PPT Slide
Clarence Darrow William Jennings Bryan
In 1925, John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was convicted of violating Tennessee’s Butler Act. The Act prohibited the teaching of “any theory that denies the Story of Divine Creation of Man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animal.”
Judge Raulston asks John Scopes to come before him. He proceeds to pronounce his sentence, fixing his fine at one hundred dollars.. “Your Honor,” the young teacher says, “I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom—that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our Constitution of personal and religious freedom. I think the fine is unjust.”
The John Scopes “Monkey Trial”
