such as
to relieve those who have feared that religion was necessarily bound up
with the older instruction controlled by theology. While in Europe, by a
natural reaction, the colleges under strict ecclesiastical control have
sent forth the most powerful foes the Christian Church has ever known,
of whom Voltaire and Diderot and Volney and Sainte-Beuve and Renan are
types, no such effects have been noted in these newer institutions.
While the theological way of looking at the universe has steadily
yielded, there has been no sign of any tendency toward irreligion. On
the contrary, it is the testimony of those best acquainted with the
American colleges and universities during the last forty-five years that
there has been in them a great gain, not only as regards morals, but as
regards religion in its highest and best sense. The reason is not far
to seek. Under the old American system the whole body of students at
a university were confined to a single course, for which the majority
cared little and very many cared nothing, and, as a result, widespread
idleness and dissipation were inevitable. Under the new system,
presenting various courses, and especially courses in various sciences,
appealing to different tastes and aims, the great majority of students
are interested, and consequently indolence and dissipation have steadily
diminished. Moreover, in the majority of American institutions of
learning down to the middle of the century, the main reliance for the
religious culture of students was in the perfunctory presentation of
sectarian theology, and the occasional stirring up of what were called
"revivals," which, after a period of unhealthy stimulus, inevitably left
the main body of students in a state of religious and moral reaction
and collapse. This method is now discredited, and in the more important
American universities it has become impossible. Religious truth, to
secure the attention of the modern race of students in the better
American institutions, is presented, not by "sensation preachers," but
by thoughtful, sober-minded scholars. Less and less avail sectarian
arguments; more and more impressive becomes the presentation of
fundamental religious truths. The result is, that while young men care
less and less for the great mass of petty, cut-and-dried sectarian
formulas, they approach the deeper questions of religion with increasing
reverence.

While striking differences exist between the European universities a