State Universities and Church Colleges

THE growth of state universities, especially in the West and South, within recent years, is one of the most noteworthy facts in the progress of higher education in our country. The number of students in eight representative Western state universities — those of California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin — in 1885 was 4230 ; in 1895 it was 13,500. This was an increase of more than threefold. During the same period the increase in the number of students in eight representative “denominational"colleges (colleges under church control) in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa was less than fifteen per cent. The increase during the same decade in the attendance at eight New England colleges and universities (which are not state schools nor under direct church control) was twenty per cent. At all the state universities, last year, there were nearly twenty thousand students.

Quite as remarkable as the increased attendance at these institutions have been the large appropriations made for them by the States. In Illinois, for instance, large sums have been appropriated for buildings and permanent improvements : in Michigan and Wisconsin, the universities receive every year, without special enactment, the income of a tax bearing a fixed ratio to the wealth of the State. From other sources than the State they have received donations which in the aggregate already exceed three and one half millions of dollars.

I do not propose to discuss the causes which have contributed to the growth of the state university, but a mere glance at the subject will convince any one that this growth is in keeping with our national development. Under existing conditions, it is hardly possible to imagine that these causes will become inoperative. On the contrary, every indication points to still further increase in the size and influence of the educational institutions maintained by the States; and their rapid development involves a readjustment of the state university, as an educational type, to its environment. It would be easy to point out results of farreaching importance that are directly due to the commanding position which some of these institutions have reached, as the capstone of the system of state education ; but at present no change of the old relations is more important than the changing relation of the state university and the great religious sects. The peculiar conditions of our life, when the need of higher education first began to be generally felt in the United States, naturally caused schools and colleges to be established either directly under the control of the religious bodies, or under the inspiration of their teachings ; and it seemed then as if our higher education were to be left almost entirely to privately endowed universities, most of which would be immediately susceptible to denominational influence.

Even now it is frequently assumed that, under ordinary circumstances, students from families identified with a particular religious denomination will pursue their advanced studies in a denominational institution ; that the attendance at the state universities must come mainly from those families which are without religious convictions ; and that the absence of denominational control in a state institution implies indifference to religious matters. Indeed, it is believed by many that the influence of a state university must be inimical to religion.

The moral and religious atmosphere of every university is determined to a great degree by its Students. The character and convictions of the student body play the most important part in giving tone to the religious life of any college. At the beginning of the collegiate year 1896—97, President Angell, of the University of Michigan, invited the presidents of the different state universities to coöperate with him in taking a religious census of the students. The response was prompt and cordial, and statistics have been obtained for sixteen state universities. A fund of information has thus been collected which seems valuable and convincing.¹

We will first examine the distribution, among the religious denominations, of the students in a group of five state universities, selected as representative in regard to size and geographical distribution, — the universities of Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Washington, and West Virginia.

The total enrollment of these five institutions was 5173. There were 211 students, counted as “ unreached,” whose religious status was not ascertained ; a considerable number of these were absent. Of the 4962 whose ecclesiastical status was ascertained, 4407 placed themselves on record as affiliated, by membership or attendance, with some religious body; and 2851 (fifty-five per cent of the whole number enrolled) were church members. Among them, the Methodist Episcopal church had 1098 members and adherents ; the Presbyterian church, 854; the Congregational church. 612; the Episcopal church, 484 ; the Baptist church, 352 ; the Church of Christ, or Disciples, 227 ; the Unitarian church. 166 ; and the Roman Catholic church, 165.²

In point of numerical representation, the eight denominations just mentioned bear nearly the same relation to one another, if we extend the comparison to all the state universities in which a religious census was taken. In the sixteen state universities, with a total attendance of 14,637 students, 10,517, or a little more than seventy per cent, were church members or adherents, as follows : the Methodist Episcopal church was credited with 2659 members and adherents, the Presbyterian with 2284, the Congregational with 1730, the Episcopal with 1215, the Baptist with 1063, the Church of Christ with 607, the Roman Catholic with 528, and the Unitarian with 431. In these universities, taken together, every sixth student belongs, by membership or affiliation, to the Methodist church, every seventh to the Presbyterian, and every ninth to the Congregational church. About one half of all the students reached by the census were reported as members of the so-called evangelical churches.

