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Michigan School of Religion
- Ann Arbor
Inaugural Meeting
Detroit, Friday, January 26, 1933
Attended by three hundred forty-
two men and women representing
Adrian Flint Northville
Ann Arbor Grand Rapids Pontiac
Bay City Jackson Port Huron
Birmingham Kalamazoo Royal Oak
Detroit Lansing Saginaw
Farmington Muskegon Ypsilanti
Under the auspices of the Executive
Committee of the Board of Trustees
Alexis C. Angell, Chairman
Harry C. Bulkley James Inglis
Luman W. Goodenough Willard Pope
Paul R. Gray John R. Russel
Julian H. Harris Stanley F. Stevens
Ryerson Ritchie, Executive Secretary
Program of the Evening
Hon. Alexis C. Angell, Presiding
The Gap in Modern Education Page 5
President Marion LeRoy Burton, Ph. D., Litt. D.
University of Michigan
The New School of Religion Page 10
Prof. Charles Foster Kent, Ph. D., Litt. D.
Yale University
The Trend in Modern Civilization Page 17
Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, LL. D. New York
Hotel Statler, at dinner
Statement of Purposes and Plans
During the past thirty years, more than three hundred
departments of Biblical Literature have been established at
privately endowed colleges. State laws, however, prevent
the teaching of religion at most state universities. Their
quarter of a million students have the same fundamental
needs as those at privately endowed colleges and universities.
The student attitude is primarily and properly intellectual.
To meet the needs of students in these institutions, they
must be able to treat religion as one of the great provinces of
human knowledge and interest; to study and make it their
own in the same intelligent and effective way that they do
history or economics or any other university subject. To
meet this fundamental demand is the aim of the Michigan
School of Religion which is to be established at Ann Arbor.
Careful preliminary surveys conducted by the national
Council of Schools of Religion, and the work of a committee
of thirty at the University of Michigan, have made it clear
that the needs of the situation, the interest of faculty and
alumni and friends, and the rich but uncorrelated religious
resources at Ann Arbor all call for a school of religion in close
proximity to the University that will co-operate and sup-
plement these resources and provide for the undergraduates
and others adequate moral and religious instruction.
The School will fill a serious gap in the University cur-
riculum and provide a Department of Religion in which all
its undergraduates may elect courses. Such a school should
promote research and investigation in the history. science
and practice of religion, and it should enlist and train graduate
students for services in fields for which at present there is no
adequate provision.
The administration of the School will be vested in a board
of trustees to be constituted so as to ensure a graduate school
of the highest intellectual and educational standing. The
Woman's Advisory Board will include a stated number of the
leading women of the state; it will co-operate with the Board
of Trustees, and generally promote the concern and activity
of women in the fields of religious education and service.
Faculty:
Officers of Administration – Dean.
General Faculty-professor of Religious Education.
Instructor in the History and Science of Religion.
Instructor in the Expansion of Christianity.
Additional Instructors in the School of Religion.
Professors of the State University whose courses
are incorporated in the curriculum.
Lecturers on Applied Religion.
Faculty Committees.
Administrative Committee, to decide questions of
policy, curriculum, appointments and discipline;
to include the officers of administration and in-
Structors.
Curriculum:
The first aim is to offer certain comprehensive courses, cor-
responding in general character to the Freshman universal
history course which is being introduced into many of the
leading colleges and universities. These courses will give each
undergraduate, in whatever department he is working, an
opportunity to gain a knowledge of the great religious heri-
tages of the race and to develop a practical working philoso-
phy of life that will enable him to qualify as an intelligent
and effective citizen.
Estimate of Cost:
An approximate estimate of the cost of founding, endowing
and establishing the Michigan School of Religion has been
made by the provisional Board of Trustees; this places the
cost of site and building at $500,000; endowments fer ad-
ministrative, executive, incidental expenses and maintenance,
$175,000; endowments for Deanship, chair of Religious Ed-
ucation, Directorate of community and expansion work and
for Library, Research, Special lectures, Instruction, etc.,
$525,000; the aggregate cost amounting to $1,200,000.
Outstanding Facts
There are a quarter of a million students in tax-supported
colleges and universities in this country. There are ten thou-
sand students in the University of Michigan and sixteen hun-
dred in the Michigan Agricultural College, a total of eleven
thousand, six hundred.
The future education of the American people will increas-
ingly depend upon the work done in these tax-supported in-
stitutions. The student of today is the leader of the thought
f tomorrow.
