318 PROFESSIONAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 



Such value is calculable not merely on the basis of the notable results 

 accomplished in the past twenty years, but far more in view of the 

 efficient and adaptable organization prepared to promote religious 

 education among students in time to come. Both in its inception 

 about 1884, as a special department of the Young Men's Christian 

 Association, under the direct supervision of the International Com- 

 mittee, and in its extension, some ten years ago, to the students of 

 foreign lands, this religious work for students has been the result of 

 the prevision and of the aggressive ardor of laymen. 



Another significant movement for a special class of people, which 

 has grown out of the Association movement at large, is the work for 

 soldier and sailors, created to meet the unexpected conditions of the 

 Spanish- American war, and suggested in a measure by the famous 

 Christian Commission of our Civil War. The latter organization, 

 however, was temporary in character and quite different in scope, 

 although based upon a similar desire to minister to the needs of our 

 brave heroes. At the outbreak of hostilities with Spain the Young 

 Men's Christian Association undertook to furnish for each regiment, 

 as far as feasible, a trained secretary, who would occupy the same 

 relation to the men on the field that such as he occupy to those of 

 our large cities. These army secretaries performed many of the 

 duties which would naturally fall upon army chaplains and have 

 to a considerable degree supplanted them. Their comradeship with 

 the enlisted men gives them a great advantage in influencing the 

 soldiers, an opportunity of which they are not slow to take advantage. 

 No less an authority than Major-General Shafter has put himself 

 repeatedly on record as affirming the practical effectiveness for the 

 religious leadership of the private, of the unordained but well-trained 

 man. The army as a whole, and with few exceptions, welcomes 

 their appearance and assists their work. So in the navy, the trained 

 secretaries stationed in attractive buildings at the ports where our 

 ships of war are accustomed to gather or to call with frequency, are 

 exerting a marked and much appreciated influence upon the morale 

 of the sailors. Such a work as this has been imperatively needed. 

 The government does not maintain a force of chaplains large enough 

 to give one to each of the large battleships now in commission. 

 It is also questionable whether the best equipped of chaplains has 

 as close an access to such men as the unordained religious leader. 

 The traditional reserve of the enlisted man in the presence of an 

 officer greatly hinders the chaplain. And in any case the meager 

 supply of religious leaders available for both army and navy make 

 this recent movement most welcome and full of promise. 



The settlement idea, like that of the Salvation Army, was not 

 wholly due to the constructive genius of a layman, yet, in case 

 of each, the movement has become a distinctively laical enterprise. 