Among women who are students the proportion of church communicants is everywhere greater than among men. The difference varies from twelve to twenty-five per cent: for example, at the University of Indiana, fifty-two percent of the men and seventy-four per cent of the women are members of churches ; at the University of Michigan, fifty-two per cent of the men and seventy per cent of the women.³

It is important to notice that in the same university the proportion of church members is often somewhat greater in the collegiate department than in the professional schools ; but at the University of Michigan the percentage of communicants is higher in the department of medicine and surgery than in any other department.

It would be interesting to make a comparison of the number of students of each of the larger religious denominations in attendance at the state universities and at the denominational colleges. It must be remembered that more state colleges than denominational colleges have professional schools ; but in them all the collegiate is far the largest department, and in some cases the number of professional students is so small that they hardly need to be taken into consideration. I have selected the Presbyterian church as representative, partly because of the large number and wide distribution of its colleges, and partly because of their generally broad curricula and high standard. For these reasons even the smaller Presbyterian colleges may properly be compared with the state universities.

In the United States, at the present time, there are thirty-seven Presbyterian institutions of advanced education, in which 3679 students of collegiate rank were enrolled in 1896-97 ; Princeton University heading the list with a total registration of 1045 students. Eight of these institutions are for men only, the attendance of two being restricted to colored men ; seven are women’s colleges ; and twenty-two are open to both men and women. In these thirty-seven colleges, with the exception of one (Lincoln University), a religious census was taken contemporaneously with the census of the state universities. The returns (including a fair estimate for Lincoln) give a total of 2388 Presbyterian students in attendance. Of this number, more than three fourths were members of the church, and the rest were “ adherents.” In sixteen state universities there were enrolled 2284 Presbyterian students ; in all the colleges under the control of the Presbyterian denomination there were at the same time only 2388. We are thus brought face to face with the fact that the majority of Presbyterian students of collegiate rank in the United States are no longer in Presbyterian institutions. If we take into account the 150 members and adherents of this church reported at the University of California, there are in seventeen state universities more Presbyterian students than in the thirty-seven Presbyterian colleges taken together.

Is the spiritual welfare of the Presbyterian students at state universities less a matter of concern to the Presbyterian church than the spiritual welfare of the students at church colleges ? The average number of Presbyterian students in each of the denominational colleges is a fraction less than 65 ; if we exclude Princeton University from the reckoning, 49. The average number of Presbyterian students in the sixteen state universities is a trifle above 142 ; or, leaving out of consideration the six state universities having less than one hundred Presbyterian students each, we may look upon the remaining ten as containing ten Presbyterian colleges with an average of 205 students each. At the University of Michigan alone, last year, there were more than three fourths as many Presbyterian students as at Princeton, and exactly fifteen times as many as in the Presbyterian college in Michigan. At the state universities of Indiana and Illinois there were more than twice as many Presbyterian students as at the four Presbyterian colleges in the two States ; at the University of Iowa, more than in the five Presbyterian colleges in the same State. The case of Ohio is exceptional : there were nearly twice as many Presbyterian students in the church colleges as in the state university.

The religious statistics of Princeton University are worthy of special consideration. The religious denominations represented are almost as numerous as in the larger state universities ; but only two churches, the Presbyterian and the Episcopal, can claim more than a hundred students each. The percentage of Princeton students who are church members is about the same as that of the University of Kansas (fifty-five per cent), but less than in the University of Michigan (fifty-six per cent) and several of the smaller state universities.⁴

The service which the Presbyterian colleges have rendered, and are rendering, to higher education is of incalculable value. They are placed, for the most part, at “ strategic points,” and most of them have been generously supported. Especially have the newer institutions been wisely planted with reference to the future development of the States in which they are situated. Last year the Presbyterian Board of Aid for Colleges and Academies reported more than $70,000 given to its aided institutions, mostly for their current expenses ; sixteen of them being small colleges, the rest academies. The endowments of the older Presbyterian institutions compare favorably with the endowments of the colleges of any other denomination. It is possible for a Presbyterian student, in any of the sixteen States in which the state universities of our list are situated, easily to reach a college either of the Presbyterian denomination or of some church holding substantially the same creed.