In the next decade and a half, more than a million of Ameri-
ca's best minds will be instructed in tax-supported institutions
of higher education which cannot now supply full instruction
in the philosophy, literature and history of religion.
On account of a fixed provision in our laws one of the most
important fields of human thought is necessarily omitted in
the instruction given in these institutions. A stricter inter-
pretation of that provision has been for many years increas-
ingly employed.
One cannot appeal to the student mind, during its forma-
tive years, except by making the history and philosophy of
religion a serious part of its intellectual pursuits.
What the world needs today is men of great meral leader-
ship in government, in the professions, in business and the
home.
There is a close connection between the world's crying need
and this gap in our educational system.
If this gap is to be filled it must be done by private enter-
prise, in a way so broad as to give expression to what is best
in every faith. -
There is an increasing body of thoughtful men and women
in this country who believe that this can be done and the
Michigan School of Religion represents the first step in a
nation-wide movement to make our education in the highest
sense practical and to give youth their moral and religious
birthright.
The Gap in Modern Education
Dr. Marion LeRoy Burton
The subject that is before us tonight is not an easy one. It
has many complications, and inevitably carries with it a
heritage which might very easily lead to misunderstandings
and misinterpretations. We are dealing, too, with certain
forces which, while they have been strong in the past, are
liable to be even stronger in the future.
As I thought of our gathering tonight, it seemed to me that,
in a sense, we are dealing with the future of two of the most
potent and gigantic forces that have been shaping civilization
for centuries. I think that it is possible to discover the future,
to use a phrase of Mr. Wells; I believe that if we have an
adequate understanding of the past, and some knowledge of
the forces which are in operation about us, that it is possible
for us to sense what the future is going to be. I am of the im-
pression, too, that a person is great, largely in proportion as
he has capacity to deal with the future. I believe a person is
significant, not as he is driven out of the past, but as he is
lowered into the future, and it is largely from this point of
view that I want to think with you about two outstanding
phases of the situation that is before us tonight.
I am conscious that my friend and former teacher, Professor
Kent of Yale University, will tell you more specifically about
the plans which are under consideration, and I am also fully
aware that you are here tonight, not to hear me but to hear
Mr. Vanderlip, so I shall be very brief; but I shall, from the
point of view of an educator, say probably two things which
lie at the base of the problem with which we are dealing.
My first proposition is this: that we must anticipate the
leadership of public education in America immediately. For
many of you, that affects seriously some of your most in-
timate loyalties. I mean that the day is coming speedily
when we shall have the public acknowledgment that institu-
tions supported by taxation must lead education in America.
I hasten to add at once that I believe thoroughly in a dual
system of education. I believe one of the things that makes
American education what it is at the present moment is the
fact that on the one hand we have—from the kindergarten to
5
the professional school-units, agencies, institutions, organized
and maintained by the people through taxation. On the other
hand we have a group of institutions organized and supported
by private gifts. While we believe in this dual system the
fact remains that the future is with the tax-supported institu-
tion, whether you speak of the public schools, or the high
schools or of the universities. President Eliot, of Harvard
University, as early as 1910 announced this conclusion. So I
shall not be accused of saying anything that is strikingly new.
I imagine, in the minds of many of the people in this room
tonight, there is an unquestioned assumption that a tax-sup-
ported institution, ipso facto, cannot do the things it should
do, and there is likewise the knowledge or assumption that a
privately-endowed institution is, ipso facto, of a higher grade,
and characterized by a better demonstration of culture and
refinement than a tax-supported or public institution; that
there is the constant assumption that it is quite impossible for
a free people so to organize a university that it shall be en-
tirely free from political interference. I am of the impression
that the forces of the public educational system of America
have set themselves to work speedily to deny those assump-
tions, to admit none of these arguments, and by the sheer quali-
ty of their worth, to claim their rightful place of leadership in
American life. And this is a large problem for democracy.
Whether we like it or not, whether we are aware of it or not,
the simple fact remains that there are multitudes of people
today, who by preference, will insist upon sending their sons
and daughters to tax-supported institutions, and if they do so,
it is highly important for the body politic, and for the future
of American civilization, that these people shall have con-
fidence in the institutions to which they send their sons and
daughters. I believe that if we think clearly, we will take no
exception to the assertion that publicly endowed institutions
shall be just as fine in their spirit, just as well-equipped and
manned with just as strong personalities as any institution
that can be provided by private means.
