"joining the church." Fourth, the chapel, with the services arranged especially with a view to interesting the boys. Fifth, the school sermon, preached, not by one man after another coming along from outside because he is a famous person, but preached, as a rule, by the man or men who are working in the school.

These are the formal features in the religious education of a school. Now, how shall they be connected with the lives of the boys themselves?

In some schools there are prayer-meetings. No doubt the prayermeetings among boys have been productive of much good, but I think that there are great dangers connected with them. In the first place, the best boys, on the whole, at any rate the most sincere, and perhaps the strongest boys, don't know how to describe their religious feelings. And then when you get a boy who is fluent in his description of his religious emotions, the danger is that the emotion won't hitch on to conduct. The danger is, that his expression may run far beyond his experience, and after a year or two there comes a reaction; he looks back upon it, and finds himself utterly ashamed of what he said, and he hasn't much sympathy with the religion which prompted him to say it.

I believe that a boy's religious life should be expressed in active service. Near every school, there are a certain number of people who are not ministered unto; there your superfluous energy may find vent. Your masters and your boys may establish missions there, and boys may teach in the Sunday schools.

In preparatory schools the boys are usually well-to-do, and they can do something for the brethren who are less fortunate. They can have clubs and summer camps for them; and as they try to guide these summer camps, and try to help the boys who come to the clubs or come to the camp, they have got to live the right kind of lives themselves. That is, I think, the particular point.

But those are outside things. There is the private life of each boy that is touching the lives of all the boys. If you care for them, believe in them, trust them, and make them your fellow-workers, they will respond, and the older boys will look after the younger boys. And gradually that idea will permeate through the school among the younger boys, and you can be perfectly sure that your school is rid of the immorality, and the dishonesty, and minor offenses against morality, which are often the curses of boys' schools.

Then there is the influence of the masters. Of course it is perfectly clear that in the universities you cannot require that your teachers should be religious men, but in the school they ought to be positively Christian men.

These are the forces; the spirit of the masters, the co-operation of the boys, the missionary idea permeating the school. Those are the inside spiritual grace, and the Bible, sacred studies, and morning and evening prayer are the outward and visible forms.

When a schoolmaster has such opportunities, and when he can get such fellow-workers, I do not see why he cares to change his position for that of any other man in the world.

IN THE COLLEGE

PRESIDENT GEORGE HARRIS, D. D., LL. D.

AMHERST COLLEGE, AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS.

There are three kinds of formal instruction in religion and morals possible to the college.

The first is instruction by regular courses in religion. In college the Bible can be studied from the historical and critical points of view. The teacher of to-day need not be cautious about modifying preconceived theories of inerrancy and infallibility, because students, for the most part, have no cherished theory of any sort. His work is constructive, to show the history of an ancient people, the growth of its literature, the development and significance of its ritual, the value of its contribution to true religion. It is important that educated men know the Bible for what it is: the greatest force in civilization. A curriculum is deficient which does not include the English Bible as a course of study, to be mastered as any history or literature is mastered, in scientific and spiritual apprehension. This course should be elective. The fact that every college has students who are not Protestants, that it has Jews, Catholics, even Japanese and Chinese, precludes a requirement of studying Christianity.

The history of the church and the history of Christian thought are suitable courses for colleges, although I should not be strenuous to provide them. The study of European history necessarily includes the history of the Church and the history of doctrine.

The history of Oriental religions may be offered as a course of study. The best approach to the history of Asiatic peoples is through their religions. Indeed, their customs, civilization, and government cannot well be understood without such knowledge. Now that relations with the great nations of the East are becoming more intimate, there is a practical value in the study of their religions, even if there were less truth in them than there is.

