THE STATE UNIVERSITY 
 
 AND 
 
 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 AN ADDRESS BY 
 
 DOCTOR DAVID KINLEY 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 • AT THE DEDICATION OF THE 
 SOCIAL CENTER OF THE WESLEY FOUNDATION 
 
 URBANA, ILLINOIS 
 
 FEBRUARY 15, 1921 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/stateuniversityrOOkinl 
 
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 THE STATE UNIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 ^ When the federal constitution was framed, its writers omitted any 
 
 provision for a relationship between the State and religion. They 
 took the view, or appear to have taken the view, that the State as a 
 political entity should not undertake to interfere in matters of con- 
 science. The various states, as they have adopted their constitutions 
 on admission to the Union, have taken the same attitude. Some critics 
 of our constitution and form of government have, therefore, said at 
 times that the federal constitution and the state constitutions were 
 Godless and that our governments were Godless governments. The 
 criticism is illogical and untrue. It is illogical because to say the con- 
 stitution is Godless because God is not mentioned in it is to assume 
 the very point to be proved, namely, that the inclusion of religious 
 provisions is a necessary part of a political constitution. It is untrue 
 because the men who made the constitution, the people who lived and 
 live under it, and those who have had to do with its interpretation 
 have been and are God-fearing and God-loving people. One might 
 as well say that the charter of an, industrial or commercial corporation 
 is Godless because the Deity is not mentioned in it. The omission 
 simply indicates that, in the opinion of those who framed the charter 
 or the constitution, the organization in question was not one in which 
 religious provisions belong. 
 
 The fathers of our country showed their wisdom in departing as 
 they did from the Old World custom of mingling politics and religion, 
 of trying to coordinate political and religious life by state action. Un- 
 doubtedly, they were led to take the view they did for two reasons. 
 One of these was their profound conviction that religion is a matter 
 of individual conduct, a responsibility of the individual conscience; a 
 matter between the individual and his God and, perhaps, between the 
 individual and other individuals whose religious convictions are like 
 his own. Many bf the settlers of our colonies had gone through bitter 
 experiences in their attempt to gain religious freedom. They knew 
 what it was to have their religious beliefs dictated to them by political 
 authority. They knew what it meant to have other people give color 
 to their beliefs and try to dictate limits to the action of their con- 
 sciences. They had gone through the bitter struggle of trying to 
 know God as they saw him and understood him, in the face of at- 
 tempts of political authorities to make them see and understand God 
 as others would have them. The so-called omission of God from the 
 constitution was, therefore, nothing more nor less than a recognition 
 of the right of every individual to freedom of religious opinion It 
 was virtually a negative declaration that under that constitution no 
 citizen could ever be coerced in matters of religious belief. 
 
 Moreover, our forefathers knew their history. They were not so 
 far removed in time from the bitter experiences of the religious wars 
 
of previous centuries, the destruction which they had wrought in civil 
 society, the wrongs which had been committed under them in the 
 name of religion, and the aftermath of hostility that had embittered 
 the lives and relations of multitudes of men, neighbors to one another, 
 subjects or citizens of the same government, which had prevented 
 them from achieving national unity, culture, and general civilization. 
 Indeed, phases of religious persecution in the early history of our own 
 people were too well known for the framers of the constitution to run 
 any risk of breaking down their new civic structure under the weight 
 of religious prejudice and persecution. They were too wise to lay 
 foundations for possible future religious conflicts. 
 
 But that the omission of any mention of religion or of God in our 
 constitutions implied lack of religion on the part of its framers or on 
 the part of the people who have lived under these constitutions, is, as 
 we all know, untrue. Take it all in all, there is no more religious 
 people on the face of the earth than our own. While there is some 
 evidence that the religious spirit has been weakened in recent decades, 
 that sad result cannot be attributed in any degree to our constitution 
 or our laws. That there has been a weakening of moral fiber, that 
 there is some laxity of conscience in matters of religion, that many 
 things formerly regarded as holy are now treated lightly, all of us, I 
 presume, must admit. But these results are due to causes that have 
 no relation to our political constitution. 
 
