled. But such was not the result. When Mr. Hooper came, the first thing
that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil, which had added deeper
gloom to the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the wedding. Such was its
immediate effect on the guests that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath
the black crape, and dimmed the light of the candles. The bridal pair stood up before the
minister. But the bride's cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom,
and her deathlike paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been buried a few
hours before was come from her grave to be married. If ever another wedding were so
dismal, it was that famous one where they tolled the wedding knell. After performing the
ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the newmarried couple in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features
of the guests, like a cheerful gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a glimpse of
his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with
which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered, his lips grew white, he spilt the
untasted wine upon the carpet, and rushed forth into the darkness. For the Earth, too,
had on her Black Veil.
The next day, the whole village of Milford talked of little else than Parson
Hooper's black veil. That, and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic for
discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at
their open windows. It was the first item of news that the tavern-keeper told to his
guests. The children babbled of it on their way to school. One imitative little imp covered
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his face with an old black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the
panic seized himself, and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own waggery.
It was remarkable that of all the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish,
not one ventured to put the plain question to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he did this thing.
Hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had never
lacked advisers, nor shown himself adverse to be guided by their judgment. If he erred at
all, it was by so painful a degree of self-distrust, that even the mildest censure would lead
him to consider an indifferent action as a crime. Yet, though so well acquainted with this
amiable weakness, no individual among his parishioners chose to make the black veil a
subject of friendly remonstrance. There was a feeling of dread, neither plainly confessed
nor carefully concealed, which caused each to shift the responsibility upon another, till at
length it was found expedient to send a deputation of the church, in order to deal with
Mr. Hooper about the mystery, before it should grow into a scandal. Never did an
embassy so ill discharge its duties. The minister received them with friendly courtesy, but
became silent, after they were seated, leaving to his visitors the whole burden of
introducing their important business. The topic, it might be supposed, was obvious
enough. There was the black veil swathed round Mr. Hooper's forehead, and concealing
every feature above his placid mouth, on which, at times, they could perceive the
glimmering of a melancholy smile. But that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed
to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them.
Were the veil but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but not till then. Thus they sat a
considerable time, speechless, confused, and shrinking uneasily from Mr. Hooper's eye,
which they felt to be fixed upon them with an invisible glance. Finally, the deputies
returned abashed to their constituents, pronouncing the matter too weighty to be
handled, except by a council of the churches, if, indeed, it might not require a general
synod.
But there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe with which the
black veil had impressed all beside herself. When the deputies returned without an
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explanation, or even venturing to demand one, she, with the calm energy of her
character, determined to chase away the strange cloud that appeared to be settling round
Mr. Hooper, every moment more darkly than before. As his plighted wife, it should be her
privilege to know what the black veil concealed. At the minister's first visit, therefore, she
entered upon the subject with a direct simplicity, which made the task easier both for
him and her. After he had seated himself, she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the veil, but
could discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so overawed the multitude: it was
but a double fold of crape, hanging down from his forehead to his mouth, and slightly
stirring with his breath.
"No," said she aloud, and smiling, "there is nothing terrible in this piece of crape,
except that it hides a face which I am always glad to look upon. Come, good sir, let the
sun shine from behind the cloud. First lay aside your black veil: then tell me why you put
it on."
Mr. Hooper's smile glimmered faintly.
"There is an hour to come," said he, "when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take
it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crape till then."
"Your words are a mystery, too," returned the young lady. "Take away the veil
from them, at least."
"Elizabeth, I will," said he, "so far as my vow may suffer me. Know, then, this veil
is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in
solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar
friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from
the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!"
"What grievous affliction hath befallen you," she earnestly inquired, "that you
should thus darken your eyes forever?"
"If it be a sign of mourning," replied Mr. Hooper, "I, perhaps, like most other
mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil."
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"But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow?"
urged Elizabeth. "Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hide
your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office, do away
this scandal!"
The color rose into her cheeks as she intimated the nature of the rumors that
were already abroad in the village. But Mr. Hooper's mildness did not forsake him. He
even smiled again--that same sad smile, which always appeared like a faint glimmering of
light, proceeding from the obscurity beneath the veil.
"If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough," he merely replied; "and if I
cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?"
And with this gentle, but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist all her entreaties.
At length Elizabeth sat silent. For a few moments she appeared lost in thought,
considering, probably, what new methods might be tried to withdraw her lover from so
dark a fantasy, which, if it had no other meaning, was perhaps a symptom of mental
disease. Though of a firmer character than his own, the tears rolled down her cheeks.
But, in an instant, as it were, a new feeling took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed
insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the air, its terrors fell around
her. She arose, and stood trembling before him.
"And do you feel it then, at last?" said he mournfully.
She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her hand, and turned to leave the
room. He rushed forward and caught her arm.
"Have patience with me, Elizabeth!" cried he, passionately. "Do not desert me,
though this veil must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and hereafter there shall be
no veil over my face, no darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal veil--it is not for
eternity! O! you know not how lonely I am, and how frightened, to be alone behind my
black veil. Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever!"
"Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face," said she.
"Never! It cannot be!" replied Mr. Hooper.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
"Then farewell!" said Elizabeth.
She withdrew her arm from his grasp, and slowly departed, pausing at the door,
to give one long shuddering gaze, that seemed almost to penetrate the mystery of the
black veil. But, even amid his grief, Mr. Hooper smiled to think that only a material
emblem had separated him from happiness, though the horrors, which it shadowed forth,
must be drawn darkly between the fondest of lovers.
From that time no attempts were made to remove Mr. Hooper's black veil, or, by
a direct appeal, to discover the secret which it was supposed to hide. By persons who
claimed a superiority to popular prejudice, it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim,
such as often mingles with the sober actions of men otherwise rational, and tinges them
all with its own semblance of insanity. But with the multitude, good Mr. Hooper was
irreparably a bugbear. He could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious
was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that others would
make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way. The impertinence of the
latter class compelled him to give up his customary walk at sunset to the burial ground;
for when he leaned pensively over the gate, there would always be faces behind the
gravestones, peeping at his black veil. A fable went the rounds that the stare of the dead
people drove him thence. It grieved him, to the very depth of his kind heart, to observe
how the children fled from his approach, breaking up their merriest sports, while his
melancholy figure was yet afar off. Their instinctive dread caused him to feel more
strongly than aught else, that a preternatural horror was interwoven with the threads of
the black crape. In truth, his own antipathy to the veil was known to be so great, that he
never willingly passed before a mirror, nor stooped to drink at a still fountain, lest, in its
peaceful bosom, he should be affrighted by himself. This was what gave plausibility to the
whispers, that Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to
be entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated. Thus, from beneath the
black veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which
enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him. It was said
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. With self-shudderings and outward
terrors, he walked continually in its shadow, groping darkly within his own soul, or gazing
through a medium that saddened the whole world. Even the lawless wind, it was
believed, respected his dreadful secret, and never blew aside the veil. But still good Mr.
Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the worldly throng as he passed by.
Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect, of
making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem--for
there was no other apparent cause--he became a man of awful power over souls that
were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to
themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial
light, they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to
sympathize with all dark affections. Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper, and would
not yield their breath till he appeared; though ever, as he stooped to whisper consolation,
they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. Such were the terrors of the black
veil, even when Death had bared his visage! Strangers came long distances to attend
service at his church, with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure, because it was
forbidden them to behold his face. But many were made to quake ere they departed!
Once, during Governor Belcher's administration, Mr. Hooper was appointed to preach the
election sermon. Covered with his black veil, he stood before the chief magistrate, the
council, and the representatives, and wrought so deep an impression that the legislative
measures of that year were characterized by all the gloom and piety of our earliest
ancestral sway.
In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet
shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared; a man
apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid in
mortal anguish. As years wore on, shedding their snows above his sable veil, he acquired
a name throughout the New England churches, and they called him Father Hooper.
Nearly all his parishioners, who were of mature age when he was settled, had been borne
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away by many a funeral: he had one congregation in the church, and a more crowded one
in the churchyard; and having wrought so late into the evening, and done his work so
well, it was now good Father Hooper's turn to rest.
Several persons were visible by the shaded candle-light, in the death chamber of
the old clergyman. Natural connections he had none. But there was the decorously grave,
though unmoved physician, seeking only to mitigate the last pangs of the patient whom
he could not save. There were the deacons, and other eminently pious members of his
church. There, also, was the Reverend Mr. Clark, of Westbury, a young and zealous divine,
who had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the expiring minister. There was the
nurse, no hired handmaiden of death, but one whose calm affection had endured thus
long in secrecy, in solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not perish, even at the dying
hour. Who, but Elizabeth! And there lay the hoary head of good Father Hooper upon the
death pillow, with the black veil still swathed about his brow, and reaching down over his
face, so that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it to stir. All through life
that piece of crape had hung between him and the world: it had separated him from
cheerful brotherhood and woman's love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his
own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome
chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity.
For some time previous, his mind had been confused, wavering doubtfully
between the past and the present, and hovering forward, as it were, at intervals, into the
indistinctness of the world to come. There had been feverish turns, which tossed him
from side to side, and wore away what little strength he had. But in his most convulsive
struggles, and in the wildest vagaries of his intellect, when no other thought retained its
sober influence, he still showed an awful solicitude lest the black veil should slip aside.
Even if his bewildered soul could have forgotten, there was a faithful woman at his pillow,
who, with averted eyes, would have covered that aged face, which she had last beheld in
the comeliness of manhood. At length the death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor
of mental and bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse, and breath that grew
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fainter and fainter, except when a long, deep, and irregular inspiration seemed to prelude
the flight of his spirit.
The minister of Westbury approached the bedside.
"Venerable Father Hooper," said he, "the moment of your release is at hand. Are
you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from eternity?"
Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his head; then,
apprehensive, perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful, he exerted himself to speak.
"Yea," said he, in faint accents, "my soul hath a patient weariness until that veil
be lifted."
"And is it fitting," resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark, "that a man so given to prayer,
of such a blameless example, holy in deed and thought, so far as mortal judgment may
pronounce; is it fitting that a father in the church should leave a shadow on his memory,
that may seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my venerable brother, let not this
thing be! Suffer us to be gladdened by your triumphant aspect as you go to your reward.
Before the veil of eternity be lifted, let me cast aside this black veil from your face!"
And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal the mystery of
so many years. But, exerting a sudden energy, that made all the beholders stand aghast,
Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bedclothes, and pressed them
strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle, if the minister of Westbury would contend
with a dying man.
"Never!" cried the veiled clergyman. "On earth, never!"
"Dark old man!" exclaimed the affrighted minister, "with what horrible crime
upon your soul are you now passing to the judgment?"
Father Hooper's breath heaved; it rattled in his throat; but, with a mighty effort,
grasping forward with his hands, he caught hold of life, and held it back till he should
speak. He even raised himself in bed; and there he sat, shivering with the arms of death
around him, while the black veil hung down, awful at that last moment, in the gathered
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
terrors of a lifetime. And yet the faint, sad smile, so often there, now seemed to glimmer
from its obscurity, and linger on Father Hooper's lips.
"Why do you tremble at me alone?" cried he, turning his veiled face round the
circle of pale spectators. "Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women
shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the
mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the
friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does
not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his
sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look
around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!"
While his auditors shrank from one another, in mutual affright, Father Hooper fell
back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on the lips. Still veiled,
they laid him in his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. The grass of
many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial stone is moss-grown,
and good Mr. Hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered
beneath the Black Veil!
NOTE. Another clergyman in New England, Mr. Joseph Moody, of York, Maine,
who died about eighty years since, made himself remarkable by the same eccentricity
that is here related of the Reverend Mr. Hooper. In his case, however, the symbol had a
different import. In early life he had accidentally killed a beloved friend; and from that
day till the hour of his own death, he hid his face from men.
This text is in the public domain.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” Handout
Activity 1: Analyzing a Prompt
Read the following prompt:
Jonathan Edwards’ sermon describes the sinful nature of his congregation in an attempt to convince them to
change their ways. “The Minister’s Black Veil” is a parable by Nathaniel Hawthorne that illustrates sin and
hypocrisy. Hawthorne, though he lived in the 1800s, set many of his stories in the time of his Puritan
ancestors. Despite different methodology, both pieces provide insight into the Puritanical ideals upon which
the United States was founded.
Compare and contrast the meaning and style of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and “The Minister’s
Black Veil.” How does each author convey his meaning to the reader? Which author’s style is more effective
and why?
1.)
Underline the two texts will you need to compare.
2.)
Box the statement in the prompt that explains the subject of your comparison.
3.)
As you read the texts, what kind of information will you need to identify to write your essay?
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Activity Two: Guided Reading and Annotation of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
Read the selected paragraphs from Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which is a
famous sermon credited with sparking a religious revival. As you read, use the question in the right margin
to guide your annotations.
(1) All wicked men's pains and contrivance which they use to escape hell,
while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure
them from hell one moment. Almost every natural man that hears of hell,
flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own
security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or
what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind how he
shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself,
and that his schemes will not fail. They hear indeed that there are but few
saved, and that the greater part of men that have died heretofore are gone to
hell; but each one imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape
than others have done. He does not intend to come to that place of torment;
he says within himself, that he intends to take effectual care, and to order
matters so for himself as not to fail.
(2) But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own
schemes, and in confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to
nothing but a shadow. The greater part of those who heretofore have lived
under the same means of grace, and are now dead, are undoubtedly gone to
hell; and it was not because they were not as wise as those who are now
Define the term in bold.
Highlight the central idea of
this paragraph.
Why would Edwards use a
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
alive: it was not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to
secure their own escape. If we could speak with them, and inquire of them,
one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and when they used to hear
about hell, ever to be the subjects of misery: we doubtless, should hear one
and another reply, "No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters
otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself -- I thought
my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me
unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and in that manner; it came as a
thief -- Death outwitted me: God's wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed
foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of
what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, Peace and safety, then
sudden destruction came upon me."
(3) God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any
natural man out of hell one moment….
So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made
to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain and manifest, that
whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till
he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a
moment from eternal destruction.
4) So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit
of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and
God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those
that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell,
and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger,
neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one
moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames
gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow
them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and
they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that
can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take
hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and
uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.
(5) The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons
in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you
that are out of Christ. --That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone,
is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames
of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have
nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing
between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of
God that holds you up.
hypothetical example
(underlined portion)? What
is the consequent effect?
What idea is he trying to
communicate?
Define the term in bold.
Highlight the central idea of
the paragraph.
Define the term in bold.
Highlight examples of
strong diction and imagery.
What is the consequent
effect?
Highlight Edwards’
statement of purpose.
Highlight examples of
strong diction and imagery.
What is the consequent
effect?
What literary device does
he employ (underlined
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portion), and what is the
effect?
(6) You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but
do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of
your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for
your own pre-servation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should
withdraw his hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than
the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it.
7) Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend
downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let
you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the
bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and
prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no
more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web
would have to stop a falling rock. Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of
God, the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it;
the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of
your corruption, not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you to
give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her
increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to
be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the
flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God's
enemies. God's creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God
with, and do not willingly subserve to any other purpose, and groan when
they are abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end. And
the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of him who
hath subjected it in hope. There are the black clouds of God's wrath now
hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with
thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would
immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the
present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your
destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff on
the summer threshing floor.
(8) The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string,
and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is
nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any
promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being
made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great
change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all
you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from
What pronoun does
Edwards repeat in this
paragraph? What effect
does this repetition have on
the piece?
Identify the literary devices
that are underlined and
their consequent effect.
Highlight examples of
strong diction and imagery.
What is the consequent
effect?
Identify the literary device
that is underlined and its
consequent effect.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light
and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed
your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep
up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is
nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment
swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now
be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it.
Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it
was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when
they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety:
now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety,
were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.
(9) The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or
some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked:
his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing
else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in
his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the
most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely
more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his
hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be
ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you
was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep.
And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell
since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is
no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat
here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked
manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to
be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.
(10) How awful are those words, Isa. 63:3, which are the words of the great
God. "I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury, and
their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my
raiment." It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that carry in them
greater manifestations of these three things, …contempt, and hatred, and
fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from
pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favour,
Highlight examples of
strong diction and imagery.
What is the consequent
effect?
Identify the literary device
that is underlined and its
consequent effect?
Highlight examples of
strong diction and imagery.
What is the consequent
effect?
What allusion does Edwards
include in this paragraph?
What is its effect?
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And though he will
know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet
he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he
will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his
garments, so as to stain all his raiment. He will not only hate you, but he will
have you in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but
under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets.
(11) And you, young men, and young women, will you neglect this precious
season which you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are
renouncing all youthful vanities, and flocking to Christ? You especially have
now an extraordinary opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with
you as with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and
are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness.
(12) And you, children, who are unconverted, do not you know that you are
going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God, who is now angry
with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children of
the devil, when so many other children in the land are converted, and are
become the holy and happy children of the King of kings?
(13) Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the
wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a
great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: "Haste and
escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you
be consumed."
How does Edwards use
rhetorical questions in this
paragraph? What is its
effect?
How does Edwards use
rhetorical questions in this
paragraph and what is its
effect?
What is his final call to
action?
Activity Three: Purpose and Tone
1.)
Using the tone words handout, write down words that characterize Edwards’ tone. Support your
answer with evidence from the text.
2.)
In your own words, write a statement that communicates Edwards’ overall purpose.
3.)
How does Edwards appeal to his audience’s emotions? Do you think he is successful? Why or why not?
Activity Four: Guided Reading and Annotation of “The Minister’s Black Veil”
With your partner, read your new version of pages 1-3 of “The Minister’s Black Veil”.
Step One: Highlight words and phrases with connotative meanings or strong imagery. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Step Two: Highlight words or phrases with figurative meaning. Label figurative devices. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Step Three: Highlight any syntactical patterns and note the effect of these patterns in the margins of your text.
Step Four: Write a brief objective summary of the passage below.
With your partner, read your new version of pages 4-6 of “The Minister’s Black Veil”.
Step One: Highlight words and phrases with connotative meanings or strong imagery. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Step Two: Highlight words or phrases with figurative meaning. Label figurative devices. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Step Three: Highlight any syntactical patterns and note the effect of these patterns in the margins of your text.
Step Four: Write a brief objective summary of the passage below.
With your partner, read your new version of pages 7-9 of “The Minister’s Black Veil”.
Step One: Highlight words and phrases with connotative meanings or strong imagery. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Step Two: Highlight words or phrases with figurative meaning. Label figurative devices. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Step Three: Highlight any syntactical patterns and note the effect of these patterns in the margins of your text.
Step Four: Write a brief objective summary of the passage below.
With your partner, read your new version of pages 10-12 of “The Minister’s Black Veil”.
Step One: Highlight words and phrases with connotative meanings or strong imagery. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Step Two: Highlight words or phrases with figurative meaning. Label figurative devices. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Step Three: Highlight any syntactical patterns and note the effect of these patterns in the margins of your text.