I argue first, for the leadership of a tax-supported educa-
tional system, and it is not easy to say that to a group such as
this. Secondly, if this is to be done, the inevitable corollary
of this is that by some method, we shall be in position to re-
cognize the primacy of character in education.
There is no need of emphasizing here the uncontrovertible
truth that every type of education depends upon the char-
6
acter of the individual citizen, and any system of education
which fails to develop character, to provide, if you please, the
necessary sanctions for worthy living, and to establish a real
dynamic force; any system of education, I say, which fails to
do these things, is doomed to failure. That is my second pro-
position – they are logically related – and I believe you
recognize, in the second proposition, the gap, as it has been
called, in modern American education.
Unless there is some method by which the tax-supported
educational system of America can make it perfectly evident
to discriminating fathers and mothers that the primacy of
character is recognized in the educational system, then we
cannot hope for the results which are so essential to American
democracy.
I wonder, sometimes, why it is that discriminating parents
choose for their sons and daughters, institutions founded upon
private foundations. They say that it is because in these in-
stitutions they believe the influences of religion are more po-
tent, that an atmosphere of culture and refinement prevails,
and they are a little surer of certain qualities of character than
in the tax-supported institutions. They have the indelible
impression that in the privately endowed institution there are
now in operation those things which will make for real ap-
preciation of character, and of religion, and develop a sense
of values which takes recognition of a spiritual world. There
is a sound element of truth in that assumption and I believe
the most serious difficulty in American education at the pre-
sent moment, lies just at this point.
If our institutions of higher learning are going to make a
contribution to the thought of America, it will be because we
gradually develop a generation of citizens who come to under-
stand that thought is not merely the making of phrases.
There is a curious inability, apparently, to understand what we
mean when we speak of the things which are eternal. Here we
come very close to the problem we have upon our handstonight.
I beg of you to remember that we believe unequivocally in
the sound principle of the separation of church and state. I do
not believe that there is any solution of this fundamental diffi-
culty in American education by any effort to introduce re-
ligious teachings into tax-supported systems of education. I
am of the impression that it simply cannot be done. Our fore-
fathers, with considerable finality, took care of that question,
and we are reaping the benefit of their wisdom. I am equally
7
convinced that our forefathers, when they established this
kind of an educational system, never for one instant assumed
that it would be an irreligious or non-religious system in its
effect upon the mind and heart of the student.
I believe that wise and judicious citizens can find a method,
without violating the principle to which I have alluded, of
supplementing our educational system that is supported by
taxation, in such a way that this element of fundamental
truth shall be introduced into it. I am of the impression that
sooner or later there will come a bold, courageous prophet
who will interpret this principle of the separation of church
and state in terms which are distinctly new, and without for
one instant violating its fundamental assumptions, and I be-
lieve, possibly, that we have in this room tonight a prophet of
that sort, and that we are very close to the meeting of the
problem which will help in satisfying some of our dissatis-
faction concerning education today.
I believe that we shall have in our tax-supported educa-
tional system those things which we want, just in proportion
as we come, as citizens, to understand that we must recognize
the primacy of character, regardless of theological interpreta-
tions, in every system of education.
America will find her way back satisfactorily, only as again
religion establishes its sovereignty in American life. The diffi-
culty, the moment you say a thing of that kind, is this: people
have so many widely misunderstood interpretations of re-
ligion. The moment you speak of religion, people have a
great many false identifications of it. They think that religion
is an attitude of life which runs off into the dark. Every
time you come to a problem which can be settled, they im-
agine that religion is synonymous with all the varying
stages of thought, which, through the centuries, have been
used as an explanation for religion. Just as Dr. Strong used
to say, “Theology has exactly the same relationship to re-
ligion as a book on botany has to a growing plant:” you
may, in your laboratories, change many of your biological
theories without in the slightest degree affecting the fra-
grancy or the vitality of the plant as it grows. There is a
sharp distinction between religion and the thought processes
by means of which we endeavor to interpret this definitely
permanent element of human life.
Unless we come to understand that religion is a supremely
necessary thing, then the sooner we quit talking about it, as
8
related to the educated youth of our day, the better it will
be. I am glad that my subject logically and inevitably led
to this point of view. Unless we can find a religion which is
not in the slightest degree inconsistent with the modern
scientific point of view, then I am of the impression that there
is no question but that we won't have much of a religion. I am
of the impression that there is absolutely no conflict whatever
between a perfectly sane, scientific point of view, and a tho-
roughly religious and devotional point of view. The two
things go together.
