The OHIO HISTORICAL Quarterly
VOLUME 69 ?? NUMBER 4 ?? OCTOBER
1960
Learning and Piety in
Ohio Colleges, 1865-1900
By SHERMAN B. BARNES*
BECAUSE IN THE "Gilded Age" a
flood of new knowledge
was received into the collegiate
curriculum, the question often
arises whether traditional Protestant
piety impeded or hasten-
ed the adoption of new curricular
offerings in science, history,
psychology, philosophy, fine arts, and
modern languages.
Excellent histories of a number of Ohio
colleges published
in recent years offer an opportunity to
answer the question.
They suggest that piety did indeed play
a constructive role in
nourishing new learning and that it did
so while insisting on
correct philosophical interpretation.
They also suggest that
collegiate piety was receptive as well to other new
influences
in this transitional period before
1900.
In the post-Civil War era the
church-related Protestant
colleges of Ohio continued, as they had
before the war, to
profess themselves in most instances to
be Christian but un-
denominational. Catalogs announced that
sectarian peculiari-
ties of belief would not be taught.
Colleges described them-
selves as denominational in ownership
and control, but not in
instruction. A charter forbidding
Antioch to be denomi-
national enabled that institution to
survive even the strain
of dual control by the denomination known as
"Christians"
and by Unitarians for a period after its reopening in
1882:
* Sherman B. Barnes is a professor of
history at Kent State University.
328
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
"The ethics taught is Christian
ethics; the daily religious
service is the Christian worship. The
officers and students
are of many denominations, and maintain
the relations which
their own consciences approve."1
Another college gave attend-
ance of both Protestants and Catholics
as a reason for calling
itself "practically
non-sectarian." Its Christian purpose was
left in no doubt: "It earnestly
desires its teachers and stu-
dents to think their thoughts after God
in His Word and
Works, and to live their lives after
Christ."2 When Mus-
kingum, previously nonsectarian, was in
1877 taken under
the care of the United Presbyterian
Church, the purpose was
financial support, not theological.3
When a college became
a university, this did not mean that it
could avoid "relations
to the fundamental doctrines of
religion, for there are funda-
mental truths of being. . . . An
irreligious university is a
logical inconsistency."4
A much larger proportion of college
presidents came from
the ministry than did the faculty, but
a lay member of the
denomination supporting a college was
occasionally elected,
as at Denison, Kenyon, and Marietta.5
Lay presidents from
outside the denominational tradition of
the college were non-
existent. Ordained professors dropped
into a minority; their
professionalized lay colleagues could
be of any denomination,
but were expected to be Christian:
"Most colleges would no
more elect as professor one opposed to
Christianity, or even
indifferent to its claims, than they
would elect one notoriously
ignorant of the topic he would
teach."6 Sessions of the an-
1 Daniel A. Long, Sketch of the Legal
History of Antioch College (Dayton,
Ohio, 1890), 8.
2 Catalogue of Baldwin University,
1887-1888 (Berea, Ohio, 1888), 51.
3 Robert N. Montgomery, "Some
Presidents of Muskingum," in Robert N.
Montgomery, ed., The William Rainey
Harper Memorial Conference, . . . Held in
Connection with the Centennial of
Muskingum College (Chicago, 1938),
141-142.
4 Charles F. Thwing, A History of
Higher Education in America (New York,
1906), 459.
5 George F. Smythe, Kenyon College: Its First Century (New
Haven, Conn.,
1924), 228; Arthur Granville Beach, Pioneer
College: The Story of Marietta
(Chicago, 1935), 204-208; G. Wallace
Chessman, Denison: The Story of an Ohio
College (Granville, Ohio, 1957), 234-235.
6 Charles F. Thwing, Within College
Walls (New York, (1893), 38-39.
LEARNING AND PIETY 329
nual meeting of the Ohio Association of
Colleges were opened
with the offering of prayer. Professors
were called upon to
conduct chapel services, preach
sermons, lead prayer meetings,
and conduct funeral services. An
Oberlin professor regu-
larly noted in his diary his opinion of
the quality of sermons
he heard.7 Professors
watched over the religious life of
students, prayed with them, and took
part in revivals. A
professor at Ohio Wesleyan was quick to
detect a false note
in a student's religion.8 A
letter from Otterbein in 1890 took
pleasure in the fact that "a
number of times in its history
scarcely a solitary student was left in
the ranks of unbe-
lievers."9
Adherence to the doctrines of the
college's denominational
affiliation was not enforced on either
professors or students.10
At Antioch, President Daniel A. Long
could tolerate the
"bad theology" of
Unitarianism, judging men by their fruits
and recalling that "error is never
really dangerous if truth is
left free to combat her."11
Intradenominational theological
dispute only very occasionally
developed in this era. When
it did break out, as at Kenyon,
Ashland, and Wittenberg,
public opinion frowned and enrollment
dropped.12 The dis-
missal of Professor Walter Q. Scott at
the College of Woos-
ter in 1880 was not because he
questioned Presbyterian doc-
7 Diary
of Lyman Bronson Hall. Manuscript in Oberlin College Library.
8 Henry
Clyde Hubbart, Ohio Wesleyan's First Hundred Years (Delaware,
Ohio, 1943), 82.
9 George Wells Knight and John R.
Commons, The History of Higher Educa-
tion in Ohio (Washington, D.C., 1891), 145.
10 Beach, Marietta, 227; Mary
Bosworth Treudley, Prelude to the Future: The
First Hundred Years of Hiram College (New York, 1950), 117; Donald M. Love,
Henry Churchill King of Oberlin (New Haven, Conn., 1956), 73. The Univer-
salist convention in 1896 asked that at
Buchtel "the instructors, if possible . . . be
Universalists." A. I. Spanton, ed.,
Fifty Years of Buchtel (1870-1920) (Akron,
Ohio, 1922), 91.