Step Four: Write a brief objective summary of the passage below.
With your partner, read your new version of pages 13-15 of “The Minister’s Black Veil”.
Step One: Highlight words and phrases with connotative meanings or strong imagery. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Step Two: Highlight words or phrases with figurative meaning. Label figurative devices. What patterns emerge? In the
margins of your text, note the effects of these words and phrases.
Step Three: Highlight any syntactical patterns and note the effect of these patterns in the margins of your text.
Step Four: Write a brief objective summary of the passage below.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Activity Five: Independent Analysis Questions
After reading, answer the following questions independently.
1.)
What kind of minister is Parson Hooper? Use textual evidence to support your answer.
2.)
How does the congregation respond to Parson Hooper’s veil? Why? Use textual evidence to support
your answer.
3.)
What is the narrator’s tone in this story? Use textual evidence to support your answer.
4.)
What would you say is a possible central idea of this story?
Activity Six: Making Inferences and Writing Commentary
Using information found in both Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and in Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil,” complete the chart below in order to draw conclusions about each author’s
style. Compare Parson Hooper with Jonathan Edwards. Both are representative of Puritanical ministers, yet their
approaches with their congregations are very different. What language, details, or elements in each text most
contribute to their different styles and impact?
Category:
You choose a category based on patterns of language, details, or elements in the text that most contribute to style and meaning.
Jonathan Edwards
Inference:
Parson Hooper
Inference:
Textual Evidence:
Textual Evidence:
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Category:
You choose a category based on patterns of language, details, or elements in the text that most contribute to style and meaning.
Jonathan Edwards
Inference:
Parson Hooper
Inference:
Textual Evidence:
Textual Evidence:
Category:
You choose a category based on patterns of language, details, or elements in the text that most contribute to style and meaning.
Jonathan Edwards
Inference:
Parson Hooper
Inference:
Textual Evidence:
Textual Evidence:
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Activity Seven: Writing a Thesis Statement for a Compare/ Contrast Essay
Like thesis statements for literary analysis papers, a thesis statement for a compare/ contrast essay answers
the question of the writing prompt and expresses your position on or interpretation of a particular subject.
However, compare/ contrast thesis statements need to include additional information to help your readers
understand the direction of your essay.
In order to write a compare/ contrast thesis statement for this essay, you must include:
● the elements you are comparing
● a statement that evaluates the author’s style. Which author was more effective?
When writing your thesis statement, do not simply state that the two authors/ styles are alike or different.
Instead, use your thesis statement to identify why the comparison is useful or important to understand. You
want your readers to understand how comparing or contrasting these items helps them better understand
the characters, tones, or themes of both literary works.
Now, look back at the prompt for your assignment (Activity One). Write your own thesis statement to answer
the prompt. You can use the templates below to help you.
If you prefer Edwards’ style…
While I would characterize Hawthorne’s style as ______________________ and _____________________,
(adjective)
(adjective)
Jonathan Edwards ____________________________________ the reader’s understanding of Puritan ideals
(changes, adapts, adjusts, modifies, challenges)
of religion by __________________________________________________________________________
(Explain Edwards’ purpose for his audience)
If you prefer Hawthorne’s style…
While I would characterize Jonathan Edwards as _____________________ and _______________________,
(character trait)
(character trait)
the character of Parson Hooper _____________________________ the reader’s understanding of Puritan
(changes, adapts, adjusts, modifies, challenges)
ideals of religion by ______________________________________________________________________.
(Explain Hawthorne’s purpose for his audience)
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Activity Eight: Writing Introductions for Compare/ Contrast Essays
When writing compare/ contrast essays about a literature topic, you will want to follow some of the same
organizational strategies for developing your introduction as you would follow when you write literary
analysis papers. In your introduction, you will want to include some background information about the texts
you are comparing and contrasting, as well as to provide reasons as to why the comparison is significant or
how the comparison helps you understand the idea better.
● Background information (What is my subject?):
● What are you comparing/ contrasting? (Identify the titles and authors of the texts you are comparing/
contrasting.):
● What points of comparison will you use? (Identify the common categories from the texts.):
● What is your purpose for writing this essay? (In general, what will you be discussing in this essay?):
● Thesis statement (Why is the comparison significant?):
Use your answers to the questions above to create your introduction paragraph here:
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
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Activity Nine: Organizing and Developing a Comparison
When organizing your compare/ contrast essay, you first need to determine the categories, or points of
comparison you will discuss.
Next, you have to decide whether you are going to follow a block or point-by-point organizational strategy.
In this essay, you are going to follow a point-by-point approach to organize your writing, which means that you
will address both objects of your comparison in an alternating fashion.
Topic Statement: ___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Evidence (with lead-in) from Text 1 (Either “Sinners…” or “The Minister’s Black Veil”):
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Commentary:
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Commentary:
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Assertion/ Transition: ________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Evidence (with lead-in) from Text 2 (Either “Sinners…” or “The Minister’s Black Veil”):
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Commentary:
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Commentary:
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Conclusion Sentence: While both texts describe __________________________, ___________________
(subject)
(author)
_________________________ that _________________________________________________________.
(indicates, reveals, demonstrates)
(big thematic idea)
Following the same pattern, write on your own sheet of paper the next body paragraph that deals with an
aspect of style.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Activity Ten: Writing a Conclusion for a Compare/ Contrast Essay
When writing conclusions for compare/ contrast essays, you want to avoid repeating the assertions or listing
the similarities and differences you have already covered in your paper. Instead, focus on explaining what
new connections readers can make between the two elements you are comparing. Why is one author’s style
more effective than the other? Why is the relationship between these two ideas important? While
conclusions do not need to be lengthy, they do need to tie together for readers the points of comparison
made in the body paragraphs to the argument you presented in your thesis statement.
When thinking about your conclusion, consider the following questions:
● Are the elements you are comparing and contrasting more alike, or are their differences more
important?
● Why is it important for readers to think about your comparison?
● What important or interesting conclusion can you draw about these texts now that you have looked at
their similarities and differences?
Use your answers to the questions above to create your conclusion paragraph here:
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
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Tone Words1
Tone is the speaker’s attitude toward the subject of a text and is revealed through the author’s word choice,
organization, choice of detail, and sentence structure. The tone of a text impacts meaning. Your understanding of the
text, how you feel about the text, and how the text impacts you are all related to the tone.
The following are sample tone words, which can be used to describe the tone of a text.
Positive Tone
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Eager, zealous
Imaginative, fanciful, whimsical
Humorous, playful, comical
Respectful, admiring, approving
Sincere
Powerful, confident
Complimentary, proud
Calm, tranquil, peaceful
Sentimental, nostalgic, wistful
Excited, exuberant, exhilarated
Happy, joyful, giddy, contented
Neutral Tone
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Conversational, informal
Matter-of-fact
Reflective
Impartial, objective, indifferent
Scholarly, instructive
Practical, pragmatic
Subdued, restrained, low-key
Serious, formal, solemn
Uncertain
Straightforward, direct, candid
Negative Tone
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Accusatory, pointed
Cynical, bitter, biting, sharp
Satirical, critical
Condescending, arrogant, haughty
Contemptuous, scornful
Sarcastic, ironic, mocking, wry
Silly, childish
Sad, depressed, melancholy
Angry, indignant, harsh
Fearful, panicked, anxious
Demanding, insistent, urgent
Skeptical, dubious, questioning
Pretentious, pompous
1 Adapted from
http://www.mhasd.k12.wi.us/cms/lib04/WI01001388/Centricity/Domain/123/Huge_list_of_tone_words_with_definitions.pdf
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Fluency excerpts from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
Jonathan Edwards
Text
Notes
Paragraph 19
But the foolish Children of Men miserably delude
themselves in their own Schemes, and in Confidence in their
own Strength and Wisdom; they trust to nothing but a
Shadow. The bigger Part of those who heretofore have lived
under the same Means of Grace, and are now dead, are
undoubtedly gone to Hell; and it was not because they were
not as wise as those who are now alive: it was not because
they did not lay out Matters as well for themselves to secure
their own escape. If we could speak with them, and inquire of
them, one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and
when they used to hear about Hell, ever to be the Subjects of
Misery: we doubtless, should hear one and another reply, "No,
I never intended to come here: I had laid out Matters
otherwise in my Mind; I thought I should contrive well for
myself -- I thought my Scheme good. I intended to take
effectual Care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look
for it at that Time, and in that Manner; it came as a Thief -Death outwitted me: God's Wrath was too quick for me. Oh,
my cursed Foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing
myself with vain Dreams of what I would do hereafter; and
when I was saying, Peace and Safety, then sudden Destruction
came upon me."
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Paragraph 22
So that, thus it is that natural Men are held in the Hand of God,
over the Pit of Hell; they have deserved the fiery Pit, and are already
sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his Anger is as great
towards them as to those that are actually suffering the Executions of the
fierceness of his Wrath in Hell, and they have done nothing in the least to
appease or abate that Anger, neither is God in the least bound by any
Promise to hold ‘em up one moment; the Devil is waiting for them, Hell is
gaping for them, the Flames gather and flash about them, and would fain
lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the Fire pent up in their own
Hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no Interest in any
Mediator, there are no Means within Reach that can be any Security to
them. In short, they have no Refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that
preserves them every Moment is the mere arbitrary Will, and
uncovenanted, unobliged Forbearance of an incensed God.
This text is in the public domain.
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Rubric for Compare/ Contrast Essay
Reading and
Understandi
ng Text
Writing
about Text
Language
Conventions
3
2
1
0
● Shows full
comprehension of
ideas both explicit
and inferential
indicated by gradelevel reading
standards
● Accurate analysis and
reasoning is
demonstrated
through ample
textual evidence
● Addresses the prompt
and introduces a topic
or precise claim(s),
distinguishing claim(s)
from counterclaims
● Development is even
and organized to
make important
connections and
distinctions with
relevant support2
● Language creates
cohesion and clarifies
relationships among
ideas
● Formal and objective
style and tone
consistently
demonstrate
awareness of purpose
and audience
● Full command of
conventions indicated
by grade-level
standards
● Few minor errors do
not interfere with
meaning
● Shows
comprehension of
ideas indicated by
grade-level reading
standards
● Mostly accurate
analysis and
reasoning is
demonstrated
through adequate
textual evidence
● Shows limited
comprehension of
ideas indicated by
grade-level reading
standards
● Minimally accurate
analysis and
reasoning is
demonstrated
through minimal
textual evidence
● Shows no
comprehension of
ideas indicated by
grade-level reading
standards
● Inaccurate or no
analysis and
reasoning is
demonstrated with
little or no textual
evidence
● Addresses the
prompt and states a
topic or claim(s)
● Development is
organized with
some support and
cohesion
● Language creates
cohesion and links
ideas
● Style and tone
demonstrate
awareness of
purpose and
audience
● Addresses the
prompt and has an
introduction
● Development and
support are minimal
● Language links ideas
● Style and tone
demonstrate limited
awareness of
purpose or audience
● Does not address
the prompt
● Lacks organization,
is undeveloped,
and does not
provide support
● Language and style
demonstrate no
awareness of
purpose or
audience
● Some command of
conventions
indicated by gradelevel standards
● May have errors
that occasionally
interfere with
meaning
● Limited command of
conventions
indicated by gradelevel standards
● Errors often interfere
with meaning
● No command of
conventions
indicated by gradelevel standards
● Frequent and
varied errors
interfere with
meaning
Conversation Stems for Class Discussion3
2 Support includes evidence, facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, other information and examples.
3 They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
As you engage in class discussion, it is important to consider the other side, expressing understanding for those who have
a different point of view. To do this, you can insert a concession in your comments. You can also use the templates in the
chart to help frame your answers.
Concession Stems
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Although I grant that __, I still maintain that __.
While it is true that __, it does not necessarily follow that __.
On one hand I agree with X that __. But on the other hand, I insist that __.
It cannot be denied that __; however, I believe__.
Certainly…, but __.
It goes without saying…
Perhaps…, yet__.
TO DISAGREE
TO AGREE--WITH A DIFFERENCE
TO QUALIFY
●
I think X is mistaken because she
overlooks _____.
●
I agree that _____ because my
experience _____ confirms it.
●
X’s claim that _____ rests upon
the questionable assumption that
_____.
●
X is surely right about _____
because, as she may not be
●
aware, recent studies have shown
that _____.
●
I disagree with X’s view that _____
because in the text, _____.
●
●
X contradicts herself. On the one
hand, she argues _____. But on
the other hand, she also says
_____.
●
By focusing on _____, X overlooks
the deeper problem of _____.
X’s theory of _____ is extremely
useful because it sheds insight on
the difficult problem of _____.
●
I agree that _____, a point that
needs emphasizing since so many
people believe _____.
●
Those unfamiliar with this school
of thought may be interested to
know that it basically boils down
to _____.
●
Although I agree with X up to a
point, I cannot accept his overall
conclusion that _____.
Although I disagree with much
that X says, I fully endorse his final
conclusion that _____.
●
Though I concede that _____, I
still insist that _____.
●
X is right that _____, but I do not
agree when she claims that
_____.
●
I am of two minds about X’s claim
that _____. On the one hand I
agree that _____. On the other
hand, I’m not sure if _____.
excerpt from Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Volume II, Chapter V:
“How Religion in the United States Avails Itself of Democratic Tendencies”
I HAVE shown in a preceding chapter that men cannot do without dogmatic belief,
and even that it is much to be desired that such belief should exist among them. I now add
that, of all the kinds of dogmatic belief, the most desirable appears to me to be dogmatic
belief in matters of religion; and this is a clear inference, even from no higher
consideration than the interests of this world.
There is hardly any human action, however particular it may be, that does not
originate in some very general idea men have conceived of the Deity, of his relation to
mankind, of the nature of their own souls, and of their duties to their fellow creatures. Nor
can anything prevent these ideas from being the common spring from which all the rest
emanates.
Men are therefore immeasurably interested in acquiring fixed ideas of God, of the
soul, and of their general duties to their Creator and their fellow men; for doubt on these
first principles would abandon all their actions to chance and would condemn them in
some way to disorder and impotence.
This, then, is the subject on which it is most important for each of us to have fixed
ideas; and unhappily it is also the subject on which it is most difficult for each of us, left to
himself, to settle his opinions by the sole force of his reason. None but minds singularly
free from the ordinary cares of life, minds at once penetrating, subtle, and trained by
thinking, can, even with much time and care, sound the depths of these truths that are so
necessary. And, indeed, we see that philosophers are themselves almost always
surrounded with uncertainties; that at every step the natural light which illuminates their
path grows dimmer and less secure, and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have
discovered as yet only a few conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has been
tossed about for thousands of years without every firmly grasping the truth or finding
novelty even in its errors. Studies of this nature are far above the average capacity of men;
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and, even if the majority of mankind were capable of such pursuits, it is evident that
leisure to cultivate them would still be wanting. Fixed ideas about God and human nature
are indispensable to the daily practice of men's lives; but the practice of their lives
prevents them from acquiring such ideas.
The difficulty appears to be without a parallel. Among the sciences there are some
that are useful to the mass of mankind and are within its reach; others can be approached
only by the few and are not cultivated by the many, who require nothing beyond their
more remote applications: but the daily practice of the science I speak of is indispensable
to all, although the study of it is inaccessible to the greater number.
General ideas respecting God and human nature are therefore the ideas above all
others which it is most suitable to withdraw from the habitual action of private judgment
and in which there is most to gain and least to lose by recognizing a principle of authority.
The first object and one of the principal advantages of religion is to furnish to each of
these fundamental questions a solution that is at once clear, precise, intelligible, and
lasting, to the mass of mankind. There are religions that are false and very absurd, but it
may be affirmed that any religion which remains within the circle I have just traced,
without pretending to go beyond it (as many religions have attempted to do, for the
purpose of restraining on every side the free movement of the human mind ), imposes a
salutary restraint on the intellect; and it must be admitted that, if it does not save men in
another world, it is at least very conducive to their happiness and their greatness in this.
This is especially true of men living in free countries. When the religion of a people
is destroyed, doubt gets hold of the higher powers of the intellect and half paralyzes all
the others. Every man accustoms himself to having only confused and changing notions on
the subjects most interesting to his fellow creatures and himself. His opinions are illdefended and easily abandoned; and, in despair of ever solving by himself the hard
problems respecting the destiny of man, he ignobly submits to think no more about them.
Such a condition cannot but enervate the soul, relax the springs of the will, and
prepare a people for servitude. Not only does it happen in such a case that they allow
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their freedom to be taken from them; they frequently surrender it themselves. When
there is no longer any principle of authority in religion any more than in politics, men are
speedily frightened at the aspect of this unbounded independence. The constant agitation
of all surrounding things alarms and exhausts them. As everything is at sea in the sphere
of the mind, they determine at least that the mechanism of society shall be firm and fixed;
and as they cannot resume their ancient belief, they assume a master.
For my own part, I doubt whether man can ever support at the same time
complete religious independence and entire political freedom. And I am inclined to think
that if faith be wanting in him, he must be subject; and if he be free, he must believe.
Perhaps, however, this great utility of religions is still more obvious among nations
where equality of conditions prevails than among others. It must be acknowledged that
equality, which brings great benefits into the world, nevertheless suggests to men (as will
be shown hereafter ) some very dangerous propensities. It tends to isolate them from one
another, to concentrate every man's attention upon himself; and it lays open the soul to
an inordinate love of material gratification.
The greatest advantage of religion is to inspire diametrically contrary principles
There is no religion that does not place the object of man's desires above and beyond the
treasures of earth and that does not naturally raise his soul to regions far above those of
the senses. Nor is there any which does not impose on man some duties towards his kind
and thus draw him at times from the contemplation of himself. This is found in the most
false and dangerous religions.
Religious nations are therefore naturally strong on the very point on which
democratic nations are weak; this shows of what importance it is for men to preserve their
religion as their conditions become more equal.
I have neither the right nor the intention of examining the supernatural means
that God employs to infuse religious belief into the heart of man. I am at this moment
considering religions in a purely human point of view; my object is to inquire by what
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means they may most easily retain their sway in the democratic ages upon which we are
entering.
It has been shown that at times of general culture and equality the human mind
consents only with reluctance to adopt dogmatic opinions and feels their necessity acutely
only in spiritual matters. This proves, in the first place, that at such times religions ought
more cautiously than at any other to confine themselves within their own precincts; for in
seeking to extend their power beyond religious matters, they incur a risk of not being
believed at all. The circle within which they seek to restrict the human intellect ought
therefore to be carefully traced, and beyond its verge the mind should be left entirely free
to its own guidance.
Mohammed professed to derive from Heaven, and has inserted in the Koran, not
only religious doctrines, but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and theories of
science. The Gospel, on the contrary, speaks only of the general relations of men to God
and to each other, beyond which it inculcates and imposes no point of faith. This alone,
besides a thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the former of these
religions will never long predominate in a cultivated and democratic age, while the latter is
destined to retain its sway at these as at all other periods.
