The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-25

TO The deeper and higher exercise OF re-
hgious thought and feeling. This is why
intel ectuai training is accompanied with
keener religious convictions than is the
shop, where the productive principle of
division of labor tends to repression of
thought and the reduction of man to a
machine. The great religious reform of
the eighteenth century came from Oxford
and not from London.
There is, then, even among Protestants,
demand for colleges which shall; at least,
afford moderate religious culture in a
positively religious atmosphere.
This demand is met in California as we'll
as in the other States of our Union, almost
altogether by UNCONVENTIONAL schools. and
these have much the same characteristics
here as east of the Rocky Mountains. The
direct religious training which they offer
consists usually in stated religious services
and the study of the Bible about once
week in the regular curriculum. By incl
dental effort the necessity of vital faith
and personal religious experience is i'm
pressed.
If all the Protestant colleges in the
State could be united into one institution
it might easily become as powerful and
attractive as its secular rivals The differ
ent sects are becoming tolerant of each
other ana even moderately cooperative,
as Is shown in the movement to give San
Francisco Bible school; but we have yet
10 see religious denominations unite in
establishing Christian university.
Our magnificent State University thrives
upon public funds gathered from the entire
State, and the members of the churches
bear their part of the burden of making
this secular instruction free. Then if they
want religious college for their sons and
daughters they must provide it at their
own expense. This burden has been so
great that free tuition in such schools has
been found practicable. Under these
conditions many Christian parents. who
think that they can give their boy or girl
liberal education with free tuition and not
without, are practically excluded from the
institution of their choice.
The competition between the religious
college and the State University is very
unequal also because of the close alliance
Of the State University with the leading
high schools of the State. The effort to
promote directly from the accredited high
schools into the freshman class at Berkeley
has been largely successful and is likely to
succeed in the future not less than in the
past.
Another disability of the religious
colleges is the instability of their teaching
force. One essential of a strong college is
that it shall secure the best available men
for its faculty, pay them enough to make
them content and keep them as long as
possible. The permanent instructors con-
stitute the strength and continuity of
educational institutions and bind fast the
friendship of the graduates as would be
impossible if, on revisiting their alma
mater, they should find themselves among
entire strangers. Yet probably in none of
the Protestant colleges of California can
professors be found who have served as
long a term of Office as many in the
younger institution at Berkeley. A promi-
nent cause of this instability in denomina-
tional schools may be found in their
ecclesiastical government though not
essential to it.
The very weakness OF religious colleges
is source of some secular advantages. A
paucity of the students enables the teach
er to give more careful attention to the
needs of individual students. Lack of
funds prevents the elective system beirg
carried to excess.
A college without millions of endow-
ment is in no danger OF multiplying
courses so as to draw students away to
any great extent from the essentials of a
liberal education. In times past the bach
elor's degree has had definite significance as
regards the requirements and competency
of the graduate. Now it may stand for
nothing in particular above the high
school course-except that whatever the
student has done, the faculty under which
he has worked Judge it enough to occupy
a man for four years. This makes good
specialists at the expense of general Gull
ture and sometimes of literary respecta-
bility as WELL
The tendency of the hour is to set back
four years the branching point where the
student turns from his general education
to preparation for his special calling
from the end to the beginning of the col
lege course. This is the usual American
extravaganza. We overdo many things
There is a need, already recognized by
some educators besides President Eliot of
Harvard, of some adjustment of college
methods that will bring the student
through his professional studies a few
wears Ludu LIE GU
permits. Possibly two years may be res
cued from his baccalaureate course with
out crippling his general literary COM
potency. But when the great universities
say that he may start as freshman upon
his professional studies, the weaker college
financially may take higher ground and
soon furnish more than its proportion of
the statesmen and scholars of the future.
This is easily within the reach of the de-
nominational colleges of California, if
they will but endow their chairs and in
sist upon the highest efficiency in their
instructors.
Beyond the college course proper the re-
ligious attitude of instructors is regarded
with comparative Indifference. A man is
never so old that he cannot become skepti-
cal or immoral, but though Goethes Faust
sold himself to the devil after taking his
Ph.D., yet most students either sell them
selves earlier or not at all.
If any OF our bachelors of arts wish to
pursue their professional studies under re-
ligious auspices they usually patronize
LII. L