As the days go on, the discussion in regard to this subject
should clarify people's minds regarding education, which
stands for intelligence, for some scientific understanding of
that marvelous background that gives meaning to life, and
those other beautiful things which, through the centuries,
have ministered to the sorrowing and troubled hearts of man-
kind. We shall come to see that the fundamental realities of
life are essentially spiritual; that when we sit in Orchestra
Hall and listen to the symphony, that it is not only the horn
upon which the player blows, or the instrument upon which
he plays, that gives significance and meaning to it, but it is
that curious something which, after all, gives value and mean-
ing to the whole thing; so, when you stand before the picture,
it is not the figures, it is not the frame, it is not the canvas,
but it is that great something I speak of, something in you
which gives value and meaning to all of it.
Life is rich and bountiful and satisfactory, just in propor-
tion as the things which are seen are temporary, but the things
which are unseen are eternal. Religion is this kind of a thing.
It is not what we sometimes make it out to be. It is not un-
scientific; it is something which contends that there is spirit-
ual reality in the universe. I submit to you that there must
be some method by which this point of view can be incorpor-
ated in American education without doing violence to the
principle of the separation of church and state. If we can get
this point of view, I believe that education will be more vital,
and democracy will be more real, and that life will be more
satisfactory.
The New School of Religion
Dr. Charles Foster Kent
A brilliant Czecho-Slovakian genius has written a play that
has set us all to thinking. Its title is “The World We Live
In.” In a series of dramatic scenes he presents the trends of
our modern civilization. First, the butterflies appear –
those who flit from flower to flower in pursuit of beauty and
happiness. Then the drab, dour beetles, that grub in the
earth and store away its treasure in dark, musty holes, pre-
empt the stage. Next, the ants, emblems of social and in-
dustrial efficiency, are seen at their task of developing the
material resources of the earth. Soon they divide into two
armies and quarrel as to which shall have the right to pass
betwen two blades of grass. Immediately all their efficiency
and stored-up resources are converted into instruments of
killing, and the suicidal war is on which leaves the stage a
scene of slaughter and utter ruin.
This all too true picture of our present civilization also re-
flects the characteristics of our modern system of education.
With marvelous skill we have taught youth the habits of
butterflies, beetles and ants. Our chief emphasis has been
placed on training super-insects that can gather and store
away material possessions. But of the things of the spirit
which differentiate from insects and brutes, we have taught
them little. It is well for us to frankly confess that we have
given them everything except that which is most vital and
practical.
Youth today is beginning to demand a higher and more
practical education. Sometimes their attitude reminds us of
the warring Irishman who does not know what he wants and
is unhappy because he cannot get it. The present generation
also represents an extreme reaction against the habits of our
grandfathers who wore their hearts on their sleeves and were
constantly talking about the state of their souls. On the whole
the reaction is wholesome, for it represents absolute sincerity.
But most of our youth have reacted so far that they are
almost afraid to confess that they have souls.
There are many indications, however, that the pendulum is
swinging back to its normal position. They are tired of sec-
10
tarian squabbles and care little for metaphysical discussion.
Never were the youth and men and women of affairs as in-
terested as they are today in real religion. Having stood for a
hundred and twenty-seven hours during the last year, while
state university students poured in a steady stream of ques-
tions, I know whereof I speak. At first the questions were
asked hesitatingly, almost apologetically; but when the
barriers were down, they came in like a flood and revealed
unsuspected depths of thought and interest.
A man who has recently developed into a great teacher con-
fided to me a few days ago the secret of his success; “Once I
thought only of the subject I was teaching. Now, I think
chiefly of the man in the seat before me.” What does youth,
in the seat before us, want that our modern educational
system has failed to give them.