In continuation of this same inquiry I find that for religions to maintain their
authority, humanly speaking, in democratic ages, not only must they confine themselves
strictly within the circle of spiritual matters, but their power also will depend very much on
the nature of the belief they inculcate, on the external forms they assume, and on the
obligations they impose.
The preceding observation, that equality leads men to very general and very vast
ideas, is principally to be understood in respect to religion. Men who are similar and equal
in the world readily conceive the idea of the one God, governing every man by the same
laws and granting to every man future happiness on the same conditions. The idea of the
unity of mankind constantly leads them back to the idea of the unity of the Creator; while
on the contrary in a state of society where men are broken up into very unequal ranks,
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they are apt to devise as many deities as there are nations, castes, classes, or families, and
to trace a thousand private roads to heaven.
It cannot be denied that Christianity itself has felt, to some extent, the influence
that social and political conditions exercise on religious opinions.
When the Christian religion first appeared upon earth, Providence, by whom the
world was doubtless prepared for its coming, had gathered a large portion of the human
race, like an immense flock, under the scepter of the Caesars. The men of whom this
multitude was composed were distinguished by numerous differences, but they had this
much in common: that they all obeyed the same laws, and that every subject was so weak
and insignificant in respect to the Emperor that all appeared equal when their condition
was contrasted with his. This novel and peculiar state of mankind necessarily predisposed
men to listen to the general truths that Christianity teaches, and may serve to explain the
facility and rapidity with which they then penetrated into the human mind. The
counterpart of this state of things was exhibited after the destruction of the Empire. The
Roman world being then, as it were, shattered into a thousand fragments, each nation
resumed its former individuality. A scale of ranks soon grew up in the bosom of these
nations; the different races were more sharply defined, and each nation was divided by
castes into several peoples. In the midst of this common effort, which seemed to be
dividing human society into as many fragments as possible, Christianity did not lose sight
of the leading general ideas that it had brought into the world. But it appeared,
nevertheless, to lend itself as much as possible to the new tendencies created by this
distribution of mankind into fractions. Men continue to worship one God, the Creator and
Preserver of all things; but every people, every city, and, so to speak, every man thought
to obtain some distinct privilege and win the favor of an especial protector near the
throne of grace. Unable to subdivide the Deity, they multiplied and unduly enhanced the
importance of his agents. The homage due to saints and angels became an almost
idolatrous worship for most Christians; and it might be feared for a moment that the
religion of Christ would retrograde towards the superstitions which it had overcome.
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It seems evident that the more the barriers are removed which separate one
nation from another and one citizen from another, the stronger is the bent of the human
mind, as if by its own impulse, towards the idea of a single and all-powerful Being,
dispensing equal laws in the same manner to every man. In democratic ages, then, it is
particularly important not to allow the homage paid to secondary agents to be confused
with the worship due to the Creator alone. Another truth is no less clear, that religions
ought to have fewer external observances in democratic periods than at any others.
In speaking of philosophical method among the Americans I have shown that
nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of equality than the idea of
subjection to forms. Men living at such times are impatient of figures; to their eyes,
symbols appear to be puerile artifices used to conceal or to set off truths that should more
naturally be bared to the light of day; they are unmoved by ceremonial observances and
are disposed to attach only a secondary importance to the details of public worship.
Those who have to regulate the external forms of religion in a democratic age
should pay a close attention to these natural propensities of the human mind in order not
to run counter to them unnecessarily.
I firmly believe in the necessity of forms, which fix the human mind in the
contemplation of abstract truths and aid it in embracing them warmly and holding them
with firmness. Nor do I suppose that it is possible to maintain a religion without external
observances; but, on the other hand, I am persuaded that in the ages upon which we are
entering it would be peculiarly dangerous to multiply them beyond measure, and that they
ought rather to be limited to as much as is absolutely necessary to perpetuate the
doctrine itself, which is the substance of religion, of which the ritual is only the form. A
1
religion which became more insistent in details, more inflexible, and more burdened with
small observances during the time that men became more equal would soon find itself
limited to a band of fanatic zealots in the midst of a skeptical multitude.
I anticipate the objection that, as all religions have general and eternal truths for
their object, they cannot thus shape themselves to the shifting inclinations of every age
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
without forfeiting their claim to certainty in the eyes of mankind. To this I reply again that
the principal opinions which constitute a creed, and which theologians call articles of faith,
must be very carefully distinguished from the accessories connected with them. Religions
are obliged to hold fast to the former, whatever be the peculiar spirit of the age; but they
should take good care not to bind themselves in the same manner to the latter at a time
when everything is in transition and when the mind, accustomed to the moving pageant of
human affairs, reluctantly allows itself to be fixed on any point. The permanence of
external and secondary things seems to me to have a chance of enduring only when civil
society is itself static; under any other circumstances I am inclined to regard it as
dangerous.
We shall see that of all the passions which originate in or are fostered by equality,
there is one which it renders peculiarly intense, and which it also infuses into the heart of
every man; I mean the love of well-being. The taste for well-being is the prominent and
indelible feature of democratic times.
It may be believed that a religion which should undertake to destroy so deepseated a passion would in the end be destroyed by it; and if it attempted to wean men
entirely from the contemplation of the good things of this world in order to devote their
faculties exclusively to the thought of another, it may be foreseen that the minds of men
would at length escape its grasp, to plunge into the exclusive enjoyment of present and
material pleasures.
The chief concern of religion is to purify, to regulate, and to restrain the excessive
and exclusive taste for well-being that men feel in periods of equality; but it would be an
error to attempt to overcome it completely or to eradicate it. Men cannot be cured of the
love of riches, but they may be persuaded to enrich themselves by none but honest
means.
This brings me to a final consideration, which comprises, as it were, all the others.
The more the conditions of men are equalized and assimilated to each other, the more
important is it for religion, while it carefully abstains from the daily turmoil of secular
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affairs, not needlessly to run counter to the ideas that generally prevail or to the
permanent interests that exist in the mass of the people. For as public opinion grows to be
more and more the first and most irresistible of existing powers, the religious principle has
no external support strong enough to enable it long to resist its attacks. This is not less
true of a democratic people ruled by a despot than of a republic. In ages of equality kings
may often command obedience, but the majority always commands belief; to the
majority, therefore, deference is to be paid in whatever is not contrary to the faith.
I showed in the first Part of this work how the American clergy stand aloof from
secular affairs. This is the most obvious but not the only example of their self-restraint. In
America religion is a distinct sphere, in which the priest is sovereign, but out of which he
takes care never to go. Within its limits he is master of the mind; beyond them he leaves
men to themselves and surrenders them to the independence and instability that belong
to their nature and their age. I have seen no country in which Christianity is clothed with
fewer forms, figures, and observances than in the United States, or where it presents more
distinct, simple, and general notions to the mind. Although the Christians of America are
divided into a multitude of sects, they all look upon their religion in the same light. This
applies to Roman Catholicism as well as to the other forms of belief. There are no Roman
Catholic priests who show less taste for the minute individual observances, for
extraordinary or peculiar means of salvation, or who cling more to the spirit and less to
the letter of the law than the Roman Catholic priests of the United States. Nowhere is that
doctrine of the church which prohibits the worship reserved to God alone from being
offered to the saints more clearly inculcated or more generally followed. Yet the Roman
Catholics of America are very submissive and very sincere.
Another remark is applicable to the clergy of every communion. The American
ministers of the Gospel do not attempt to draw or to fix all the thoughts of man upon the
life to come; they are willing to surrender a portion of his heart to the cares of the present,
seeming to consider the goods of this world as important, though secondary, objects. If
they take no part themselves in productive labor, they are at least interested in its progress
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
and they applaud its results, and while they never cease to point to the other world as the
great object of the hopes and fears of the believer, they do not forbid him honestly to
court prosperity in this. Far from attempting to show that these things are distinct and
contrary to one another, they study rather to find out on what point they are most nearly
and closely connected.
All the American clergy know and respect the intellectual supremacy exercised by
the majority; they never sustain any but necessary conflicts with it. They take no share in
the altercations of parties, but they readily adopt the general opinions of their country and
their age, and they allow themselves to be borne away without opposition in the current
of feeling and opinion by which everything around them is carried along. They endeavor to
amend their contemporaries, but they do not quit fellowship with them. Public opinion is
therefore never hostile to them; it rather supports and protects them, and their belief
owes its authority at the same time to the strength which is its own and to that which it
borrows from the opinions of the majority.
Thus it is that by respecting all democratic tendencies not absolutely contrary to
herself and by making use of several of them for her own purposes, religion sustains a
successful struggle with that spirit of individual independence which is her most
dangerous opponent.
FOOTNOTES
1
In all religions there are some ceremonies that are inherent in the substance of
the faith itself, and in these nothing should on any account be changed. This is especially
the case with Roman Catholicism, in which the doctrine and the form are frequently so
closely united as to form but one point of belief.
This text is in the public domain.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Symbolism Chart
As you read The Scarlet Letter, complete the chart below. In the first column, list the symbols found in the
novel. In the second column, provide the proper citation information. (page number, paragraph number, etc.).
In the third column, describe the meaning of the symbols in the novel.
Symbol
Citation Information
Meaning
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Character Development Chart
Locate quotations or descriptions in The Scarlet Letter for the following characters, which reveal aspects of their personality and how they feel about the central
ideas and the events of the story.
Character
Character Description
Character Development
How Character Development Reveals or
Connects to a Central Idea
Hester
Prynne
Chillingworth
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Dimmesdale
Pearl
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excerpt from Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville
Volume II, Chapter V:
“How Religion in the United States Avails Itself of Democratic Tendencies”
Instructions: With a partner, closely read de Toqueville’s Democracy in America excerpt. Using the steps below,
determine how de Toqueville appeals to his audience to convince them of his purpose.
● Step One: Draw a box around any words that you do not know, and use context clues or a dictionary to identify a
synonym for the boxed word. Write each synonym above the boxed words.
● Step Two: In the right column, write a summary for each paragraph of the text.
● Step Three: Highlight the central ideas of the text.
● Step Four: Complete the Claim Chart on page 12
● Step Five: After you have completed steps one through five, respond to the following using the frame below: How
does de Toqueville appeal to his audience to convince them of his purpose?
Frame: In Democracy in America Alexis de Toqueville argues ________________________________________
(His claim/ central idea)
by ______________________________________________________________________________________________
(How does de Toqueville structure his argument to prove it to be true?)
Text
(1) I HAVE shown in a preceding chapter that men cannot do without dogmatic
Summary
belief, and even that it is much to be desired that such belief should exist among them.
I now add that, of all the kinds of dogmatic belief, the most desirable appears to me to
be dogmatic belief in matters of religion; and this is a clear inference, even from no
higher consideration than the interests of this world.
(2) There is hardly any human action, however particular it may be, that does
not originate in some very general idea men have conceived of the Deity, of his
relation to mankind, of the nature of their own souls, and of their duties to their
fellow creatures. Nor can anything prevent these ideas from being the common spring
from which all the rest emanates.
(3) Men are therefore immeasurably interested in acquiring fixed ideas of God,
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of the soul, and of their general duties to their Creator and their fellow men; for doubt
on these first principles would abandon all their actions to chance and would
condemn them in some way to disorder and impotence.
(4) This, then, is the subject on which it is most important for each of us to
have fixed ideas; and unhappily it is also the subject on which it is most difficult for
each of us, left to himself, to settle his opinions by the sole force of his reason. None
but minds singularly free from the ordinary cares of life, minds at once penetrating,
subtle, and trained by thinking, can, even with much time and care, sound the depths
of these truths that are so necessary. And, indeed, we see that philosophers are
themselves almost always surrounded with uncertainties; that at every step the
natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer and less secure, and that, in
spite of all their efforts, they have discovered as yet only a few conflicting notions, on
which the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands of years without every
firmly grasping the truth or finding novelty even in its errors. Studies of this nature are
far above the average capacity of men; and, even if the majority of mankind were
capable of such pursuits, it is evident that leisure to cultivate them would still be
wanting. Fixed ideas about God and human nature are indispensable to the daily
practice of men's lives; but the practice of their lives prevents them from acquiring
such ideas.
(5) The difficulty appears to be without a parallel. Among the sciences there
are some that are useful to the mass of mankind and are within its reach; others can
be approached only by the few and are not cultivated by the many, who require
nothing beyond their more remote applications: but the daily practice of the science I
speak of is indispensable to all, although the study of it is inaccessible to the greater
number.
(6) General ideas respecting God and human nature are therefore the ideas
above all others which it is most suitable to withdraw from the habitual action of
private judgment and in which there is most to gain and least to lose by recognizing a
principle of authority. The first object and one of the principal advantages of religion is
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to furnish to each of these fundamental questions a solution that is at once clear,
precise, intelligible, and lasting, to the mass of mankind. There are religions that are
false and very absurd, but it may be affirmed that any religion which remains within
the circle I have just traced, without pretending to go beyond it (as many religions
have attempted to do, for the purpose of restraining on every side the free movement
of the human mind ), imposes a salutary restraint on the intellect; and it must be
admitted that, if it does not save men in another world, it is at least very conducive to
their happiness and their greatness in this.
(7) This is especially true of men living in free countries. When the religion of a
people is destroyed, doubt gets hold of the higher powers of the intellect and half
paralyzes all the others. Every man accustoms himself to having only confused and
changing notions on the subjects most interesting to his fellow creatures and himself.
His opinions are ill-defended and easily abandoned; and, in despair of ever solving by
himself the hard problems respecting the destiny of man, he ignobly submits to think
no more about them.
(8) Such a condition cannot but enervate the soul, relax the springs of the will,
and prepare a people for servitude. Not only does it happen in such a case that they
allow their freedom to be taken from them; they frequently surrender it themselves.
When there is no longer any principle of authority in religion any more than in politics,
men are speedily frightened at the aspect of this unbounded independence. The
constant agitation of all surrounding things alarms and exhausts them. As everything is
at sea in the sphere of the mind, they determine at least that the mechanism of
society shall be firm and fixed; and as they cannot resume their ancient belief, they
assume a master.
(9) For my own part, I doubt whether man can ever support at the same time
complete religious independence and entire political freedom. And I am inclined to
think that if faith be wanting in him, he must be subject; and if he be free, he must
believe.
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(10) Perhaps, however, this great utility of religions is still more obvious among
nations where equality of conditions prevails than among others. It must be
acknowledged that equality, which brings great benefits into the world, nevertheless
suggests to men (as will be shown hereafter ) some very dangerous propensities. It
tends to isolate them from one another, to concentrate every man's attention upon
himself; and it lays open the soul to an inordinate love of material gratification.
(11) The greatest advantage of religion is to inspire diametrically contrary
principles There is no religion that does not place the object of man's desires above
and beyond the treasures of earth and that does not naturally raise his soul to regions
far above those of the senses. Nor is there any which does not impose on man some
duties towards his kind and thus draw him at times from the contemplation of himself.
This is found in the most false and dangerous religions.
(12) Religious nations are therefore naturally strong on the very point on
which democratic nations are weak; this shows of what importance it is for men to
preserve their religion as their conditions become more equal.
(13) I have neither the right nor the intention of examining the supernatural
means that God employs to infuse religious belief into the heart of man. I am at this
moment considering religions in a purely human point of view; my object is to inquire
by what means they may most easily retain their sway in the democratic ages upon
which we are entering.
(14) It has been shown that at times of general culture and equality the
human mind consents only with reluctance to adopt dogmatic opinions and feels their
necessity acutely only in spiritual matters. This proves, in the first place, that at such
times religions ought more cautiously than at any other to confine themselves within
their own precincts; for in seeking to extend their power beyond religious matters,
they incur a risk of not being believed at all. The circle within which they seek to
restrict the human intellect ought therefore to be carefully traced, and beyond its
verge the mind should be left entirely free to its own guidance.
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(15) Mohammed professed to derive from Heaven, and has inserted in the
Koran, not only religious doctrines, but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and
theories of science. The Gospel, on the contrary, speaks only of the general relations
of men to God and to each other, beyond which it inculcates and imposes no point of
faith. This alone, besides a thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the
former of these religions will never long predominate in a cultivated and democratic
age, while the latter is destined to retain its sway at these as at all other periods.
(16) In continuation of this same inquiry I find that for religions to maintain
their authority, humanly speaking, in democratic ages, not only must they confine
themselves strictly within the circle of spiritual matters, but their power also will
depend very much on the nature of the belief they inculcate, on the external forms
they assume, and on the obligations they impose.
(17) The preceding observation, that equality leads men to very general and
very vast ideas, is principally to be understood in respect to religion. Men who are
similar and equal in the world readily conceive the idea of the one God, governing
every man by the same laws and granting to every man future happiness on the same
conditions. The idea of the unity of mankind constantly leads them back to the idea of
the unity of the Creator; while on the contrary in a state of society where men are
broken up into very unequal ranks, they are apt to devise as many deities as there are
nations, castes, classes, or families, and to trace a thousand private roads to heaven.
(18) It cannot be denied that Christianity itself has felt, to some extent, the
influence that social and political conditions exercise on religious opinions.
(19) When the Christian religion first appeared upon earth, Providence, by
whom the world was doubtless prepared for its coming, had gathered a large portion
of the human race, like an immense flock, under the scepter of the Caesars. The men
of whom this multitude was composed were distinguished by numerous differences,
but they had this much in common: that they all obeyed the same laws, and that every
subject was so weak and insignificant in respect to the Emperor that all appeared
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equal when their condition was contrasted with his. This novel and peculiar state of
mankind necessarily predisposed men to listen to the general truths that Christianity
teaches, and may serve to explain the facility and rapidity with which they then
penetrated into the human mind. The counterpart of this state of things was exhibited
after the destruction of the Empire. The Roman world being then, as it were, shattered
into a thousand fragments, each nation resumed its former individuality. A scale of
ranks soon grew up in the bosom of these nations; the different races were more
sharply defined, and each nation was divided by castes into several peoples. In the
midst of this common effort, which seemed to be dividing human society into as many
fragments as possible, Christianity did not lose sight of the leading general ideas that it
had brought into the world. But it appeared, nevertheless, to lend itself as much as
possible to the new tendencies created by this distribution of mankind into fractions.
Men continue to worship one God, the Creator and Preserver of all things; but every
people, every city, and, so to speak, every man thought to obtain some distinct
privilege and win the favor of an especial protector near the throne of grace. Unable
to subdivide the Deity, they multiplied and unduly enhanced the importance of his
agents. The homage due to saints and angels became an almost idolatrous worship for
most Christians; and it might be feared for a moment that the religion of Christ would
retrograde towards the superstitions which it had overcome.
(20) It seems evident that the more the barriers are removed which separate
one nation from another and one citizen from another, the stronger is the bent of the
human mind, as if by its own impulse, towards the idea of a single and all-powerful
Being, dispensing equal laws in the same manner to every man. In democratic ages,
then, it is particularly important not to allow the homage paid to secondary agents to
be confused with the worship due to the Creator alone. Another truth is no less clear,
that religions ought to have fewer external observances in democratic periods than at
any others.
