p. 9 | The Religious Trend by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 18, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 28.

The Religious Trend

By Editor

THE Rev. Dwight Mallory Pratt, of Cincinnati, Ohio, has an article in the June "Homiletic Review" on religious life in our colleges; and while he tries to draw a sunny conclusion from his clouds of premises, he certainly does not awaken any too much hope in the heart of the reader.

First, there is in our religious colleges a feeling of doubt. Nothing, he says, is now taken for granted. He continues:

Our fathers and mothers believed truth because it was in the Bible. That sense of the reality of God, of the sacredness of His Word, was a great asset in religion. It generated reverence, devotion, conviction, and a deep and beautiful piety. . . . That attitude of mind no longer prevails in our schools and colleges, even when instructors are genuinely and vitally religious.

He quotes from President Faunce, of Brown University, as follows:

A situation has grown up in this country which would have seemed inconceivable to ancient Athens or medieval Florence, a situation such as no pagan nation ever tolerated, a situation to-day incomprehensible to either Berlin or London, or even to Cairo or Constantinople, a situation more perilous than any other with which the public is now confronted.

And this Dr. Pratt calls "the modern educational defect." Teachers, we are told, are not chosen because of character or religion, but, is he a man of research? has he the ability to advance human knowledge? President Hyde, of Bowdoin, is thus quoted:

The saddest omen for many of our colleges and universities is the reckless way with which they are filling up their faculties on paper evidence of merely technical acquisitions. Not one man in ten that comes out of our graduate schools in these departments has the personal human attitude which makes him fit to teach a college class.

President King, of Oberlin, uses these words:

At times in our higher education it has seemed as if many in the faculties they recognize as Christian men had suffered almost a religious atrophy.

And Dr. Pratt remarks upon this religious atrophy:

The ordinary observer need not hesitate to challenge the religious quality of any of our colleges, when eminent specialists give such startling arraignment as this.

Dr. Pratt quotes another professor in one of our large State universities, a broad-minded, up-to-date scholar, judicious in temper and in speech, on the religious life and influence of college instructors, as follows:

The faculties of our colleges are in a bad way. A Young Men's Christian Association college secretary, whose work is to introduce Bible study in college fraternities, and of whom I made inquiries, said to me that the faculties were almost without exception willing to have any of their number teach the Bible in the fraternities, but that it was well-nigh impossible to get any of them to do so, as they were so uncertain of their own belief as to be disqualified for the work; and then referred to the head of department of modern languages who had just passed away, and who, in anticipation of death, said that he had no expectation of a future life.

These, Dr. Pratt tells us, are recent, and — are not words of sensational critics, but of men of masterly vision within the front rank of educators.

And he remarks that —

it is trivial to say that there is not serious occasion for challenging the religious influence of many a college and of many an individual instructor, especially from among the younger and immature recruits recently trained within the narrow limits of technical and naturalistic science.

Dr. Pratt further says:

Even the venerable president of our oldest university, after a notable career of scholarship and merited fame, at the time of his retirement gave the public the impression that he had found no adequate anchorage for his faith in historic Christianity, but was still searching for a new religion more suited to scholarly intellects, and to the world's moral needs.

He quotes the metropolitan pastor, under the eaves of one of the larger Eastern universities, from which his son has recently graduated, thus:

I do not think one would err in saying that a positive and assertive faith on the part of the faculty of any of our institutions is not to be found.

These quotations are not from wildly speculative men. They are written by men of eminence and sober thought. They do not describe conditions existing among those of no influence, but among those of the highest influence, those who are molding the life of the young in America to-day. Surely it would seem as tho true, earnest Christians could see the trend of religion, and it would also seem that it would lead them back to the fountain-head of all religion and truth — the Bible.