 Since neither the federal government nor the governments of the 
 states include the regulation of religious matters within their pur- 
 view, obviously institutions of the federal government or of the states 
 cannot do so either. Hence, the educational systems of the states 
 make no provision requiring the teaching of religion. This is as it 
 should be, if, as we commonly think, religion is a matter of individual 
 conscience, a matter between the individual and his God. The educa- 
 tional systems of the state, including, of course, the state university, 
 cannot, therefore, undertake to train young men and young women 
 committed to their charge in the tenets of religious doctrine. Even 
 if it were politically permissible, it would be actually impracticable; 
 for the only way in which it could be done would be to make provision 
 for the teaching of religion in all the various forms represented by 
 different religions and different sects. Unless we were to try to co- 
 erce the non-Christian to the study of the Christian religion, the Catho- 
 lic to the study of religion as Protestants view it, or the Protestant 
 to the study of religion as the Catholic views it; unless we were to 
 compel the Turk, the atheist, the Mohammedan, the Confucian and 
 the Buddhist to adopt and observe our forms of religion, it would be 
 necessary to make provision for the recognition and teaching of all 
 of them, possibly in the same educational institution. This, as I said, 
 would be impracticable. 
 
 But the fact that express provision is not made for the teaching 
 Of religion in the public schools, including the state university, does 
 not imply that the young men and women who attend the university 
 
 ^ 
 
do not have the benefits of religious instruction. Still less does it 
 imply that the importance of religious instruction as part of the neces- 
 sary training of yguth is not fully recognized, indeed as fully recog- 
 nized by the staffs of publicly supported institutions as by those of 
 the so-called denominational institutions. 
 
 There is no complete education without religious training. The 
 most important phase of education is the development of character. 
 Character cannot be developed in. the best sense without belief in, 
 faith in, God. } For I do not agree with those people who, under the 
 specious presentation of alleged scientific facts in anthropology and 
 archeology, allege that our morals are wholly the result of habits es- 
 tablished by the influence of our environment. < f I believe that there 
 is in the hearts of men a primordial instinctive belief in a Deity; that 
 that belief is the basis of standards of conduct; that those standards 
 of conduct determine in large measure, at least, the relation of the 
 individual not only to the God in whom he believes, but to his fellow- 
 men, children of the same God. (l know that this is an old-fashioned 
 point of view. I know that many enthusiastic young students of an- 
 thropology, psychology and sociology, think they have found in the 
 study of these sciences truths that will enable them to do without God 
 because, forsooth, these facts may be used in such a way as to explain 
 away some particular conception of the Deity which they may have 
 had. Therefore, some of them tell us that our God, your God and 
 mine, is the creation of our imagination, the result of habits adopted 
 long ago by our forefathers and perpetuated and strengthened through 
 environment and the hereditary influences of succeeding generations. 
 They undertake to explain the wonders of the universe as merely psy- 
 chological or physical or chemical phenomena, and, therefore, are able 
 to separate morals and standards of morals from the idea of God. I do 
 not myself so believe. It is, indeed, possible to describe God and the 
 universe, if you please, in the terms of any one of the different 
 sciences; but descriptions of that kind are not explanations of the 
 causes and, therefore, do not do away with the necessity for a great 
 original cause. Admitting the existence of a great original cause, we 
 must necessarily admit, it seems to me, that our conduct, that is, our 
 morals, our idea of duty not only to God but to one another, must 
 be based largely, if not wholly, upon our conceptions of what God is 
 and what fie requires of us. \ From my point of view, therefore, morals 
 depend largely upon religion. Since education, up to a certain point, 
 at any rate, is primarily the development of character, and since 
 character is, after all, the training in moral standards, and since train- 
 ing in moral standards depends upon religious belief, it follows that 
 religious training is a necessary part of a complete education. / 
 
