USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Scopes “monkey trial” was the moniker journalist H. L. Mencken applied to the 1925 prosecution of a criminal action brought by the state of Tennessee against high school teacher John T. Scopes for violating the state’s Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Detailed explanation-2: -In March 1925, the Tennessee state legislature passed a bill that banned the teaching of evolution in all educational institutions throughout the state. The Butler Act set off alarm bells around the country. The ACLU responded immediately with an offer to defend any teacher prosecuted under the law.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Education Act-or ‘Butler Act’-of 1944 promised ‘secondary education for all’. The act attempted to achieve this goal by raising the school leaving age and dividing the all-age elementary education into primary and secondary schools.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law prohibiting public school teachers from denying the book of Genesis account of mankind’s origin. The law also prevented the teaching of the evolution of man from what it referred to as lower orders of animals in place of the Biblical account.