On Trial for Teaching

Your child listens; you read. This page is here so you can answer the questions that come after the story. The script is available from the transcript button during playback.

What this is about

In July 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee, the teacher John Scopes was tried for teaching evolution in school. An eleven-day misdemeanour trial became a national cultural event, and it ended in a courtroom triumph for the prosecution and a cultural victory for the defence.

This is the direct sequel to the Darwin piece. "I Wrote Down Sunset Red" ended with "many people loved that book and many hated it" — this is the story of that hatred reaching a courtroom.

Three threads.

1. A small trial in a small town became a national event — once two famous men entered it.
2. ⭐Winning and losing were not one thing. The courtroom and people's minds went in opposite directions.
3. ⭐And the story itself was rewritten over the century that followed — the same axis as "useful pasts" in the ENIAC piece.

What actually happened

• July 1925, Dayton, Tennessee. A hundred years on, this misdemeanour trial still resonates in American politics, science, religion and popular culture. It brought together powerful forces in American society that have only grown stronger over time (DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biaf176).
• ⭐Two men changed its scale. The account highlights the role of the American orator and politician William Jennings Bryan in the lead-up and prosecution, and of the famed lawyer and secularist Clarence Darrow for the defence. More than any of the other participants, their presence and tactics turned a small-town trial into a national cultural event of enduring significance (same DOI).
• ⭐The courtroom and the culture went different ways. It ended with a courtroom triumph for the prosecution and a cultural victory for the defence (same DOI).
• The trial lasted eleven days. The trial itself spanned only eleven days, but its shadow has been long indeed (DOI: 10.3390/rel16070871).
• ⭐And the story was rewritten. The same study analyses the background, fundamentalism then and now, contesting interpretations of the trial's outcome, and misremembrances and revisionism in the historical appropriations of the trial (same DOI).
• Still in classrooms today. Marking the centennial, teaching materials treat the trial as showing how debates over science, religion and education reflect broader cultural conflicts both then and now (DOI: 10.66392/003777225840362464).

Questions your child may ask

"You can be put on trial for teaching?" That state had a law against teaching evolution in school. The story states that plainly and does not go deep into why such a law existed.

"So who won?" Scopes lost in the courtroom. But the source calls it "a courtroom triumph for the prosecution and a cultural victory for the defence." For a child: "winning and losing are not one single thing" — that sentence is what this piece is for.

"So is evolution taught everywhere now?" The piece does not answer that. What the sources say is that the conflict continues today. The paper's title is "We've Only Just Begun," and the story closes by quoting it.

"What has this got to do with Darwin?" Everything. The Darwin piece ended with love and hatred for the book; this is that hatred in a courtroom. Listen to them together and sixty-six years line up.

What is evidence and what is story

What the sources state — July 1925 in Dayton; a misdemeanour trial; eleven days; Bryan and Darrow and how they changed its scale; the split between courtroom and cultural outcome; contested interpretations, misremembrances and revisionism; and that the conflict continues.

What this piece deliberately avoided

• What was said in the courtroom (including the famous scene of Darrow putting Bryan on the stand). Our abstracts do not specify it.
• What Scopes actually taught, and whether the trial was a deliberately arranged test case — not specified in our abstracts.
• Any judgement about religion. This piece is not about who was right; it is about winning and losing not being one thing and stories being rewritten.
• Explaining what evolution is. The Darwin piece already did that in a child's words, and this piece calls it by name.

Sources

• We've Only Just Begun: The Scopes Trial at 100. DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biaf176
• The Scopes Trial and Its Long Shadow. DOI: 10.3390/rel16070871
• Why is the Scopes Trial Still Relevant to Public Education Today? DOI: 10.66392/003777225840362464

Landmark — none; the subject is a trial. But the original work this piece calls on — Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) — is already registered in "On the Shoulders of Giants."

Things to try together

• Listen with the Darwin piece, and 1859 and 1925 line up.
• Ask "why do we learn this?" about one thing from school. Most of the time there is a good reason — and asking is the subject of this piece.
• Talk about how things get remembered, with the ENIAC piece alongside.