This paper discusses the importance of teaching about the place of religion in U.S. development and calls attention to the inadequate treatment of religion in history textbooks used in public secondary schools. Knowledge about various religious traditions is necessary to citizenship, and since it is not taught by parents or religious institutions, public schools must take responsibility for such education. As a central feature, religion affects other aspects of a culture, and is the foundation of morality in Western societies. Systematic reading and analysis of 14 major high school history texts for their content on religion revealed a profound neglect of religious factors. All of the textbooks studied were found to be unsatisfactory accounts of U.S. history because they neglected or omitted well-known facts about the role of religion. (GEA)