11 Long, Antioch, 12.
12 Kenyon
suffered for a decade after 1867 because President James Kent Stone,
a Tractarian, offended the evangelical
traditions of the college. Smythe, Kenyon,
195-198. For Ashland, see Ashland
College Bulletin, 1957-58 (Ashland, Ohio,
1957), 5. The "trial" of
Professor L. A. Gotwald at Wittenberg, in 1893, arose
from fear that the liberal traditions of
the college were threatened by a rising
"exclusive and conservative
spirit" symbolized by Gotwald. Harold H. Lentz,
A History of Wittenberg College (1845-1945) (Springfield, Ohio, 1946), 176-178.
330
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
trine. To provoke reasoned conviction
by raising the ques-
tion in class whether God exists was
Scott's offense.13 The
Christian college had not yet learned
to approve this type of
dialectic in the classroom.
Professions of Christian purpose and
observance of com-
pulsory daily chapel characterized
universities under state
support. The granting of the first
state money to Ohio Uni-
versity in March 1881,14 and Miami's
reopening in 1885 as
a state-supported institution after having been closed
twelve
years,15 did not affect the Christian
college pattern. A trustee
of Ohio University in the 1890's called his school
"non-
sectarian but Christian."16
President William Henry Scott
of Ohio State University, stating in
1884 that the true posi-
tion for any university is to be Christian but
undenomina-
tional, rejected the alternatives of
higher education "under
the malign influence of a sordid
utilitarianism or a dead ma-
terialism."17 Clergymen
continued to be elected presidents of
state institutions. In respect to daily
compulsory chapel, the
line between denominational and
state-supported colleges was
in this era nonexistent.
At Miami the faculty and at Ohio State
the trustees moved
against presidents who neglected to
enforce daily compulsory
chapel. When state support and the
first lay president ar-
rived simultaneously at Miami in 1885,
the faculty, led by
Andrew D. Hepburn, opposed President
McFarland's abo-
lition of compulsory chapel, which was
restored in 1888, after
this president's departure.18 At
Ohio State University the
trustees required the first four
presidents to observe daily
compulsory chapel. His failure to
enforce this ruling was
13 Lucy Lilian Notestein, Wooster of the
Middlewest (New Haven, Conn.,
1937), 101-104.
14 Thomas N. Hoover, The History of Ohio University (Athens,
Ohio, 1954),
147.
15 Walter Havighurst, The Miami Years, 1809-1959 (New
York, 1958), 135ff.
16 Hoover, Ohio University, 176.
17 James E. Pollard, History of The
Ohio State University: The Story of Its
First Seventy-Five Years, 1873-1948 (Columbus, Ohio, 1952), 51.
18 Havighurst,
Miami, 142-143.
LEARNING AND PIETY 331
an important factor in the resignation
of President Walter
Q. Scott in 1883, after he had served
only two years.19
In the nineteenth-century college there
was believed to be
one right curriculum, outside which
there was no educational
salvation. The languages and literature
of Greece and Rome,
mathematics, mental and moral
philosophy, and Christian evi-
dences developed "all the powers
of the soul as an end but
not as an instrument,"
"correctness in mental processes,"20
and awareness of self as a moral being
made in the image of
God. "Strenuous mental
discipline" was needed because "the
average man does not desire to study
long, nor deep, nor
continuously."21 Colleges
existed not to impart information:
"The college . . . sees in her
student not a mere receptacle
of facts . . . but a possible strong
and scientific thinker, able
to make right use of his knowledge; who
can expound facts
and organize knowledge into the
orderliness of truth."22 The
subjects of the curriculum were not
ends in themselves, but
means for developing the mental and
moral faculties of the
student.23 The recitation
method at its best meant intellectual
fencing between professor and student,
not parroting the
text. A master of this method, William
George Williams of
Ohio Wesleyan, had the Christian
humility not to lecture but
to prod the student by suggestion and
question to rely on him-
self to reach conclusions.24 At
Otterbein, President Henry
Adams Thompson in 1875 urged the faculty not only to
investigate and write themselves but to
encourage the in-
quisitiveness of the students:
"Asking them the precise ques-
19 Pollard, Ohio State, 81-89.
20 Hubbart,
Ohio Wesleyan, 88.
21 C. L. Ehrenfeld, "The Aim of the
College," Transactions of the Association
of Ohio Colleges (Columbus, Ohio, 1888), 6-19. The Transactions of the Ohio
College Association (as it was known
after 1891) will be referred to hereafter as
Transactions only.
22 Ibid., 10.
23 A History of Mount Union College During Its First Thirty Years,
1846-1876
(Cleveland, 1876), 12.
24 J.
W. Bashford, "Memorial Address on Professor William George Williams,"
Transactions (Cleveland, 1902), 11-19.
332
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tions in the book is not the way to
make them thinkers."25
Belief in the education of the whole
man, however, required
that mental development should not be
disjoined from moral
and religious culture.26 Moral reflection
disclosed the "dis-
cordant elements" and passions
within the self which required
the word of God to keep the soul from
going "adrift without
a rudder, sail, or compass, upon an
ocean of doubts and dark-
ness."27 The ideal of educating the
whole man led to notable
efforts to conciliate the claims of
both faith and reason.
Reason and religion harmonized in
diverse ways. Their
coexistence appeared particularly in
the Christian evidences
course. In such a class at Oberlin it
was argued that accept-
ance of the Christian system rested not
on blind faith, force,
or habit, but on well established
conviction, on evidences
developed in its conflicts with other
religions and philosophies
in its long history.28 A
president and professor of philosophy
and mental and moral science expressed
the hope in a bacca-
laureate address to seniors that
"your study in philosophy
has already convinced you of the
impotency of any philo-
sophical system to satisy the hunger of
the human soul for
God."29 The Greek and
Latin languages and literatures
were valued for giving "us a
conscious historic feeling of the
oneness of humanity that we cannot otherwise
obtain."30
Their awareness that the true spirit of
religion at times
needs revival in the church alerted
clerical professors to the
need for "a revival of the true
spirit of learning and
science."31
A sense that crisis was upon the
traditional Christian col-
lege mounted as the century waned. From
Wittenberg came
25 Willard W. Bartlett, Education for Humanity: The
Story of Otterbein College
(Westerville, Ohio, 1934), 48-49.