Why, then, do Presbyterian students attend the state universities ? A certain proportion go because some state universities possess departments wholly lacking in the denominational schools, but most of them because they are attracted by the wider range of studies and the better equipment of the state institutions. To equip and to maintain ten colleges which should provide for the 2053 Presbyterian students, in the ten state universities having more than one hundred each, educational facilities approximately as extensive as they have at the state universities, would require, at the lowest estimate, an investment of twenty-seven millions of dollars, or $2,700,000 for each institution. If the Presbyterian students were thus to be segregated in small schools, they would still lose much, for only universities with large numbers of students can afford to make provision for work in the more minute subdivisions of the special fields into which true university instruction is now everywhere divided. Students do not choose their colleges aimlessly. Many of them obtain information about a number of universities, and parents in most cases consult the wishes of their children in regard to the choice of a college. In those States in which the high school system is fully developed, it is natural to pass from a high school maintained by the town to a university maintained by the State. It is to be expected that most students for the ministry will attend denominational institutions, both by preference and because of the substantial assistance usually offered by these schools. But the number of students in the state universities who are studying for the ministry is greater than one would be likely to guess. In the half-century ending in 1894 the University of Michigan sent out 301 clergymen and missionaries, an average of six for every graduating class.⁵ Of 252 ministers 40 belonged to the Presbyterian church. Within the past few years the number of students preparing for the Presbyterian ministry who have entered the University of Michigan has shown a decided increase.

What has been said of the Presbyterian colleges in relation to the state universities is true, in a greater or less degree, of the higher educational institutions of the other religious denominations as well. If the young men and women of any particular sect attended only the professional departments of the state universities, we should be justified in assuming that denominational preference played a much more important part in the selection of a college than it does play. But there is still another fact to be taken into consideration. Most of the larger and stronger universities, including those maintained by endowment as well as those maintained by the States, are rapidly growing larger. Many of the smaller colleges find it increasingly difficult to hold their patronage. In some cases their falling back is due not so much to a lack of resources as to a lack of students. In much of their work the state university and the denominational college are brought into competition by force of circumstances, particularly in the Western States. At present the state universities are gaining. No one can for a moment doubt that the denominational schools have a mission of the highest importance to society; but “there is no hope that the State will ever withdraw from so critical and extensive a portion of the educational field as that occupied by collegiate education.” It would be the part of wisdom for all concerned to waste no more time in fruitless discussion, but rather, facing the facts as they stand, to make serious effort to solve the problem how these apparently conflicting interests may be reconciled to the greatest good of those for whom all our institutions of advanced education have been established.

Most of the state universities are in the Western States; their student life has the freshness and vigor of the West. The standard of conduct is high. The freedom of life stimulates religious effort on the part of the students. The earliest Students’ Christian Association was founded at the University of Michigan ; the second, at the University of Virginia. Associations for religious work flourish in the state universities, directed and supported in large measure by the members of the faculties. As President Draper well says, “ The fact doubtless is that there is no place where there is a more tolerant spirit, or freer discussion of religious questions, or a stronger, more unrestrained, and healthier religious life than in the state universities.” At all institutions of higher education, small as well as great, there will be found some weak or vicious young men who will go astray; in most cases their evil tendencies are settled — often without the knowledge of their parents — before they enter college. On the other hand, it is the testimony of those who have a direct knowledge of the facts that the state universities have sent forth a considerable proportion of the students stronger morally and religiously, as well as intellectually, than when they entered.

