Colleges in America

by John Marshall Barker

We grant that Christian character can only be incidentally produced through the subjects studied. The same study may be taught in different ways, and with entirely different results. The intellectual processes involved in study do not necessarily exert a spiritual influence. The aim and spirit of the professor and student will determine whether the study pursued shall contribute to the cultivation of greater reverence and exaltation of the soul. The charm of scientific study may so occupy the student's attention as to exclude all thoughts of the spiritual and eternal, or he may "look through nature up to nature's God." The student may be so absorbed with the human events and material conditions of history as to overlook the light of God's presence and guiding hand in it all.

To be liberally educated in Christian America, one should have a knowledge of the English Bible. It is the fountain and conservator of pure English and the storehouse of the most inspiring thought. Its classic beauty and lofty speculations and sublime morality are essential to a liberal education. "Froude calls the Bible the best of all literatures. Daniel Webster read the Bible through every year for its effect upon his mind. Charles Sumner kept the Bible at his elbow on his desk, and could find any passage without a concordance. Great men have found the Bible a great inspiration. But not this alone—as a great and inspiring literature,—but as a source of spiritual life and power, the Bible is the basis of true collegiate growth."

The study of the English Bible in colleges is important in developing the will and the conscience, and in evoking religious feelings which have a practical influence on conduct. It certainly imparts a vigorous character to education, and brings men face to face with the facts of sin and its remedy. The presence of Christianity in the intellectual life of the student is corrective of selfishness and other vices which enslave the intellect and render life a disastrous failure.

It is encouraging to note that the study of the Bible is finding a place in the American college curriculum on a level with other studies, and time is allotted to attain a certain intellectual mastery of it. The active class instruction is as exacting and exhausting as any part of the college course. The student is led to trace the historic movements and to perceive the organic character, the literary forms and personal factors in its composition. The inductive method adopted develops original and independent students of the Word. The intellectual, devotional, and practical ends attained by this study are a powerful factor in upholding and maintaining the moral and spiritual character of the students.

Another method is that of religious worship. Students living in a community with a separate intellectual and social life should be required to meet daily for religious worship and instruction. The sacred moments spent in the college chapel by the whole college community are an appropriate recognition of the worth and power of the Christian religion, and do something to meet the spiritual needs and aspirations of the human soul. The daily gathering of the academic body to listen to a brief but suggestive exposition of scripture, and to unite in praise and prayer, cultivates reverence and devotion in the student, and will be regarded by many of them in after years as among the most delightful experiences in college life. If the religious services are not made perfunctory, but attractive and inspiring, in college, the students may pass to the university in their maturer years with devotional habits, and, likely, to avail themselves of its voluntary system of daily religious exercises.

The colleges should ever keep in view the original aim of the founders to make them centers of evangelical power. Piety, however, should not be a substitute for honest scholarly work. They should never permit their enthusiasm for an intellectual training and the growth of the sciences to obscure or conceal Him who is the Light and Life of all men. Their immediate and primary aim should be to promote intellectual culture, but this in nowise involves a departure from the spirit of the forefathers who made them agencies for defending and propagating the gospel, and for leading the youth to remember that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

It is evident, then, that the function of the college is to unfold the intellectual, physical, moral, and spiritual life of the young people, and especially to form character that shall be fully equipped for carrying out the divine purpose of life.

THE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE.

Another function of the American college is to extend the objective field of knowledge. The enlarged range of knowledge in our day is owing principally to the clear thinking and earnest, original, productive work done by college professors and students. They have done more to extend the empire of thought than any other class of intellectual workers. The college is the home of the arts and sciences, and it exists to teach and promote them. Professors should have the ability and the time, more and more, to make investigations, to extend the domain of truth, and to give philosophical and scientific guidance to the nation.

The university proper, as now being developed, regards as its special function the training of men for research and professional work. Its ample facilities and its methods of work give advanced students rare privileges in any department of research.