PREFATORY NOTE The public discussion of religious education in our higher institutions of learning has become of so great interest that it seemed worth while to call a conference for the discussion of the subject in connection with the installation of Doctor E. J. James as President of the University of Illinois, October, 1905. A wide interest developed in the plans and a number of distinguished gentlemen agreed to read papers and to participate in the discussions. In accordance with the arrangements the first session was held at nine o'clock, Thursday, October 19, 1905. Professor Shailer Matthews of the University of Chicago presided over the conference, kindly giving up an intended vacation to do so. The following resolution, offered by Professor Kelsey of the University of Michigan, was unanimously passed at the evening session: "Resolved, that this conference recommends to the religious denominations the consideration of the question whether the theological schools in the region of the State University may not be grouped about the State University to mutual advantage. "And be it further resolved that the chairman of this conference and the President of the University of Illinois be requested to act as a committee to transmit a copy of this resolution to the proper ecclesiastical authorities of each denomination." The meetings of the conference were held in the University Place Church, and an expression of thanks was made at the close of the conference to the pastor and the members of that church for their courtesy. At the evening session the following communication was offered by the chairman, and voted by the conference: "I feel that it would be very appropriate for us to express informally if we do not have opportunity to do it formally, the warm appreciation of those who have come as guests, of the perfection of the arrangements which have been made, and especially of the hospitable and cordial spirit with which a forum has been provided for the discussion of these fundamental issues, not merely to the universities but to the public. ARTHUR H. DANIELS, Committee. The program was as follows: PROGRAM Professor Shailer Mathews, D.D., of the University of Chicago, Presiding. MORNING SESSION: 9:00 A.M., Thursday, October 19. GENERAL SUBJECT: Undertake? What Religious Education May the State University Organ Voluntary: Frederick Locke Lawrence, Director of the School of Music, University of Illinois. Devotional Exercises: Conducted by Right Reverend Edward William Osborne, D.D., Bishop Coadjutor of Springfield. Address of Welcome: Professor Thomas Arkle Clark, The University of Illinois. Addresses: President William Oxley Thompson, D.D., Ohio State Univer- Reverend William Franklin Anderson, D.D., Secretary of the Board of Education, Methodist Episcopal Church. The Very Reverend Dean Duffy, Danville, Illinois. President William Lowe Bryan, Ph.D., LL.D., Indiana University. Reverend Jenkin Lloyd Jones, D.D., Pastor of All Souls Church, Chicago, and Editor of "Unity." General Discussion: Right Reverend Edward William Osborne, D.D. President Lilian Wyckoff Johnson, Ph.D., Western College for Women. Music. Devotional Exercises. AFTERNOON SESSION: 3:00 P.M. Address: The State Universities and the Churches; Professor Francis Willey Kelsey, Ph.D., University of Michigan. Address: Obligations of the Church to its Adherents in the State Universities; President Henry Churchill King, D.D., Oberlin College, Representative of the Religious Education Association. Discussion: President James David Moffat, LL.D., Washington and Jefferson College, and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. Professor John Henry Gray, Ph.D., Northwestern University. Reverend Willis G. Banker, D.D., Presbyterian Church, Lawrence, Kansas. Devotional Exercises. EVENING SESSION: 8:00 P.M. Address: The Affiliated College; President Webster Merrifield, M.A., University of North Dakota. Discussion: Dean W. J. Lahamon, A.M., Bible College of Missouri. Reverend William S. Marquis, D.D., Representative of The Illinois Synod of the Presbyterian Church. President David Ross Boyd, Ph.D., University of Oklahoma. Reverend Francis A. Wilber, D.D., Principal of Westminister House, University of Kansas. General Discussion:--Professor E. L. Rivard, C.S.V., D.D., Ph.D., St. Viateurs College. ADDRESS OF WELCOME By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK, B.L. Dean of Undergraduates, University of Illinois It is a matter of deep regret to President James that he cannot be here himself to speak a word of welcome, and it is especially so because of his interest in the subject of this conference. I am glad for him, however, and in his name, to welcome you to the University of Illinois. The matter of religious education in the state universities is a vital On account of the peculiar character of its work, the state university cannot give the attention to religious education that should be given. The burden of conducting this must therefore fall upon the religious organizations which are found in the community in which the university is located. We are all interested in this work, though. we may not give ourselves wholly to it. I have no doubt that statistics will be presented to you before the close of this conference, which will show you that we are not an irreligious community. A very large proportion of the members of our faculty are engaged in active religious work in the churches of which they form a part. The student community is a religious community and swells the congregations of all the churches that are located here. I well know that the reputation of the university for interest in religion is not a desirable one, but my own experience, both as a student and as an instructor, does not warrant such a reputation. I am glad to remember that when I came to the university as a student twenty years ago, when its reputation throughout the state for interest in religion was in no way to its credit, the first organization I was asked to join was the Christian Association, and the first impression I got of the university community was one of religious interest. I am glad that this conference has been called, because I believe that there is a responsibility upon the churches of all denominations to look after their interests here. The students are with us. They are vitally interested in religious subjects. If they are not taken care of, the church will lose a