<P> Outraged Catholics organized locally and nationally for the right to send their children to Catholic schools . In a 1925 decision, the United States Supreme Court declared the Oregon School Law unconstitutional in a ruling that has been called "the Magna Carta of the parochial school system ." In the ruling, the Court asserted that "the child is not the mere creature of the state" and settled once and for all the question of whether or not private schools had a right to exist in The United States . </P> <P> Pope Pius XI, in 1929, explicitly referenced this Supreme Court case in his encyclical Divini illius magistri on Catholic education . He quoted this part of the case, which says: </P> <P> The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only . The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right coupled with the high duty, to recognize, and prepare him for additional duties . </P>

Regarding public education in 1922 oregon become the first state to