PRESIDENT HOPKINS EXPOSES "FUNDAMENTALIST" MOVEMENT

A statement made recently by Rev. Robbins W. Barstow '13, of Concord, N. H., that Dartmouth, in company with many other colleges had received intimations that leaders of the so-called Fundamentalist movement in the churches of the country would attempt to restrict courses of teaching in the College led to the publication by President E. M. Hopkins of a copy of a circular letter addressed to him by Mr. J. C. Massee, one of the Fundamentalist leaders, and his reply to Mr. Massee. The Fundamentalist movement is a part of a larger movement known as "premillenialism" which the Reverend Barstow said is sweeping the country and which is of dangerous proportions.

When interviewed upon the subject President Hopkins said: "The Fundamentalist movement is sweeping through all evangelical denominations and pre-millenialism is one of its phases. Recent bills introduced into state legislatures to limit the teachings of biology and Mr. Bryan's recent attacks on Wellesley and other colleges for teaching evolution are evidences of the same spirit of reactionary theology which is trying to fasten itself upon the churches and the schools." The original letter written to President Hopkins and his reply are reprinted below:

Baptist Temple, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Dr. E. M. Hopkins, etc. My dear Brother :-

Permit us to call your attention to certain paragraphs in the Report of the Committee of Nine adopted by the Northern Baptist Convention last year, and to the analysis made by that committee of an investigation made by Dr. J. C. Massee. Dr. Massee's report indicates at least serious occasion for concern for the tendencies and results of present methods and emphases in some of our schools.

The paragraphs from the report of the Committee of Nine read by Dr. Frank M. Goodchild, its chairman, provide for you and our Baptist constituency not only a remedy for present evil conditions but the means of safeguarding our schools for the future. What is said in these paragraphs of particular schools, is of course equally applicable to your school and to others.

"The real power of control over our schools is in the Baptist constituency in the general locality where the school stands. The control of the Baptists of New York State over Rochester and Colgate Seminaries is almost absolute. The control of the Baptists of New England over Newton, though less direct is equally strong. Crozer is as independent of popular control as any of our Seminaries, yet Crozer could not be deaf to the expressed will of the Baptists of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. No school could resist the organized influence of the people of its part of the country." p. 46.

"Here and there doubtless is a teacher who has departed from the Baptist faith or has lost the Saviour's spirit. The utterances of these men have been published far and wide, and have brought strife into our ranks and confusion to our work. It is the duty of the Baptist communities throughout the country to displace from the schools men who impugn the authority of the Scriptures as the Word of God and who deny the Deity of our Lord, but they must do it in the prescribed ways already indicated." p. 47.

Now we are sure that you with us are aware that the presentation of the report of Dr. Goodchild can in no proper sense be interpreted as an approval of modernism, rationalism, and materialism in our schools. That report rather emphasized the necessity for purging our schools of every leaven of philosophy, science or theology which in any way tends to discredit the faith of our fathers or put in jeopardy the faith of our children.

We are sure that you are aware with us that the report has not allayed the suspicion against the schools in the minds of the great masses of our people. From every direction protests against the continuance of the present educational policy reach us. From every direction pastors and churches indicate that they will not contribute further to the support of our schools or even of our Board of Promotion, as long as this policy continues. It is not too serious a statement to make that the very solidarity of our denominational life is put in jeopardy by the present situation in the schools. Leaders in the radical group have openly confessed that the drift toward radicalism has gone too far. No teacher should be permitted to continue in any one of our schools without the clearest expression of his faith in the acceptance of our Baptist fundamentals; the full Inspiration of the Bible, the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Vicarious Atonment, the Bodily Resurrection, the return of the Lord, the Spiritual Nature and Commission of the Church, the Individual and Personal Character of Righteousness, etc., etc.

We write therefore, as your brethren to advise you:

1. That the agitation for correction in our schools will be continued.

2. To ask that you personally and your Board will cooperate with us in an effort to remove occasion for complaint and in safeguarding the essential faith and interests of our beloved denomination.

