Activities in the Colleges and Universities. — The problems of teaching religion and im parting religious training in colleges and uni versities have not been neglected in recent years. Numerous colleges have introduced new courses, engaged new and highly trained in. structors in the Bible and other aspects of re ligion and generally, in almost all colleges, this work has been brought up to a higher academic level. More men and women of thorough train ing are engaged in teaching religion in this field than ever before. They have a special pro fessional organization of their own in the college department of the Religious Education Association. Besides courses in the Bible there began to be introduced in the American col leges, in about 1908, courses in religious educa tion, courses designed to train young people to usefulness in the organization and teaching in religious agencies. In 1919 there were over 200 standard colleges offering courses in this field, looking forward to the usefulness of the graduates in work in religious education, es pecially training teachers and specialists in this field. In State universities, separated from ec clesiasticism just as public schools are, there is, however, greater freedom in the teaching of religion because here it is lifted into a higher realm of free discussion and of pure scientific thought. Some State universities offer courses in religious literature, nearly all in the history of religions, some in philosophy and psychology of religion and some provide for courses in re ligion given in accredited institutions adjacent to the university. The real problem of all in
stitutions of higher learning as it relates to religious education is not, however, so much in the realm of formal courses in religion as in the matter of securing in the institution the prevalence of ideals, the rule of customs and atmosphere that will train the students in habits of religious living, and will inerpret life to them in essentially religious terms. In many universities this is consciously the most serious endeavor, to send out men and women to whom life means a chance to realize high spiritual ideals.
In an increasing degree the phrase education is coming to mean to large numbers of persons the interpretation of every activity and aim in life in terms of character results, to see all as judged by the effects on persons, by the product in character and in the perma nent worths of life. It has come to mean a new interpretation of religion as not alone a body of literature or philosophy, and still less a form of organization or custom, but as a force of ideals working in life to develop finer persons, to interpret the world in the light of the values that endure, the values of thought, ideal and hope. Religious education seeks to organize society, through all agencies •of instruction, habituation and idealization, so that out of all the process of life there may grow religious persons and there may develop a society that will make a religious world.