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probably be avoided in Kansas, from the very fact that the pastorate proposed to have no official connection with the University. This, I think, is the true theory of the case. If the work done is efficient and acceptable, the position will get proper recognition; if the plan should prove impracticable, the faculty would have no responsibility for the experiment.

The regents of the Kansas State University have promised that when the work shall have approved itself, and established a given academic standard, it shall be recognized by assigning to it credits in an elective course, in the same way as is done with study equivalents in other departments. In other words, there shall be no prejudice created against scholarly study of the Bible because it entrenches upon the subject of religion.

It would seem that such a liberal course would help to attract students to our classes who might not otherwise join them. I know it is said that if young people wish to take Bible study, they will do so with or without the credit system. On the other hand, many come to college with small means, and with the fixed idea that all their time must be employed in working for a degree; and if they could get credit for the time employed in Bible study, they would elect it; not for the purpose of "cinch" or "bunco" that is to avoid thorough work, but to acquire scholarly and scientific methods for study of the Bible. As a matter of fact, our classes are drawn from the most earnest and intellectual groups of the student body.

A most important factor in this whole problem is the attitude taken by the student class toward this movement. The personal equation has much to do with its successful solution. Under the voluntary system proposed, you cannot attract them unless they like you. The relation is pre-eminently a confidential one, as the name "Pastor" itself implies. It must be a matter of offered help and willing response, upon a basis of thorough frankness and sympathy. In the University of Kansas we offer Bible courses, as they do elsewhere, notably in the University of Missouri; and I can say that the response has been quite flattering. Dr. Payne, of the Christian church, has for three years conducted a "Bible Chair," along lines which I have described, and with marked success; so that the experiment in our institution may be said to have passed its critical stage. The Christian church deserves the honor of being the pioneer in the founding of Bible Chairs in state universities.

The work which we propose to undertake will, however, be a larger one than the term "Bible Chair" would indicate. The "Student Pastorate" will include, in our use of it, a twofold function, the academic and the personal. Academically, we shall offer courses of study in the English Bible and its original languages; in Christian Missions, theism, and the Harmony of Science and Religion; with now

and then a Round Table, at which matters of concern to students shall have social discussion. In this way we shall attempt to put our work upon what I may call an academic foundation. I hardly see how one who comes into the University circle can command the interest of the students, unless he avowedly adopts the university spirit. Here lies his advantage over the local pastor, who stands necessarily more or less outside of the university, being "town," and not "gown." One should, if possible, reside in the student quarter, and mingle freely and constantly with the student body, to do his best work with and for the individual student.

In accordance with this theory, my home is called "Westminster House," where my wife and myself dispense a cordial hospitality to all students, not only for social intercourse, but, what also is far more important, for personal acquaintance and confidential friendship. If I conceive this problem correctly, it is in the personal touch that the real secret of helpfulness will lie. One must be able to come into close contact with young people in their thinking and their aspirations, in their strivings and their questionings, perhaps in their failings and their fallings, and if God will, in their struggles and triumphs. A young lady who took tea with us last Sabbath evening, said to my wife as she went away: "You don't know what a blessed thing it is for me to come into a home. I have been in a boarding-house ever since I came here, and I am home-sick." We have discovered that girls away at school want mothering; young men, too, want brothering. Young people need something that no college curriculum can give to them; they need a friend. Sometimes, in their heart experience they are at the parting of the ways, and they need someone to come to them, not in an official way, or with a wisdom, but with an outstretched hand and a sympathetic heart. It seems to me that this personal work, the personal equation, as I have called it, is the most important factor, after all, in this complex problem. What we need, as was reiterated to-day, is life, the life more abundant. Books alone can

not impart it. It comes through contact with others. Life alone can impart life. We must furnish our young people with those suggestive lines of study which the secular curriculum of the university is unable to furnish, and to lead them, in the most critical period of their life, to a right decision in religion. The opportunity for usefulhess thus afforded is most promising, I may say most alluring; enough to attract one from the ordinary work of the ministry into a work which has no statistics, and no growth that can be chronicled; a work which is like casting bread upon the waters, hoping it to come back after many days. It is a humble and unostentatious work, like all foundation-building; but if planned broadly, and built with the Divine materials ever at hand, it has in it the prophecy of a great superstructure for the honor of Christ and His church. Success must

crown our efforts, if we build after the Divine plan, "that our sons may be as plants, grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as cornerstones, polished after the similitude of a palace."

MISCELLANEOUS DISCUSSION

REVEREND E. L. RIVARD, C.S.V., D.D., Ph.D.

Professor in St. Viateur's College, Bourbonnais, Illinois

Nothing is more significant in the field of intellectuality and morality than the appeal made on the part of this great center of enlightenment to the Church, and consequently we welcome this movement and feel encouraged in its ultimate hope of a wise solution of problems because of the friendly unanimity with which discussion has been entered into by the diverse religious bodies here represented.

Now, it seems to me that since the appeal is made by the university to the church, that the churches must act as churches. Every church or denomination is distinct from every other by reason of the distinct meaning it takes from the Bible, the way that it looks upon religious duty, its various positive religious tenets and practices. I take it upon myself to say to you that all the parents of the young Catholic students who are here in this university will applaud any movement. that will more securely place their sons and daughters in the hands. of the residing pastor, the popular Father Cannon, Pastor of St. Patrick's Church. And I do not doubt that the parents of other students will applaud likewise any movement that will insure the propagation of their religious convictions, so that when these young men and young women leave this great institution, they will not return home with an intellectual equipment only that will insure their practical success in life, but they will return with their religious convictions deepened and broadened proportionately with their intellectual education.

It seems to me, therefore, that the work of religious education, so far as it relates to the student body, is to be done by the local churches, and the pastors must adopt such means as will seem to them best to accomplish this end through a consideration of such subjects as the evidences of Christianity, the philosophy of religion, and the treat ment of questions that are on a parallel with the mental development of the students who attend the university. It seems to me that if this method is followed out we shall reap the best results, and then we shall certainly have done our country and our State the best service that we are able to render in the present conditions.

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Copyright 1906
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PRESS OF THE ILLINOIS PRINTING COMPANY

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