The second kind of formal instruction is the part which the Bible

and its religion have in other studies, or, at least, may have and should have. The literature of our own tongue is imbued with the thought and even the language of the English Bible. Some of the best literature is partly unintelligible to those who are ignorant of the Bible. Shakespeare, Milton, Browning, Emerson, Arnold, are felicitous in their allusions to Scripture. The classical allusions in L'Allegro and Comus are traced to their sources; why not the Biblical allusions in Paradise Lost and the Hymn on the Nativity? With Browning's Saul the story itself should be read; with the Death on the Desert, the story of John and of the Gnostic heresy. The nearest book of reference, constantly consulted in the study of literature, should be the Bible. Why should not portions of the Bible be included directly in literature courses? Why should not the sublime prophecies of Isaiah, the devotional and nature-poetry of the psalms, the meditations of John, the theology of Paul, the parables and precepts of Jesus, be as carefully studied as the poems of Homer and Horace, the orations of Cicero and Demosthenes? The Bible is not so sacred as religion that it may not be investigated as literature.

Another study includes moral instruction,- philosophy,― inseparable from ethics. Every problem of philosophy has a bearing on life. What is philosophy but the theory of life? separated from religion. How natural that such

Nor can ethics be courses as the fol

lowing, taken from college catalogues, should be announced: The Philosophy of Nature, with Especial Reference to Man's Place in Nature; Fundamental Conceptions of Natural Science and their Relation to Ethical and Religious Truth; the Theory of Morals, considered constructively; Ethics of the Social Question; the Problems of Poor-relief; the Family, Temperance, and various phases of the labor question in the light of ethical theory. And these, from another catalogue, also under Philosophy; Metaphysics of Ethics; Objective Ethics; Philosophy and Evolution of Religion; Christian Apologetics; History and Exposition of Christian Doctrine.

The third kind of instruction is the religious services which are maintained. Religion should have a home and should be at home in the college. The college pulpit is a throne of power. The great preacher comes gladly to the college with the message of truth and righteousness. The student responds with all his heart, for the intellectual man is the spiritual man. If you should sit Sunday after Sunday in a college congregation, as I do, you would find students listening eagerly to preaching on the real, human Christ and on the service of man to man. Every college and university should, if possible,

have its own pulpit. Daily services of Scripture reading, singing, and prayer make their impression. Students, at least, become familiar with the Bible read responsively or listened to.

Voluntary associations of students for religious culture, for Bible study, and for Christian service are, when rightly conducted, of great moral and religious power.

There is more practical religion in the colleges to-day than in any period of their history. Cant and pretense are not tolerated; irrational doctrine is discarded; but faith, hope, love, character, are exalted. The university and college should and may encourage, by teaching and by influence, sane, healthy, God-loving and man-saving religion.

I. THE COUNCIL OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS ON THE WORK OF THE DEPARTMENT FOR THE YEAR

PROFESSOR FRANK K. SANDERS, PH. D., D. D.

DEAN YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

This is the third nominal gathering of the Council of Religious Education, but the first one which really aims to execute the functions intrusted to it at the organization of the Association. There have been many hindrances to the proper adjustment of its work to that of the departments of the Association, all of which have, in the main, been surmounted. It is with a hopeful spirit that we assemble to-day for participation in the session.

Much lack of certainty has been expressed in regard to the legitimate functions of this Council of Religious Education. Its objective is thus described in the constitution of the Association:

"The Council shall have for its object to reach and to disseminate correct thinking on all general subjects relating to religious and moral education. Also, in co-operation with the other departments of the Association, it shall initiate, conduct, and guide the thorough investigation and consideration of important educational questions within the scope of the Association. On the basis of its investigations and considerations the Council shall make to the Association, or to the Board of Directors, such recommendations as it deems expedient relating to the work of the Association."

In accordance with the constitution, we are to exercise the important functions of determining the problems of real importance in the field of religious education, of organizing the forces of the Association for their thorough investigation, and of the formulation of the results of these investigations for effective use.

The Association stands for the declaration of ideals, of true working standards in religious education. Such standards may be attained only through the most careful and comprehensive study of conditions, resources, existing methods, suggested advances. To formulate such working standards requires the co-operation of men already accustomed to scientific investigation, whose judgments will be uninfluenced by the pressing demands of production. In the actual work of any department of religious and moral education - such as those which deal with