Of Local Lore and Lawyers

OF LOCAL LORE AND LAWYERS By: Joe Jarret

Attorney, University of Tennessee

ABOUT A BOOK

It has been validated and vilified. Lauded and lambasted. Broadly distributed and banned. Adored by the fledgling ACLU and abhorred by the American Bible Society. Yet, over 100 years after its publication, it’s still being discussed and disabused by fans and foes alike. It is George William Hunter’s text, “A Civic Biology,” 1 a tome used by most public schools across the United States soon after its publication in 1914, and the stuff of the Scopes Money Trial, 2 still considered to be one of the most infamous courtroom dramas in Tennessee history. So, just what is it about this dated tome that still garners the interest of educators, legal scholars, and scientists 107 years after its publication?

Historical background:

As you hearken back to your high school civics or history class, you’ll recall that in March 1925, the Tennessee Legislature passed a bill that banned the teaching of evolution in all educational institutions throughout the state. The Butler Act 3 was the first of its kind in the United States, and was soon mimicked by other states. The ACLU 4 was only five years old, and in search of a case to gain support for its causes. As such, it responded to the Butler Act with an offer to defend any Tennessee teacher prosecuted under the law. John Scopes, a young popular Rhea County high school science teacher, agreed to stand as defendant in a test case to challenge the law. He was arrested on May 7, 1925, and charged with teaching the theory of evolution. His teachings were primarily drawn from Hunter’s text. A key excerpt from the text that inflamed the passions of members of the State Legislature follows:

“Evolution of Man. - Undoubtedly there once lived upon the earth races of men who were much lower in their mental organization than the present inhabitants. If we follow the early history of man upon the earth, we find that at first he must have been little better than one of the lower animals. He was a nomad, wandering from place to place, feeding upon whatever living things he could kill with his hands. About this time the subjugation and domestication of animals began to take place. Man then began to cultivate the fields, and to have a fixed place of abode other than a cave. The beginnings of civilization were long ago, but even to-day the earth is not entirely civilized.” 5

What is interesting about the above passage is that the Legislature’s passions were not at all inflamed by Hunter’s obvious sexism: “As a rule, boys need more food than girls, and men than women.” Clearly, Hunter was a bit of an enigma. He was profoundly wrong and behind the times when it came to race: “The highest type of all the races, the Caucasians, are represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.” Yet, he is credited to be ahead of his time when it came to substance abuse: “The American people are addicted to the use of drugs, and especially patent medicines” He is also considered a visionary when it comes to the topic of pandemics:

“Pandemic or infectious diseases are chiefly spread through personal contact. It is the duty of a government to prevent a person having such a disease from spreading it broadcast among his neighbors. This can be done by quarantine or isolation of the person having the disease. So the board of health at once isolates any case of disease which may be communicated from one person to another.”

It is interesting to note that Hunter’s book was 4 years old when the Spanish Flu epidemic ravaged the world. 6 His ideas about quarantine and isolation were widely put into use as the world confronted that global killer.

Summary:

Between 1907 and 1955, Hunter published nine editions of his high school biology textbook, revising and re-titling his text each time. To this day, educators continue to debate Hunter’s writings, and in so doing, have failed to come to a consensus as to whether his works were scientific, or suspect. In any event, his legacy and his works continue to inflame the passions of scientists and legal scholars around the world.

1 Full title, A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems, 1914, American Book Company. The now defunct American Book Company (ABC) was an educational book publisher in the United States that specialized in elementary school, secondary school and collegiate-level textbooks. 2 On Appeal: John Thomas Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 126, 289 S.W. 363, 369 (1927). 3 The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law introduced by Tennessee House of Representatives member John Washington Butler prohibiting public school teachers from teaching the Theory of Evolution in public schools. 4 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 to, according to its official history, “Defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States” 5 Excerpted from George William Hunter, A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems (New York, 1914): pp. 193-196, 253-254, 261-263. 6 The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 influenza pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza virus. Lasting from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people – about a third of the world’s population at the time – in four successive waves.