Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/368

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In a supplementary catalogue of the same college we learn that the instructing force

The reader will note that the "freedom" here referred to lies wholly in the teachers' privilege of increasing the already existing religious atmosphere, not in any possibility of curtailing it.

Each of the three following quotations is from a catalogue of a college of excellent standing. The first reads:

In accordance with the spirit of the founder, the college is undenominational, but distinctly Christian in its influence, discipline and instruction.

The second is similarly worded, as follows:

These statements do not leave us to infer that religious instruction is simply coordinate with other instruction, but make the claim that the teaching is a combination of the two. A reductio ad absurdum would lead to the query how Christian or religious mathematics differs from secular mathematics, or how such an interpretation of Horace's "Odes" or of the "Chanson de Roland" differs from the secular interpretation, and whether Christian bacteriology differs from catholic or Jewish bacteriology. A more moderate statement in this regard is exhibited in the third citation:

A rather naïve method of cooperation of college and church is shown in the following citation, again from a catalogue of a college of high standing:

Apparently this inquiry and resultant action is official on the part of the college. One is tempted to wonder what disposition is made of students who signify a desire to attend a church of some denomination not represented in the city in which this college is situated. Possibly