26 Mount Union College, 12.
27 John Tonner, Baccalaureate Sermon at the Commencement of Mount Union
College (Alliance, Ohio, 1867), 13.
28 Anna M. Metcalf, Student Notes on Professor John M. Ellis' Course, Evi-
dences of Christianity, Spring, 1882.
Manuscript in Oberlin College Library.
29 President
Joseph Edward Stubbs of Baldwin University, in Berea Advertiser,
June 14, 1889.
30 Ehrenfeld, "Aim of the College," 14.
31 Ibid., 17.
LEARNING AND PIETY 333
the cry that "the college is in a
period of struggle to main-
tain its true existence, its
identity."32 To an Otterbein presi-
dent it seemed "that a great
contest is on between the so-
called bread-and-butter sciences and a
liberal training."33
From Buchtel College came lament that
the expanding elective
system was a form of worldliness:
Out of this utilitarian sentiment arises
indifference to education, then
direct opposition to it on the ground of
its expense. Out of it springs,
too, the disposition to get as little
education as is consistent with making
a fair show in society, and getting
along in the world. Hence the ten-
dency to take elective studies and rush
through the work of education,
as if economy of time were of paramount
importance to an immortal
soul, that has all eternity before it!34
Another Buchtel president asked,
"What are electives for? To
enable the scientific to escape all
literature and the literary
to elect away from sciences?"35
The theme was increasingly developed
that colleges were
advancing in intellectual and cultural
ways without corres-
ponding religious and moral growth.36
Sullivan H. McCol-
lester, president of Buchtel, 1872-78,
felt that the current
curriculum, too weak religiously,
"savors somewhat of classic
Greece and Rome, of Pestalozzi and
Liebig, of Cuvier and
Bacon."37 H. C. Haydn
found need for colleges to require
the study of the Bible, with the help
of the latest findings
of historical criticism in order to
overcome the "profound
ignorance" of the Bible on the
part of the average freshman.38
At Hiram, Ohio Wesleyan, the University
of Cincinnati, and
elsewhere, steps were taken in the
1890's to require biblical
32 Ibid.
33 T. J. Sanders, "The Place and Purpose of the College," Transactions
(Athens,
Ohio, 1889), 5-14.
34 President
Orello Cone of Buchtel, 1880, in Spanton, Buchtel, 173.
35 Ira A. Priest, "Concerning the Purpose and Plan of
Education," Transactions
(Columbus, Ohio, 1900), 7-14.
36 See Love, King of Oberlin, 15;
Thwing, Within College Walls, 56-59; Ellen
E. Garrigues, "Suggestions
Concerning the Moral, Aesthetic and Social Develop-
ment of the Undergraduate," Transactions
(Athens, Ohio, 1897), 69-78.
37 Spanton, Buchtel, 47.
38 Hiram C. Haydn, "The Study of the Bible in American
Colleges," Transac-
tions (Columbus, Ohio, 1889), 36-40.
334
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
study in place of the traditional
Christian evidences, Joseph
Butler's The Analogy of Religion, and
William Paley.39
At Hiram under President Ely Vaughn
Zollars, 1888-1902,
and at Ohio Wesleyan under President
James Whitford
Bashford, 1889-1904, the new emphasis
on history, biblical
criticism, comparative religion, and
psychology was linked
with the belief that acceptance of the
biblical God requires
the mental flexibility to avoid the
danger
that, being set for the defense of
certain distinctive ideas as to religion,
it shall seek to hold its culture, and limit its
mental liberty to the
compass of those ideas. The college
that makes itself narrow and sec-
tarian defeats its own proper object.
To hold the mind of the student
to the grooves of ancient thought, to forbid utter
liberty to the honest
soul--this is to suppress the mind and
the man. Men may grow
shrewd and cunning under such
restrictions, but they will never grow
large and strong.40
At the same time, President Thwing of
Western Reserve
was insisting that, in spite of the
waning of revivals, changes
in textbooks and teaching methods, and
emphasis on re-
search, "Christian life is no less
vital" in colleges -- under
new forms.41
A crisis for the college originated not
only in curriculum
changes and in the inner tensions of a
system combining
piety and learning; it arose also from
the pressures of the
community on colleges which felt they
best served humanity
by adherence to the absolutes of their
classical and Christian
tradition. Even the location of
colleges on rural hilltop or
plain was felt valuable for moral
purity and rigor of learn-
ing. At Western Reserve strong feeling
arose against the
move from Hudson to Cleveland in 1882
and against the ad-
mission of coeds.42 Townspeople
of Wooster and Oxford
39 Treudley, Hiram, 130-131; Hubbart, Ohio
Wesleyan, 207.
40 E. V. Zollars, "The Mission of
the Endowed College," Transactions (Cleve-
land, 1900), 7-11.
41 Charles
F. Thwing, The Choice of a College for a Boy (Boston, 1899), 12.
42 H.
C. Haydn, Western Reserve University from Hudson to Cleveland, 1878-
1890 (Cleveland, 1905), 70-74; Frederick Clayton Waite, Western
Reserve Uni-
versity: The Hudson Era (Cleveland, 1943), 448-467.
