January 30, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



165 



to conform their teachings to any specified creed 

 or doctrine? 



6. If so, what is this creed? 



7. Are similar requirements imposed upon pro- 

 fessors of other departments, such as biology and 



8. In case of alleged deviation by any professor 

 from the doctrinal standards of the college, by 

 whose interpretation of these standards is such 

 deviation determined? 



To these inquiries the committee reports 

 that it has been unable to secure any definite 

 answers from the president of Lafayette. 

 After a month's delay, a reply to the above 

 letter signed by President Warfield, the presi- 

 dent of the board of trustees and the chairman 

 of the curriculum committee, was received; 

 but it " could be construed by the committee 

 only as a courteous declination to furnish the 

 definite information desired." A subsequent 

 letter from President Warfield " accentuated 

 this declination." The first of these communi- 

 cations does, however, contain at least one 

 statement which a member of the board of 

 trustees formally declares to the committee to 

 be " not in accordance with the facts." In 

 spite of this refusal of information by the col- 

 lege administration, the committee secured a 

 large mass of evidence from other sources — 

 trustees, members of the faculty, and former 

 students under Professor Mecklin — and arrived 

 at certain conclusions bearing upon three gen- 

 eral questions. The committee's findings upon 

 each of these are in part as follows: 



I. What, before the present case arose, has teen 

 the accepted ur>derstanding as to the limits of free- 

 dom in philosophical and psychological teaching at 

 Lafayette College? 



American colleges and universities fall into two 

 classes: Those in which freedom of inquiry, of be- 

 lief and of teaching is, if not absolutely unre- 

 stricted, at least subject to limitations so few and 

 80 remote as to give practically no occasion for dif- 

 ferences of opinion ; and those whicn are frankly 

 instruments of denominational or political propa- 

 ganda. The committee does not consider itself 

 authorized to discuss the question whether the ex- 

 istence of both sorts of institution is desirable. 

 If, therefore, the present case were one in which 

 a teacher in a professedly denominational college 

 had in his teaching expressly repudiated some 



clearly defined and generally accepted doctrine of 

 that denomination, the committee would not feel 

 justified in proceeding further with the matter. 

 These associations should, in the committee's opin- 

 ion, intervene in questions of this sort only for 

 three ends: (1) To ascertain which institutions do, 

 and which do not, ofiicially profess the principle 

 of freedom of teaching; (2) to ascertain, with a 

 fair degree of definiteness, in the case of those 

 institutions which do not, what the doctrinal limi- 

 tations imposed upon their teachers of philosophy 

 and psychology are; and (3) to call attention pub- 

 licly to all instances in which, in institutions of the 

 former sort, freedom of teaching appears to have 

 been interfered with, or in which, in institutions 

 of the latter sort, restrictions other than those 

 antecedently laid down appear to have been im- 



XJpon the question whether Lafayette is to be 

 classed with institutions of the first or second type, 

 the committee finds a surprising measure of dis- 

 agreement among officers, teachers and graduates 

 of the college. Article VIII. of the college charter 

 provides : 



' ' That persons of every religious denomination 

 shall be capable of being elected trustees, nor shall 

 any person, either as principal, professor, tutor or 

 pupil, be refused admittance into said college, or 

 denied any of the privileges, immunities or ad- 

 vantages thereof for or on account of his senti- 

 ments in matters of religion. ' ' 



In accordance with this clause of the charter, a 

 trustee writes the committee as follows: 



"I need not remind you that Lafayette College 

 is not a theological institution, nor does it profesa 

 to teach or impose upon its teachers or students, 

 any creed or doctrinal religious standards. . . . 

 Whatever may be Dr. Mecklin 's impression of the 

 attitude of the president, so far as the trustees 

 and faculty of the institution are concerned, I 

 know of no policy or shaping thereof that in any 

 way involves the recognition or inculcation of any 

 sectarian creed, Presbyterian or otherwise, much 

 less any particular type of Presbyterianism. " 

 This interpretation of the charter — which is ob- 

 viously in harmony with its text — is evidently 

 shared by other members of the board of trustees. 



On the other hand, the testimony of some mem- 

 bers of the faculty, and that of President War- 

 field and two trustees, is that there is a general 

 assumption that the teaching of professors must 

 be in harmony with the doctrinal standards of the 

 Presbyterian Church. The Greneral Catalogue 