In the large, they want a philosophy of life that will fit
the world of reality revealed to us by the riper experience of
the race and by the transforming discoveries of science. A
creed formulated when everyone believed that the world was
flat and that the sun revolved about the earth does not
satisfy this normal craving. May I quote as an illustration
from a manifesto recently prepared and signed by four hun-
dred and fifty of the four hundred and fifty-one students at
one of our mid-west denominational colleges:
“There is a new reformation needed. We have passed
through a modern period which parallels the Renaissance,
marked by a succession of brilliant inventions, scientific
discoveries and the rise of social studies and modern Biblical
criticism. These have been as influential in enlarging our
conceptions as were the discoveries of Columbus. A new
humanism has arisen, in conflict with the scholasticism of
our day. For many years there has been gathering a revolt
against the incredible and inhuman assumption of theolo-
gians who can affirm the infallibility of the Bible and con-
demn the human race to hell without winking. A better,
saner, truer conception of life and history, of human nature,
of religion itself, must take the place of cruel creeds that
have dominated and bullied our intelligence already too
long. It is time for the religion of Jesus to get a chance."
Youth feels the need today for something more satisfying
than the divergent creeds of the churches. They are eager to
know not merely about God, but how to get into harmonious
touch with Him. They recognize vaguely that He is speaking
to them through the beauty of the flowers and sunset, that
His character is revealed in the boundless, orderly heavens
and in that marvelous structure of the atom which is a uni-
verse in itself; that He looks at them often through the eyes
of those who love them. They crave for a faith that will ex-
plain all these experiences and embody the highest visions of
truth and reality vouchsafed to the noblest prophets of the
race. They dimly realize that in the Hebrew prophets
and Jesus that vision became fullest and simplest and most
satisfying; but their knowledge is exceedingly vague. They
desire, too, a philosophy of life that will carry them through
the temptations and crises that confront them on every side.
They demand a satisfactory explanation of that upward urge
of life which science reveals, and they are seeking a worthy
goal for all their endeavors.
Whatever be our religious training or point of view, we will
all agree as students of history that religion has been the only
force that, in the hour of crisis, has saved civilization from
collapse. Voices as divergent as those of H. G. Wells and
Bernard Shaw bear testimony to the same fundamental
truth. So it was in the first Christian century when the life-
giving gospel of the Son of Man was injected into the veins of
decadent Rome. Later, when old England was threatened with
moral and physical ruin, Wicliffe translated certain parts of
the Bible into the language of the common people, and thus
through his trained lay readers educated the ignorant masses
and thus saved the nation. Again, when England was on the
verge of moral collapse, the Wesleys, working in the Univer-
sity of Oxford, averted the threatened disaster.
Today no one man or university can meet the world's
crying need. Only as the strong and dauntless men of all
faiths work together and, through our great universities,
satisfy the demands of youth and train them to go forth and
teach humanity the moral and spiritual laws of the universe,
can we save our civilization.
There are many hopeful indications that the higher educa-
tional institutions of America are awakening to their re-
sponsibilities. During the past thirty years about three hun-
dred departments of Biblical literature have been created in
our privately-supported colleges. In many institutions chairs
of religious education, psychology of religion and applied
Christianity are being established.
| 2
The ninety tax-supported universities and colleges in
America present a difficult problem, for most of them were
founded when religion was defined in terms of sectarianism.
As a result laws and judicial decisions preclude most of them
from having departments of religion. We are, therefore, con-
fronted by the anomaly of great institutions of higher learning
which teach almost every known subject from psychology
to folk and aesthetic dancing and the physical and moral
culture of pigs and hens, and yet they fail to teach the most
important subject in the whole field of human learning. The
recognition of this fatal gap has led to the establishment of
germinal schools of religion in connection with ten of our
great state universities. So eager are the administrative
officers and faculties of these state universities to welcome
this supplement to their curriculum that they have granted
from eight to twenty hours semester credit for work done
by their students in these schools at their gates.
The importance and vastness of this problem led to the
formation of the national Council of Schools of Religion. This
institution was launched last March at the home of Mr. Frank
A. Vanderlip and owes much to his broad statesmanship. It
has on its Board of Trustees such men as Judge Henry Wade
Rogers, who is its Chairman, Cleveland E. Dodge, Dr. Harry
E. Fosdick, Mr. Edwin F. Gay, Prof. Jeremiah W. Jenks,
Judge Alton B. Parker, Mr. George Foster Peabody, Mr.
Lloyd W. Smith, Mr. Samuel Thorne, Jr., Mr. Roger H. Wil-
liams and Mr. Vanderlip. On its Advisory Committee, of
of which Dr. Anson Phelps Stokes is chairman, and its Com-
mittee on Educational Policy, of which Mr. Marquis Eaton
of Chicago is Chairman, it has sixty of the leading educators
and men of affairs of America, including the presidents of six
of the larger state universities, many deans, as well as the
heads of the germinal schools of religion. Among its advi-
sors are such experienced educators as president-emeritus
Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, Dr. John H. Finley and Com-
missioner Graves of New York, and such leaders in the educa-
tional work of the various churches as Bishop McDowell,
Bishop Nicholson, Dr. W. P. Merrill and Dr. Robert L.