LEARNING AND PIETY 335
felt their respective "gowns"
were too religious. In the late
eighties and early nineties there were
presidents and faculties
at Miami and Wooster who opposed the
incipient invasion by
intercollegiate athletics as
trespassing on the "holy time" in
college preparing for later usefulness
in life.43 A president
recorded the contemporary feeling that
colleges were places
of amusement or centers of preparation
for the learned pro-
fessions. Young men who wanted to make
a fortune would
avoid them.44 If the world
of business had a prejudice against
college men,45 it was because colleges
resisted the mercantile
spirit:
Everywhere there is clamor against the
branches which the college
idea demands, branches whose mastery
greatens and irradiates the minds
that penetrate and possess them, but
which do not minister immediately
to the mercantile spirit that prevails.46
Colleges were slow to abandon
traditional linguistic and
mathematical requirements for
admission, often adhering to
standards at the cost of low enrollment
and needed fees. Most
colleges maintained preparatory
departments to assist youths
to enter the college freshman class.
Frequently more stu-
dents were in the preparatory
department than in the college.
There was resistance to admitting high
school graduates by
presentation of diplomas. From Denison
in 1890 came a
note of vexation that the graduates of
the rising system of
public high schools lacked preparation:
"It is regarded as ex-
tremely unfortunate that the better
class of Ohio high schools
are not so organized that their
diplomas, upon approval by the
board, could entitle the holder to full
standing in the fresh-
man class."47 A
Wittenberg professor was confident that the
43 Notestein, Wooster, 106,
175-177; Havighurst, Miami, 128, 143-153. See
"Discussion-Inter-Collegiate
Athletics," Transactions (Athens, Ohio, 1899), 62-67.
44 George W. Williard, The History of
Heidelberg College (Cincinnati, 1879),
94-101.
45 Thwing, Within College
Walls, 148.
46 Ehrenfeld, "Aim of the College," 17.
47 W.
H. Johnson, "Denison University," in Knight and Commons, Higher
Education in Ohio, 161.
336
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
high schools should adjust to the
collegiate order of studies
"tried and not found wanting in
the ages past" rather than
the reverse. To him the college was
"not simply another still
more advanced form of the high
school." Their provinces
were not the same and their functions
were distinct.48 Liberal
college presidents took another
approach. The fact that Wil-
liam Oxley Thompson, president of
Miami, 1891-99, oppo-
sed entrance examinations as a basis of
admission to college
as unfitted to Ohio conditions does not
mean he sympathized
"with the notion that a college
should be an accommodation
train."49 President
Thompson urged the college leaders of
the state to "put a new emphasis
upon the importance of the
high school" in order to enable
the colleges to close their
preparatory departments and to raise
their standards for
"sound scholarship, superior
citizenship . . . [and] leadership
in inspiring the youth of our state
toward the best things in
a christian civilization."50 In
1892 James Edward Stubbs,
president of Baldwin University,
1886-94, urged a program
for Ohio of "two or three superior
training colleges for teach-
ers" and asked whether there could
not be more preparation
in colleges "for bread-winning in
life without abating a jot
of the higher education of the whole
man."51 James Whitford
Bashford is another example of a
theologically liberal presi-
dent who moved to lessen the gap
between college and com-
munity.
President of Ohio Wesleyan University,
1889-1904, Bash-
ford opened his college to high school
graduates by certificate
of graduation.52 He was an
innovator in the use of publicity
and promotional methods to build enrollment.
He maintained
48 Ehrenfeld, "Aim of the
College," 18.
49 William
Oxley Thompson, "Entrance Requirements," Transactions (Athens,
Ohio, 1897), 5-13; William Oxley Thompson,
"President W. O. Thompson's
Paper," Transactions (Delaware,
Ohio, 1896), 67.
50 William Oxley Thompson, "Address in Behalf of Ohio Colleges,"
in The
Inauguration of Rev. Guy Potter Benton, A.M., D.D., as
President of Miami
University (Hamilton, Ohio, [1902]), 26-31.
51 James Edward Stubbs, "The
College of Today," Transactions (Warren, Ohio,
1893), 5-21.
52 Hubbart, Ohio Wesleyan, 106.
LEARNING AND PIETY 337
that the colleges were themselves at
fault for failing to sup-
ply the Ohio schools with an adequate
number of teachers:
"The college men must admit that
they have neglected this
most serious problem, and thus have
weakened their own
sources of supply, by their greater
willingness to establish
professional schools of law and medicine and theology
than
of pedagogy."53 Bashford
visualized the high schools of the
state as capable of providing moral and
spiritual education.
He viewed the state as "fit to
give all the training necessary
to prepare her children for the highest
service of herself and
of humanity."54 There
can be no sharp distinction between
Christian college and community when it
is believed that
the school which omits Bible reading and
prayer at the opening of its
exercises is not necessarily a Godless school. God is
quite as pious
when making bugs and beetles. . . . All conduct,
whether teaching
arithmetic, or washing dishes, or shoeing horses, is
sacred, if per-
formed with unselfish motives.55
The liberalism of President Bashford
also redirected in-
tellectual and moral traditions at Ohio
Wesleyan. Opposed
to the tradition of president and faculty standing in
loco
parentis by a system of regulating student conduct, he moved
with the current of the time toward
student self-government:
"I fear that the continuance of
the patriarchal method in col-
lege life has not only injured personal
freedom, but has low-
ered the standard of morality among the
students."56 Seven
years later, however, he expressed approval of the
principle
of faculty regulation of athletics because of rising
abuses in
intercollegiate competition.57 In
respect to intellectual cur-
rents President Bashford welcomed the
latest discoveries in
53 James Whitford Bashford, An
Educational Policy for Ohio (Delaware, Ohio,
n.d.), 4.
54 J. W. Bashford, "Can State Schools Teach Christian
Ethics?" Transactions
(Granville, Ohio, 1891), 41-52.
55 Ibid., 44.
56 J. W. Bashford, "A Study of Civil Government," Transactions (Wooster,
Ohio, 1892), 3-20.
57 "Discussion-Inter-Collegiate
Athletics," Transactions (Athens, Ohio, 1899),
62-63.
