The Scopes Trial

The human mind is the most dangerous tool that we have. The neverending quest of knowledge that we have embarked upon since our origins has led us to new and extraordinary places, and has shown us even more questions to ponder, and even challenge, our minds. However, this voyage in the sea of thought has not been sought through without opposition. Many have hunted for explanations to unanswered questions leading them astray, and into a land of false ideologies and distorted truths. We see an example of this in 1925, in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. A mister John T. Scopes found himself in the center of a controversy, and a court case that would go on to influence the American education system, even nearly a century after the closing of the trial. His teachings of Darwin's theories of evolution to a biology class led him into a battle for science, rational thinking, and our journey into the vast sea of thought. A battle against those who have settled, and given up on their quest for knowledge.

May 12, 1925 was the beginning of John Scopes’ battle when he was arrested for teaching evolution in a biology class that he was substituting for. Scopes assigned the students to read a certain chapter out of George W. Hunter’s Civic Biology that focused on evolution. However, due to an illness, he was unable to attend the next day and no in depth class discussion of evolution ever took place. This is only one of the enduring debates as to whether Scopes ever taught evolution to his class directly. To his recollection, no class discussion of the evolution material ever took place. Scopes, however, remembered teaching the topic in a general way earlier in the same month to his general science students. (“Scopes Monkey Trial”)

July 10, 1925 marked the beginning of the trial, but not the start of the controversy. Earlier in the year on March 13, the Butler Act was passed in Tennessee and later approved on March 21 by Governor Austin Peay. It was an act that prohibited the teaching of any other theory contradictory to the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible in all Universities, normal and public schools, as well as a minimum one hundred dollar fine, and maximum five hundred dollar fine in violation of the Butler Act. This act should have never passed, and have lived only as a thought within ‎John Washington Butler’s mind. Mister Butler is most notable for passing this law, but he was also an avid church goer. As seen, this law was pushed by religious advocates for their own agenda, specifically favoring Christianity above any other belief or religion. This act is also unconstitutional in violating the First Amendment of the Constitution, the very root of our country’s ideals and beliefs. Although it is easy to see how this law passed in a largely conservative christian state, it does not dispute the fact that Tennessee was founded and developed under the U.S. Constitution, as well as all 50 states. Although there were only 48 sovereign states at the time. (“Tennessee Anti-evolution Statute”)

According to the State of Tennessee in the summer 1925, John T. Scopes was a criminal, arrested and put into custody May 12, 1925, however he should have never been treated as such. Scopes was a teacher, an educator, and a pioneer into the minds of young, spreading the knowledge that generations of scientists have researched and experimented with. His crime of expanding the minds of our youth, opening them to new ideas, discoveries, and theories, led him onto the front lines of a court case that should not have taken place, in a war that should have never been. Fortunately he did not face his opponent alone. Many folks from all sides of this argument caught word of the trial that would soon ensue. It wasn’t long before Scopes had a willing, motivated attorney who was driven and determined to clear his name and prove to the world that the teachings of Evolution should not be outlawed, and not to be punishment. The name of this man was Clarence Darrow. Joining the defense in favor of John Scopes, and the aid of Clarence Darrow, was Arthur Garfield Hays and Dudley Field Malone. (“Library of Congress”)

Against Scopes was William Jennings Bryan, a Christian icon at the time. Bryan is most notable for his presidential nomination for the Democratic party in the years 1896, 1900 and 1908. He is also well known for his disbelief in evolution, and his avid push to try and keep it out of public schools. He saw science as an enemy of the faithful man as well as a deep suspicion of scientific elites and “modernism,” as he explains it. By 1923, Bryan focused much of his efforts on securing state legislation banning the teaching of evolution in public schools. In speeches to state legislative bodies, Bryan urged enactment of laws that contained no penalty provisions and proscribed only the teaching of evolution as fact. Bryan proposed a book that merely contains it as an