Religion on the Campus
Just about ten years ago compulsory chapel was dropped at Dartmouth. On the question of religious worship, the burden of proof was then placed upon undergraduate shoulders with the beginning of voluntary attendance at both daily and Sunday chapel exercises. Lately the whole question has come up again, not in Hanover but in Princeton, Williamstown, and other college communities. Read what the Daily Princetonian has to say about compulsory attendance at Sunday chapel at Princeton, under the caption "Take Not Thy Holy Spirit From Us."
"The motto of the powers that be is,'conceal all the disagreeable things youhaven't the courage to eradicate.' HenceMr. Trustee is ushered into his place ofhonor in Chap/el, seated between twoprominent members of the Faculty, listensto the service from a point where it canprobably be heard, and goes home, witha happy memory of the fine crowd of Godfearing undergraduates who are gatheredunder the joined emblems of religion andeducation.
"A very nice picture. But let us suppose,for the moment, that he could put himselfin the position of one of those undergraduates (and admittedly they are a smallminority), who come to the service withsome hope of getting something out of it.Let us even assume that he is able to geta seat not further than halfway down theaisle. Even here, the lesson will soundlike little more than a confused murmur,mingled with the murmur of the otherstudents seated around him, and the subdued cheers as a game of salvo or tick-tacktoe comes to a victorious conclusion. Whenthe hymns are sung, for all he can see, theundergraduate body may as well have lostall its singing, but not its speaking voice,while the Lord's Prayer proceeds in dignified competition with the rustling of thesports sections of the morning papers.There is a somnolent hum of small talkduring the sermon, arising from that section of the congregation which is seatedbehind the halfway mark, and which, evenwith the best will in the world, could dolittle more than catch evrey third word.Finally comes the long-awaited recessionalhymn, and long before the last verse hasstarted there is an embryonic rush to thedoors, a hasty riddance of the all-important attendance cards, and we are donewith religion for another week.
"This, gentlemen, is Chapel at PrincetonUniversity; this is the God-fearing spiritfostered by a two-million dollar buildingwhich makes a student feel about as nearto the Deity as he would if he were seatedin the middle of the Carlsbad Caverns.However, the contributors have to have ashow for their money, and it is reputedthat there is some vague clause in anequally vague charter which calls for acertain amount of religious education atPrinceton. Well, alumni, trustees, parents,friends and all other True Believers, hereit is, as it is."
Although Dartmouth some years ago yielded to conviction that coerced attendance upon chapel exercises was actually harmful to the religious spirit, there are queries made now as to the effectiveness of the voluntary chapel exercises that are held on week-day mornings in Rollins Chapel from 10 to 10:15. The question is raised in Hanover as to whether or not one good Sunday vesper service each week would be better than a half dozen poorly attended exercises. Prof. R. B. Chamberlin, director of Chapel and Fellow in Religion, states that attendance in the fall is good, compared to most of the year. It may surprise alumni to learn that from the opening of College until mid-November the average daily count of chapel-goers has been about 30. In past years attendance has fallen off after Christmas vacation and has steadily declined through the winter, almost to the vanishing point in the early weeks of spring. Last year there was no daily chapel after the spring recess for the prospect was that the leader, the organist, and other musicians, would have had the service entirely to themselves.
Some number of undergraduates find their way to the Hanover churches. The Rev. W. H. Spence, of the White Church, the Rev. John Harris, of the Episcopal or "Stone" Church, and Father Sliney, of the Catholic Church, are ever willing to give time and energy to student parish work. Mr. Spence has a weekly gathering of students at his home. Mr. Harris has an active student vestry. The popularity of Father Sliney among the boys of his faith in College is well known. The interest shown by all of these men is highly commendable. Some additional undergraduates are attracted to the Hanover rooms of the Christian Science Church.
As successor to the Dartmouth Christian Association the Dartmouth Union shows much promise for the future, judged on the basis of its work for the past year and a half. A student cabinet, headed by Donald Hagerman '34 of Arlington, Mass., guided by Professor Chamberlin and a group of faculty and alumni, has evolved a program of spiritual and moral, if not strictly religious, uplift for the campus that has already won the support of both students and faculty. It is definitely committed to a broad scope of religious activity, having pledged the campus not to sponsor any one faith or creed, not to concern itself with any forms of religious worship. It has undertaken to find out, through a College-wide questionnaire, what the desires of Dartmouth students may be in regard to its activities. On the basis of 250 returns the officers of the Union are going ahead with an extensive schedule of faculty-student discussion groups, in which the chief purpose is to give undergraduates a good reason for meeting informally in the homes of men on the faculty, and secondarily to talk, in a distinctly non-classroom manner, of such things as "The Value of Four Years at Dartmouth," "The Place of Religion on the Campus," "Sex and Marriage," "The New Deal," "The Next War," "Choosing a Career," and "Hobbies"—all of which will make for easy conversation and its resulting stimulation of friendship and thought. A number of such faculty-student groups are now well started under the Union's auspices.
When 250 carefully worded answers come back from a general inquiry regarding the Union's work, and when such a marked majority of these show definite interest in discussions of religion in Hanover, it is evident that the desire is strong to "know more." Attendance at week-day chapel exercises is not the common habit of men or women out of college. It is no more to be expected that college students will support such services to any considerable degree. The status of religion on the Dartmouth campus is not "deplorable." It may be a true reflection of religion's status in the outside world, but we suspect it is a little better picture than that.
