Forbidding Exposure of Youth to Religious Influences

American Minute from William J. Federer

A peer of Mozart and Haydn, he started becoming deaf at age 28, yet incredibly wrote some of the world's most beautiful symphonies, concertos and sonatas. This was Ludwig van Beethoven, baptized DECEMBER 17, 1770, in Bonn, Germany.

President Jimmy Carter noted while visiting Bonn, July 14, 1978: "As the world's people speak and work and live together, we all could well remember the poem of Friedrich Schiller, immortally put to music by the great Beethoven, a son of Bonn, the "Ode to Joy": "Alle Menschen werden Bruder Wo dein sanfter Flitgel weilt." ("All mankind shall be brothers where thy gentle wings abide.")

Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" is also used as the tune of Princeton professor Henry Van Dyke's hymn "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee."

In 1801, Beethoven, being deaf, wrote: "No friend have I. I must live by myself alone; but I know well that God is nearer to me than others in my art, so I will walk fearlessly with Him."

Supreme Court Justice Jackson wrote in McCollum v. Board of Education, 1948: "It would not seem practical to teach...the arts if we are to forbid exposure of youth to any religious influences. Music without sacred music...would be...incomplete, even from a secular point of view."

William J. Federer is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and president of Amerisearch, Inc, which is dedicated to researching our American heritage. The American Minute radio feature looks back at events in American history on the dates they occurred, is broadcast daily across the country and read by thousand on the internet.