great opportunity. As members of the faculty, we shall be glad to cooperate in any enterprise which may develop or which will conduce to the religious growth of the community. We shall be interested in the results which come from this conference, and in whatever way we can help, you have only to command us. Again, then, in the name of the students and the faculty and the president, I welcome you heartily to the University of Illinois. INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS SHAILER MATHEWS, D.D. Professor and Dean of the Divinity School, The University of Chicago ance. There was a time when education was regarded as belonging to a sphere of life quite distinct from that of religious experience. There was a time, and that time has not altogether passed, when to be religious meant to surrender anything like intellectual liberty and intellectual power. Not so long since the leaders of education looked with considerable contempt, or at least suspicion, upon religious thinkers. Religion claimed a certainty where the scientific mind professed ignorIt was so thoroughly devoted to the exploitation of eternity as to be indifferent to the demands of to-day; and he whose passion was for reality, and he who felt that only that was real which could be subjected to certain tests, naturally felt suspicious, if not hostile, toward those who thus refused to submit to investigation their most precious claims, and who alleged that a man could know only after he had believed. There, accordingly, grew up a feeling that religion was in some way an unreal thing, or at best a luxury in intellectual life; that an honest man must in some way forbear to be of very sure religious belief; that the sincere man must be silent as to his faith. And there swept over the educational world a devotion to what might be called the gospel of ignorance-not that men denied, but that men did not affirm. The difference between that day and ours is the diference between the day in which the man did not deny, but did not affirm, and the day, which I think is dawning, in which men not only do not deny but begin to dare to affirm. Now, with the rise of this new confidence in the things of faith, with the rise of this new realization that life is something more than the mere gaining of knowledge, with the rise of this growing conviction that a man may believe in God and still be true to the workings of reason, with this splendid passion for reality which we are beginning to see express itself, not only in the university, but also in the church, there has come a determination on the part of thinkers to link education and religion in some way together. It would not be so difficult, I think we shall all agree, to combine those two, if to be religious and if to teach religion meant to teach certain definite dogmas or certain definite philosophies. There are those who could do that with sureness, and I have no doubt with benefit. But the university man is shy of dogmas, and the university man is shy of that sort of teaching which would compel the teacher to make replicas of himself and of his student. If I understand the atmosphere and the ideals of the university, it is not to make men like the teacher, but to make men loyal to truth, keen and sensitive to truth, madly determined to have. reality and nothing but reality. The higher the ideal, of course, the larger the difficulty. As we push out the circumference of the circle of knowledge, we increase the outside of that circle which touches ignorance. As the university plunges into the depth of the unknown, it is not with the feeling that the area of contact with the unknown is decreased, but, rather increased. But yet there stands religion. Are we to treat that simply as mortality tinged with emotion? Are we to treat that simply as a feeling of awe, born of the contemplation of this growing area which we do not know or cannot hope to know? Or, is religion that which is positive, so truly an element of the human personality that it too, like the mind devoted to other matters, is subject to education? And if it be subject to education, and if the religious Ego may be developed as may be the scientific Ego, then has not the university some duty in this regard? I count it an exceedingly happy omen that the state university should seriously ask advice and give an opportunity for conference. upon this problem. It is a testimony not to uncertainty alone, it is a testimony to the growing religious faith of university spirit. We are no longer confronted with the great antithesis between the teacher of science (using that word not in an arrogant sense, but in the largest possible sense) and the teacher of religion. The difficulty is a practical one as I conceive it, no longer one of theory. We all admit that the religious self should be developed as every other sort of self. But how? How in the state university, particularly, in which the peculiar political complications are as they are? How in the state university, in which the prevailing note is rapidly becoming that of the practical man rather than of that of the professional man, of the engineer rather than of the doctor or lawyer, of the business man rather than of the teacher? How shall these problems be settled? If we can settle these questions in any sort of way in the state university, we shall have settled them for good in any other sort of institution, for here the problem is in its most distinct, and I am inclined to think, its most important form. How to bring the state into the young men and young women and make them citizens, that is one of the great problems in which the state university is interested. How to bring the God-like nature of the young man and young woman into expression and to direct that expression into something other than a mere profession, that also is a legitimate field of education, and that must be answered in the state university, if it is ever answered to the satisfaction of this country. The denominational colleges will always bring their religious influence to bear in some sort of way upon their students, but the state university works without any influence of that sort. Yet it, too, is subject to the same law. If education be not in some way religious, then so much the worse for the society in which we live, and I believe most thoroughly, so much the worse for the state university. This conference, as I understand it, is a conference |