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church college has greater religious power because it adds to the free association among young men the definite teaching of religion; its professors stand for something, and they have a motive to present. It is the very absence of a strong religious and moral motive which is being felt in much present-day education. But the denominational college has great opportunity to present the controlling motive because it adds to the usual duties of men the highest sanction, and hallows all relation to men by man's faith in God.

Furthermore, because religious influence is usually brought to bear upon young men thru the teaching of the Bible, the denominational college makes for greater literary efficiency of all its students. It dares to interpret not only the body, but the soul of Biblical history and truth. It does for all its students what is done for some by the general literary course of colleges, in teaching the Bible as literature. But it accomplishes more, in that not simply the linguistic form and the outward content are noted, but the inner power is permitted to have its influence.

In the presentation of religion the denominational college also leads many, who may not take any philosophical course, to consider some of the highest problems of existence, and to adjust laws of nature and postulates of science to the implications of God, immortality, righteousness, and freedom. Many church colleges still retain, even apart from religious instruction, a required philosophical course, so that the student may be led to trace facts back to first principles, and to distinguish in every science between data and inferences. It thus makes clearer and more balanced thinkers. But even when the philosophical course is not obligatory, religious instruction supplies some of the training gained in thinking about great masses of facts from great unifying principles.

There is also in religion a wonderful cultural power. It refines and elevates thoughts, feelings, and will. In such uplift there is none of the danger of mere estheticism, which often fails to make strong men thru its cultivation of admiration for beauty alone in literature, fine arts, and music. Religion makes deeply sensitive as well as strongly active men.

Because it is thus the most effective cultural power, it fulfils the cultural longings of other specific culture studies. Thru it, also, men can understand some of the most wonderful creations of all art, whether in stone, on canvas, or in tone. It is the key to the whole art of the Middle Ages. But as this art is bound up with the life and history of the Middle Ages, there can be no full understanding of this history without a realization of the religious motive. Still less can the dawn of modern history be rightly appreciated in the movement of the Reformation, unless the great intellectual, cultural, economic, social, and political changes are seen emanating from the upheaval which the religious experience, leading to freedom of conscience, brought about. Consequently, for these reasons and others, which might be named, the education that includes religion furnishes a larger key to unlock the history of the past to explain the present, than the education which neglects this fundamental fact in human life and history.

Now it may be admitted that sometimes there is a departure from the highest ideals and practises in the denominational college. Where are ideals fully carried out? It may also be true that there has at times been a lack of making all the activities and life of the church college consonant with its profession; that there have been sins of omission and commission in methods. In athletics, sins are to be named that obtain in colleges where the Christian motive is not directly emphasized. And if such wrongs are constant, a denominational college has lost its savor and is only worth being cast out and trodden underfoot. But, nevertheless, the failure to realize the ideal is no disproof of the ideal. It is entirely true that there has sometimes crept in a mechanical conception of religious education, and that there has been an educational insincerity in the claims of some denominational colleges. President Pritchett is entirely right when, in this respect, he calls those that are sinners to repentance. It is a shame and a denial of the claim of its fundamental religious attitude for a college to aspire to do what it can not do rather than to be content with the name of academy; and it is equally wrong when a legitimate college inflates itself with the name of university. However, the de

nominational college has not been the only sinner in this matter. It is also true that sometimes churches have not valued their own institutions, without which their continuance would not have been possible. But today greater activity is evident, and equipment is being brought up to modern requirements. It is a mistake, as all admit, when a church has more colleges than it needs. But the mistake, in a very few instances, does not justify the impression that there is a general overlapping.

The third attitude of President Pritchett is that "a Christian organization may take the position that all colleges and universities, being influenced by agents in the training of men, are also agencies for moral and religious influence, and therefore the Church will seek by friendly cooperation, by sympathetic fellowship, by all the means of Christian activity, to make itself a religious influence in all institutions of the higher learning without assuming their control or support."

A very important condition is touched in this position. Never are all the students of a church in its own institutions. The better it covers the field of general classical training, which is its specific problem, the less can it meet the demands of fullest scientific and technical training. Consequently many of every church will be studying beyond the direct influence of its own teachers. Now to meet this emergency it seems expedient to undertake what some churches have begun; namely, to organize their own students in every general institution. At the head of such organization there ought to be placed men of the highest type, who are in deepest sympathy with college and university ideals, and who present to the young men the truths of religion as best fitted for their stage of development. But this work can only be done best when connected with the centers of certain denominational colleges, which ought to prepare the men for such labor and stimulate to its continuance. While, therefore, a real duty is put before all churches in the last position indicated by President Pritchett, yet the efficiency of this duty will depend upon such denominational leaders as the denominational college alone can develop.

MUHLENBERG COLLEGE

JOHN A. W. Haas

VI

THE EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MINOT'S THEORY OF AGE AND GROWTH

Too little attention is given by educators to biological writings other than those purporting to have direct educational significance. True, the recapitulation theory is discust in all possible connections and certain of the more obvious facts of embryology are made use of, but, for the most part, newer discoveries and theories receive little attention. Probably very few undergraduate students of educational problems are aware that the biological world feels little interest in the recapitulation theory and does not take it seriously. Any one who reads the recent book of Professor Thomas H. Montgomery of the University of Pennsylvania can get this modern viewpoint of many biologists on this much overworked theory.

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The views on the growth of the child which are put forth by Professor Charles Sedgwick Minot of Harvard Medical School seem to be of great importance to the educator. Yet it is doubtful if the book has had any particular sale among the very people who would find it most applicable to their own work. Because it runs counter to many prevailing views and to certain firmly fixt opinions of teachers it may not receive the support from students of education which it receives from biologists.

"A study of cytomorphosis," the alternative title of Dr. Minot's book, may well frighten any but the trained biologist, but this is a case where the "bark is worse than the bite." Indeed, the book is so fascinating from start to finish that one can hardly believe himself reading a scientific treatise by one of the most distinguished of American men of science. The Analysis of racial descent in animals. The problems of age, growth, and death.

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thesis presented and defended is that old age is a natural condition, not a pathologic one, and that it is the natural result of changes in the body cells of the individual. The wellknown facts of the shrinkage in size of cell nuclei with the oncoming of age are made much of and, indeed, a discussion of the relative size of nucleus and cytoplasmic mass in the cells of the body is presented as part of nearly every chapter. "Cytomorphosis," the form of cells, must be understood if we are to know the laws which govern age, growth, and death. Increase in the amount of cytoplasm in cells loads them with an inert material rendering cells and organs less and less active as the process goes on and as age advances.

Dr. Minot calls attention to the fact that the period of greatest activity, of growth, of development, is during infancy. Old age creeps upon the individual even from the time of birth-or before; constantly lessening power of growth tells the story of Time's influence. Decline in power is most rapid in the early years; it is less during what we call the "prime of life," and least of all in the time which we are accustomed to think of as the senescent period.

Many of the facts presented are old and well-known. Others are the records of experiments carried on by Dr. Minot himself and now put into published form for the first time. The percentage growths of animals by days, weeks, and months are given, graphic representations by means of curves being effectively used. It is shown by what leaps and bounds the young animal gains in weight. In the case of the human species a table from Mühlmann calculated upon observations by Bouchard shows the percentage increments by months as follows:

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