"There is nothing in the salute or the pledge of allegiance which constitutes an act of idolatry, or which approaches to any religious observance."

"There is nothing in the salute or the pledge of allegiance which constitutes an act of idolatry, or which approaches to any religious observance. It does not in any reasonable sense hurt, molest, or restrain a human being in respect to'worshipping God'within the meaning of the words in the Constitution

—an eight-year-old was expelled from school 18 for not participating in the Pledge of Allegiance ceremony at school.

It is assumed that the statement of beliefs of the petitioner made by him is genuine and true and constitutes the ground of his conduct

In fact Carleton Nicholls had, without objection, saluted the flag and recited the Pledge of Allegiance in his two previous years at the school.

That court decided the previous year, in a similar Jehovah's Witness flag-salute case, that the flag salute requirement simply had nothing to do with religion, apparently regardless of what the expelled child might believe.

A California statute reads: "Boards of school trustees and city boards of education shall have the power, and it shall be their duty to suspend or expel pupils for misconduct when other means of correction have failed to bring about proper conduct." 18 Judge 7 Exodus 20: 3-5.'18468. 580, 192 SE 218.

Statute giving the school committee general charge of public schools gives power to exclude pupils of such intellectual capacity or weakness of mind as to interfere with the progress of others

The Court suggested that the duty referred to in McDuffy as a "public obligation to provide for general education

Judge Rutherford clarifies such convictions in "Loyalty," a publication of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (1935): "To salute a flag means, in effect, that the person saluting ascribes salvation to what that flag represents, whereas salvation is of Jehovah God."'

[CITATION] Minersville School District v. Board of Education