Education: Light vs. Darkness

In the remote fastnesses of Tennessee, where a high-school professor is arraigned under that state’s new anti-evolution law for having “taught evolution” from a biologic text-book previously approved by the state authorities (TIME, May 18), the forces of light and darkness ranged themselves for conflict. George W. Rappelyea, Dayton coal man and evolutionist, who preferred charges against Prof. Scopes to test the law’s constitutionality, marshaled funds for the defense, announced that, in addition to many eminent scientists who had offered assistance and testimony, the services of Herbert George Wells, British outliner of history, would be sought. Counsel for Prof. Scopes accepted offers of legal aid from Lawyers ‘Dudley Field Malone (suave Manhattan lawyer) and Clarence Darrow (Chicago criminal extricator).

The prosecution found a voluble champion in William Jennings Bryan, “great commoner.” Last week, Mr. Bryan was going the rounds of Eastern lecture platforms, emotionally crying that evolution is the arch foe, not only of Presbyterian Fundamentalism, but of “all religion.” He wanted to make the trial, at which he will speak, an onslaught on that system of education “that destroys the religious faith of our children.”

On this question, he seemed likely to debate alone. The issue of the trial as taken by the defense was not to be the futile question: “Is evolution true?” but: “Can the human mind be limited by law in its inquiry after truth? May freedom of teaching and freedom of learning be forbidden by law?”