338
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
science, biblical criticism,
philosophy, and comparative re-
ligion. All learning he could
"cast in a frame of zealous
evangelistic religion."58 Applied
science he could cast in a
patriotic mold. Its more intensive
study on the graduate level
was a necessity if the United States
was to become the in-
dustrial and commercial leader of the
world.59
In the post-Civil War college whatever
minimal resistance
was offered to expanding scientific
studies in the curriculum
originated in factors other than
religious. The expense of
new scientific buildings, laboratories,
and apparatus was a
retarding factor in some cases.60 The
belief that scientific
courses ranked low in cultural value
and mental discipline as
compared with the classics was probably
the most important.61
The classical tradition was so strong
that even at Ohio State,
founded to advance engineering and
agricultural studies,
respectability as a college was felt to
require a strong classi-
cal emphasis.62 William
Henry Scott, Greek professor, Metho-
dist clergyman, and president of Ohio
University, 1872-83,
regarded the increasing ratio of
scientific to classical students
as a "demoralizing" trend.63
Indifferent to swelling the enroll-
ment, he restored in 1882 the Latin and
Greek requirement as
a condition of entry to the freshman
class. The science
sequence leading to the bachelor of
science degree in numer-
ous colleges was covered in three years
in contrast to the
four-year classical course. By 1889,
however, standards were
being raised for the B.S.; colleges
unable to do adequate
scientific work were persuaded by the
Ohio College Associa-
tion not to grant this degree,
"and the few colleges which
bestow the degree, for the most part do
so only for a fair
58 Hubbart,
Ohio Wesleyan, 87.
59 Bashford, Educational Policy for Ohio, 19-20.
60 For example, at Otterbein. Knight and
Commons, Higher Education in Ohio,
143; Chessman, Denison, 135.
61 Spanton, Buchtel, 82;
Williard, Heidelberg, 25.
62 Philip D. Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age, 1873-1900 (Carl Wittke,
ed., The
History of the State of Ohio, V, Columbus, 1943), 394.
63 Hoover, Ohio University, 153-154.
LEARNING AND PIETY 339
amount of work done."64 It
is significant that professors of
the physical and natural sciences who
argued their case
utilized traditions from the classical
course to justify their
work. That is to say, they argued that
their disciplines had
mental and moral value equal to or
superior to that of the
classics. The self-control,
independence, truthful statement,
suspended judgment, and industry
required in laboratory
work were interpreted as good in ethics
as well as in science.65
There was also a theological mold and
interpretation within
which and partly because of which
scientific studies made
their way.
There was a favorable milieu for
science in colleges having
presidents who regarded "every
exact fact" as "a thought
of God."66 President
Samson Talbot of Denison, 1863-73,
stated the general ideal of harmony:
"I would have instruc-
tion in the Arts and Sciences bound in close alliance
with
high mindedness and depth of thought
and practical wisdom
and with the Christian religion."67
An expectation of new
discoveries echoed in the words of Dr.
Samuel Sprecher, presi-
dent of Wittenberg, 1849-73: "Here
is the only true method
of retaining the truth in religion,
that we have every present
judgment by the Word of God and that we
be ready to receive
whatever new truth shall be made known
to us from the same
Word."68 His zeal for
science and his local museum as neces-
sary both vocationally and evangelically
in a "peoples col-
lege" led Orville N. Hartshorn,
president of Mount Union
College, 1846-87, to travel in Europe
in 1867 to observe
64 John M. Ellis, "Historical
Sketch of the Association of the Colleges of Ohio,"
Transactions (Oberlin, Ohio, 1890), 54-66.
65 Chessman, Denison, 121-122; C.
L. Herrick, "The Ethical Aspects of Labora-
tory Teaching," Transactions (Granville,
Ohio, 1891), 5-15; E. W. Claypole,
"Value in Life of Scientific
Thinking," ibid., 15-20; W. E. Henderson, "The
Science Course," Transactions (Columbus,
Ohio, 1900), 31-40.
66 Sylvester
Fithian Scovel, president of the College of Wooster, 1883-99, in
Notestein, Wooster, 137.
67 Chessman,
Denison, 138.
68 Lentz, Wittenberg, 142n.
340
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
methods in scientific instruction and
museum procedure.69
James Edward Stubbs, president of
Baldwin University, re-
garded scientific discovery as a boon
to material, moral, and
spiritual growth. In an address after
returning from two
years in Germany, 1890-92, he declared
that "from the labora-
tory of the chemist, the biologist and
the physiologist has
come a stream of life saving
knowledge."70
The theological training of clergymen
presidents and pious
professors prepared them to see the
facts and laws of nature
studied by science as evidences of
God's handiwork. To
President Willis Lord of the College of
Wooster, 1870-73,
these facts and laws were "the
offspring of God. He orig-
inated their elements. He imparted
their qualities and powers.
He devised and ordained their
laws."71 At Denison the
biologist C. Judson Herrick was
confident that when the
Darwinian "laws of variation are
discovered we may be as-
sured that, like all other laws of
nature, they are the voice
of God."72 Both Lord
and Herrick shared the optimism that
increasing knowledge of nature will
lead men to acknowledge
"Him who made it" (Lord) and
to see that the evolutionary
process "is under the guidance of
an immanent Divinity"
(Herrick). In Charles F. Thwing,
elected president of Wes-
tern Reserve University in 1890, a
sense of the urgent need
for research was combined with piety:
Valuing at the utmost the content of
all special revelations from and
concerning the divine Being, these
revelations are so slight in comparison
to the whole content of truth respecting God and His
Will that advant-
age must be taken of psychology,
anthropology, and biology for learning
whatever can be known touching Him who
is the all in all.73
69 Mount Union
College, 6; Yost Osborne, "A
History of Mount Union College,
1846-1946" (unpublished manuscript
in Mount Union College Library).
70 Stubbs, "The College of Today," 12; Dorothy
McKelvey, "A History of
Baldwin-Wallace College"
(unpublished manuscript in Baldwin-Wallace College
Alumni Office).
