Albuquerque evening citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1905-1907, 1905-10-13
THE PLACE OF THE CHURCH
IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION
Edmund F. James in Chicago Tribune

First of all, it is perfectly evident that this country
never will permit the church as such to control in any
vital way, through its own ecclesiastical organs, the
higher education of the community. There is a growing
of the fact that, however much modern socie.
ty may owe to the church in the past for its efforts on
behalf of higher education, and however beneficial its &C
tivity may be in the future in behalf of the same cause,
we never shall permit church authorities, priest or
preacher, Catholic or Protestant, Jew or gentle, to die
tate to the American people what the form or function
of its scheme of higher education shall be.
On the other hand, l believe it is equally true that
the American people will not in any time within our pos.
sible precision consent to an aboslute monopoly of the
field of higher education by the institutions of the state,
such as is accorded in nearly every country of continent
al Europe today. In other words, We are destined to
have, in my opinion, as we have now in the field of high
er education, three distinct types of institution: The
state supported, state controlled university, expressing
one side of the life and work and aspiration of the com
munity, an absolutely indispensable and everincreasng
element Of power and influence in the system of higher
education; in the second place a non-sectarian, undenom-
national private institution, devoted solely to the same
work as the state institution, occupying, however, as
time goes on, also a position of supplemental and sec
ondary Importance TO the system Of state universities;
and, finally, a system of colleges and universities in i'm
mediate connection with the church as such-with the
different denominations as such-though we may hope
there will be some diminution in the number of such de
nominations, and, consequently, a simplification of the
system of education itself. But we shall have a system
of schools supported by-controlled by. to a certain ex-
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which builds up the church; these institutions express
ing another side of our national life equally necessary,
equally fundamental, to those represented by the other
classes of institutions.
If we were to close all the schools supported by the
church, we should deal an almost irremediable blow to
the system of higher education. Consequently, in the
interests of the community itself pure and simple, with
no reference to the church at all, it would be a serious
injury to the interests of higher education if the church
should no longer take that active and keen interest in il
which has been characteristic of the church from the
beginning.
The church should continue this attitude of interest
and support to higher institutions because, even if the
state were willing and able financially to undertake the
function, to occupy the field in a satisfactory way, it still
does not lie in the interest of the community that the i'm
portant interests of the higher education should be en-
tirely in the hands of the state. Even if we approve, as
/ do, of a state supported system of education from the
kindergarten through the Professional school; even if we
believe, as l do. that the state should support such a
chain of institutions by public taxation for the benefit of
the community, it is still true that the exclusive domina-
tion of higher education by the state is not in the inter
ests of a free people. We see today in all countries of
continental Europe an illustration of the field of higher
education by the state, which means, of course, by the
state government; and Germany affords a most striking
example Of a great and powerful nation which has ac
cepted the principle of state control of university educa-
ton TO the exclusion of church or private cooperation.