We wish to aid you in this and to work with you for the enlargement and strengthening in every way of the school committed to your care.

Praying God's blessing upon you and the school we are

Yours fraternally, J. C. MASSEE, Chairman,J. M. DEAN,FLOYD ADAMS, FRANK GOODCHILD, C. L. LAWS.

Hanover, N. H.

Mr. J. C. Massee:

Dear Sir:

I have received a tetter from your committee, under date ,of November 21st, 1921, calling attention to certain paragraphs in the report of the Committee of Nine, etc.

Of course the letter could not have been sent to me officially because Dartmouth College is by specification of its royal charter, undenominational and unsectarian and it never has acknowledged nor accepted the control of any denomination.

I therefore assume that the letter was sent to me because of my own membership in the Baptist denomination into which I was born and association with which I have always kept. I shall therefore answer the letter as an individual and not as President of Dartmouth College.

The point of view of the letter seems to me to afford the most definite illustration that I have ever seen as to the pernicious influences of denominational control or an attempted denominational influence in educational institutions. The minute that education becomes something besides a sincere and open-minded search for the truth it has become a pernicious and demoralizing influence rather than an aid to society and an improver of civilization.

Educational institutions are more or less familiar with the attempts of economic groups and the efforts of political groups to define what truth shall be taught within the colleges and to temper and modify the curriculum so that it shall support "orthodox" beliefs rather than to stimulate the progressive search for truth and the weighing of what we accept as truth to see whether it is true or not.

I think that it might be desirable for the influences which were responsible for putting out this circular letter, apparently under the authenticated approval of the Baptist Church, to consider the fact that if the spirit of propaganda is to be enshrined above that of the spirit of truth the Master of Lies is going to be given a considerably greater prestige in the world than he has had before, even, and this will be at the expense of the cause of Him who said "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

I believe that the honest agnosticism or doubt of any mind has the right to full play and that only out of such freedom of speculation can a "genuine and strongly founded belief of any potentially be acquired.

I have been calling attention occasionally during the year to the sermon of John Robinson to the Pilgrims just before they sailed in 1620, in which he expressed his disappointment in the state of mind of the reformed church, calling attention to the fact that the Protestant Reformation was avowedly to escape from the results of the conviction of the Roman Catholic Church that all truth has been embodied in some early dispensation and that therefore any modifications of belief were iniquitous. Pastor Robinson then called attention to the fact that there is no difference in principle between that and the belief of the followers of Luther that the discovery of truth ended with Luther, or the contention of the followers of Calvin that the possibilities of the discovery of new truth ended with him.

The speaker then goes on to urge the pilgrim band to keep open minds, an injunction which, of course, they speedily forgot to such an extent even that they were not willing to tolerate the modern sect of Baptists in their midst.

It seems lamentable to me beyond measure that the Baptists, who have always professed to stand for freedom from church hierarchies and from influences which restrict the thinking of man, should now have a group rise within the denomination which wishes to put up the bars in so definite a way as your communication would seem to. feel desirable and that is willing to abandon the spirit of Christ and the spirit of Christianity that seeking and asking are two prerequisites of having . the door of truth opened.

If the spirit of propaganda, as against the spirit of honest search for the truth, which, in thinly veiled form, your report stands for, is to be accepted as the legitimate agency of professedly Christian groups, there is no reason why we should dispute the caustic reference of Wells in regard to the sad regret that the cup in which the great cause of Christianity has been proffered has been so often "poisoned."

Finally, as one who comes from a long Baptist ancestry and who himself wishes to keep his association with the Baptist denomination, I would add a final word of personal regret that there are so continuously agencies within the denomination which, by a narrow spirit of literalism and by a spirit of timid shrinking from honest progressive thought, keep up a continuous process of driving the thinking men out of the denomination,—men we so much need if our common desire for the welfare of the denomination is to be conserved.

Yours very truly,

ERNEST M. HOPKINS