71 Notestein, Wooster, 45.
72 Chessman, Denison, 144.
73 Charles F. Thwing, A History of
Higher Education in America (New York,
1906), 459.
LEARNING AND PIETY 341
It was a recurring theme that Scripture
was not to be
taken as authoritative in respect to
problems such as the age
of the earth, the origin and order of
nature, or "whether
man as a mere physical being was
descended from the earlier
forms of existence."74 H.
C. Haydn, president of Western
Reserve, 1887-90, and his successor,
Charles F. Thwing, felt
that the Bible stood out all the more
prominently as a guide
in religion and ethics when it was seen
not to be a manual of
science.75 G. Frederick Wright, an Oberlin
biblical scholar
and geologist, was holding that the
Bible should not be mis-
taken for a textbook of science when
stating it was "an im-
pertinence to endeavor to find all
modern science in the docu-
ment (Genesis), however easy it may be
for science to find
shelter under the drapery of its
rhetoric."76 Wright's obvious
rejection of James Dwight Dana's manner
of showing the
correspondence between Genesis and
geology in the order
given the facts of creation does not
mean that he rejected
either the divine inspiration of
Genesis or the divine causa-
tion of the world. By using his
knowledge of glacial geology
to throw light on the flood, the
passage of the Red Sea, the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and
other old Testa-
ment occurrences, he intended to make
better known the
means, or secondary causes,
"through which God accom-
plishes His design."77 The
biologist C. L. Herrick felt the
nearness of God through constant
creativeness: "Biology
suggests that whatever Power created
this world and its
inhabitants is now as truly operative
as it ever was, that cre-
ation is a constant act and not a
postulated long forgotten
event incapable of proof."78
74 Chessman, Denison, 143, citing
President Samson T. Talbot.
75 Hiram C. Haydn, The Bible and Current Thought (Cleveland, 1891),
22;
Charles F. Thwing, A Liberal
Education and a Liberal Faith (New York, 1903),
178-179.
76 G. Frederick Wright, Story of
My Life and Work (Oberlin, Ohio, 1916), 369.
77 Ibid., 382. See the works of
Wright: Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences
(New York, 1898); Scientific
Confirmations of Old Testament History (Oberlin,
Ohio, 1906).
78 C. L. Herrick, "The Ethical Aspects of Laboratory Teaching," Transactions
(Granville, Ohio, 1891), 5-15.
342
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
An element of cautious scepticism kept
many college spokes-
men in the middle between extremism
either theological or
scientific. The resistance to
evolutionary theories at Ohio
Wesleyan before the 1890's was defended
in 1894 by Amos
E. Dolbear, an alumnus who had achieved
some distinction
in science: "When the class of
1866 was in college we heard
nothing about evolution or
thermodynamics; . . . it is right
for a college to go slow; there is not
a little today that is
dubbed evolution which is certain to
become obsolete."79 G.
Frederick Wright felt that too often
scientists forgot the
provisional nature of their theories;
on the other hand, he
warned defenders of Christianity not to
err by being "too
incredulous regarding the conclusions
of modern science,
lest they also do violence to those
common principles of rea-
son in which all in the last resort
must take refuge."80 To
Wright, as to Joseph Butler, there were
mysteries underlying
any system of knowledge equally as
great and beyond logical
proof as those of Christian faith.81 At Denison in
the 1870's
the biologist Lewis E. Hicks took both
theologians and
scientists to task for the extremism of
their views.82 Under-
lying the suspended judgment of these
men who would be
both pious and scientific was a fear
less of science than of
science wrongly interpreted. The
intellectual frontier of the
day was conceived as more than a battle
between science and
religion. To a clerical president at
Baldwin University scien-
tific discoveries had to be seen in
context with philosophical
and theological research. Studies on
all these frontiers
have brought again the old time
struggles upon the field of religious
doctrine. In some respects this
conflict is healthful and in others it is
dangerous. All the doctrines of the
theological system of churches, and
the divine origin of the Bible are
coming under a searching review by
both friend and foe of Christianity.83
79 Hubbart,
Ohio Wesleyan, 100.
80 G. Frederick Wright, The Logic of Christian Evidences (Andover,
Mass.,
1880), 64.
81 Wright, My Life and Work, 200.
82 Chessman, Denison, 143.
83 President Joseph Edward Stubbs, baccalaureate sermon to seniors, in Berea
Advertiser, June 14, 1889.
LEARNING AND PIETY 343
That good would emerge from the
struggle President Stubbs
did not doubt: "Old forms will pass away. New
forms will
symbolize the adjustment of religious thought and
activity
to new conditions of general thought
and life."84
In the baccalaureate sermons of
President George W. Wil-
liard of Heidelberg College from 1867 to 1879 there
was no
opposition to science, but only to
wrong philosophies. In a
list of these, in 1877, he included "Pantheism,
Evolution,
Materialism, Nihilism, Atheism,
Naturalism and Rationalism,
of which we have heard so much in these
latter days." In his
comment President Williard showed both an accurate
aware-
ness that philosophies may be confused
with science and also
a trust in the rational powers of his
youthful auditors:
From such speculations and theorizings,
my young friends, I would
affectionately entreat you to keep
aloof, and, if you study them, as it is
right and proper for you to do -- to keep pace with
the progress of
thought -- do not allow yourselves to
be deceived and led astray by the
specious forms of sophistry and
boasting pretensions of science, falsely
so called.85
President W. D. Godman, D.D., of
Baldwin University,
1870-75, felt confronted "with
unbelief in every form"86 To
him contemporary unbelief originated
less in science than in
the positivism which denies a first
cause and the rationalists
"who refuse to award the character
of truth to spiritual ex-
perience."87 To Herbert
Spencer's insistence that education be
made exclusively scientific Dr. Godman
answered: "This
exclusion of any kind of knowledge is
unscientific, though
done in the name of science."88
To refuse to investigate the
supernatural is a form of
"scientific bigotry"89 which forgets
that "Faith and Reason are really
near of kin and go har-
84 Stubbs, "The College of Today," 20.
85 Williard, Heidelberg, 257.
86 W. D. Godman, A Post-Graduate
Course of Study for Ministers of the
Gospel (Cleveland, 1874), 14.
