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It is a dangerous mistake for men and women entering upon univerperiod throw aside the restraints With the intellectual growth and

sity life to feel that they may for a and the duties of their former life. maturity which the college life brings, there should be a corresponding religious growth, but this will not be obtained if one deliberately removes himself from all the agencies of religious influence. It must be remembered that the religious thought and spirit of the earlier stage of intellectual development will not suit a later stage, and, being insufficient, will be altogether discarded. The responsibility of the university in this particular is all the more grave because the home is far away, while the church no longer exerts its influence as before.

13. The university in its laboratory of practical religion should encourage the development of the altruistic spirit, for this is an essential part of the religious spirit. The life of the student, as also of the instructor, is confessedly a selfish life. The best corrective is to do something for others. The opportunity presents itself in settlement work and in a thousand other ways.

14. The university should take definite steps to protect its constituency against those common forms of vice and demoralization which prevail. The dangers of temptation in a large institution and in the city are, upon the whole, no greater than in the small institutions and in the country. The counteracting influences are stronger and more numerous. The university must hold up true ideals of life. It can point out the consequences of the violation of nature's laws. It can provide proper forms of recreation and a proper atmosphere for recreation. It can exercise, through its staff of officers, a strong personal influence upon those who have intrusted themselves to its care. It can purge its membership, whether in the case of students or of officers, of that element which, by example, or by direct influence, is deteriorating and inferior. It can place itself uncompromisingly on the side of all that is good, and just as uncompromisingly against all that is bad and debasing. All this it must do, and more, if it is to serve conscientiously the interests of those who are within its walls.

MR. ROY SMITH WALLACE

GRADUATE SECRETARY OF THE PHILLIPS BROOKS HOUSE ASSOCIATION HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

The Phillips Brooks House at Harvard University, Cambridge, is the headquarters of four distinctively religious societies, one co-operative executive Social Service Committee, and one large, all-inclusive holding corporation.

The Phillips Brooks House Association was organized "to unite members of Harvard University, who are interested in the religious, philanthropic, or other activities which center in the Phillips Brooks House. Its work is so ordered that the work of the individual organizations now active in the Phillips Brooks House are not in any way restricted or interfered with." The membership of this society is composed of the memberships of the various constituent religious societies and of other men, who, while they are willing to stand for the activities of the Phillips Brooks House, are not willing to commit themselves to the point of view of any one of the local societies.

This Phillips Brooks House Association carries on all the activities, the results of which are of equal service to all the societies. For instance, it maintains the Freshman Information Bureau, holds the freshman reception, and conducts the Fall Conference. Besides this, as soon as college opens, the Association canvasses actively the freshman class in the interest of all the societies and of all the activities which center in the Phillips Brooks House.

The Association itself carries on directly all the general activities. It stimulates the other societies to carry on their work efficiently, by holding them definitely responsible for conducting those enterprises which they set for themselves as to the work of these local constituent societies. First, we have a Catholic Club, which exists to care for the interests of the Roman Catholic members of the University, and to increase the good will which already exists between Catholics and non-Catholic members of the University. This society holds fortnightly doctrinal conferences, which are for Catholic and non-Catholics alike, and social smokers addressed by prominent lay Catholics for the benefit of the members of the society. Second, we have a religious union, the purpose of which is to bring together men of liberal religious thought for the discussion and expression of the religious life. This organization holds meetings fortnightly, alternate meetings being addressed by outside speakers. Third, an Episcopalian Society, the St. Paul's Society, the purpose of which is to bring Churchmen of the University into acquaintance with each other, and afford them opportunities for work and worship agreeable to the spirit and forms of the Protestant Episcopal Church. This society provides corporate communion for its members, weekly evening prayer, interests itself in the foreign missions of the Church and endeavors to provide workers in neighboring Episcopalian parishes.

The Harvard Christian Association is affiliated with the International Y. M. C. A., and carries on most of the work which this organization lays down for its college associations.

The religious meetings are arranged by classes and have a very small attendance. Several times during the year, however, the Association arranges for outside speakers for Sunday afternoons. It also send college men to various preparatory schools and city Christian associations to make addresses. The City Work Committee charges itself with supplying workers for a number of philanthropic institutions. In its philanthropic work the Association provides a course for the study and discussion of city problems, conducted by the resident workers of the South End House, Boston.

