EDUCATION AND EVOLUTION

Evening Star, Issue 18979, 29 June 1925, Page 4

EDUCATION AND EVOLUTION

PECULIAR UNITED STATES TRIAL. EACH SIDE WORKS FOR CON. YICTTON. NEW YORK, June 10. _ The attention of American Liberals is being directed to tho Stale of Tennessee, where John Thomas Scopes, a tall, young, ebspectacled schoolmaster, will tued on a charge, of having violated the State law prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution. Scopes is technically charged with hating taught that man evolved from a simpler order of animal life, thereby contradicting the Bible. Voluntoeiing lo help Scopes are some of the btst legal minds in tho country, including Hr Clarence Darrow, the lawyer who defended the Chicago boy murderers, Leopold and Loeb, and also Hr Bainbridge Colby, former Secretary of Stale, as well as many others. Hr William Jennings Bryan, the "silvertongued orator,’’ who has been the Democratic candidate, for tho Presidency on several occasions, will lead the prosecution.

A peculiar point in the case is that the lawyers for the defence must do everything possible to have the defendant convicted, because if he is acquitted tlio opportunity will be lost lo test the case in the Supreme Courts. Mr Darrow, in discussing the case, said the whole question of evolution, its relation to the Bible, ito proofs and theories, ns well the constitutional question of whether the State Legislature .has the right to dictate what shall be_ taught in public schools, will be argued during the trial.

“Tlio purpose of the trial,” Mr Darrow added, “will be to educate the public regarding evolution, and prove that science and religion are compatible.” The entire nation is interested in the trial, which already has been labelled " Harrow’s circus, formed for the purpose of making a monkey of Bryan.”