 The religious difficulties of college boys and girls usually arise 
 from the natural tendency to laxity that comes from sudden release 
 from parental authority, and also, in part, from the false sense of 
 freedom which they get in their first incursions into new fields of 
 thought. It is a curious phenomenon of human nature that when a 
 new field of inquiry or study is discovered its devotees usually seize 
 
 
upon what they think its lessons and conclusions to undermine old 
 beliefs and standards. Thus to many the establishment of some of 
 the doctrines of modern science meant the abolition of faith in God. 
 A similar tendency has been observed with the development of the 
 more recently established social sciences. The tendency here has 
 been aggravated because the subject matter of these sciences is one 
 in which even laymen think themselves entitled to express opinions. 
 So subjects of social organization and reconstruction which can be 
 properly understood and discussed only by those with profound knowl- 
 edge of the subjects, have become the plaything of the superficial 
 writer and the specious thinker. Not a little of the breakdown of our 
 moral standards, not a little of the laxity of our lives, is due, in my 
 opinion, to the fact that literary writers, before whom an uncritical 
 and unthinking public bow down, have assumed the role of social 
 philosophers and prophets of social progress, attempting to explain 
 the life and purpose of society without knowing much about it and 
 without reasoning as iairly and logically as such discussions require. 
 In my opinion, much of the moral slime that has smirched the thought 
 of the people, young and old, in the past twenty years has come from 
 the literature of the day and not from the teaching of the colleges. 1 
 To be sure, some professional social scientists are equally guilty. It 
 is no wonder that young people have been, led astray by the light of 
 supposed authority. If your teachers in the Wesley Foundation are 
 to do much good, they must command respect as authorities in their 
 subjects, as well as for the profundity and tenacity of their religious 
 faith. 
 
 Since a state university cannot, under the constitution and the 
 laws, provide the religious training necessary to a complete and well 
 rounded education, it must be provided in some other way. In the 
 past the churches in the locality where a university existed, members 
 of the faculty of the university and other citizens of the locality inter- 
 ested in such matters have always interested themselves in providing 
 opportunities for religious study to the students of the universities. 
 This method was feasible when the numbers of students were small; 
 but after all, local churches had their own constituents and the atten- 
 tion which pastors and members of these churches could give to addi- 
 tional attendants or adherents from the university* in the neighbor- 
 hood was meager and certainly not adequate to promote the best re- 
 ligious welfare of the young people themselves. It was evident long 
 ago that some special measures would be necessary to meet the situ- 
 ation. Thirty years ago or more I heard the subject discussed and 
 the proposal made that the various denominations establish their own 
 institutions or institutes in localities where state universities existed 
 to give special attention to the young men and young women away 
 from home who were members of their denominations. It was some- 
 times difficult, to be sure, to convince local pastors and sometimes the 
 officers of the denominations that special provision was necessary or 
 that a special need existed. Too many of them were content to regard 
 their duty as done by acclaiming the alleged Godlessness of the insti- 
 
 t 
 
tutions and urging the adherents of their denominations to go else- 
 where. But the adherents of these denominations did not ohey. In 
 increasing numbers they flocked to the state universities where better 
 provisions for scientific, literary, and other training were provided. 
 So it happens that in the fall of this year the University of Illinois had 
 among its students 1451 members of the Methodist Church and 359 
 non-members but adherents; 898 members of the Presbyterian Church 
 and 218 adherents; 455 members of the Catholic Church and 22 adher- 
 ents; 409 members of the Christian Church and 105 adherents; 329 
 members of the Congregational Church and 116 adherents; 325 mem- 
 bers of the Baptist Church and 74 adherents; 273 members of the Epis- 
 copal Church and 41 adherents; 257 members of the Lutheran Church 
 and 45 adherents. Thus it happened, too, that the University had 
 three people of the Mohammedan faith, five of the Hindu faith, and 
 representatives of the Buddhist, the Mormon and other churches and 
 denominations. In short, there were at the University in all 4,700 
 young people who avowed themselves members of their various 
 churches and 2,800 more who proclaimed themselves adherents. Surely 
 he would be a rash man who would say that the responsibility of 
 taking care of this great number of young people avowing a religious 
 life should be cast upon the local churches and their pastors, prepared 
 as they are to take care of ordinary congregations. Hence the logic 
 of the situation, has forced the recognition of the fact that special 
 provision should be made. Such special provision has been made in 
 various ways with more or less success at different universities at 
 various times in the past twenty years. One of the most notable pro- 
 visions and one which is undoubtedly most full of promise is the one. 
 for the dedication of which we are gathered here today. 
 