(21) In speaking of philosophical method among the Americans I have shown
that nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of equality than the idea
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of subjection to forms. Men living at such times are impatient of figures; to their eyes,
symbols appear to be puerile artifices used to conceal or to set off truths that should
more naturally be bared to the light of day; they are unmoved by ceremonial
observances and are disposed to attach only a secondary importance to the details of
public worship.
(22) Those who have to regulate the external forms of religion in a democratic
age should pay a close attention to these natural propensities of the human mind in
order not to run counter to them unnecessarily.
(23) I firmly believe in the necessity of forms, which fix the human mind in the
contemplation of abstract truths and aid it in embracing them warmly and holding
them with firmness. Nor do I suppose that it is possible to maintain a religion without
external observances; but, on the other hand, I am persuaded that in the ages upon
which we are entering it would be peculiarly dangerous to multiply them beyond
measure, and that they ought rather to be limited to as much as is absolutely
necessary to perpetuate the doctrine itself, which is the substance of religion, of which
the ritual is only the form. 1 A religion which became more insistent in details, more
inflexible, and more burdened with small observances during the time that men
became more equal would soon find itself limited to a band of fanatic zealots in the
midst of a skeptical multitude.
(24) I anticipate the objection that, as all religions have general and eternal
truths for their object, they cannot thus shape themselves to the shifting inclinations
of every age without forfeiting their claim to certainty in the eyes of mankind. To this I
reply again that the principal opinions which constitute a creed, and which theologians
call articles of faith, must be very carefully distinguished from the accessories
connected with them. Religions are obliged to hold fast to the former, whatever be the
peculiar spirit of the age; but they should take good care not to bind themselves in the
same manner to the latter at a time when everything is in transition and when the
mind, accustomed to the moving pageant of human affairs, reluctantly allows itself to
be fixed on any point. The permanence of external and secondary things seems to me
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to have a chance of enduring only when civil society is itself static; under any other
circumstances I am inclined to regard it as dangerous.
(25) We shall see that of all the passions which originate in or are fostered by
equality, there is one which it renders peculiarly intense, and which it also infuses into
the heart of every man; I mean the love of well-being. The taste for well-being is the
prominent and indelible feature of democratic times.
(26) It may be believed that a religion which should undertake to destroy so
deep-seated a passion would in the end be destroyed by it; and if it attempted to
wean men entirely from the contemplation of the good things of this world in order to
devote their faculties exclusively to the thought of another, it may be foreseen that
the minds of men would at length escape its grasp, to plunge into the exclusive
enjoyment of present and material pleasures.
(27) The chief concern of religion is to purify, to regulate, and to restrain the
excessive and exclusive taste for well-being that men feel in periods of equality; but it
would be an error to attempt to overcome it completely or to eradicate it. Men cannot
be cured of the love of riches, but they may be persuaded to enrich themselves by
none but honest means.
(28) This brings me to a final consideration, which comprises, as it were, all the
others. The more the conditions of men are equalized and assimilated to each other,
the more important is it for religion, while it carefully abstains from the daily turmoil
of secular affairs, not needlessly to run counter to the ideas that generally prevail or to
the permanent interests that exist in the mass of the people. For as public opinion
grows to be more and more the first and most irresistible of existing powers, the
religious principle has no external support strong enough to enable it long to resist its
attacks. This is not less true of a democratic people ruled by a despot than of a
republic. In ages of equality kings may often command obedience, but the majority
always commands belief; to the majority, therefore, deference is to be paid in
whatever is not contrary to the faith.
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(29) I showed in the first Part of this work how the American clergy stand aloof
from secular affairs. This is the most obvious but not the only example of their selfrestraint. In America religion is a distinct sphere, in which the priest is sovereign, but
out of which he takes care never to go. Within its limits he is master of the mind;
beyond them he leaves men to themselves and surrenders them to the independence
and instability that belong to their nature and their age. I have seen no country in
which Christianity is clothed with fewer forms, figures, and observances than in the
United States, or where it presents more distinct, simple, and general notions to the
mind. Although the Christians of America are divided into a multitude of sects, they all
look upon their religion in the same light. This applies to Roman Catholicism as well as
to the other forms of belief. There are no Roman Catholic priests who show less taste
for the minute individual observances, for extraordinary or peculiar means of
salvation, or who cling more to the spirit and less to the letter of the law than the
Roman Catholic priests of the United States. Nowhere is that doctrine of the church
which prohibits the worship reserved to God alone from being offered to the saints
more clearly inculcated or more generally followed. Yet the Roman Catholics of
America are very submissive and very sincere.
(30) Another remark is applicable to the clergy of every communion. The
American ministers of the Gospel do not attempt to draw or to fix all the thoughts of
man upon the life to come; they are willing to surrender a portion of his heart to the
cares of the present, seeming to consider the goods of this world as important, though
secondary, objects. If they take no part themselves in productive labor, they are at
least interested in its progress and they applaud its results, and while they never cease
to point to the other world as the great object of the hopes and fears of the believer,
they do not forbid him honestly to court prosperity in this. Far from attempting to
show that these things are distinct and contrary to one another, they study rather to
find out on what point they are most nearly and closely connected.
(31) All the American clergy know and respect the intellectual supremacy
exercised by the majority; they never sustain any but necessary conflicts with it. They
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take no share in the altercations of parties, but they readily adopt the general opinions
of their country and their age, and they allow themselves to be borne away without
opposition in the current of feeling and opinion by which everything around them is
carried along. They endeavor to amend their contemporaries, but they do not quit
fellowship with them. Public opinion is therefore never hostile to them; it rather
supports and protects them, and their belief owes its authority at the same time to
the strength which is its own and to that which it borrows from the opinions of the
majority.
(32) Thus it is that by respecting all democratic tendencies not absolutely
contrary to herself and by making use of several of them for her own purposes,
religion sustains a successful struggle with that spirit of individual independence which
is her most dangerous opponent.
FOOTNOTES
1
In all religions there are some ceremonies that are inherent in the substance
of the faith itself, and in these nothing should on any account be changed. This is
especially the case with Roman Catholicism, in which the doctrine and the form are
frequently so closely united as to form but one point of belief.
This text is in the public domain.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Claim Chart
After reading the text, complete the chart below. In column one, identify each claim or point made in the order
that it is made. In column two, describe how each claim or point is developed and refined by particular
phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or sections. In column three, identify the connections made between the
claims.
Claim
How the Claim is Developed
Connections Between Claims
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Setting Tracker
As you read The Scarlet Letter, complete the chart below. In the first column, list the setting found in the novel. In the second column, provide the
proper citation information. (page number, paragraph number, etc.). In the third column, list the characters and main events in the structure scene.
In the fourth column, describe what idea Hawthorne is communicating with this scene.
Setting
Citation
Prison
Chapter 1
●
●
●
Scaffold
Description
How is the setting described? Include text that describes the setting.
●
●
●
“The rust on the ponderous iron–work of its oaken door looked
●
more antique than anything else in the New World...it seemed
never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice… was a ●
grass–plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig–weed, apple–pern,
and such unsightly vegetation... “ (paragraph 2).
But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold,
was a wild rose–bush...and to the condemned criminal as he came
forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity
and be kind to him.” (paragraph 2)
Central Idea
What are the main actions in this setting?
What characters are present here?
How does this setting help convey a central idea of the text?
This chapter introduces the Puritan lifestyle. It also contains a
description of the prison and the rose-bush.
Hawthorne describes the rose-bush as symbolizing, “... some sweet
moral blossom that may be found along the track...” (paragraph 3).
It could symbolize Hester.
Chapters
2-3
Hester’s
Home/
Forest
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Page
Unknown Word
Vocabulary Log
Word in Context
Part of Speech and Definition
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
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Character Traits4
Able
Accepting
Adventurous
Aggressive
Ambitious
Annoying
Arrogant
Articulate
Awkward
Boastful
Bold
Bossy
Brave
Busy
Calm
Careful
Careless
Cautious
Cheerful
Clever
Clumsy
Compassionate
Conceited
Confident
Considerate
Cooperative
Courageous
Creative
Curious
Daring
Defiant
Demanding
Determined
Devout
Disagreeable
Disgruntled
Dreamy
Eager
Efficient
Embarrassed
Energetic
Excited
Expert
Fair
Faithful
Fancy
Fighter
Forgiving
Free
Friendly
Friendly
Frustrated
Fun-loving
Funny
Generous
Gentle
Giving
Gracious
Grouchy
Handsome
Hard-working
Helpful
Honest
Hopeful
Humble
Humorous
Imaginative
Impulsive
Independent
Intelligent
Inventive
Jealous
Judgmental
Keen
Kind
Knowledgeable
Lazy
Light-hearted
Likeable
Lively
Loving
Loyal
Manipulative
Materialistic
Mature
Melancholy
Merry
Mischievous
Naïve
Nervous
Noisy
Obnoxious
Opinionated
Organized
Outgoing
Passive
Patient
Patriotic
Personable
Pitiful
Plain
Pleasant
Pleasing
Popular
Prim
Proper
Proud
Questioning
Quiet
Radical
Realistic
Rebellious
Reflective
Relaxed
Reliable
Religious
Reserved
Respectful
Responsible
Reverent
Rude
Sad
Sarcastic
Self-confident
Self-conscious
Selfish
Sensible
Sensitive
Serious
Short
Shy
Silly
Simple
Smart
Stable
Strong
Stubborn
Studious
Successful
Tantalizing
Tender
Tense
Thoughtful
Thrilling
Timid
Tireless
Tolerant
Tough
Tricky
Trusting
Understanding
Unhappy
Unique
Unlucky
Vain
Warm
Wild
Willing
Wise
Witty
Characterization in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
4 List adapted from http://www.ltl.appstate.edu/reading_resources/Character_Trait_Descriptive_Adjectives.htm
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Annotation Guide
Directions: Complete the following guided reading and annotation to support your analysis of character in The
Scarlet Letter.
Chapters Three and Four
Activity One: Read paragraphs 1-3 of Chapter 3 of The Scarlet Letter which focus on describing Chillingworth.
List connotative diction that reveals Chillingworth’s character:
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Looking at the connotative diction you highlighted, what kind of character is the author creating in
Chillingworth?
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Activity Two: Look again at paragraphs 1-3 of chapter 3 of The Scarlet Letter.
Highlight in a different color figurative language used to describe Chillingworth.
Complete the following:
Hawthorne compares Chillingworth to ______________ in order to show that Chillingworth is
_____________________________________________________________________________. This
comparison shows this because _______________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________.
Activity Three: Review Chillingworth’s dialogue in chapters 3 and 4.
List details that reveal Chillingworth’s characters in this dialogue.
________________________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________________________
List 2-3 character traits that you can infer Chillingworth possesses based on the textual evidence you identified
in the dialogue.
Chapter Six
Activity Four Read the first five paragraphs of Chapter 6 of The Scarlet Letter which focus on Pearl.
● Write the quote that reveals the meaning of Pearl’s name
_______________________________________________________________________
Activity Five: Fill the chart with words that Hawthorne uses to describe aspects of Pearl’s character.
Physical Description
Behavioral Description
How does the contrast in Pearl’s physical and behavioral description develop her as a character?
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Activity Six: Read paragraphs 7-9.
● List words and phrases that describe the setting.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
● List words and phrases that describe Pearl’s behavior in each setting.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Activity Seven: Respond to the following in 5-8 complete sentences: How does Hawthorne use Pearl’s
character to help develop settings in Chapter 6? What does this reveal about Pearl, Hester, and/ or Puritan
society?
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Chapter Eight
Activity Eight: Read the last five paragraphs of Chapter 8 of The Scarlet Letter which focus on an interaction
between Mistress Hibbins and Hester Prynne.
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Activity Nine: Fill the chart with connotative diction that Hawthorne uses to describe each woman.
Mistress Hibbins
Hester Prynne
Complete the following:
In chapter 8 Hawthorne depicts Mistress Hibbins as ________________________________ and
Character trait
_________________ by describing her with words like _________________________________,
Character trait
______________________________, and _____________________________ while
Hester’s personality seems more ______________________________ and
Character trait
________________________________ because of the use of diction such as
Character trait
___________________________, ________________________,
and __________________________ describing her.
Activity Ten: Respond to the following in 5-8 complete sentences: What is Hawthorne’s purpose for including
Mistress Hibbins in the story. What does she represent?
__________________________________________________________________________________________
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Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
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Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
“John Brown’s Speech to the Court at his Trial”
John Brown
I have, may it please the court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny
everything but what I have all along admitted -- the design on my part to free the slaves. I
intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter when I
went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side,
moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done
the same thing again on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder,
or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to
make insurrection.
I have another objection; and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty.
Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for
I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have
testified in this case)--had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent,
the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends--either father, mother, brother,
sister, wife, or children, or any of that class--and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this
interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed
it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.
This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book
kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches
me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to
them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them."
I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God
is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done--as I have
always freely admitted I have done--in behalf of His despised poor was not wrong, but
right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the
ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and
unjust enactments--I submit; so let it be done!
Let me say one word further.
I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering
all the circumstances it has been more generous than I expected. But I feel no
consciousness of guilt. I have stated that from the first what was my intention and what
was not. I never had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to
commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never
encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind.
Let me say also a word in regard to the statements made by some of those
connected with me. I her it has been stated by some of them that I have induced them to
join me. But the contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting their
weakness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord, and the greater part
of them at their own expense. A number of them I never saw, and never had a word of
conversation with till the day they came to me; and that was for the purpose I have stated.
Now I have done.
This text is in the public domain.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Chapter 14 Guided Analysis
Activity One
Reread Hester and Chillingworth’s conversation in chapter 14. Record details that explain Chillingworth’s
revenge plan.
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Activity Two
Fill in the chart with details and quotes from the text about Hester’s sin on the left and Chillingworth’s sin on
the write in order to compare the two.
Hester’s sin
Chillingworth’s sin
Which sin is worse- Hester or Chillingworth’s? Why? Use the text to support your response.
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Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Activity Three
Fill in the sentence stem to create a thesis statement, or claim, for your timed writing.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the character of __________________________ commits a
Hester or Chillingworth
greater sin than __________________________ because ________________________________________.
Hester or Chillingworth
Why do you believe your chosen character’s sin is greater?
Additionally, your essay should include a counterclaim which addresses the opposing side of your position. This
is generally included in your body paragraph.
While some may believe __________________ is more to blame because __________________________,
Hester or Chillingworth
Why might people believe the other side?
actually _________________________ is more to blame because ________________________________.
Hester or Chillingworth
Why is your side despite this?
Activity Four
Compose a response to the following prompt in the time allotted in class:
Consider who is most to blame- Hester or Chillingworth- for their current state of affairs. Whose sin is worseHester for cheating on her husband and not revealing her fellow adulterer, or Chillingworth for letting
revenge control his heart and taking advantage of Dimmesdale? Make a claim and use evidence from
chapter 14 as well as other parts of the text as evidence to support your claim.
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Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Annotation Guide
“John Brown’s Speech to the Court at his Trial”
John Brown
Activity One: Follow the instructions to complete a guided reading of the text.
I have, may it please the court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny
Define the words in bold.
everything but what I have all along admitted -- the design on my part to free the
slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last
winter when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun
on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I
designed to have done the same thing again on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I
never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or
Highlight Brown’s claim and
underline his support for his
claim.
Highlight em dash (--) in this
paragraph. How do the phrases
following the dash relate to the
first part of the sentence?
incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.
Circle the use of the word
intend/ intended. What is the
effect of the repetition of these
words?
I have another objection; and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a
penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been
Highlight Brown’s claim and
underline his support for his
claim.
fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the
witnesses who have testified in this case)--had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the
powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends--either
father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class--and suffered and
sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man
in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.
This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a
Highlight em dash (--) in this
paragraph. How does Brown’s
use of this structure affect the
variety and fluency of his
sentences?
Circle the use of the word
interfered/interference. What is
the effect of the repetition of
these words?
Define the word in bold.
book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That
teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do
even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as
Highlight Brown’s claim and
underline his support for his
claim.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young
to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as
I have done--as I have always freely admitted I have done--in behalf of His despised
Highlight em dash (--) in this
paragraph. What is the effect of
this structure?
poor was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my
life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the
How do the claims of the first 3
paragraphs relate?
blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights
are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments--I submit; so let it be done!
Let me say one word further.
I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial.
Highlight Brown’s claim and
underline his support for his
claim.
Considering all the circumstances it has been more generous than I expected. But I feel
no consciousness of guilt. I have stated that from the first what was my intention and
what was not. I never had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition
How do the claims of the first 4
paragraphs relate?
to commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never
encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of that kind.
Let me say also a word in regard to the statements made by some of those
connected with me. I hear it has been stated by some of them that I have induced
Highlight Brown’s claim and
underline his support for his
claim.
them to join me. But the contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as
regretting their weakness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord,
and the greater part of them at their own expense. A number of them I never saw, and
never had a word of conversation with till the day they came to me; and that was for
the purpose I have stated.
Now I have done.
How do the claims interact over
the course of the text?
This text is in the public domain.
Activity Two: Read through the text again. Highlight Brown’s use of ethical (ethos), logical (logos), and emotional
(pathos) appeals.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Activity Three: Answer the following questions to further analyze Brown’s argument.
●
What is Brown’s central claim? Use textual evidence to support your response.
●
How does he use logic and reasoning to develop this claim? Use textual evidence to support your response.
●
How does the use of rhetorical appeals help Brown further his main idea or claim? Use textual evidence to
support your response.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Discussion Tracker
Fill in student names prior to discussion. Use space in tracker to capture your notes about each student’s participation
and knowledge. Evaluate individual students on the following elements:
Student
Name:
Came to discussion having
read text & refers to
evidence from text in
probing/reflection of ideas
Poses questions that elicit
elaboration and responds to
others’ questions/comments
w/relevant observations
Acknowledges new
information expressed by
others & modifies own view,
if warranted
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Chapter 20 Post Reading Handout
Directions: Reread Chapter 20 of The Scarlet Letter with a partner and answer the following questions.
1. Fill in the timeline with Dimmesdale’s main actions in this chapter.
●
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Dimmesdale leaves the forest, looking behind as he walks away and thinking of Hester and Pearl.
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Dimmesdale throws his election sermon in the fire and begins writing a new one.
2. Dimmesdale moves a lot in this chapter. In the chart, first right down all the settings Dimmesdale inhabits.
Then make notes as to his mental state in each setting.
Setting
Mental State
How does Hawthorne develop settings in this chapter to convey a central idea? Use the text to support your response.
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Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
3. Consider the transformation unfolding in Dimmesdale. What events illustrate his internal struggle? Use
textual evidence to support your response.
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What is the significance of Mistress Hibbins’s conversation with him? Use textual evidence to support your
response.
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4. In The Scarlet Letter, how does the Puritan society’s definition of “sin” influence/ affect Dimmesdale? Hester?
