The parent who realizes that the moral character of his children will
be fixed, in a large measure, while in college, believes that it would
be moral suicide to permit them to come under the influence of a
professor whose religious indifference, or unfavorable remarks about
Christianity, might infuse the poison of skepticism, doubt, or
indifference, and perhaps unsettle their early religious convictions,
and "send them forth confused and adrift on the endless sea of
conflicting notions."
The courses of study in college should be arranged so as to favor the
study of the essential facts and truths of the Christian religion, and
through them promote practical piety. There is no valid reason why the
Christian religion, which is the chief energy and force in all
intellectual culture, should not be distinctly and permanently
recognized in the college curriculum. The well-established and
accepted facts of the Christian religion should be gathered and
studied with as much painstaking care, freedom of spirit, and loyalty
to truth as the scientist studies his facts and constructs his
theories. This method implies that the teacher and pupil hold in
abeyance all those probable theories, speculations, and conjectures
which are not established, as irrelevant to the work in hand. When
this scientific spirit is more effectively introduced into the study
of the Christian religion in our colleges, it will prepare the way
for the restatement of doctrine so as to commend it with increasing
force to every intelligent student. Christian truth is capable of
being built up into a system as scientific as any other. The
professor, in leading the earnest student in search of spiritual
truth, will exercise tolerance and tact, so that he will not awaken
suspicions of being actuated by a narrow bigotry, or appear as a lover
of dogmatic teachings.
Again, it is better to select text-books that have been written by
capable men who are in sympathy with the Christian religion. The
student with an immature mind, who seeks to build his faith and
theories of life on the teachings of those whose predilections are
away from Christianity, will find it fatal to his lofty ideals and
aspirations, while instruction based on Christian theism tends to lift
the mind upward, and to foster a hopeful and earnest moral and
intellectual life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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