87 Inauguration at Baldwin University (Berea, Ohio, 1871), 27.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid., 16.
344 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
moniously together."90 Dr.
Godman's belief that a harmony
of faith and reason could be found, led
him to urge increased
study of science by ministerial
students, including use of
Lyell's and Dana's geological manuals.
It was his vision that
all truth is Christ's; and He will show
us how to harmonize the revealed
and the discovered. They are
friendly and at one in themselves. All
the severance is made by man's
ignorance. A great gain is made by
learning their connections.91
Of the two bigotries, one rationalistic, one religious, God-
man was capable of saying that
religious bigotry "is hotter
and more dangerous than scientific
bigotry."92 He hoped that
an alliance of science with religion
could defeat rationalism
and positivism. Of the positivists he
held the view that they
were "the most complete bigots of
our day . . . who ignore
everything but physical and social
science."93
At the College of Wooster, President
Willis Lord knew
that facts of science may be used in
ways antagonistic to
moral truth, but that such use of the
facts springs "from an-
other cause, not from the
sciences." "I do not believe," he
said, "that the study of the
Physical Sciences has any legiti-
mate tendency antagonistic to moral
truth."94 At Denison,
President Talbot, in an 1872 review
of Charles Darwin's
The Descent of Man, showed alarm, not about science, but
about the inability of mechanistic
science to "construct a
philosophy of all being and
knowing."95 It is probable that
a similar anxiety lest too much science
would disrupt philo-
sophical direction prompted President
James H. Fairchild
of Oberlin to say in 1880 that the
expansion of the sciences
"will require all our diligence to
retain for literary and
philosophical studies their usual dominance."96
After re-
90 Ibid., 17.
91 Godman, A Post-Graduate Course, 16.
92 Godman, Inauguration at Baldwin
University, 16.
93 Ibid., 22.
94 Notestein, Wooster, 45-46.
95 Chessman, Denison, 142-143.
96 Love, King of
Oberlin, 56.
LEARNING AND PIETY 345
viewing past conflicts, Professor John
M. Ellis at Oberlin
told his students that the present and
future conflict of Chris-
tianity was not with science but with
"the naturalistic science
of this century" and "with
Heathenism and Modern Pagan-
ism which is still before it."97
It was G. Frederick Wright's view that
theism and scienti-
fic study were reciprocally beneficial
to each other. The har-
mony of science and revelation which he
endeavored to por-
tray during his occupancy of a
professorship at Oberlin under
that title from 1892 to 1907 was mainly
undermined, Wright
felt, by erroneous theological and
philosophical speculation.
Deploring the permeation of
materialistic evolutionary theory
into seats of learning and centers of
scientific thought,
Wright gave even more attention to
currents of thought in
theological centers, many of which, he
wrote, were con-
trolled "to a lamentable
extent" by "a monistic theory of the
universe" that was "equally
destructive with pantheism of the
true theistic view":
In eliminating the idea of second causes
and referring everything to
the direct activity of God, the
prevalent doctrine of divine immanence
is undermining the whole Christian
system, by relieving man from the
responsibility of sin, charging it upon
the Creator himself; and by
obliterating the whole distinction
between natural and supernatural,
and referring everything to the direct
action of God, is destroying the
whole conception of miracles, since it
renders everything miraculous.98
In the reasonings of Wright, as well as
in those of Williard,
Godman, Talbot, Lord, Fairchild, and
others, there was con-
sensus that when the houses of
philosophy and theology
were in disorder, the facts of science
and biblical revelation
could not be correctly interpreted.
An especially troublesome tax upon
philosophical ingenuity
was imposed by the rise of
physiological psychology. This
discipline had its advocates in the Ohio colleges towards the
end of the century. Professors appeared
who had studied
97 Anna M. Metcalf, Student Notes.
98 Wright, My
Life and Work, 398-399.
346
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
under Wilhelm Wundt.99 Psychology
courses were freshened
by William James's Principles of
Psychology.100 The new
approach did not come without pain.
Both religious convic-
tion and academic custom felt attacked.
The reigning psy-
chology, called mental and moral
science, was a peculiar mix-
ture of religion, morality, philosophy,
and psychology. Had
not the Bible settled the matter of
God's imparting to man
higher intellectual and moral faculties
than could be derived
from instinct or man's animal nature?101 Was not the
preva-
lent introspective psychology an
adequate and vitally im-
portant means of setting forth the
truths of the soul, man's
uniqueness, free will, and self-knowledge?
At the Ohio Wes-
leyan semicentennial in 1894 Vice
President Lorenzo Dow
McCabe dreaded William James's
psychology as he had dis-
liked John Stuart Mill's associationist
psychology because
both reduced mind to a series of
feelings and undermined
free will. To him traditional
psychology was "the science of
the whole soul, intellect, sensibility,
and will."102
Physiological psychology had become an
issue in Ohio
college circles prior to the
publication of James's Principles
in 1890. At the 1889 meeting of the
Ohio College Associa-
tion two papers were read on
physiological psychology, one
by John M. Ellis of Oberlin, attacking
it, and the other by
W. O. Krohn of Adelbert College,
defending a middle way
between the one extreme of treating
mind as wholly inde-
pent of bodily conditions and the other
of seeing mental
phenomena as only shadows cast by
physical organs and
conditions.103 Ellis feared
that the study of the physical basis
of mind would lead to a
"psychology without a soul," and the
student, by losing contact with the
real nature of mental
99 Hubbart,
Ohio Wesleyan, 204.