Notwithstanding the large contributions which the religious denominations are making to the student body of the state universities, it has often been asserted that these institutions are irreligious in the character of their instruction. This subject was so fully discussed by President Angell in the Andover Review for April, 1890, that it will be sufficient here to make reference to his paper, quoting one paragraph in which he presents certain facts regarding the religious status of professors and instructors : —

“In twenty of the state institutions — all from which I have facts on this point — it appears that seventy-one per cent of the teachers are members of churches, and not a few of the others are earnestly and even actively religious men who have not formally joined any communion. When we remember that colleges not under state control — certainly this is true of the larger ones — do not now always insist on church membership as the condition of an appointment to a place in the faculties, and that no board of regents or trustees of any state university will knowingly appoint to a chair of instruction a man who is not supposed to be of elevated moral character, it must be conceded that the pupils in the state institutions are not exposed to much peril from their teachers. That a few men whose influence was calculated to disturb or weaken the Christian faith of students have found their way into the faculties of the state institutions is true. But it is also true that such men have been, and still are, I fear, members of faculties of other colleges. Men appointed in denominational colleges have, after taking office, changed their faith or lost their faith, and retained their positions. No doubt, however, in the faculties of such institutions, a somewhat larger percentage of church members is likely to be found than in the state universities. But the great majority of men who choose teaching as their profession always have been, and are likely to be, reverent, earnest, even religious men. So it has come to pass that seven or eight of every ten men in the corps of teachers in the state universities are members of Christian churches. And if you go to the cities where those universities are planted, you will find a good proportion of these teachers superintending Sundayschools, conducting Bible classes, sometimes supplying pulpits, engaged in every kind of Christian work, and by example and word stimulating their pupils to a Christian life.”

It is not enough that the standard of conduct, the moral tone of our universities, should be high. The chief danger to student life in the collegiate and university period lies, not, as is so often assumed, in the tendency of those naturally weak or wayward to be led astray by evil companions, but rather in the fact that the highest and best minds, the most earnest and candid souls, are, from their devotion to the pursuit of knowledge, likely to suffer a deadening of the spiritual consciousness. Some students who have great capacity for large service to humanity may thus go forth with the highest part of their natures undeveloped, lacking that spiritual force which multiplies tenfold the influence of every kind of ability for good work in the world. Intensity of intellectual life, from the very friction of minds interested in many fields of thought, but all bent upon like ends, increases with the size of universities. The opportunities for specialization afforded by the development of the elective system in the larger universities permit the more advanced student to devote himself wholly to that branch or subject in which he is interested. But surely no one would affirm that students in great institutions of private endowment are less subject to this atrophy of the spiritual nature than those in state universities of the same size.

Denominational control of state universities is not possible nor desirable, but they need the vitalizing touch of spiritual forces, which can be assured only by contact with the living church. At all great centres of learning there should be a concentration of spiritual light, a gathering of the forces that make for righteousness. Cant and timeserving ecclesiastical connections are not likely to be encouraged in the atmosphere of freedom and frankness in a state university, but no class of students anywhere are more open-hearted or more ready to respond to the quickening and uplifting influence of the highest moral and spiritual ideals.

The churches have a duty toward the state universities. It grows out of the general duty of the churches as guardians of the highest interests of society. Do not Christian people pay taxes ? Even if it were granted that the state universities have an irreligious atmosphere, to whom should we look to change it ? Should the churches approach the state universities in a spirit of criticism, or with a deep feeling of responsibility and a willingness to coöperate in the promotion of the supreme interests of youth? At the very least, it is reasonable to ask that the religious bodies see to it that men of marked spiritual and intellectual power be placed in the pulpits of university towns. But in more than one university town churches fail to keep their footing, not because of an unfavorable environment, but because the work is left in charge of men who are not equal to it.

The most vital interests of the churches are at stake in the state universities. These are strategic points. The greater part of their students come from the religious denominations. Is it expedient for a church to give attention to the spiritual welfare of those only who are affiliated with it in the denominational schools, and to neglect perhaps a far greater number of members and adherents in a state university ? If students come from the churches to the great universities, and are there weaned from the things of the spirit, and through an unsymmetrical development permit the training of intellect to choke out the spiritual life, who shall justify the churches for their indifference and neglect? In the class-rooms of a state university sectarian instruction can have no place. Thomas Jefferson " thought that it was the duty of each sect,” at the University of Virginia, “ to provide its own theological teaching in a special school, to which students might go for special instruction as they did to their various denominational churches.”⁶ But this subject is too large to enter upon here. The first condition of a solution of the problem must lie in the willingness of the churches themselves to consider the matter. From the nature of the case the initiative must be taken by them.

Francis W. Kelsey.