How does this convey a central idea of the text?
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5. How do the events of chapter 20 demonstrate the interaction of hypocrisy and conformity in The Scarlet
Letter? What does Hawthorne seem to be saying about this interaction?
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Post Reading Questions
1. Review the events that close out the story; analyze the actions and motivations of the characters (e.g.,
Dimmesdale’s final sermon, Pearl’s transformation, Chillingworth leaving his fortune, and Hester
returning to the village.) How do the events of the story help convey a central idea of the text?
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
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2. Hawthorne specifically addresses the meaning of Pearl’s name. What meaning can you gather about
the other names he uses in this text? How do the meanings of the names correlate with or contradict
the characters? How does this convey central ideas of the text?
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3. Compare and contrast the struggles for redemption that Hester and Dimmesdale endure throughout
the course of The Scarlet Letter. What do their struggles reveal about their character? What does this
reveal about Hawthorne’s central ideas?
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4. Consider the many symbols Hawthorne develops in The Scarlet Letter (e.g. the scarlet letter, the prison
rosebush, Pearl, the meteor, etc.) How do these symbols help further Hawthorne’s central ideas?
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Culminating Writing Task
Activity One: Analyzing the Prompt
How do Hawthorne’s choices in character development, setting development, and the structure of events
contribute to the development of two central ideas of The Scarlet Letter?
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Write a literary analysis to support your claims in answer to the question. Be sure to use appropriate
transitions and varied syntax, grade-appropriate language and a formal style, including proper grammar,
conventions, and spelling. Provide strong and thorough textual evidence that is integrated while maintaining
the flow of ideas and including proper citation.
1. What kind of prompt is this? What will you need to have in an essay that responds to the prompt?
List central ideas of the text:
2.Briefly, outline a few examples of character development.
Which example develops a central idea most? Why?
3. Briefly, outline a few examples of setting development.
Which example develops a central idea most? Why?
4. Briefly, outline the structure of events.
Which example develops a central idea most? Why?
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
5. What are the central ideas of the novel?
Activity Two: Writing a Claim
Use the template below to write a working claim statement.
The development of characters, setting, and plot in The Scarlet Letter are conveyed through
____________________________________ , ____________________________________, and
(focus of character development paragraph)
(focus of setting development paragraph)
_____________________________ to _____________________________ how
(focus of plot structure paragraph)
(rhetorically accurate verb)
_____________________________________________________________________________.
(2 central ideas)
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Activity Three: Topic Sentences for Body Paragraphs
The topic sentences should be precise claims. Use the templates below to help you organize your ideas.
Topic Sentence #1
Hawthorne conveys the central idea that _________________________________________
(central idea/s)
by/ through _______________________________________________________________.
(focus of character development paragraph)
Topic Sentence #2
Through __________________________________________________________________
(focus of setting development paragraph)
Hawthorne ______________________________ how
(rhetorically accurate verb)
__________________________________________________________________________________.
(central idea/s)
Topic Sentence #3
The ____________________________________ further ______________________________
(focus of plot structure paragraph)
(rhetorically accurate verb)
_________________________________________________________________________.
(central idea/s)
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Activity Four: Choosing Evidence
For this essay, you must choose multiple pieces of evidence to use in each paragraph. Complete the graphic
organizer below to help you outline the order in which you will present your evidence. Remember to cite your
evidence using MLA format.
Paragraph #
Evidence + Citation
How does this evidence develop a central
idea?
1
(character
development)
2
(setting
development)
3
(plot structure)
Wisconsin v. Yoder (No. 70-110)
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Supreme Court of the United States
Syllabus
Respondents, members of the Old Order Amish religion and the Conservative
Amish Mennonite Church, were convicted of violating Wisconsin's compulsory school
attendance law (which requires a child's school attendance until age 16) by declining to
send their children to public or private school after they had graduated from the eighth
grade. The evidence showed that the Amish provide continuing informal vocational
education to their children designed to prepare them for life in the rural Amish
community. The evidence also showed that respondents sincerely believed that high
school attendance was contrary to the Amish religion and way of life, and that they would
endanger their own salvation and that of their children by complying with the law. The
State Supreme Court sustained respondents' claim that application of the compulsory
school attendance law to them violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the
First Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Held:
1. The State's interest in universal education is not totally free from a balancing
process when it impinges on other fundamental rights, such as those specifically
protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the traditional interest
of parents with respect to the religious upbringing of their children. Pp. 213-215.
2. Respondents have amply supported their claim that enforcement of the
compulsory formal education requirement after the eighth grade would gravely endanger
if not destroy the free exercise of their religious beliefs. Pp. 215-219
3. Aided by a history of three centuries as an identifiable religious sect and a long
history as a successful and self-sufficient segment of American society, the Amish have
demonstrated the sincerity of their religious beliefs, the interrelationship of belief with
their mode of life, the vital role that belief and daily conduct play in the continuing
survival of Old Order Amish communities, and the hazards presented by the State's
enforcement of a statute generally valid as to others. Beyond this, they have [p206]
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
carried the difficult burden of demonstrating the adequacy of their alternative mode of
continuing informal vocational education in terms of the overall interest that the State
relies on in support of its program of compulsory high school education. In light of this
showing, and weighing the minimal difference between what the State would require and
what the Amish already accept, it was incumbent on the State to show with more
particularity how its admittedly strong interest in compulsory education would be
adversely affected by granting an exemption to the Amish. Pp. 212-29, 234-236.
4. The State's claim that it is empowered, as parens patriae, to extend the benefit
of secondary education to children regardless of the wishes of their parents cannot be
sustained against a free exercise claim of the nature revealed by this record, for the
Amish have introduced convincing evidence that accommodating their religious
objections by forgoing one or two additional years of compulsory education will not
impair the physical or mental health of the child, or result in an inability to be selfsupporting or to discharge the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, or in any other
way materially detract from the welfare of society. Pp. 229-234.
49 Wis.2d 430, 182 N.W.2d 539, affirmed.
BURGER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BRENNAN, STEWART,
WHITE, MARSHALL, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined. STEWART, J., filed a concurring opinion, in
which BRENNAN, J., joined, post, p. 237. WHITE, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which
BRENNAN and STEWART, JJ., joined, post, p. 237. DOUGLAS, J., filed an opinion dissenting
in part, post, p. 241. POWELL and REHNQUIST, JJ., took no part in the consideration or
decision of the case. [p207]
TOP
Opinion
BURGER, J., Opinion of the Court
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.
On petition of the State of Wisconsin, we granted the writ of certiorari in this
case to review a decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court holding that respondents'
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
convictions of violating the State's compulsory school attendance law were invalid under
the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, made
applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. For the reasons hereafter stated,
we affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.
Respondents Jonas Yoder and Wallace Miller are members of the Old Order
Amish religion, and respondent Adin Yutzy is a member of the Conservative Amish
Mennonite Church. They and their families are residents of Green County, Wisconsin.
Wisconsin's compulsory school attendance law required them to cause their children to
attend public or private school until reaching age 16, but the respondents declined to
send their children, ages 14 and 15, to public school after they completed the eighth
grade. [n1]
The children were not enrolled in any private school, or within any
recognized exception to the compulsory attendance law, [n2] and they are conceded to
be subject to the Wisconsin statute. [p208]
On complaint of the school district administrator for the public schools,
respondents were charged, tried, and convicted of violating the compulsory attendance
law in Green County Court, and were fined the sum of $5 each. [n3] Respondents
defended on the ground that the application [p209] of the compulsory attendance law
violated their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. [n4]
The trial
testimony showed that respondents believed, in accordance with the tenets of Old Order
Amish communities generally, that their children's attendance at high school, public or
private, was contrary to the Amish religion and way of life. They believed that, by sending
their children to high school, they would not only expose themselves to the danger of the
censure of the church community, but, as found by the county court, also endanger their
own salvation and that of their children. The State stipulated that respondents' religious
beliefs were sincere.
In support of their position, respondents presented as expert witnesses scholars
on religion and education whose testimony is uncontradicted. They expressed their
opinions on the relationship of the Amish belief concerning school attendance to the
more general tenets of their religion, and described the impact that compulsory high
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
school attendance could have on the continued survival of Amish communities as they
exist in the United States today. The history of the Amish [p210] sect was given in some
detail, beginning with the Swiss Anabaptists of the 16th century, who rejected
institutionalized churches and sought to return to the early, simple, Christian life
deemphasizing material success, rejecting the competitive spirit, and seeking to insulate
themselves from the modern world. As a result of their common heritage, Old Order
Amish communities today are characterized by a fundamental belief that salvation
requires life in a church community separate and apart from the world and worldly
influence. This concept of life aloof from the world and its values is central to their faith.
A related feature of Old Order Amish communities is their devotion to a life in
harmony with nature and the soil, as exemplified by the simple life of the early Christian
era that continued in America during much of our early national life. Amish beliefs require
members of the community to make their living by farming or closely related activities.
Broadly speaking, the Old Order Amish religion pervades and determines the entire mode
of life of its adherents. Their conduct is regulated in great detail by the Ordnung, or rules,
of the church community. Adult baptism, which occurs in late adolescence, is the time at
which Amish young people voluntarily undertake heavy obligations, not unlike the Bar
Mitzvah of the Jews, to abide by the rules of the church community. [n5]
Amish objection to formal education beyond the eighth grade is firmly grounded
in these central religious concepts. They object to the high school, and higher education
generally, because the values they teach [p211] are in marked variance with Amish
values and the Amish way of life; they view secondary school education as an
impermissible exposure of their children to a "worldly" influence in conflict with their
beliefs. The high school tends to emphasize intellectual and scientific accomplishments,
self-distinction, competitiveness, worldly success, and social life with other students.
Amish society emphasizes informal "learning through doing;" a life of "goodness," rather
than a life of intellect; wisdom, rather than technical knowledge; community welfare,
rather than competition; and separation from, rather than integration with,
contemporary worldly society.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
Formal high school education beyond the eighth grade is contrary to Amish
beliefs not only because it places Amish children in an environment hostile to Amish
beliefs, with increasing emphasis on competition in class work and sports and with
pressure to conform to the styles, manners, and ways of the peer group, but also because
it takes them away from their community, physically and emotionally, during the crucial
and formative adolescent period of life. During this period, the children must acquire
Amish attitudes favoring manual work and self-reliance and the specific skills needed to
perform the adult role of an Amish farmer or housewife. They must learn to enjoy
physical labor. Once a child has learned basic reading, writing, and elementary
mathematics, these traits, skills, and attitudes admittedly fall within the category of those
best learned through example and "doing," rather than in a classroom. And, at this time
in life, the Amish child must also grow in his faith and his relationship to the Amish
community if he is to be prepared to accept the heavy obligations imposed by adult
baptism. In short, high school attendance with teachers who are not of the Amish faith -and may even be hostile to it -- interposes a serious barrier to the integration of the
Amish child into [p212] the Amish religious community. Dr. John Hostetler, one of the
experts on Amish society, testified that the modern high school is not equipped, in
curriculum or social environment, to impart the values promoted by Amish society.
The Amish do not object to elementary education through the first eight grades
as a general proposition, because they agree that their children must have basic skills in
the "three R's" in order to read the Bible, to be good farmers and citizens, and to be able
to deal with non-Amish people when necessary in the course of daily affairs. They view
such a basic education as acceptable because it does not significantly expose their
children to worldly values or interfere with their development in the Amish community
during the crucial adolescent period. While Amish accept compulsory elementary
education generally, wherever possible. they have established their own elementary
schools, in many respects like the small local schools of the past. In the Amish belief,
higher learning tends to develop values they reject as influences that alienate man from
God.
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
On the basis of such considerations, Dr. Hostetler testified that compulsory high
school attendance could not only result in great psychological harm to Amish children,
because of the conflicts it would produce, but would also, in his opinion, ultimately result
in the destruction of the Old Order Amish church community as it exists in the United
States today. The testimony of Dr. Donald A. Erickson, an expert witness on education,
also showed that the Amish succeed in preparing their high school age children to be
productive members of the Amish community. He described their system of learning
through doing the skills directly relevant to their adult roles in the Amish community as
"ideal," and perhaps superior to ordinary high school education. The evidence also
showed that the Amish have an excellent [p213] record as law-abiding and generally selfsufficient members of society.
Although the trial court, in its careful findings, determined that the Wisconsin
compulsory school attendance law, "does interfere with the freedom of the Defendants
to act in accordance with their sincere religious belief," it also concluded that the
requirement of high school attendance until age 16 was a "reasonable and constitutional"
exercise of governmental power, and therefore denied the motion to dismiss the charges.
The Wisconsin Circuit Court affirmed the convictions. The Wisconsin Supreme Court,
however, sustained respondents' claim under the Free Exercise Clause of the First
Amendment, and reversed the convictions. A majority of the court was of the opinion
that the State had failed to make an adequate showing that its interest in "establishing
and maintaining an educational system overrides the defendants' right to the free
exercise of their religion." 49 Wis.2d 430, 447, 182 N.W.2d 539, 547 (1971).
I
There is no doubt as to the power of a State, having a high responsibility for
education of its citizens, to impose reasonable regulations for the control and duration of
basic education. See, e.g., Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534 (1925). Providing
public schools ranks at the very apex of the function of a State. Yet even this paramount
responsibility was, in Pierce, made to yield to the right of parents to provide an
equivalent education in a privately operated system. There, the Court held that Oregon's
Grade 11: Scarlet Letter
statute compelling attendance in a public school from age eight to age 16 unreasonably
interfered with the interest of parents in directing the rearing of their offspring, including
their education in church-operated schools. As that case suggests, the values of parental
direction of the religious upbringing [p214] and education of their children in their early
and formative years have a high place in our society. See also Ginsberg v. New York, 390
U.S. 629, 639 (1968); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923); cf. Rowan v. Post Office
Dept., 397 U.S. 728 (1970). Thus, a State's interest in universal education, however highly
we rank it, is not totally free from a balancing process when it impinges on fundamental
rights and interests, such as those specifically protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the
First Amendment, and the traditional interest of parents with respect to the religious
upbringing of their children so long as they, in the words of Pierce, "prepare [them] for
additional obligations." 268 U.S. at 535.
It follows that, in order for Wisconsin to compel school attendance beyond the
eighth grade against a claim that such attendance interferes with the practice of a
legitimate religious belief, it must appear either that the State does not deny the free
exercise of religious belief by its requirement or that there is a state interest of sufficient
magnitude to override the interest claiming protection under the Free Exercise Clause.
Long before there was general acknowledgment of the need for universal formal
education, the Religion Clauses had specifically and firmly fixed the right to free exercise
of religious beliefs, and buttressing this fundamental right was an equally firm, even if
less explicit, prohibition against the establishment of any religion by government. The
values underlying these two provisions relating to religion have been zealously protected,
sometimes even at the expense of other interests of admittedly high social importance.
The invalidation of financial aid to parochial schools by government grants for a salary
subsidy for teachers is but one example of the extent to which courts have gone in this
regard, notwithstanding that such aid programs were legislatively determined to be in the
public interest and the service of sound educational policy by States and by Congress.
Lemon v. [p215] Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971); Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672 (1971).
See also Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947).
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The essence of all that has been said and written on the subject is that only those
interests of the highest order and those not otherwise served can overbalance legitimate
claims to the free exercise of religion. We can accept it as settled, therefore, that,
however strong the State's interest in universal compulsory education, it is by no means
absolute to the exclusion or subordination of all other interests. E.g., Sherbert v. Verner,
374 U.S. 398 (1963); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 459 (1961) (separate opinion of
Frankfurter, J.); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 165 (1944).
II
We come then to the quality of the claims of the respondents concerning the
alleged encroachment of Wisconsin's compulsory school attendance statute on their
rights and the rights of their children to the free exercise of the religious beliefs they and
their forebears have adhered to for almost three centuries. In evaluating those claims, we
must be careful to determine whether the Amish religious faith and their mode of life are,
as they claim, inseparable and interdependent. A way of life, however virtuous and
admirable, may not be interposed as a barrier to reasonable state regulation of education
if it is based on purely secular considerations; to have the protection of the Religion
Clauses, the claims must be rooted in religious belief. Although a determination of what is
a "religious" belief or practice entitled to constitutional protection may present a most
delicate question, [n6] the very concept of ordered liberty precludes [p216] allowing
every person to make his own standards on matters of conduct in which society as a
whole has important interests. Thus, if the Amish asserted their claims because of their
subjective evaluation and rejection of the contemporary secular values accepted by the
majority, much as Thoreau rejected the social values of his time and isolated himself at
Walden Pond, their claims would not rest on a religious basis. Thoreau's choice was
philosophical and personal, rather than religious, and such belief does not rise to the
demands of the Religion Clauses.
Giving no weight to such secular considerations, however, we see that the record
in this case abundantly supports the claim that the traditional way of life of the Amish is
not merely a matter of personal preference, but one of deep religious conviction, shared
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by an organized group, and intimately related to daily living. That the Old Order Amish
daily life and religious practice stem from their faith is shown by the fact that it is in
response to their literal interpretation of the Biblical injunction from the Epistle of Paul to
the Romans, "be not conformed to this world. . . ." This command is fundamental to the
Amish faith. Moreover, for the Old Order Amish, religion is not simply a matter of
theocratic belief. As the expert witnesses explained, the Old Order Amish religion
pervades and determines virtually their entire way of life, regulating it with the detail of
the Talmudic diet through the strictly enforced rules of the church community.
The record shows that the respondents' religious beliefs and attitude toward life,
family, and home have remained constant -- perhaps some would say static -- in a period
of unparalleled progress in human knowledge generally and great changes in education.
[n7] The respondents [p217] freely concede, and indeed assert as an article of faith,
that their religious beliefs and what we would today call "lifestyle" have not altered in
fundamentals for centuries. Their way of life in a church-oriented community, separated
from the outside world and "worldly" influences, their attachment to nature, and the soil,
is a way inherently simple and uncomplicated, albeit difficult to preserve against the
pressure to conform. Their rejection of telephones, automobiles, radios, and television,
their mode of dress, of speech, their habits of manual work do indeed set them apart
from much of contemporary society; these customs are both symbolic and practical.
As the society around the Amish has become more populous, urban,
industrialized, and complex, particularly in this century, government regulation of human
affairs has correspondingly become more detailed and pervasive. The Amish mode of life
has thus come into conflict increasingly with requirements of contemporary society
exerting a hydraulic insistence on conformity to majoritarian standards. So long as
compulsory education laws were confined to eight grades of elementary basic education
imparted in a nearby rural schoolhouse, with a large proportion of students of the Amish
faith, the Old Order Amish had little basis to fear that school attendance would expose
their children to the worldly influence they reject. But modern compulsory secondary
education in rural areas is now largely carried on in a consolidated school, often remote
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from the student's home and alien to his daily home life. As the record so strongly shows,
the values and programs of the modern secondary school are in sharp conflict with the
fundamental mode of life mandated by the Amish religion; modern laws requiring
compulsory secondary education have accordingly engendered great concern and
conflict. [n8]
[p218] The conclusion is inescapable that secondary schooling, by
exposing Amish children to worldly influences in terms of attitudes, goals, and values
contrary to beliefs, and by substantially interfering with the religious development of the
Amish child and his integration into the way of life of the Amish faith community at the
crucial adolescent stage of development, contravenes the basic religious tenets and
practice of the Amish faith, both as to the parent and the child.