DISCUSSION

PRESIDENT HENRY CHURCHILL KING, D.D.
OBERLIN COLLEGE, OBERLIN, OHIO

The first requisite of all, which, if fulfilled, will take the place of almost all else, is genuinely religious men and women in the entire teaching and official force of the college or university. Nothing will take the place of this essential. Such men are sure to determine the atmosphere and spirit of the institution. The unconscious influence of their association is always at work. And, on the other hand, the most elaborate arrangements for religious instruction, without the backing of such lives, will count for very little. Nothing so certainly brings about the deterioration of an institution as carelessness in the selection of its teachers. A few compromising appointments may easily make impossible the maintenance of the institution's highest ideals or best traditions. The spirit of a college or university cannot go down in its buildings or grounds or forms of organization.

Hardly less important is the prevailing spirit of the students themselves. The democratic spirit of a true college or university itself goes far toward moral and religious training. The power of the college life to bring out unselfish friendships, too, is invaluable. And the personal association with fellow-students of high faith and character is of the greatest moment.

The presence of such a student body depends upon the general traditions and constituency and atmosphere of an institution and the moral and religious strength and efficiency of its faculty. It takes time to build up the most powerful influence in this matter of the general spirit of a college or university. Much will depend, in the first place, on the spirit and determination of the president alone.

The moral and religious life requires, too, some active expression. To this end, student activities in this direction should be heartily en

couraged and co-operated with. The religious life cannot be simply laid on from above. Every bit of initiative on the part of the students is, therefore, clear gain. The college life, in the nature of the case, is likely to suffer from some degree of self-absorption, and any line of activity that tends to thoughtfulness and work for others deserves to be earnestly furthered.

There must be, also, the most careful respect for their own moral initiative and individuality, for the inviolability of their own inner life. We cannot ruthlessly interfere or compel. We succeed only so far as we bring them into the right spirit of their own choice.

Direct instruction has also a real contribution to make, though it cannot be the main dependence. There is no reason why the Bible should not be studied frankly as a moral and religious book, and not merely as literature. It is literature; but its importance does not lie primarily here; and there is only loss in pretending it does. Objective historical study there should be, no doubt; but indirection is no gain.

It ought also to be made much more plain than is usually the case that the ordinary philosophical courses in our colleges and universities restrict themselves (legitimately enough) in their data - quite setting aside the facts of revealed religion, of such a line of personalities, for example, as the prophets, culminating in Christ. Their resulting inferences, consequently, are of limited application. The results of the philosophical inquiry as usually conducted, therefore, will come considerably short of inferences that might be rationally drawn, if all the data were taken into accont, including these greatest personalities of history. It should also be noted that it is always difficult for philosophy, as prevailingly intellectual, to do full justice to those aspects of life which do not lend themselves easily to intellectual formulation.

AN EXPERIMENT IN RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN A

COLLEGE

PRESIDENT W. D. HYDE, D.D., LL. D.

BOWDOIN COLLEGE, BRUNSWICK, MAINE

By religious instruction I mean the direct presentation of religious truth; not any one of the many approaches to it, or substitutes for it, or evasions of it, like the Bible considered as literature, or church history as an aspect of universal history, or Christian ethics as a phase of ethics in general.

Obviously, there are difficulties in the way. It cannot be dogmatic. An average class-for example, my own this year—includes the Congregationalist and the Universalist, the Baptist and the Methodist, the Episcopalian and the Unitarian, the Catholic and the Hebrew. All come with views that deserve to be respected; principles which it is the professor's duty not to destroy but to fulfil. What shall we do?

In place of theory, I will give you the result of an experiment I have been trying, in one form or another, for some twenty years; a description of what my class has been doing for the past month. First, I drew up a syllabus of twenty topics, covering the vital truths of religion, as follows: 1. The facts of the world, and the possible principles of their interpretation. 2. The conception of God. 3. The historic representations of God. 4. The presence of God in humanity. 5. The literary expression of religion. 6. The institutional embodiment of religion. 7. Religious aspiration and depression. 8. Justification by aspiration. 9. The answer to prayer. 10. The authority of duty. II. The inevitableness of sacrifice. 12. The nature of sin. 13. The opportunity of repentance. 14. The assurance of forgiveness. 15. Rewards and penalties. 16. The future of the world and the hope of immortality. 17. Love as the universal solvent of social problems. 18. Evangelism. 19. The mission and the settlement. 20. Religious

education.

One or two of these topics were discussed informally in the class each day. All sorts of objections, all kinds of questions, were invited and considered. There was no disposition to dogmatize; no attempt to be orthodox; no dragging in of extraneous considerations to give a semblance of proof to otherwise incredible propositions.

At the conclusion of the course, each member of the class was required to write a thesis covering these twenty topics; expressing his own

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