Kelly. On its three commissions are found sixty of the out-
standing specialists in the field of religion, including univer-
sity and college professors and the presidents and deans of
the leading theological seminaries.
I 3
The primary aim of this Council, which has asked me to act
as its Director, is to make careful surveys of the religious re-
sources of certain great state university centers and to co-
operate with local committees and alumni and friends in
perfecting the organization of local schools and religion, in
securing funds necessary for their launching, in developing
their curricula and educational policy and in building their
faculties.
After a careful survey of the religious resources of several
of the large state universities in the middle west, the officers
of the Council decided that Ann Arbor was by far the most
favorable center at which to co-operate in building a great
state school of religion that would be a model for those to be
established later in connection with other state universities.
The central position of the State of Michigan also means that
any important movement inaugurated here will extend east,
south and west. The reasons why Ann Arbor was chosen were
multiple. The first was the pre-eminent standing of the Uni-
versity and the emphasis which it has placed on the training
for broad citizenship. Chief among the many reasons was the
interest shown in establishing such a school. For more than a
year a committee of thirty, under the chairmanship of Profes-
sor Horace L. Wilgus of the Michigan Law School, have been
perfecting plans for the Michigan School of Religion. Indeed,
it was primarily to co-operate with this and similar com-
mittees at other universities that the Council of Schools of
Religion was formed.
The response of the graduates and friends of the University
to this plan has been most gratifying and significant. By
educators throughout the country this plan is being watched
with keenest interest. It is regarded as the most important
and promising step in modern education. Already from
many state university centers are coming requests that
similar schools be developed. The State of Michigan, there-
fore, stands today in the unique position of leadership. We
need the thought and interest and co-operation of those who
realize that education is the foundation and bulwark of demo-
cracy and that real religion is the heart of education.
It is proposed therefore, by private endowment and under
the direction of an independent board of trustees, to make it
possible for the students of the University to take religious
courses at the School which, in accordance with precedents
already established, will count toward their graduation. It
14
proposes to secure as professors in this school, educators who
will rank in scholarship and personal character equally with
the deans and professors in the University.
The Michigan School of Religion aims to provide instruc-
tion for three distinct groups of university students. The
first, the largest and in many ways the most important group
are the undergraduates. They are the ones who will go forth
to become engineers, physicians, lawyers and business men
and women. Upon them will largely devolve the responsi-
bilities.of home, and church, and community, and themoulding
of our present civilization. Today these students are not re-
ligious or irreligious, but simply unreligious. As a rule their
ignorance regarding the history, literature and fundamental
principles of religion is deplorable. Even though they are in-
tensely interested in vital religious questions, our modern
system of education has given them neither the facts nor the
training necessary for the formation of valid conclusions in
this most important field of human knowledge. Our first re-
sponsibility, therefore, in the School of Religion, is to offer
broad, constructive courses that will give them the facts and
that will enable these undergraduates to work out for them-
selves a practical philosophy of life.
The second aim is to meet the needs of the increasing body
of students in our state institutions who enter college with
the intention of preparing for leadership in the field of religi-
ous or social service. Many of these students, coming into
contact with the scientific courses of the university, lose their
vision of future service. As we all know, the wastage here is
great. The School aims to direct their work from the first and
to aid them toward a true valuation of their scientific studies.
At the same time it seeks to give them a broad and solid foun-
dation for their future graduate work.
The third aim is to offer graduate courses which will enable
students having the required training and ability and with red
blood in their veins and real religion in their hearts to qualify
for effective leadership in certain fields of religious and social
service for which adequate facilities are not now
available.
The present courses and instructors in the University of
Michigan furnish a background for the Michigan School of
Religion which could not be duplicated for many millions of
dollars. The laboratory work and the courses already offered
by the religious workers in the University are another valu-
15
able asset. The School aims to co-ordinate these resources
and to supplement them wherever necessary.