The impact of the compulsory attendance law on respondents' practice of the
Amish religion is not only severe, but inescapable, for the Wisconsin law affirmatively
compels them, under threat of criminal sanction, to perform acts undeniably at odds with
fundamental tenets of their religious beliefs. See Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 605
(1961). Nor is the impact of the compulsory attendance law confined to grave
interference with important Amish religious tenets from a subjective point of view. It
carries with it precisely the kind of objective danger to the free exercise of religion that
the First Amendment was designed to prevent. As the record shows, compulsory school
attendance to age 16 for Amish children carries with it a very real threat of undermining
the Amish community and religious practice as they exist today; they must either
abandon belief and be assimilated into society at large or be forced to migrate to some
other and more tolerant region. [n9] [p219]
In sum, the unchallenged testimony of acknowledged experts in education and
religious history, almost 300 years of consistent practice, and strong evidence of a
sustained faith pervading and regulating respondents' entire mode of life support the
claim that enforcement of the State's requirement of compulsory formal education after
the eighth grade would gravely endanger, if not destroy, the free exercise of respondents'
religious beliefs.
III
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Neither the findings of the trial court nor the Amish claims as to the nature of
their faith are challenged in this Court by the State of Wisconsin. Its position is that the
State's interest in universal compulsory formal secondary education to age 16 is so great
that it is paramount to the undisputed claims of respondents that their mode of
preparing their youth for Amish life, after the traditional elementary education, is an
essential part of their religious belief and practice. Nor does the State undertake to meet
the claim that the Amish mode of life and education is inseparable from and a part of the
basic tenets of their religion -- indeed, as much a part of their religious belief and
practices as baptism, the confessional, or a sabbath may be for others.
Wisconsin concedes that, under the Religion Clauses, religious beliefs are
absolutely free from the State's control, but it argues that "actions," even though
religiously grounded, are outside the protection of the First Amendment. [n10] But our
decisions have rejected the idea that [p220] religiously grounded conduct is always
outside the protection of the Free Exercise Clause. It is true that activities of individuals,
even when religiously based, are often subject to regulation by the States in the exercise
of their undoubted power to promote the health, safety, and general welfare, or the
Federal Government in the exercise of its delegated powers. See, e.g., Gillette v. United
States, 401 U.S. 437 (1971); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961); Prince v.
Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944); Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879). But to
agree that religiously grounded conduct must often be subject to the broad police power
of the State is not to deny that there are areas of conduct protected by the Free Exercise
Clause of the First Amendment, and thus beyond the power of the State to control, even
under regulations of general applicability. E.g., Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963);
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303304 (1940). This case, therefore, does not become easier because respondents were
convicted for their "actions" in refusing to send their children to the public high school; in
this context, belief and action cannot be neatly confined in logic-tight compartments. Cf.
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S.S. at 612.
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Nor can this case be disposed of on the grounds that Wisconsin's requirement for
school attendance to age 16 applies uniformly to all citizens of the State and does not, on
its face, discriminate against religions or a particular religion, or that it is motivated by
legitimate secular concerns. A regulation neutral on its face may, in its application,
nonetheless offend the constitutional requirement for governmental neutrality if it
unduly burdens the free exercise of religion. Sherbert v. Verner, supra; cf. Walz v. Tax
Commission, 397 U.S. 664 (1970). The Court must not ignore the danger that an
exception [p221] from a general obligation of citizenship on religious grounds may run
afoul of the Establishment Clause, but that danger cannot be allowed to prevent any
exception, no matter how vital it may be to the protection of values promoted by the
right of free exercise. By preserving doctrinal flexibility and recognizing the need for a
sensible and realistic application of the Religion Clauses,
We have been able to chart a course that preserved the autonomy and freedom
of religious bodies while avoiding any semblance of established religion. This is a "tight
rope," and one we have successfully traversed.
Walz v. Tax Commission, supra, at 672.
We turn, then, to the State's broader contention that its interest in its system of
compulsory education is so compelling that even the established religious practices of the
Amish must give way. Where fundamental claims of religious freedom are at stake,
however, we cannot accept such a sweeping claim; despite its admitted validity in the
generality of cases, we must searchingly examine the interests that the State seeks to
promote by its requirement for compulsory education to age 16, and the impediment to
those objectives that would flow from recognizing the claimed Amish exemption. See,
e.g., Sherbert v. Verner, supra; Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U.S. 141 (1943); Schneider
v. State, 308 U.S. 147 (1939).
The State advances two primary arguments in support of its system of
compulsory education. It notes, as Thomas Jefferson pointed out early in our history, that
some degree of education is necessary to prepare citizens to participate effectively and
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intelligently in our open political system if we are to preserve freedom and
independence. Further, education prepares individuals to be self-reliant and selfsufficient participants in society. We accept these propositions. [p222]
However, the evidence adduced by the Amish in this case is persuasively to the
effect that an additional one or two years of formal high school for Amish children in
place of their long-established program of informal vocational education would do little
to serve those interests. Respondents' experts testified at trial, without challenge, that
the value of all education must be assessed in terms of its capacity to prepare the child
for life. It is one thing to say that compulsory education for a year or two beyond the
eighth grade may be necessary when its goal is the preparation of the child for life in
modern society as the majority live, but it is quite another if the goal of education be
viewed as the preparation of the child for life in the separated agrarian community that is
the keystone of the Amish faith. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. at 400.
The State attacks respondents' position as one fostering "ignorance" from which
the child must be protected by the State. No one can question the State's duty to protect
children from ignorance, but this argument does not square with the facts disclosed in
the record. Whatever their idiosyncrasies as seen by the majority, this record strongly
shows that the Amish community has been a highly successful social unit within our
society, even if apart from the conventional "mainstream." Its members are productive
and very law-abiding members of society; they reject public welfare in any of its usual
modern forms. The Congress itself recognized their self-sufficiency by authorizing
exemption of such groups as the Amish from the obligation to pay social security taxes.
[n11] [p223]
It is neither fair nor correct to suggest that the Amish are opposed to education
beyond the eighth grade level. What this record shows is that they are opposed to
conventional formal education of the type provided by a certified high school because it
comes at the child's crucial adolescent period of religious development. Dr. Donald
Erickson, for example, testified that their system of "learning by doing" was an "ideal
system" of education in terms of preparing Amish children for life as adults in the Amish
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community, and that "I would be inclined to say they do a better job in this than most of
the rest of us do." As he put it,
These people aren't purporting to be learned people, and it seems to me the selfsufficiency of the community is the best evidence I can point to -- whatever is being done
seems to function well. [n12]
We must not forget that, in the Middle Ages, important values of the civilization
of the Western World were preserved by members of religious orders who isolated
themselves from all worldly influences against great obstacles. There can be no
assumption that today's majority is [p224] "right," and the Amish and others like them
are "wrong." A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no rights or
interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.
The State, however, supports its interest in providing an additional one or two
years of compulsory high school education to Amish children because of the possibility
that some such children will choose to leave the Amish community, and that, if this
occurs, they will be ill-equipped for life. The State argues that, if Amish children leave
their church, they should not be in the position of making their way in the world without
the education available in the one or two additional years the State requires. However, on
this record, that argument is highly speculative. There is no specific evidence of the loss
of Amish adherents by attrition, nor is there any showing that, upon leaving the Amish
community, Amish children, with their practical agricultural training and habits of industry
and self-reliance, would become burdens on society because of educational
shortcomings. Indeed, this argument of the State appears to rest primarily on the State's
mistaken assumption, already noted, that the Amish do not provide any education for
their children beyond the eighth grade, but allow them to grow in "ignorance." To the
contrary, not only do the Amish accept the necessity for formal schooling through the
eighth grade level, but continue to provide what has been characterized by the
undisputed testimony of expert educators as an "ideal" vocational education for their
children in the adolescent years.
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There is nothing in this record to suggest that the Amish qualities of reliability,
self-reliance, and dedication to work would fail to find ready markets in today's society.
Absent some contrary evidence supporting the [p225] State's position, we are unwilling
to assume that persons possessing such valuable vocational skills and habits are doomed
to become burdens on society should they determine to leave the Amish faith, nor is
there any basis in the record to warrant a finding that an additional one or two years of
formal school education beyond the eighth grade would serve to eliminate any such
problem that might exist.
Insofar as the State's claim rests on the view that a brief additional period of
formal education is imperative to enable the Amish to participate effectively and
intelligently in our democratic process, it must fall. The Amish alternative to formal
secondary school education has enabled them to function effectively in their day-to-day
life under self-imposed limitations on relations with the world, and to survive and prosper
in contemporary society as a separate, sharply identifiable and highly self-sufficient
community for more than 200 years in this country. In itself, this is strong evidence that
they are capable of fulfilling the social and political responsibilities of citizenship without
compelled attendance beyond the eighth grade at the price of jeopardizing their free
exercise of religious belief. [n13] When Thomas Jefferson emphasized the need for
education as a bulwark of a free people against tyranny, there is nothing to indicate he
had in mind compulsory education through any fixed age beyond a basic education.
Indeed, the Amish communities singularly parallel and reflect many of the virtues of
Jefferson's ideal of the "sturdy yeoman" who would form the basis of what he considered
as the [p226] ideal of a democratic society. [n14] Even their idiosyncratic separateness
exemplifies the diversity we profess to admire and encourage.
The requirement for compulsory education beyond the eighth grade is a relatively
recent development in our history. Less than 60 years ago, the educational requirements
of almost all of the States were satisfied by completion of the elementary grades, at least
where the child was regularly and lawfully employed. [n15] The independence [p227]
and successful social functioning of the Amish community for a period approaching
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almost three centuries and more than 200 years in this country are strong evidence that
there is, at best, a speculative gain, in terms of meeting the duties of citizenship, from an
additional one or two years of compulsory formal education. Against this background, it
would require a more particularized showing from the State on this point to justify the
severe interference with religious freedom such additional compulsory attendance would
entail.
We should also note that compulsory education and child labor laws find their
historical origin in common humanitarian instincts, and that the age limits of both laws
have been coordinated to achieve their related objectives. [n16] In the context of this
case, such considerations, [p228] if anything, support rather than detract from,
respondents' position. The origins of the requirement for school attendance to age 16, an
age falling after the completion of elementary school but before completion of high
school, are not entirely clear. But, to some extent, such laws reflected the movement to
prohibit most child labor under age 16 that culminated in the provisions of the Federal
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. [n17] It is true, then, that the 16-year child labor age
limit may, to some degree, derive from a contemporary impression that children should
be in school until that age. But, at the same time, it cannot be denied that, conversely,
the 16-year education limit reflects, in substantial measure, the concern that children
under that age not be employed under conditions hazardous to their health, or in work
that should be performed by adults.
The requirement of compulsory schooling to age 16 must therefore be viewed as
aimed not merely at providing educational opportunities for children, but as an
alternative to the equally undesirable consequence of unhealthful child labor displacing
adult workers, or, on the other hand, forced idleness. [n18] The two kinds of statutes -compulsory school attendance and child labor laws -- tend to keep children of certain
ages off the labor market and in school; this regimen, in turn, provides opportunity to
prepare for a livelihood of a higher order than that which children could pursue without
education, and protects their health in adolescence.
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In these terms, Wisconsin's interest in compelling the school attendance of Amish
children to age 16 emerges as somewhat less substantial than requiring such attendance
[p229] for children generally. For, while agricultural employment is not totally outside the
legitimate concerns of the child labor laws, employment of children under parental
guidance and on the family farm from age 14 to age 16 is an ancient tradition that lies at
the periphery of the objectives of such laws. [n19] There is no intimation that the Amish
employment of their children on family farms is in any way deleterious to their health, or
that Amish parents exploit children at tender years. Any such inference would be contrary
to the record before us. Moreover, employment of Amish children on the family farm
does not present the undesirable economic aspects of eliminating jobs that might
otherwise be held by adults.
IV
Finally, the State, on authority of Prince v. Massachusetts, argues that a decision
exempting Amish children from the State's requirement fails to recognize the substantive
right of the Amish child to a secondary education, and fails to give due regard to the
power of the State as parens patriae to extend the benefit of secondary education to
children regardless of the wishes of their parents. Taken at its broadest sweep, the
Court's language in Prince might be read to give support to the State's position. However,
the Court was not confronted in Prince with a situation comparable to that of the Amish
as revealed in this record; this is shown by the [p230] Court's severe characterization of
the evils that it thought the legislature could legitimately associate with child labor, even
when performed in the company of an adult. 321 U.S. at 169-170. The Court later took
great care to confine Prince to a narrow scope in Sherbert v. Verner, when it stated:
On the other hand, the Court has rejected challenges under the Free Exercise
Clause to governmental regulation of certain overt acts prompted by religious beliefs or
principles, for "even when the action is in accord with one's religious convictions, [it] is
not totally free from legislative restrictions." Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 603. The
conduct or actions so regulated have invariably posed some substantial threat to public
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safety, peace or order. See, e.g., Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145; Jacobson v.
Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158. . . .
374 U.S. at 402-403.
This case, of course, is not one in which any harm to the physical or mental health
of the child or to the public safety, peace, order, or welfare has been demonstrated or
may be properly inferred. [n20] The record is to the contrary, and any reliance on that
theory would find no support in the evidence.
Contrary to the suggestion of the dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS,
our holding today in no degree depends on the assertion of the religious interest of the
child, as contrasted with that of the parents. It is the parents who are subject to
prosecution here for failing to cause their children to attend school, and it [p231] is their
right of free exercise, not that of their children, that must determine Wisconsin's power
to impose criminal penalties on the parent. The dissent argues that a child who expresses
a desire to attend public high school in conflict with the wishes of his parents should not
be prevented from doing so. There is no reason for the Court to consider that point, since
it is not an issue in the case. The children are not parties to this litigation. The State has at
no point tried this case on the theory that respondents were preventing their children
from attending school against their expressed desires, and, indeed, the record is to the
contrary. [n21] The state's position from the outset has been that it is empowered to
apply its compulsory attendance law to Amish parents in the same manner as to other
parents -- that is, without regard to the wishes of the child. That is the claim we reject
today.
Our holding in no way determines the proper resolution of possible competing
interests of parents, children, and the State in an appropriate state court proceeding in
which the power of the State is asserted on the theory that Amish parents are preventing
their minor children from attending high school despite their expressed desires to the
contrary. Recognition of the claim of the State in such a proceeding would, of course, call
into question traditional concepts of parental control over the religious upbringing and
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education of their minor children recognized in this Court's past decisions. It is clear that
such an intrusion by a State into family decisions in the area of religious training would
give rise to grave questions of religious freedom comparable to those raised here [p232]
and those presented in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925). On this record,
we neither reach nor decide those issues.
The State's argument proceeds without reliance on any actual conflict between
the wishes of parents and children. It appears to rest on the potential that exemption of
Amish parents from the requirements of the compulsory education law might allow some
parents to act contrary to the best interests of their children by foreclosing their
opportunity to make an intelligent choice between the Amish way of life and that of the
outside world. The same argument could, of course, be made with respect to all church
schools short of college. There is nothing in the record or in the ordinary course of human
experience to suggest that non-Amish parents generally consult with children of ages 1416 if they are placed in a church school of the parents' faith.
Indeed, it seems clear that, if the State is empowered, as parens patriae, to
"save" a child from himself or his Amish parents by requiring an additional two years of
compulsory formal high school education, the State will, in large measure, influence, if
not determine, the religious future of the child. Even more markedly than in Prince,
therefore, this case involves the fundamental interest of parents, as contrasted with that
of the State, to guide the religious future and education of their children. The history and
culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the
nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the
upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American
tradition. If not the first, perhaps the most significant statements of the Court in this area
are found in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, in which the Court observed:
Under the doctrine of Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, we think it entirely plain
that the Act [p233] of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and
guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control. As often
heretofore pointed out, rights guaranteed by the Constitution may not be abridged by
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legislation which has no reasonable relation to some purpose within the competency of
the State. The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union
repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing
them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature
of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with
the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.
268 U.S. at 534-535.
The duty to prepare the child for "additional obligations," referred to by the
Court, must be read to include the inculcation of moral standards, religious beliefs, and
elements of good citizenship. Pierce, of course, recognized that, where nothing more
than the general interest of the parent in the nurture and education of his children is
involved, it is beyond dispute that the State acts "reasonably" and constitutionally in
requiring education to age 16 in some public or private school meeting the standards
prescribed by the State.
However read, the Court's holding in Pierce stands as a charter of the rights of
parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children. And, when the interests of
parenthood are combined with a free exercise claim of the nature revealed by this record,
more than merely a "reasonable relation to some purpose within the competency of the
State" is required to sustain the validity of the State's requirement under the First
Amendment. To be sure, the power of the parent, even when linked to a free exercise
claim, may be subject to limitation under Prince [p234] if it appears that parental
decisions will jeopardize the health or safety of the child, or have a potential for
significant social burdens. But, in this case, the Amish have introduced persuasive
evidence undermining the arguments the State has advanced to support its claims in
terms of the welfare of the child and society as a whole. The record strongly indicates
that accommodating the religious objections of the Amish by forgoing one, or at most
two, additional years of compulsory education will not impair the physical or mental
health of the child or result in an inability to be self-supporting or to discharge the duties
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and responsibilities of citizenship, or in any other way materially detract from the welfare
of society.
In the face of our consistent emphasis on the central values underlying the
Religion Clauses in our constitutional scheme of government, we cannot accept a parens
patriae claim of such all-encompassing scope and with such sweeping potential for broad
and unforeseeable application as that urged by the State.
V
For the reasons stated we hold, with the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, that the
First and Fourteenth Amendments prevent the State from compelling respondents to
cause their children to attend formal high school to age 16. [n22] Our disposition of this
case, however, in no way [p235] alters our recognition of the obvious fact that courts are
not school boards or legislatures, and are ill-equipped to determine the "necessity" of
discrete aspects of a State's program of compulsory education. This should suggest that
courts must move with great circumspection in performing the sensitive and delicate task
of weighing a State's legitimate social concern when faced with religious claims for
exemption from generally applicable educational requirements. It cannot be
overemphasized that we are not dealing with a way of life and mode of education by a
group claiming to have recently discovered some "progressive" or more enlightened
process for rearing children for modern life.
