358 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGE 



Br Dr. IVY KELLERMAN 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 



THAT church and state should be separate has long been held in 

 the United States. It is one of our proudest boasts that every 

 citizen of our country is free to worship God in his own way. It is 

 also usually assumed that each may have his own definition of the God 

 he worships. Our educational system, as well as our government, is 

 based upon this assumption that it is best for state and church to be 

 entirely independent of each other; for, in America, as in most 

 enlightened countries, the education of the youth is considered a duty 

 of the state. The public schools provided for by public funds are non- 

 sectarian. The highest branches of the system, the state college and 

 state university, are similarly constituted and similarly provided for. 

 Neither upon entrance in these institutions nor later is any profession 

 for or against any religious denomination, or any expression of 

 " attitude," demanded of boards, trustees, presidents, principals, in- 

 structors or students. Religious organizations are permitted to exist 

 among the members of these institutions, and are accorded the same 

 assistance and courtesies as are technical, literary or purely social clubs, 

 but the fact that they are religious organizations does not of itself 

 entitle them to any additional consideration. 



This is apparently an ideal condition. Our educational system 

 attends to the intellectual and technical training of our youth, and to 

 the task of developing them into useful and desirable citizens. The 

 church, an independent organization, gives such religious and theo- 

 logical instruction as each citizen desires for himself and his family. 

 Each citizen follows his individual preference as to the kind of religious 

 teaching he needs, and of his own free will pays for it, directly instead 

 of indirectly, and in accordance with his own rating of his duty towards 

 it and the value of the services which it renders. 



Unfortunately, however, this apparently ideal condition exists in 

 but a part of the educational machinery of the United States. Besides 

 our excellent system of public grade schools, high schools, technological 

 schools, colleges and universities, we have an enormous number of 

 educational institutions which were not founded by public legislation, 

 and are supported by private munificence. The entire situation may be 

 stated as follows : ( 1 ) Our city evening schools, schools for the blind, 

 reform schools, Alaskan and Indian schools, are entirely public institu- 