 The principle on which this new organization, the Wesley Foun- 
 dation, is established is that the people of the Methodist Church shall 
 make adequate provision for the religious training and social life of 
 the young people of the University of Illinois who profess themselves 
 as members or adherents of that church. It is intended to give here 
 such courses of instruction of collegiate and university grade as are 
 necessary to carry out the purposes of the Foundation. Some of these 
 will undoubtedly be of a sufficiently literary, scientific, or cultural 
 character to deserve recognition towards a University degree, and ar- 
 rangements looking in that direction have already been made. These 
 arrangements will simply mean that students who take certain courses 
 given by the staff of the Foundation may, under proper conditions, get 
 credit for them towards their University degree, precisely as if they 
 had transferred from colleges in some other part of the State. From 
 this point of view and for this purpose the Wesley Foundation, and 
 all others like it, are regularly chartered educational institutions and 
 will receive the same treatment as any regularly chartered educational 
 institution in the matter of transfer of credits. It is to be hoped that 
 at an early date the people of the. other chuches or denominations will 
 follow the splendid example which the Methodists of the State and 
 country have set by the erection of this noble building and the estab- 
 
lishment of this great Foundation. It is my hope, too, that the Wes- 
 ley Foundation may grow into a sphere of usefulness far beyond that 
 contemplated by those who first had the vision or those who have 
 brought it to its present consummation. It is my hope and prayer, 
 as I know it is the hope and prayer of all the members of the faculty 
 of the University, that these young people will be refreshed and 
 strengthened in their faith by the things that they will study and 
 hear in this noble building; and that the inspiration of their religious 
 teachers here and the refreshment which they will gain from social 
 life here will not only strengthen them for finer and better work in 
 the studies of the University curriculum, but will supplement those 
 studies and in conjunction with them will round out the characters 
 and lives of the young people who in the coming years will throng 
 this hall. 
 
 I am sure that I can speak not only for myself but for the faculty 
 of the University in offering you heartiest congratulations on the suc- 
 cessful accomplishment of this great dream. I pay my tribute of re- 
 spect and admiration to the man who first dreamed that dream, to the 
 men who caught his inspiration and carried it to a realization, to the 
 man who through the last fourteen years, amid discouragements which 
 you and I will never know, at last is able to look upon the physical 
 realization of his great vision. Terah died in Haran, far away from 
 his goal. Moses was taken to the mountain top and shown the land 
 he was never to enter. Multitudes of men in all spheres and walks 
 of life have dreamed dreams they have never realized and projected 
 plans they have never been able to complete. Dr. Baker is more fortu- 
 nate. He has not only dreamed the dream and seen the vision and 
 projected the plan, but he remains among us to put it into operation, 
 to see the results of its operation, to watch its influence, to determine 
 the measure of its success, and to devise projects for making even 
 better that which he has brought to so successful and splendid a con- 
 clusion. May he long remain among us carrying on the great work to 
 which under God he has committed himself in these past fourteen years. 
 We, in this community and in this University, would not be what we 
 are if we had not had in, our midst Dr. Baker and other men 
 consecrated as he is to the service of God in the improvement of the 
 life of our young people in the University. I thank God that the Meth- 
 odists of Illinois have done this thing. In doing it they have served 
 God in a larger measure and in, more ramified ways than they yet real- 
 ize. It will be a generation before they will be able to understand, 
 still less to appreciate, anything like the full measure of the good that 
 the institution of the Wesley Foundation will do for the Methodist 
 students of the University of Illinois. I pray God that it will not be 
 long before similar Foundations are erected by the other churches. 
 
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