Aided by a history of three centuries as an identifiable religious sect and a long
history as a successful and self-sufficient segment of American society, the Amish in this
case have convincingly demonstrated the sincerity of their religious beliefs, the
interrelationship of belief with their mode of life, the vital role that belief and daily
conduct play in the continued survival of Old Order Amish communities and their
religious organization, and the hazards presented by the State's enforcement of a statute
generally valid as to others. Beyond this, they have carried the even more difficult burden
of demonstrating the adequacy of their alternative mode of continuing informal
vocational education in terms of precisely those overall interests that the State advances
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in support of its program of compulsory high school education. In light of this convincing
[p236] showing, one that probably few other religious groups or sects could make, and
weighing the minimal difference between what the State would require and what the
Amish already accept, it was incumbent on the State to show with more particularity how
its admittedly strong interest in compulsory education would be adversely affected by
granting an exemption to the Amish. Sherbert v. Verner, supra.
Nothing we hold is intended to undermine the general applicability of the State's
compulsory school attendance statutes or to limit the power of the State to promulgate
reasonable standards that, while not impairing the free exercise of religion, provide for
continuing agricultural vocational education under parental and church guidance by the
Old Order Amish or others similarly situated. The States have had a long history of
amicable and effective relationships with church-sponsored schools, and there is no basis
for assuming that, in this related context, reasonable standards cannot be established
concerning the content of the continuing vocational education of Amish children under
parental guidance, provided always that state regulations are not inconsistent with what
we have said in this opinion. [n23]
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE POWELL and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST took no part in the
consideration or decision of this case. [p237]
1.
The children, Frieda Yoder, aged 15, Barbara Miller, aged 15, and Vernon Yutzy,
aged 14, were all graduates of the eighth grade of public school.
2.
Wis.Stat. § 118.15 (1969) provides in pertinent part:
118.15 Compulsory school attendance
(1)(a) Unless the child has a legal excuse or has graduated from high school, any
person having under his control a child who is between the ages of 7 and 16 years shall
cause such child to attend school regularly during the full period and hours, religious
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holidays excepted, that the public or private school in which such child should be enrolled
is in session until the end of the school term, quarter or semester of the school year in
which he becomes 16 years of age.
****
(3) This section does not apply to any child who is not in proper physical or
mental condition to attend school, to any child exempted for good cause by the school
board of the district in which the child resides or to any child who has completed the full
4-year high school course. The certificate of a reputable physician in general practice shall
be sufficient proof that a child is unable to attend school.
(4) Instruction during the required period elsewhere than at school may be
substituted for school attendance. Such instruction must be approved by the state
superintendent as substantially equivalent to instruction given to children of like ages in
the public or private schools where such children reside.
(5) Whoever violates this section . . . may be fined not less than $5 nor more than
$50 or imprisoned not more than 3 months or both.
Section 118.15(1)(b) requires attendance to age 18 in a school district containing
a "vocational, technical and adult education school," but this section is concededly
inapplicable in this case, for there is no such school in the district involved.
3.
Prior to trial, the attorney for respondents wrote the State Superintendent of
Public Instruction in an effort to explore the possibilities for a compromise settlement.
Among other possibilities, he suggested that perhaps the State Superintendent could
administratively determine that the Amish could satisfy the compulsory attendance law
by establishing their own vocational training plan similar to one that has been established
in Pennsylvania. Supp.App. 6. Under the Pennsylvania plan, Amish children of high school
age are required to attend an Amish vocational school for three hours a week, during
which time they are taught such subjects as English, mathematics, health, and social
studies by an Amish teacher. For the balance of the week, the children perform farm and
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household duties under parental supervision, and keep a journal of their daily activities.
The major portion of the curriculum is home projects in agriculture and homemaking. See
generally J. Hostetler & G. Huntington, Children in Amish Society: Socialization and
Community Education, c. 5 (1971). A similar program has been instituted in Indiana. Ibid.
See also Iowa Code § 299.24 (1971); Kan.Stat.Ann. § 72-1111 (Supp. 1971).
The Superintendent rejected this proposal on the ground that it would not afford
Amish children "substantially equivalent education" to that offered in the schools of the
area. Supp.App. 6.
4.
The First Amendment provides: "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . ."
5.
See generally J. Hostetler, Amish Society (1968); J. Hostetler & G. Huntington,
Children in Amish Society (1971); Littell, Sectarian Protestantism and the Pursuit of
Wisdom: Must Technological Objectives Prevail?, in Public Controls for Nonpublic Schools
61 (D. Erickson ed.1969).
6.
See Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 351-361 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring
in result); United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944).
7.
See generally R. Butts & L. Cremin, A History of Education in American Culture
(1953); L. Cremin, The Transformation of the School (1961).
8.
Hostetler, supra, n. 5, c. 9; Hostetler & Huntington, supra, n. 5.
9.
Some States have developed working arrangements with the Amish regarding
high school attendance. See n. 3, supra. However, the danger to the continued existence
of an ancient religious faith cannot be ignored simply because of the assumption that its
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adherents will continue to be able, at considerable sacrifice, to relocate in some more
tolerant State or country or work out accommodations under threat of criminal
prosecution. Forced migration of religious minorities was an evil that lay at the heart of
the Religion Clauses. See, e.g., Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 9-10 (1947);
Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 2 Writings of
James Madison 183 (G. Hunt ed.1901).
10.
That has been the apparent ground for decision in reversal previous state cases
rejecting claims for exemption similar to that here. See, e.g., State v. Garber, 197 Kan.
567, 419 P.2d 896 (1966), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 51 (1967); State v. Hershberger, 103 Ohio
App. 188, 144 N.E.2d 693 (1955); Commonwealth v. Beiler, 168 Pa.Super. 462, 79 A.2d
134 (1951).
11.
Title 26 U.S.C. § 1402(h) authorizes the Secretary of Health, Education, and
Welfare to exempt members of "a recognized religious sect" existing at all times since
December 31, 1950, from the obligation to pay social security taxes if they are, by reason
of the tenets of their sect, opposed to receipt of such benefits and agree to waive them,
provided the Secretary finds that the sect makes reasonable provision for its dependent
members. The history of the exemption shows it was enacted with the situation of the
Old Order Amish specifically in view. H.R.Rep. No. 213, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 101-102
(1965).
The record in this case establishes without contradiction that the Green County
Amish had never been known to commit crimes, that none had been known to receive
public assistance, and that none was unemployed.
12.
Dr. Erickson had previously written:
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Many public educators would be elated if their programs were as successful in
preparing students for productive community life as the Amish system seems to be. In
fact, while some public schoolmen strive to outlaw the Amish approach, others are being
forced to emulate many of its features.
Erickson, Showdown at an Amish Schoolhouse: A Description and Analysis of the
Iowa Controversy, in Public Controls for Nonpublic Schools 15, 53 (D. Erickson ed.1969).
And see Littell, supra, n. 5, at 61.
13.
All of the children involved in this case are graduates of the eighth grade. In the
county court, the defense introduced a study by Dr. Hostetler indicating that Amish
children in the eighth grade achieved comparably to non-Amish children in the basic
skills. Supp.App. 11. See generally Hostetler & Huntington, supra, n. 5, at 88 96.
14.
While Jefferson recognized that education was essential to the welfare and liberty
of the people, he was reluctant to directly force instruction of children "in opposition to
the will of the parent." Instead, he proposed that state citizenship be conditioned on the
ability to "read readily in some tongue, native or acquired." Letter from Thomas Jefferson
to Joseph Cabell, Sept. 9, 1817, in 17 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 417, 423-424 (Mem.
ed.1904). And it is clear that, so far as the mass of the people were concerned, he
envisaged that a basic education in the "three R's" would sufficiently meet the interests
of the State. He suggested that, after completion of elementary school,
those destined for labor will engage in the business of agriculture, or enter into
apprenticeships to such handicraft art as may be their choice.
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, Sept. 7, 1814, in Thomas Jefferson
and Education in a Republic 93-106 (Arrowood ed.1930). See also id. at 60-64, 70, 83,
136-137.
15.
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See Dept. of Interior, Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 47, Digest of State Laws
Relating to Public Education 527-559 (1916); Joint Hearings on S. 2475 and H.R. 7200
before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor and the House Committee on
Labor, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, p. 416.
Even today, an eighth grade education fully satisfies the educational requirements
of at least six States. See Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 15-321(b)(4) (1956); Ark.Stat.Ann. § 80-1504
(1947); Iowa Code § 299.2 (1971); S.D.Comp.Laws Ann. § 13-27-1 (1967); Wyo.Stat.Ann. §
21.1-48 (Supp. 1971). (Mississippi has no compulsory education law.) A number of other
States have flexible provisions permitting children aged 14 or having completed the
eighth grade to be excused from school in order to engage in lawful employment. E.g.,
Colo.Rev.Stat.Ann. §§ 123-20-5, 80-6-1 to 80-6-12 (1963); Conn.Gen.Stat.Rev. §§ 10-184,
10-189 (1964); D.C.Code Ann. §§ 31-202, 36-201 to 36-228 (1967); Ind.Ann.Stat. §§ 28505 to 28-506, 28-519 (1948); Mass.Gen.Laws Ann., c. 76, § 1 (Supp. 1972) and c. 149, §
86 (1971); Mo.Rev.Stat. §§ 167.031, 294.051 (1969); Nev.Rev.Stat. § 392.110 (1968);
N.M.Stat.Ann. § 77-10-6 (1968).
An eighth grade education satisfied Wisconsin's formal education requirements
until 1933. See Wis.Laws 1927, c. 425, § 97; Laws 1933, c. 143. (Prior to 1933, provision
was made for attendance at continuation or vocational schools by working children past
the eighth grade, but only if one was maintained by the community in question.) For a
general discussion of the early development of Wisconsin's compulsory education and
child labor laws, see F. Ensign, Compulsory School Attendance and Child Labor 203-230
(1921).
16.
See, e.g., Joint Hearings, supra, n. 15, pt. 1, at 185-187 (statement of Frances
Perkins, Secretary of Labor), pt. 2, at 381-387 (statement of Katherine Lenroot, Chief,
Children's Bureau, Department of Labor); National Child Labor Committee, 40th
Anniversary Report, The Long Road (1944); 1 G. Abbott, The Child and the State 259-269,
566 (Greenwood reprint 1968); L. Cremin, The Transformation of the School, c. 3 (1961);
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A. Steinhilber & C. Sokolowski, State Law on Compulsory Attendance 3-4 (Dept. of Health,
Education, and Welfare 1966).
17.
52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219.
18.
See materials cited n. 16, supra; Casad, Compulsory Education and Individual
Rights, in 5 Religion and the Public Order 51, 82 (D. Giannella ed.1969).
19.
See, e.g., Abbott, supra, n. 16, at 266. The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act of
1938 excludes from its definition of "[o]ppressive child labor" employment of a child
under age 16 by
a parent . . . employing his own child . . . in an occupation other than
manufacturing or mining or an occupation found by the Secretary of Labor to be
particularly hazardous for the employment of children between the ages of sixteen and
eighteen years or detrimental to their health or wellbeing.
29 U.S.C. § 203(1).
20.
Cf., e.g., Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905); Wright v. DeWitt School
District, 238 Ark. 906, 385 S.W.2d 644 (1965); Application of President and Directors of
Georgetown College, Inc., 118 U.S.App.D.C. 80, 87-90, 331 F.2d 1000, 1007-1010 (in
chambers opinion), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 978 (1964).
21.
The only relevant testimony in the record is to the effect that the wishes of the
one child who testified corresponded with those of her parents. Testimony of Frieda
Yoder, Tr. 994, to the effect that her personal religious beliefs guided her decision to
discontinue school attendance after the eighth grade. The other children were not called
by either side.
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22.
What we have said should meet the suggestion that the decision of the
Wisconsin Supreme Court recognizing an exemption for the Amish from the State's
system of compulsory education constituted an impermissible establishment of religion.
In Walz v. Tax Commission, the Court saw the three main concerns against which the
Establishment Clause sought to protect as "sponsorship, financial support, and active
involvement of the sovereign in religious activity." 397 U.S. 664, 668 (1970).
Accommodating the religious beliefs of the Amish can hardly be characterized as
sponsorship or active involvement. The purpose and effect of such an exemption are not
to support, favor, advance, or assist the Amish, but to allow their centuries-old religious
society, here long before the advent of any compulsory education, to survive free from
the heavy impediment compliance with the Wisconsin compulsory education law would
impose. Such an accommodation reflects nothing more than the governmental obligation
of neutrality in the face of religious differences, and does not represent that involvement
of religious with secular institutions which it is the object of the Establishment Clause to
forestall.
Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 409 (1963).
23.
Several States have now adopted plans to accommodate Amish religious beliefs
through the establishment of an "Amish vocational school." See n. 3, supra. These are not
schools in the traditional sense of the word. As previously noted, respondents attempted
to reach a compromise with the State of Wisconsin patterned after the Pennsylvania plan,
but those efforts were not productive. There is no basis to assume that Wisconsin will be
unable to reach a satisfactory accommodation with the Amish in light of what we now
hold, so as to serve its interests without impinging on respondents' protected free
exercise of their religion.
TOP
Concurrence
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STEWART, J., Concurring Opinion
MR JUSTICE STEWART, with whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN joins, concurring.
This case involves the constitutionality of imposing criminal punishment upon
Amish parents for their religiously based refusal to compel their children to attend public
high schools. Wisconsin has sought to brand these parents as criminals for following their
religious beliefs, and the Court today rightly holds that Wisconsin cannot constitutionally
do so.
This case in no way involves any questions regarding the right of the children of
Amish parents to attend public high schools, or any other institutions of learning, if they
wish to do so. As the Court points out, there is no suggestion whatever in the record that
the religious beliefs of the children here concerned differ in any way from those of their
parents. Only one of the children testified. The last two questions and answers on her
cross-examination accurately sum up her testimony:
Q. So I take it then, Frieda, the only reason you are not going to school, and did
not go to school since last September, is because of your religion?
A. Yes.
Q. That is the only reason?
A. Yes.
(Emphasis supplied.)
It is clear to me, therefore, that this record simply does not present the
interesting and important issue discussed in Part II of the dissenting opinion of MR.
JUSTICE DOUGLAS. With this observation, I join the opinion and the judgment of the
Court.
TOP
Concurrence
WHITE, J., Concurring Opinion
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MR. JUSTICE WHITE, with whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN and MR. JUSTICE
STEWART join, concurring.
Cases such as this one inevitably call for a delicate balancing of important but
conflicting interests. I join the opinion and judgment of the Court because I cannot [p238]
say that the State's interest in requiring two more years of compulsory education in the
ninth and tenth grades outweighs the importance of the concededly sincere Amish
religious practice to the survival of that sect.
This would be a very different case for me if respondents' claim were that their
religion forbade their children from attending any school at any time and from complying
in any way with the educational standards set by the State. Since the Amish children are
permitted to acquire the basic tools of literacy to survive in modern society by attending
grades one through eight, and since the deviation from the State's compulsory education
law is relatively slight, I conclude that respondents' claim must prevail, largely because
religious freedom -- the freedom to believe and to practice strange and, it may be, foreign
creeds -- has classically been one of the highest values of our society.
Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 612 (1961) (BRENNAN, J., concurring and
dissenting).
The importance of the state interest asserted here cannot be denigrated,
however:
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local
governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for
education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our
democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public
responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good
citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in
preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his
environment.
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Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954). [p239] As recently as last
Term, the Court reemphasized the legitimacy of the State's concern for enforcing minimal
educational standards, Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 613 (1971). [n1] Pierce v.
Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), lends no support to the contention that parents
may replace state educational requirements with their own idiosyncratic views of what
knowledge a child needs to be a productive and happy member of society; in Pierce, both
the parochial and military schools were in compliance with all the educational standards
that the State had set, and the Court held simply that, while a State may posit such
standards, it may not preempt the educational process by requiring children to attend
public schools. [n2]
In the present case, the State is not concerned with the
maintenance of an educational system as an end in itself; it is rather attempting to
nurture and develop the human potential of its children, whether Amish or non-Amish: to
expand their knowledge, broaden their sensibilities, kindle their imagination, foster a
spirit of free inquiry, and increase their human understanding and tolerance. It is possible
that most Amish [p240] children will wish to continue living the rural life of their parents,
in which case their training at home will adequately equip them for their future role.
Others, however, may wish to become nuclear physicists, ballet dancers, computer
programmers, or historians, and for these occupations, formal training will be necessary.
There is evidence in the record that many children desert the Amish faith when they
come of age. [n3] A State has a legitimate interest not only in seeking to develop the
latent talents of its children, but also in seeking to prepare them for the lifestyle that they
may later choose, or at least to provide them with an option other than the life they have
led in the past. In the circumstances of this case, although the question is close, I am
unable to say that the State has demonstrated that Amish children who leave school in
the eighth grade will be intellectually stultified or unable to acquire new academic skills
later. The statutory minimum school attendance age set by the State is, after all, only 16.
Decision in cases such as this and the administration of an exemption for Old
Order Amish from the State's compulsory school attendance laws will inevitably involve
the kind of close and perhaps repeated scrutiny of religious practices, as is exemplified in
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today's opinion, which the Court has heretofore been anxious to avoid. But such
entanglement does not create a forbidden establishment of religion where it is essential
to implement free [p241] exercise values threatened by an otherwise neutral program
instituted to foster some permissible, nonreligious state objective. I join the Court
because the sincerity of the Amish religious policy here is uncontested, because the
potentially adverse impact of the state requirement is great, and because the State's valid
interest in education has already been largely satisfied by the eight years the children
have already spent in school.
1. The challenged Amish religious practice here does not pose a substantial threat
to public safety, peace, or order; if it did, analysis under the Free Exercise Clause would be
substantially different. See Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905); Prince v.
Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944); Cleveland v. United States, 329 U.S. 14 (1946);
Application of President and Directors of Georgetown College, Inc., 118 U.S.App.D.C. 80,
331 F.2d 1000, cert. denied, 377 U.S. 978 (1964).
2. No question is raised concerning the power of the State reasonably to regulate
all schools, to inspect, supervise and examine them, their teachers and pupils; to require
that all children of proper age attend some school, that teachers shall be of good moral
character and patriotic disposition, that certain studies plainly essential to good
citizenship must be taught, and that nothing be taught which is manifestly inimical to the
public welfare.
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534 (1925).
3. Dr. Hostetler testified that, though there was a gradual increase in the total
number of Old Order Amish in the United States over the past 50 years, "at the same
time, the Amish have also lost members [of] their church," and that the turnover rate was
such that "probably two-thirds [of the present Amish] have been assimilated non-Amish
people." App. 110. Justice Heffernan, dissenting below opined that "[l]arge numbers of
young people voluntarily leave the Amish community each year, and are thereafter forced
to make their way in the world." 49 Wis.2d 430, 451, 182 N.W.2d 539, 549 (1971).
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TOP
Dissent
DOUGLAS, J., Dissenting Opinion
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS dissenting in part.
I
I agree with the Court that the religious scruples of the Amish are opposed to the
education of their children beyond the grade schools, yet I disagree with the Court's
conclusion that the matter is within the dispensation of parents alone. The Court's
analysis assumes that the only interests at stake in the case are those of the Amish
parents, on the one hand, and those of the State, on the other. The difficulty with this
approach is that, despite the Court's claim, the parents are seeking to vindicate not only
their own free exercise claims, but also those of their high-school-age children.
