nd ethical institutions which profess to
represent the community is today graded up to the professional and
exceptional. The reconstruction necessary is to grade down so that the
appeal shall be to the poor and struggling man whose condition is in
jeopardy, and whose status in the community is as yet undetermined.
Institutions which appeal to the community as a whole must standardize
their policy to the level of the margin of the community.

The reconstruction of the theological seminaries is necessary, if they
are to fit men for service in communities. They render now a service
which is so valuable that one cannot pass over them lightly. They train
the candidate for the ministry by a process which develops and engages
his piety. Other university courses either ignore his religious feeling,
or if they develop it, do not harness it to the task of social
improvement. The theological seminary lays the yoke of service upon the
neck of prayer. This alone justifies its existence as a servant of the
church in the community. However, the instruction in the seminary is
rigidly grouped around courses in dead languages; which are jealous of
instruction in a living tongue. The history of discarded doctrines and
of discredited teachers is minutely taught through months, to the
exclusion of courses upon modern, living people, whose religious
experience is rich and striking. The purpose of seminary instruction is
personal culture instead of efficiency. It is the theory of the teachers
wherein they disagree with all other professional teachers, that "We do
not make preachers: the Lord makes them." They try therefore to impart
culture and personal distinction.

The seminaries need first of all flexibility of courses. The whole
traditional schedule should be made elective. The demands of the time
would then have free course in the seminary, and would rearrange the
instruction according to actual present need. The cultivation of
practical piety should receive more attention. The social life of the
students, in close association with their professors and under religious
stimuli, should be made a more powerful force than it usually is, in
creating a common ideal of service to which the seminary should commit
itself. Above all, the seminary of theology should teach sociology and
economics, as a religious interpretation. Students should after a year's
class-room work be made to investigate and report upon actual
conditions, should be delegat