ABSTRACT
In an educational context, the term secularization connotes "the removal of religious control from schools or of religious materials from the curriculum''. Signs of secularism were also beginning to appear in the secondary schools. In the private schools of Boston, as early as 1709, a private school offered instruction in astronomy, geometry, navigation, surveying, and trigonometry. The growth and development of the Catholic school system on a large scale brought along with it repeated requests and demands, in due time, for public subventions to a private school described as having a public purpose and function. In 1946, Congress passed the National School Lunch Act, which made possible, with Federal aid, free food to pupils attending private and parochial schools. The historical development of church-state-school relations in the US was deeply affected by the impact of the decisions by the US Supreme Court.