It is argued that the right of the Amish children to religious freedom is not
presented by the facts of the case, as the issue before the Court involves only the Amish
parents' religious freedom to defy a state criminal statute imposing upon them an
affirmative duty to cause their children to attend high school.
First, respondents' motion to dismiss in the trial court expressly asserts not only
the religious liberty of the adults, but also that of the children, as a defense to the
prosecutions. It is, of course, beyond question that the parents have standing as
defendants in a criminal prosecution to assert the religious interests of their [p242]
children as a defense. [n1] Although the lower courts and a majority of this Court
assume an identity of interest between parent and child, it is clear that they have treated
the religious interest of the child as a factor in the analysis.
Second, it is essential to reach the question to decide the case not only because
the question was squarely raised in the motion to dismiss, but also because no analysis of
religious liberty claims can take place in a vacuum. If the parents in this case are allowed a
religious exemption, the inevitable effect is to impose the parents' notions of religious
duty upon their children. Where the child is mature enough to express potentially
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conflicting desires, it would be an invasion of the child's rights to permit such an
imposition without canvassing his views. As in Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, it is
an imposition resulting from this very litigation. As the child has no other effective forum,
it is in this litigation that his rights should be considered. And if an Amish child desires to
attend high school, and is mature enough to have that desire respected, the State may
well be able to override the parents' religiously motivated objections. [p243]
Religion is an individual experience. It is not necessary, nor even appropriate, for
every Amish child to express his views on the subject in a prosecution of a single adult.
Crucial, however, are the views of the child whose parent is the subject of the suit. Frieda
Yoder has in fact, testified that her own religious views are opposed to high-school
education. I therefore join the judgment of the Court as to respondent Jonas Yoder. But
Frieda Yoder's views may not be those of Vernon Yutzy or Barbara Miller. I must dissent,
therefore, as to respondents Adin Yutzy and Wallace Miller, as their motion to dismiss
also raised the question of their children's religious liberty.
II
This issue has never been squarely presented before today. Our opinions are full
of talk about the power of the parents over the child's education. See Pierce v. Society of
Sisters, 268 U.S. 510"] 268 U.S. 510; 268 U.S. 510; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390. And
we have in the past analyzed similar conflicts between parent and State with little regard
for the views of the child. See Prince v. Massachusetts, supra. Recent cases, however,
have clearly held that the children themselves have constitutionally protectible interests.
These children are "persons" within the meaning of the Bill of Rights. We have so
held over and over again. In Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, we extended the protection of
the Fourteenth Amendment in a state trial of a 15-year-old boy. In In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1,
13, we held that "neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults
alone." In In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, we held that a 12-year-old boy, when charged with
an act which would be a crime if committed by an adult, was entitled to procedural
safeguards contained in the Sixth Amendment. [p244]
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In Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503, we dealt with 13-year-old,
15-year-old, and 16-year-old students who wore armbands to public schools and were
disciplined for doing so. We gave them relief, saying that their First Amendment rights
had been abridged.
Students, in school as well as out of school, are "persons" under our Constitution.
They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they
themselves must respect their obligations to the State.
Id. at 511.
In Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, we held that school children
whose religious beliefs collided with a school rule requiring them to salute the flag could
not be required to do so. While the sanction included expulsion of the students and
prosecution of the parents, id. at 630, the vice of the regime was its interference with the
child's free exercise of religion. We said: "Here . . . we are dealing with a compulsion of
students to declare a belief." Id. at 631. In emphasizing the important and delicate task of
boards of education we said:
That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous
protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free
mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as
mere platitudes.
Id. at 637.
On this important and vital matter of education, I think the children should be
entitled to be heard. While the parents, absent dissent, normally speak for the entire
family, the education of the child is a matter on which the child will often have decided
views. He may want to be a pianist or an astronaut or an oceanographer. [p245] To do so
he will have to break from the Amish tradition. [n2]
It is the future of the student, not the future of the parents, that is imperiled by
today's decision. If a parent keeps his child out of school beyond the grade school, then
the child will be forever barred from entry into the new and amazing world of diversity
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that we have today. The child may decide that that is the preferred course, or he may
rebel. It is the student's judgment, not his parents', that is essential if we are to give full
meaning to what we have said about the Bill of Rights and of the right of students to be
masters of their own destiny. [n3] If he is harnessed to the Amish way of life [p246] by
those in authority over him, and if his education is truncated, his entire life may be
stunted and deformed. The child, therefore, should be given an opportunity to be heard
before the State gives the exemption which we honor today.
The views of the two children in question were not canvassed by the Wisconsin
courts. The matter should be explicitly reserved so that new hearings can be held on
remand of the case. [n4]
III
I think the emphasis of the Court on the "law and order" record of this Amish
group of people is quite irrelevant. A religion is a religion irrespective of what the
misdemeanor or felony records of its members might be. I am not at all sure how the
Catholics, Episcopalians, the Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Unitarians, and my own
Presbyterians would make out if subjected to such a test. It is, of course, true that, if a
group or society was organized to perpetuate crime, and if that is its motive, we would
have rather startling problems akin to those that were raised when, some years back, a
particular sect was challenged here as operating on a fraudulent basis. United States v.
Ballard, 322 U.S. 78. But no such factors are present here, and the Amish, whether with a
high or low criminal [p247] record, [n5] certainly qualify by all historic standards as a
religion within the meaning of the First Amendment.
The Court rightly rejects the notion that actions, even though religiously
grounded, are always outside the protection of the Free Exercise Clause of the First
Amendment. In so ruling, the Court departs from the teaching of Reynolds v. United
States, 98 U.S. 145, 164, where it was said, concerning the reach of the Free Exercise
Clause of the First Amendment,
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Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left
free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.
In that case, it was conceded at polygamy was a part of the religion of the
Mormons. Yet the Court said, "It matters not that his belief [in polygamy] was a part of his
professed religion: it was still belief, and belief only." Id. at 167.
Action which the Court deemed to be antisocial could be punished even though it
was grounded on deeply held and sincere religious convictions. What we do today, at
least in this respect, opens the way to give organized religion a broader base than it has
ever enjoyed, and it even promises that in time Reynolds will be overruled.
In another way, however, the Court retreats when, in reference to Henry Thoreau,
it says his "choice was philosophical [p248] and personal, rather than religious, and such
belief does not rise to the demands of the Religion Clauses." That is contrary to what we
held in United States v. Seeger 380 U.S. 163, where we were concerned with the meaning
of the words "religious training and belief" in the Selective Service Act, which were the
basis of many conscientious objector claims. We said:
Within that phrase would come all sincere religious beliefs which are based upon
a power or being, or upon a faith to which all else is subordinate or upon which all else is
ultimately dependent. The test might be stated in these words: a sincere and meaningful
belief which occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God
of those admittedly qualifying for the exemption comes within the statutory definition.
This construction avoids imputing to Congress an intent to classify different religious
beliefs, exempting some and excluding others, and is in accord with the well established
congressional policy of equal treatment for those whose opposition to service is
grounded in their religious tenets.
Id. at 176.
Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, was in the same vein, the Court saying:
In this case, Welsh's conscientious objection to war was undeniably based in part
on his perception of world politics. In a letter to his local board, he wrote:
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I can only act according to what I am and what I see. And I see that the military
complex wastes both human and material resources, that it fosters disregard for (what I
consider a paramount concern) human needs and ends; I see that the means we employ
to "defend" our "way of life" profoundly change that way of life. I see that, in our failure
to [p249] recognize the political, social, and economic realities of the world, we, as a
nation, fail our responsibility as a nation.
Id. at 342.
The essence of Welsh's philosophy, on the basis of which we held he was entitled
to an exemption, was in these words:
"I believe that human life is valuable in and of itself; in its living; therefore I will
not injure or kill another human being. This belief (and the corresponding ‘duty' to
abstain from violence toward another person) is not ‘superior to those arising from any
human relation.' On the contrary: it is essential to every human relation. I cannot,
therefore, conscientiously comply with the Government's insistence that I assume duties
which I feel are immoral and totally repugnant."
Id. at 343.
I adhere to these exalted views of "religion," and see no acceptable alternative to
them now that we have become a Nation of many religions and sects, representing all of
the diversities of the human race. United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. at 192-193 (concurring
opinion).
1.
Thus, in Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, a Jehovah's Witness was convicted
for having violated a state child labor law by allowing her nine-year-old niece and ward to
circulate religious literature on the public streets. There, as here, the narrow question
was the religious liberty of the adult. There, as here, the Court analyzed the problem
from the point of view of the State's conflicting interest in the welfare of the child. But, as
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, speaking for the Court, has so recently pointed out,
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The Court [in Pierce] implicitly held that the custodian had standing to assert
alleged freedom of religion . . . rights of the child that were threatened in the very
litigation before the Court, and that the child had no effective way of asserting herself.
Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 446 n. 6. Here, as in Pierce, the children have no
effective alternate means to vindicate their rights. The question, therefore, is squarely
before us.
2.
A significant number of Amish children do leave the Old Order. Professor
Hostetler notes that "[t]he loss of members is very limited in some Amish districts, and
considerable in others." J. Hostetler, Amish Society 226 (1968). In one Pennsylvania
church, he observed a defection rate of 30%. Ibid. Rates up to 50% have been reported by
others. Casad, Compulsory High School Attendance and the Old Order Amish: A
Commentary on State v. Garber, 16 Kan.L.Rev. 423, 434 n. 51 (1968).
3.
The court below brushed aside the students' interests with the offhand comment
that, "[w]hen a child reaches the age of judgment, he can choose for himself his religion."
49 Wis.2d 430, 440, 182 N.W.2d 539, 543. But there is nothing in this record to indicate
that the moral and intellectual judgment demanded of the student by the question in this
case is beyond his capacity. Children far younger than the 14- and 15-year-olds involved
here are regularly permitted to testify in custody and other proceedings. Indeed, the
failure to call the affected child in a custody hearing is often reversible error. See, e.g.,
Callicott v. Callicott, 364 S.W.2d 455 (Civ.App. Tex.) (reversible error for trial judge to
refuse to hear testimony of eight-year-old in custody battle). Moreover, there is
substantial agreement among child psychologists and sociologists that the moral and
intellectual maturity of the 14-year-old approaches that of the adult. See, e.g., J. Piaget,
The Moral Judgment of the Child (1948); D. Elkind, Children and Adolescents 750 (1970);
Kohlberg, Moral Education in the Schools: A Developmental View, in R. Muuss,
Adolescent Behavior and Society 193, 199-200 (1971); W. Kay, Moral Development 172-
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183 (1968); A. Gesell & F. Ilg, Youth: The Years From Ten to Sixteen 175-182 (1956). The
maturity of Amish youth, who identify with and assume adult roles from early childhood,
see M. Goodman, The Culture of Childhood 92-94 (1970), is certainly not less than that of
children in the general population.
4.
Canvassing the views of all school-age Amish children in the State of Wisconsin
would not present insurmountable difficulties. A 1968 survey indicated that there were at
that time only 256 such children in the entire State. Comment, 1971 Wis.L.Rev. 832, 852
n. 132.
5.
The observation of Justice Heffernan, dissenting below, that the principal opinion
in his court portrayed the Amish as leading a life of "idyllic agrarianism," is equally
applicable to the majority opinion in this Court. So, too, is his observation that such a
portrayal rests on a "mythological basis." Professor Hostetler has noted that "[d]rinking
among the youth is common in all the large Amish settlements." Amish Society 283.
Moreover, "[i]t would appear that, among the Amish, the rate of suicide is just as high, if
not higher, than for the nation." Id. at 300. He also notes an unfortunate Amish
"preoccupation with filthy stories," id. at 282, as well as significant "rowdyism and stress."
Id. at 281. These are not traits peculiar to the Amish, of course. The point is that the
Amish are not people set apart and different.
This text is in the public domain.
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Wisconsin vs. Yoder Glossary
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Parens patriae- legal protector of citizens who cannot protect themselves (i.e. parents protect
children).
Writ of certiorari- a common law writ by a superior court
Held- decided; ruled
Respondents- defendants
Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment- clause of first amendment forbidding law from
prohibiting free exercise of religion
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Extension Task Organizer
Claim (Introduction)
Rough draft: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Final draft: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Reason 1 (Body Paragraph 1)
Reason 2 (Body Paragraph 2)
Reason 3 (Counterclaim- Body Paragraph 3)
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Evidence 1
Evidence 2
Evidence 1
Evidence 2
Evidence 1
Evidence 2
Reasoning 1
Reasoning 2
Reasoning 1
Reasoning 2
Reasoning 1
Reasoning 2
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Restate the claim (Conclusion
Extension Task Handout
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Activity One: Selecting a Topic for the Extension Task
The Extension Task requires you to investigate the challenges to and limits of the amendment in regard to religion. The first step in that process is to select a topic
that examines the role of religion in America (e.g., Supreme Court cases over religious matters, separation of church and state, role of religion in historical events,
religious cults, or history of various religions). Complete the following handout to help you brainstorm about your topic.
Topic: ____________________________________________________________________________________
1. In your own words define or explain your topic.
2. What is do you already know about this topic? Why did you choose it?
3. Generate at least three questions that you plan to answer through your research.
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Activity Two: Narrowing a Topic for the Extension Task
Topic: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Quick Tips for Narrowing a Topic
❏ Look at an encyclopedia for general information on your topic and note interesting facts or ideas.
❏ Ask yourself the following questions:
❏ Will my topic fit the assignment? Is my topic still too broad for the length of the paper, speech, etc.?
❏ What kind of information do I need to fulfill the assignment? A brief summary, journal articles, books, essays, encyclopedia articles,
statistics? Can I locate these types of research materials for my topic?
Narrowing Chart (example):
Topic
Chocolate
Components or Subtopics
History of chocolate, making of chocolate, health aspects of chocolate, chocolate addictions, brands of chocolate (Godiva,
Hershey’s, Lindt, etc.), consumption of chocolate, popularity around the world, forms of chocolate
What components or subtopics are of most
interest to you?
Health aspects of chocolate
What new questions do you have about your
topic?
Are there health benefits to eating chocolate? Can chocolate boost your mood? Is chocolate addictive?
Formulate a topic statement
I will explore the health benefits of chocolate consumption specifically focusing on how chocolate affects moods and brain
chemistry.
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Fill in the chart about your topic:
Topic
Components or Subtopics
What components or subtopics are
of most interest to you?
What new questions do you have
about your topic?
Formulate a topic statement.
Activity Three: Source Tracker for the Extension Task- Part A
Source Title
Locatable Information (Call
Source Type
Paragraphs and Page Numbers to Use
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Number, Author’s Last Name,
Etc)
Book, Online Database, Journal,
Reference, etc.
Which research question does this answer?
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Activity Four: Source Tracker for the Extension Task- Part B
Part I- Evidence
Source Title
Specific Evidence to Include in Essay
How does this evidence help answer a research question? CitationParagraphs and Page Numbers
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Part II -MLA Citations
Use a source citation generator such as Easy Bib or Bib Me to create an MLA citation for each source used.
MLA Citation
Activity Five: Understanding Plagiarism
● My definition of plagiarism:___________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
● Dictionary definition of plagiarism:_____________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
● What is the difference between deliberate and accidental plagiarism?
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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Define quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing and explain the proper form of citation for each. Include an example of each using information you
gathered from your sources:
● Quoting:___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
● Example:__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
● Paraphrasing:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
● Example:__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
● Summarizing:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
● Example:__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Peer Review Guide
Directions: Complete the following steps to peer review your group member’s essays.
_____ Check the structure of the essay to make sure it follows the suggested structure in the prompt: first
explaining the topic and then defending or disputing the importance of the First Amendment of the
Constitution of the United States.
_____Identify and underline the claim of the essay.
_____Next to the claim, write a brief summary describing the organization and connection between various
ideas of the essay. Did your partner accurately explain their research topic?
Write yes or no here:_________________ If not, why?___________________________
_____Next to each body paragraph, write a one sentence summary. Explain how the supporting claims help to
support the main claim of the essay.
_____Highlight the evidence used in each body paragraph to support the claim.
_____Label counterclaims in the essay as well as rebuttals.
_____Assess the quality of the evidence by placing a plus sign next to relevant evidence and logical reasoning
and a minus sign next to irrelevant evidence or false reasoning.
_____Circle strong vocabulary words in the text and note any unnecessary repetitions.
_____Edit the essay using proofreading marks for spelling mistakes and use of proper punctuation.
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Possible Topics Handout
Below you will find a list of court cases that challenged first amendment rights.
Choose one to use as the basis of your extension task essay.
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Reynolds v. United States (1879)
o Law banning polygamy was upheld.
Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940)
o Law requiring special permits for religious solicitors was denied.
Everson v. Board of Education(1947)
o Upheld New Jersey’s practice of reimbursing families for the price of busing students to
parochial and private schools.
Braunfeld v. Brown (1961)
o Upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring stores to be closed on Sundays.
Torcaso v. Watkins (1961)
o Maryland requirement that candidates for public office swear a belief in God was denied.
Engel v. Vitale (1962)
o New York’s requirement of a prayer beginning the school day was declared unconstitutional.
Sherbert v. Verner (1963)
o Ruled that states could not deny unemployment benefits to those who denied a job requiring
them to work on the Sabbath.
Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)
o Pennsylvania law requiring public school to open with Bible reading was struck down.
Epperson v. Arkansas (1968)
o Arkansas law prohibiting the teaching of evolution declared unconstitutional.
McDaniel v. Paty (1978)
o Law forbidding members of clergy from public office was overturned.
Stone v. Graham (1980)
o Laws requiring Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools declared unconstitutional.
Marsh v. Chambers (1983)
o Hiring of a chaplain to open a state legislative session with a prayer or invocation was upheld.
Thornton v. Caldor (1985)
o Private companies could refuse to hire those who refused to work on their personal Sabbath
day.
Goldman v. Weinberger (1986)
o A Jewish chaplain who wore a yarmulke in the Air Force was submitted to penalties.
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Edwards v. Aguillard (1987)
o Louisiana law couldn’t require teaching of evolution as well as creationism.
Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU (1989)
o Placing a nativity scene placed in a courthouse violated the law.
Lee v. Weisman (1992)
o Clergy-led prayer at school graduations violated the law.
Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District (1993)
o School districts must provide benefits to deaf children in religious schools.
Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette (1995)
o A cross placed by a private group in a public forum was upheld.
Mitchell v. Helms (2000)
o Federal government should provide computer equipment to all schools, including private and
parochial.
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002)
o Government program giving children vouchers to attend private and parochial schools was
upheld.
Van Orden v. Perry (2005)
o Monument of Ten Commandments by Texas courthouse did not violate the law.
Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005)
o Federal law keeping the government from burdening prisoners’ religious exercise did not violate
the law.
Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation (2007)
o Taxpayers can’t bring Establishment Clause charges against executive office funded programs.
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