Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1914-10-16
ADDRESS OF DR.. THOMAS

ReUSlOUS Education were uellNereu Dy
representatives of the four religious
denominations mentioned in the charter
of the institution. These speakers were:
President Edgar Y. Mullins, of the
Southern Baptist Theological seminary,
Louisville, KY; President Isaac Sharp
less, of Haverford college; President J.
NJ Thomas of Middebury college; and
Rt. Rev. James De Wolf Perry, bishop
of Rhode Island.
President Thomas, representing the
Congregationalists took his theme from
states that the main end of studies is to
know God. He dwelt upon the funda-
mental place of religion in the educa-
tiona scheme of the New England col
leges Of Congregational ancestry. He
pointed out the fact that it was not
alone in higher education, but in the
educational scheme of every grade that
religious instruction was exalted to the
highest place. He urged that the
Puritans were as sincere in this type of
education in desiring the welfare of
their children as later educators have
been, that the catechism was for the
children, not the children for the cate
chism. He raised the question how
much of the Puritan emphasis on
religion should be maintained today and
claimed that "divested of the forms of
thought and the religious manner of
particular day, their principle that the
religious motive, which is the establish
ment of freedom in the soul of man,
shall guide and inspire every study and
every instructor is as valid and valuable
as in the age when the founders of New
England education applied it so reso-
lutely and in a manner so foreign to our
thought. The main end of studies still
is the victory of the spirit in the life of
man. Our enthusiasm is to enable
youth to reach fulfllment of the promise
Thou shalt have dominion. Our
motive is the very heart of religion, the
endeavOr to establish men in security of
spirit in this world of conflict and suf-
fering and tragedy. By health of body,
keenness of mind, and intensity of will
we seek to enable them to put up
good fight; by discipline OF spirit and
nobility of character we endeavor to
lift them above every defeat, that
whatever the buffeting, battling world
may do to them, they may be secure in
inner triumph.
with this holy ambition we can not
deny our fellowship with the prophets.
1t is a religious benefit we are seeking
to bestow. We may not have called it
such, but our conservation to the high
calling Of leading youth to victory that
overcometh the world is faith.
AS to courses in the Bible and reli-
gious history, President Thomas said =
There is no department in which the
instructor needs more to remember
that he is teaching, not primarily sub
ject, but men, than the department of
| Biblical literature. Religion cannot be
taught disinterestedly, as pure
science. 1t has to do with vital concerns
of those who learn and with the deepes t
problems of their life. They can not be
kept in the class room from inquiry as
to what they shall believe and what
principles they shall adopt. They should
not be kept from such searchings of
heart as to personal convictions when
they study the faiths and the struggles
for faith of the human race. They have
a right to expect that their own serious
interests shall be borne in mind and that
some light may dawn for them on the
problems of their own souls. Any course
in religion, scientific though it must be
in method, with full welcome to the
severest critical analysis and respect
for its results, must nevertheless have
its bearing on the permanent religious
problems of men, which were never
more pressing than at the present
day.
'The Old and New Testaments are
literature, but they are literature quick
with summons to duty, with rally calls
to faith, with direct application to the
individual. The writings of prophets.
psamists and apostles are not truly
taught and interpreted as mere ltera-
ture, with questions of date and author
ship and style; they are messages to the
souls of men, and they are justly in
terpreted only when their truth flashes
direct to the conscience of the man who
out any glow of enthusiasm for beauty
as to instruct from Isaiah and Paul
without spiritual appeal.
Religious instruction in our college
has failed of its largest effect because
it has not been sufficiently religious. In