STFDEXTS AND THE KURAL PROBLEM 205 



Ralph Connor's and Marion Keith's works — though 

 even to mention these is injustice to those passed by — 

 social service is ever the background on which the plot 

 is laid. And when we touch the highest levels of litera- 

 ture of the past quarter-century, the '' long reaches of 

 the peaks of song," in poems such as " The White Man's 

 Burden " and "' The ^lan with the Hoe," social service 

 is ever their theme and inspiration, their burden and 

 their fire. And again it was ever so. Our English 

 literature begins with '* The Vision of Piers Plownnan," 

 — a vision of social good, one which anticipates in a 

 marvellous way our modern needs and methods — nor 

 has there ever been lacking in that literature, from the 

 day of Langland's hot invective to the day of Kingsley's 

 clarion note, the signature which Frederick Harrison in 

 his " Studies of Victorian Literature " finds at its very 

 heart : " Literature to-day has many characteristics, 

 but its central note is the influence of Sociology." 

 Lender such influence our students receive the ground- 

 work of the social spirit on which to build. Conscience, 

 with them, is apt to be awake to social responsibility. 



Rut we turn aside to notice as to our second point 

 that the regulations under which our college courses 

 are plannc<l do not call for the teaching of social science 

 as fully as they might. The Rev. Charles Stelzle, 

 Secretary of the Department of Church and Labor of 

 the Presbyterian Church in the United States, last year 

 addressed a letter to each of the 184 theological semin- 

 aries in the L'nit<.'d States, asking these (juestions: 



" Please state what practical social service experience 

 Htudeiits rec<'ive wliilc in tlic scniinarv. 



'' Do yoM Iiavf! a c(»ur80 in social tt^aching^ 



" Wliat is tlie totitl numbfr of hours devoted to nil 



