618 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 568. 



I can not help thinking myself, that this is 

 a serious limitation both to the "university 

 and to the church, none the less real and 

 serious, because under our circumstances 

 it may be necessary as a condition of de- 

 velopment of the highest usefulness of the 

 state university. 



Let us not make a mistake here, however. 

 The cutting out of formal religious instruc- 

 tion from the curriculum does not mean 

 that a state university is necessarily non- 

 religious, or anti-religious. An institution 

 is religious or the opposite chiefly because 

 the community of which it is a part is 

 religious or the opposite. The character 

 of the state university, like that of all the 

 other institutions of the country, will be 

 determined fundamentally by the char-' 

 acter of the people itself. How true this 

 is in matters of religion may be seen by 

 the actual facts concerning our state uni- 

 versities. Thus, all of you who have fol- 

 lowed the work of the Young Men's Chris- 

 tian Association must have been struck by 

 the fact that it has no more active and 

 vigorous centers of life than those in our 

 state universities, and the international 

 secretary of the association stated some 

 time ago that the largest, strongest and 

 best organized college Christian Associa- 

 tion in the world was to be found here 

 among the students in the University of 

 Illinois. Religion, the religious spirit, the 

 reverent attitude and all which is bound 

 up with what is best in religion is not some- 

 thing, of course, which can be shut up 

 within the dry bones of statistical tables, 

 and yet the figures collected by our young 

 people who have been interested in this 

 matter show that there is very little dif- 

 ference between the number of students 

 who are members of the church, for in- 

 stance, at our state universities and at the 

 other great educational institutions of the 

 country — which would seem to bear out my 

 proposition that the fundamental fact is 



not after all the presence or absence of 

 religious instruction, but rather the char- 

 acter of the community from which the 

 members of the state university are drawn. 



At the same time, any one who is a be- 

 liever in the state university and its func- 

 tion can not help regretting the feeling 

 which certainly has prevailed in certain 

 circles in the past if not in the present^ 

 that the state university is in a certain 

 way anti-religious in its atmosphere and 

 its work; for we can not close our eyes to 

 the fact that whatever you or I as indi- 

 viduals may think of religion and religious 

 training, the great mass of the people of 

 this nation are deeply concerned that their 

 children should be brought under what 

 they conceive to be proper religious in- 

 fluence -early in life, and should remain so 

 throughout the college and university 

 years. 



It is then a matter of congratulation to 

 those of us who have seen in this opposi- 

 tion to the state universities a certain 

 menace to their prosperity, that there are 

 many signs that this particular difficulty is 

 going to be met in what will be an extremely 

 satisfactory way to all concerned. The 

 great religious denominations have come to 

 recognize that these institutions are des- 

 tined to grow and increase with every 

 passing year, and that the state of which 

 they themselves are a part will never agree 

 that the principle of the separation of 

 church and state shall be infringed upon 

 to the extent of providing religious instruc- 

 tion in state universities, and that there- 

 fore the duty is upon them to see that ade- 

 quate provision is made for this great need. 

 They are solving it in different ways. They 

 are in some instances erecting guild houses 

 and dormitories where the children from 

 the families of their particular faith may 

 find centers of influence and help. In 

 other places they are providing lecture- 

 ships upon religious subjects for the bene- 



