To do so he will have to break from the Amish tradition.2. App. Children far younger than the 14- and 15-year-olds involved here are regularly permitted to testify in custody and other proceedings. 1526. [1] These men appealed for exemption from compulsory education on the basis of these religious convictions.

Cases such as this one inevitably call for a delicate balancing of important but conflicting interests. Pp. Toggle navigation. Ibid. 645, it is an imposition resulting from this very litigation. The Superintendent rejected this proposal on the ground that it would not afford Amish children "substantially equivalent education" to that offered in the schools of the area.

These are not schools in the traditional sense of the word. That is the claim we reject today. A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no rights or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.

Dr. Hostetler testified that though there was a gradual increase in the total number of Old Order Amish in the United States over the past 50 years, 'at the same time the Amish have also lost members (of) their church' and that the turnover rate was such that 'probably two-thirds (of the present Amish) have been assimilated non-Amish people.'
The Court found no evidence that by leaving the Amish community without two additional years of schooling, young Amish children would become burdens on society. See materials cited n. 16, supra; Casad, Compulsory Education and Individual Rights, in 5 Religion and the Public Order 51, 82 (D. Giannella ed. See, e.g., Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437, 91 S.Ct. It is not necessary, nor even appropriate, for every Amish child to express his views on the subject in a prosecution of a single adult. 1883, 12 L.Ed.2d 746 (1964). The Amish children, upon leaving the public school system, continued their education in the form of vocational training. There can be no assumption that today's majority is 'right' and the Amish and others like them are 'wrong.' [n1] Although the lower courts and a majority of this Court assume an identity of interest between parent and child, it is clear that they have treated the religious interest of the child as a factor in the analysis. Mt.

Search. So long as compulsory education laws were confined to eight grades of elementary basic education imparted in a nearby rural schoolhouse, with a large proportion of students of the Amish faith, the Old Order Amish had little basis to fear that school attendance would expose their children to the worldly influence they reject. The record strongly indicates that accommodating the religious objections of the Amish by forgoing one, or at most two, additional years of compulsory education will not impair the physical or mental health of the child, or result in an inability to be self-supporting or to discharge the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, or in any other way materially detract from the welfare of society. There, as here, the narrow question was the religious liberty of the adult. Thus, the Amish are at a disadvantage when it comes to defending themselves in courts or before legislative committees. However, the Court was not confronted in Prince with a situation comparable to that of the Amish as revealed in this record; this is shown by the [p230] Court's severe characterization of the evils that it thought the legislature could legitimately associate with child labor, even when performed in the company of an adult.

§ 1402(h) authorizes the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to exempt members of 'a recognized religious sect' existing at all times since December 31, 1950, from the obligation to pay social security taxes if they are, by reason of the tenets of their sect, opposed to receipt of such benefits and agree to waive them, provided the Secretary finds that the sect makes reasonable provision for its dependent members.

[n20] The record is to the contrary, and any reliance on that theory would find no support in the evidence. Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 612, 81 S.Ct. I am not at all sure how the Catholics, Episcopalians, the Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Unitarians, and my own Presbyterians would make out if subjected to such a test. Support Us! And, if an Amish child desires to attend high school, and is mature enough to have that desire respected, the State may well be able to override the parents' religiously motivated objections. This case, therefore, does not become easier because respondents were convicted for their 'actions' in refusing to send their children to the public high school; in this context belief and action cannot be neatly confined in logic-tight compartments. Each defendant was fined the nominal sum of $5. It is argued that the right of the Amish children to religious freedom is not presented by the facts of the case, as the issue before the Court involves only the Amish parents' religious freedom to defy a state criminal statute imposing upon them an affirmative duty to cause their children to attend high school. Even today, an eighth grade education fully satisfies the educational requirements of at least six States. What we have said should meet the suggestion that the decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court recognizing an exemption for the Amish from the State's system of compulsory education constituted an impermissible establishment of religion. The last two questions and answers on her cross-examination accurately sum up her testimony: Q. See Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 351—361, 90 S.Ct. [n5].

See Wis.Laws 1927, c. 425, § 97; Laws 1933, c. 143. See, e.g., J. Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child (1948); D. Elkind, Children and Adolescents 750 (1970); Kohlberg, Moral Education in the Schools: A Developmental View, in R. Muuss, Adolescent Behavior and Society 193, 199-200 (1971); W. Kay, Moral Development 172-183 (1968); A. Gesell & F. Ilg, Youth: The Years From Ten to Sixteen 175-182 (1956). It is, of course, true that, if a group or society was organized to perpetuate crime, and if that is its motive, we would have rather startling problems akin to those that were raised when, some years back, a particular sect was challenged here as operating on a fraudulent basis. [n4]. It is true that activities of individuals, even when religiously based, are often subject to regulation by the States in the exercise of their undoubted power to promote the health, safety, and general welfare, or the Federal Government in the exercise of its delegated powers. 1144, 1150, 6 L.Ed.2d 563 (1961) (Brennan, J., concurring and dissenting).

While Amish accept compulsory elementary education generally, wherever possible. amend.