The degradation of university ideals does not, however, fully explain the religious indifference of undergraduates. They know what they hate and despise, but they are not aware that religion is as rebellious as they. It is not too much to venture a guess that one thing which is wrong is that American universities fail to inform their students about the nature of the spiritual enterprise. It has come to pass that theology is looked upon as a professional subject. Nothing could be more unfortunate for balanced thought.
Religion is as basic a discipline as science, and as reputable intellectually.
Yet it is possible for a student in almost any of our leading universities to read for his primary degree, and his advanced degrees, without gaining even a suspicion of that fact. Consequently, we have such astonishing attitudes of mind as that of the young Harvard man to whose Atlantic Monthly article reference has been made. He seems to be reasonably intelligent, not at all incapable of understanding religion. The trouble is that he apparently has no knowledge of what religion is. He has outgrown a crude and semi-magical concept of God, such as a child may properly hold, with no realization that grown men mean by religion something both more delicate and more complex.