A building is required as a center for religious instruction
in the University. It should include an audience room for the
larger lectures and classes, a well-equipped department library
and reading-room and smaller seminary and consultation
rooms where professors and students may come into that
close personal touch which William's men still describe as
sitting with “Mark Hopkins at the other end of the log.”
Careful estimates are being made to determine the sum re-
quired to build as the vast possibilities of the work require.
Finally, let us ask the practical question. What will the
Michigan School of Religion mean to the State and to
America? We may answer it categorically. First and above
all, it will give an opportunity for the student in the State
University to secure his religious birthright and to go forth
equipped to discharge the high responsibilities which will
come to him as parent and citizen. It will give to the com-
munities intelligent laymen and trained religious teachers. It
will bring to bear upon the problems of the community the
united thought and co-operation of the men and women best
fitted to solve them. It will provide trained teachers for the
week-day religious schools. Finally, it will make possible the
training of men and women educated to meet the specific
needs of foreign races.
These are among the practical ideals which I believe the
people of Michigan will soon make realities. When they do,
the Michigan School of Religion plans will be adopted in many
great state university centers. These tax-supported institu-
tions represent fully a quarter of a million students and un-
told material and educational resources. When from their
doors they begin to send forth each year twenty-five to fifty
thousand graduates, trained for lay and professional religious
leadership, we will have placed a lever under our civilization
that will lift it to heights never before attained.
The Trend in Modern Civilization
Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip
I am glad that the chairman set you at ease by saying this
would be a short talk, because it is on a very large subject. I
took this subject because it is so broad that it gave latitude
to say anything, and so large that no one would expect a full
discussion.
Before considering the trend in modern civilization, let us
first ask—What is civilization? Does it mean numbers? Does
the fact that this city has grown more rapidly than any other
city in the country, mean that you are the most civillized?
No, I do not think that it does. Is the fact that you make
nearly all the automobiles in the world an index of the high
state of your civilization? Is it a proof of the greatness of our
civilization that half of America can go riding in automobiles
at once, or that we have a vast amount of material utilities?
I do no think so.
Then, is it intellectual achievement? These are all accom-
paniments of civilization as blossoms are of the tree; but the
trunk is something quite different. To me, civilization is the
art of living together. It is the trunk of the tree, and when
the trunk is healthy, you have all those blossoms that mark
the progress of civilization. When the trunk is unhealthy,
they wither.
Now, this art of living together has been made enormously
more difficult in the last few generations. You know that the
art of living together, when you have little elbow room, be-
comes more trying. It is more difficult to live peaceably in a
crowded tenement than in the wide stretches of the country.
The greatest event in the history of the human race has
taken place in the last century without many of us thinking
very much about it. It has been the vast growth in popula-
tion. Why, in the span of two lifetimes, of men no older than
I, the population of the world has practically doubled. The
most stupendous fact in human history is that, with the
human race perhaps a million years old, suddenly there has
come this great overpowering increase. It has also increased
the problems of human life, and the complexity of the society
that we support.
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Our great industrial development has packed into our
cities vast hordes of people, who can survive only in a well-
ordered world where they can exchange the products of their
labor for the food that must come from long distances. Thus,
in our own lifetime this problem of civilization has become
tremendously more difficult.
My observations extend over most of the continent of
Europe, which I have visited many times during the past few
years, and they lead me to agree with what you may call very
pessimistic views regarding the future of that civilization. I
remember a certain impressive moment when I was in Seville,
Spain. I was driving out on the outskirts of the city when the
man who was my guide pointed off to a level plain, and said,
“Once a city of a million people stood there,” and lo, at the
moment there was nothing but flat grain fields. There is a
good deal of that in the history of the world. The progress of
civilization and solidity of civilization are not unassailable.
Catastrophic developments come if people cannot live to-
gether. When the trunk of the tree is shattered by war and
by racial hatreds and misunderstandings, and when the spirit
of fellowship is gone, it decays.
So I believe that the basic difficulty in the civilization of
Europe today is spiritual. It is a state of mind. The destruc-
tion of the war was horrible and its cost was unthinkable, but
with our modern methods all that could have been replaced.
It is not the destruction of war that is threatening European
civilization; it is the fact that a peace was made that has nur-
tured old animosities and created new ones. It has made diffi-
cult beyond description this art of living together. Europe's
malady cannot be cured by statesmen, nor by economists.
They can contribute to the solution of the political and eco-
nomic problems, but, after all, these are but symptoms of
something deeper—the loss of fellowship, the loss of that
good-will which is the spirit of the Golden Rule. It is that
spiritual breakdown which is threatening the civilization of
Europe and of the world.
