In 1859, an 11-year-old boy in a Boston Public School refused to
read the daily lesson from the Bible. He was beaten across the
knuckles with a bamboo cane for more than half an hour before he
gave in and betrayed his Catholic faith. The school, it seems,
was using a Bible authorized by King James as he was leaving the
Catholic faith. For young Tom Wall, that version was a heresy.
Tom Wall’s father and his priest were terrified for Tom’s soul
after such a betrayal of his faith. Mr. Wall filed an assault
charge against the teacher and challenged Bible reading in
court. He lost. The court affirmed the Protestant Bible would be
the Bible of public school. In 1869, the school board of
Cincinnati, Ohio, voted to honor the request of Catholic parents
to end daily readings of the King James Version of the Bible,
only to have a group of Protestant parents take them to court,
where a three-judge panel overturned the school board 2 to 1.
And the fight moved to the Supreme Court, which said, “When
Christianity asks the