Minor et al. v. Board of Education of Cincinnati et al. EXHIBIT 2. I also certify that the following is a correct extract from the Twenty-third Annual Report of the Common Schools of Cincinnati, for the school year ending June 30, 1853 (page 19). W. F. HURLBUT, Clerk of Board of Education. CINCINNATI, November 26, 1869. "But to the charges, on one hand, of using sectarian or obnoxious text books, which render the schools intolerable by violating the rights of conscience, and upon the other hand, that we are indifferent to religion and morality, and devote our schools. too much to mental instruction merely-to charges of this nature, very freely, and as it seemed to us, inconsistently used in the late discussion respecting the schools, we must be expected to answer, as the culpability, if any, attaches to this Board. "Avowing this responsibility, we take occasion to say again that everything in our power has been done to obviate the first of these complaints, so that our schools may be in fact what they are in law, free and common to all. Whatever in the text-books or administration of the schools is justly offensive, we have again and again consented, if it be inconsistent with the truth, or even though true, if immaterial in its character or matter, to abrogate, whenever it is pointed out." 3 Minor et al. v. Board of Education of Cincinnati et al. EXHIBIT 3. I further certify that the following is a correct extract from the Thirty-third Annual Report of the Common Schools of Cinnati, for the school year ending June 30, 1862 (see pp. 12 and 13). W. F. HURLBUT, Clerk of Board of Education. CINCINNATI, November 26, 1869. "We are forced, very reluctantly, to notice intimations from an influential quarter, that the division of the school fund must and will be again agitated and demanded. We should be relieved from any necessity of reply as to this point by the fact that the Constitution of the State imperatively prohibits the right or control of any part of the school funds by any religious or other sect. The threat is accompanied, however, by reproaches against our schools, so groundless and so easily refuted, that we need only state as facts that for twenty years our standing request that any offensive exercises, or books, or passages in books, used in our schools, be made known to us, has never been answered; that for nearly ten years we have offered to supply teachers and schools in every orphan asylum whatever having a sufficient number of children to warrant the employment of a teacher; that we have always carefully excused pupils whose parents desired it from attending the religious exercises with which our schools are daily opened, and that, in order to encourage pupils to attend the religious teachings which their parents prefer, we have expressly required that they shall be excused from school one half day, or two quarter days each week. It has also been suggested, and, doubtless, such an arrangement may be effected, if sufficient numbers encourage it, that at the hours so allowed children of different denominations of religion might receive the instructions of the clergy in school-rooms temporarily set apart to them." 25,245.] Minor et al. v. Board of Education of Cincinnati et al. ORDER OF RESERVATION. Superior Court of Cincinnati, November 27, 1869. JOHN D. MINOR et al., V. Plaintiffs, Minutes, 438. THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF CINCINNATI et al., Defendants. This cause came on to be heard upon the petition, answers, agreed statement of testimony, and exhibits filed, and upon the plaintiffs' motion for injunction, was thereupon reserved to the General Term of this Court for hearing by the full bench, on Monday, November 30, at 10 o'clock A. M. Monday, November 30, 1869. The parties, by their attorneys, appeared before the Court in General Term, Judges Storer, Taft, and Hagans upon the bench. The pleadings and agreed statement of fact having been read, it was announced that the Court would hear three counsel on each side; and it was arranged that Mr. Ramsey should open the argument for the plaintiff's, that Judges Stallo and Hoadly should follow for the defense, then Mr. Sage for the plaintiffs, and that Judge Matthews should close for the defendants and Mr. King for the plaintiffs. The argument then proceeded in the order indicated. Argument of W. M. Ramsey, For the Plaintiff's. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONORS-I approach the discussion of the questions involved in this cause with great diffidence. These questions had not been, prior to the inception of this cause, the subject of especial reflection or investigation upon my part, and they are not within the scope of ordinary professional study or experience. Profoundly conscious as I am that we are entering upon an inquiry of a very high order, in the ultimate determination of which the welfare of this community, and, perhaps, of the State and nation, is deeply involved, I can not but regret that the part which has been assigned to me had not devolved upon one more able to maintain it. So far, however, as I shall be permitted to address your Honors, I will endeavor to keep constantly in view that this is a court of law, and not a popular assemblage-a court, convened to administer a well-defined system of jurisprudence, under solemn responsibility, and I will, therefore, address to the Court only such considerations, drawn from the statute books, and from the historical and judicial records of the State and nation, as shall seem to have a legitimate place in a discussion of such a character. Your Honors have heard the facts of the case, as set forth in the pleadings of the parties, and the further agreement as to evidence, and I need not repeat them. It is proper to say that it has been the wish of the defendants, as well as of the plaintiffs, to strip the case of all technicalities, and mere questions of practice, |