The world is fruitful enough to take care of us all in com-
fort. The trouble is not with nature; it is with human nature.
As great as is this problem of increased population, it could
all be cared for, even if it doubled again, in a well-ordered
world, a world of good-will, in which we get the best out of it.
As I was reflecting, as we all must reflect at times, on this
state of civilization and what we best can do, a sort of fairy
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5 O7472 3134
story occurred to me. Suppose a fairy godmother came to
each or anyone of you and said: “I will give to you supreme
eminence in any one field that you choose.” What would you
do with that gift? A schoolboy would say that he wanted to
be the best pitcher in the nine, if that was his ambition. As
he grew older, he might wish to be the greatest poet, or to sing
songs that would please the world, or to be the greatest writer
and tell tales that would influence and move mankind.
Those would be worthy ambitions; but if you had offered
to you that fairy godmother's gift of absolute supremacy, to
be the greatest genius there ever was in some particular field,
you would soon get away from personal ambitions and begin
thinking of what would be best for the human race. You
would not be content to be the richest man; you would desire
something even bigger than that. You would not wish to be
even the greatest manufacturer of automobiles; you would
want something greater than that. You would begin to say,
“Well, here is a great gift that I am offered. It is way beyond
anything personal.” Then would come the interesting
thought, what would be the best for the human race? Would
you be a great scientist, able to make two blades of grass grow
where one grew before, thereby making the work of the world
less? Good. But too much work is not the world's problem.
Something more fundamental is needed. Would you be a
great physician and heal mankind? That is fine, but most of
the ills of mankind are of its own making.
The world wants something deeper than that. A careful
analysis would, I believe, inevitably lead to this conclusion:
that what the world supremely needs is moral leadership;
leadership that will make right minded men and give them
the true spirit of fellowship.
The very granite foundation and structure of civilization
is a morality that will lead people to get on together in fair-
ness, honesty, and appreciation of each other's position. This
foundation of all real civilization is not concrete and steel
and shops and mines. It is not even libraries nor great mental
achievements. It is not advance in invention and scientific
discoveries. What the world needs most is plain, simple,
moral guidance. We, as a nation, ought to be furnishing some-
thing of that to the world today.
Europe has wanted it. Europe knows its needs, and we are
facing, I believe, at this moment as momentous a national
decision as we were six years ago when we decided whether
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ITY OF MICHIGAN
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or not we would go into the war. We are now facing a decision
as to whether or not we shall go into the peace, and we have
not the courage to act. We have been without moral leader-
ship in the nation, and perhaps without political leadership.
We are losing in Europe today the great moral power and
force that we had, because we lack the moral leadership that
would lead us to act. It is because of this fatal weakness that,
thinking in the most practical, common sense, hard-headed,
business way, we are disposed to lend support to any move-
ment that promises to give moral leadership to this country
and to the world. It is America that must give moral leader-
ship to the world, if the world is to stand. Half the world is in
grave, portentous danger, because of the lack of moral leader-
ship; and here we are, rich, prosperous, self-contained, as no
country ever was, and we seem to lack the moral power to
make that world contribution.
And so I say that any movement that promises to build
character and to develop moral leaders, appeals to me in a
practical, hard-headed, business way, as does none other. If
this movement that Doctor Kent has described, does nothing
more than produce a few moderately-successful moral leaders,
. will have been worth over and over again all it will cost any
Of UIS,
As I see more and more of history in the making, there is
one conclusion that has come to me with increased force, and
that is, that history is made by people, and not by peoples. It
is made by a few people, a few leaders, or at least a few men
who are in positions of authority. The decisions most mo-
mentous to the welfare of all mankind might have gone one
way or might have gone another on the chance of a half dozen
men or some other half dozen men sitting in the seats of
authority. More and more I see the tremendous import of
right-minded, right-educated, right-spirited leaders. You
cannot expect the whole mass to make great decisions, affect-
ing the whole people. I do not believe these decisions are, as
a rule, worked out by the mass. They are made by the few.
The plans we have heard described tonight, will, as has
been implied, be much broader than the school that it is pro-
posed to establish in this state. If the working out of these
plans will produce leaders – and that is a modest thing to
expect—who will guide us to finer, better things, and teach
us how to live together, then I am for these plans and I hope
that you will be.
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