SCIENCE IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 455 



without any religious purptose or aim, but which shall furnish facili- 

 ties to the student for obtaining instruction in the comparative study 

 of religions, and in the tenets of the leading religious sects, such in- 

 struction to be critical, not authoritative. These universities should 

 be broad enough to cover all branches of science, including religions, 

 and each department should stand upon its own foundation. The 

 teacher of Latin should be qualified by reason of his knowledge of 

 Latin and ability to communicate it, and it should matter not whether 

 he be a Christian. The government of the institution should be 

 wholly impartial as regards religion, and its charter ought to forbid 

 religious discrimination in any form. As to worship, the teaching of 

 religion by insinuation, that should have no place in a university save 

 as a matter of voluntary attention. Of a college church there can 

 be no need ; for in any college-town there are, no doubt, ample oppor- 

 tunities for the enjoyment of religious services among the churches of 

 the neighborhood. 



Such a scheme of collegiate institutions has commended itself to a 

 great many thinking people, but the importance of creating and sus- 

 taining the like should be more sensibly appreciated. The Christian 

 church has always been alive to the value of education for the promo- 

 tion of its own interests. The monks were usually men of peace, but, 

 through their care for the instruction of youth, they became more 

 powerful than the men of war. Though they were working chiefly to 

 perpetuate the power of their order, the world is greatly indebted to 

 them for the preservation of learning and the interest in its acquisi- 

 tion. It is true enough that the church has been in times past the 

 foster-mother of education, but it is not true, therefore, that education 

 will not flourish except under the auspices of religious organization. 

 Let it be impressed upon the community that for the preservation of 

 the social organism education is necessary, for the life that now is ; for 

 good government and a larger liberty, and just as powerful a motive 

 is created to promote it as any that loyalty to an ecclesiastical society 

 can originate. To encourage this thought, and to secure its practical 

 carrying out, should be the aim of those who believe in a stable social 

 order; who appreciate, indeed, the value of knowledge in religious mat- 

 ters so well that they are not willing to rest content with partial truth 

 and error. Some institutions of learning there are that foster such a 

 sentiment, and which in their constitution are substantially free from 

 religious partisanship ; it is desirable to have more. 



Modifying influences are everywhere at work upon existing col- 

 leges and universities, and they are nearly all in some degree suscepti- 

 ble of improvement in the directions I have indicated. They desire 

 students and must have funds. The best method of making them 

 understand their short-comings is to cut off their supplies of both. 

 But the higher education must be had, and if it can not be obtained 

 in a non-sectarian institution, the conditions are often such that with 