100
Love, King of Oberlin, 76-77;
Notestein, Wooster, 184.
101 Chessman, Denison, 143.
102 E.
T. Nelson, ed., Fifty Years of History of the Ohio Wesleyan University,
Delaware, Ohio, 1844-1894 (Cleveland, 1895), 129-132.
103 John M. Ellis, "The Method and Place of Psychology
in the College Course,"
Transactions (Oberlin, Ohio, 1890), 5-9; W. O. Krohn, "Methods
of Teaching
Psychology as Modified by Modern Psychophysical Research," ibid.,
10-20.
LEARNING AND PIETY 347
phenomena, would end in the blind alley
of knowing neither
himself, other selves, his destiny,
moral responsibility, nor
his immortality. 104 Krohn, however, no more than Ellis
favored "materialism." By
knowing the "flesh" better, the
"noble guest" inhabiting it
and using it would all the more
be honored. Krohn showed confidence
that the "self" could
survive a study of the physical forces
conditioning it.
The inferences which Henry Churchill
King drew from the
new psychology freshened his vision of
the person as a moral
being capable of self-control,
self-development, and self-sur-
render. For the sake of the intellect
itself education should not
be "exclusively
intellectual."105 With James he affirmed the
body-mind interaction, the physical
basis of habit, the prime
importance of decision and act:
"Our philosophical solutions
must always be as James has noted,
'prevailingly prac-
tical.'"106 President Peirce of Kenyon saw no reason why
introspection was of "supreme
importance"; he favored
physiological study as inducement to
the analysis of mental
phenomena, but lacked the coherent view
of the person King
displayed.107 Person,
introspection, and metaphysics all dis-
appeared in Arthur Allin, an Ohio
University representative
of the numerous rising chairs of
pedagogy-psychology in the
1890's.108 Allin offered little beyond
a vague hope that know-
ing "the nervous system"
would open a way for environ-
mental improvement through education.
Disbelieving in
heredity and in past faculty
psychology, Allin saw no limit
to a new psychology; in him awareness
that metaphysical
issues existed beyond the range of his
particular branch of
104 In his lectures in psychology, in the spring of 1876, Ellis had
endeavored to
refute necessitarians, who placed the
acts of man in the same category as physical
events. He defined free will as implying
"power to resist any degree of influence."
Manuscript student notes in Oberlin
College Library.
105 Henry Churchill King, "The Primacy of the Person
in College Education,"
in Inauguration Henry Churchill King
May 13, 1903 (Oberlin, Ohio, 1903), 21-53.
106 Henry Churchill King, "Moral
Training in College," Transactions (Dela-
ware, Ohio, 1895), 29-32.
107 William F. Peirce, "Has Psychophysics a Place in
the College Curriculum?"
Transactions (Athens, Ohio, 1897), 14-17.
108 Arthur Allin, "Pedagogy
in Ohio," ibid., 49-54.
348
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
knowledge found no expression--unlike a
biologist who de-
clared that "biology opposes no
facts to the postulated exist-
ence of a soul or higher states of
intelligent existence."109
The expansion of historical and
sociological studies in the
last third of the century had results
in some ways analogous to
those of psychological study. As
metaphysical psychology
waned under the impact of empirical
psychology, so the syste-
matic theologies of Calvin, Finney,
Hodge, and others weak-
ened as a result of the rising
historical study of the Bible,110
the Church and the religions of the
world. To H. C. Haydn,
president of Western Reserve, history
offered "a mine of
wealth" for the reconstitution of
"our spiritual structure."111
In Henry Churchill King's personalistic
reconstruction of
theology, both psychology and history
played important and
related roles: "The real is
concrete. This seems to me to be
one of the most important inferences of
modern psychology,
and to suggest at once respect for
personality and the recog-
nition of history."112 Traditional
psychology as the study of
consciousness served as a bridge to
both empirical psychology
and history. To a Baldwin University
clerical president, psy-
chology as knowledge gained through
consciousness branched
into historical theology. To him
theology was to be rejected
as a delusion "except as we make
it the comparative study
of the opinions men have entertained
concerning a deity."113
References in Christian evidences
courses to the universal
recognition of some deity in the
history of the race, "114 could
easily be expanded into specialized
study of comparative
religion, already under way from the
late 1880's at Ohio
Wesleyan, Oberlin, Hiram, Heidelberg,
Western Reserve,
109 Herrick, "The Ethical Aspects of Laboratory Teaching," 5-15.
110 H. C. Haydn, The Bible and
Current Thought (Cleveland, 1891), 24.
111 Ibid., 22.
112 H. C. King, "Moral Training in College," Transactions
(Delaware, Ohio,
1895), 29-32.
113 Godman,
Inauguration at Baldwin University, 22.
114 Anna
M. Metcalf, Student Notes.
LEARNING AND PIETY 349
and elsewhere.115 Also, the
missionary motive could awaken
interest in other religions. The Wooster trustees early saw
the need of such study for "the
preparation of young men
for the foreign missionary
field."116 Apologetics turned his-
torical. Trumbull G. Duvall in 1895
introduced at Ohio Wes-
leyan a new use of the history of ideas
as a type of historical
apologetic for the faith replacing the
traditional philosophical
apologetic.117 With the same
purpose of combatting mate-
rialism and agnosticism, President
Charles W. Super of Ohio
University, a professor of Greek,
contrasted the setting sun
of antiquity with the rising sun of
Christianity in his learned
historical study Between Heathenism
and Christianity (1899).
In his apologetic contrast of the
history of philosophy with
Christianity, Daniel A. Long of Antioch
College defended
the "unique appearance and work of
the great Christ" against
the Tubingen school's reduction of
Christianity to being a
product of Greek, Roman, and eastern
influences and of
Jesus "to the position of a Jewish
rabbi, not much more
noticeable than some of his
contemporaries."118 Such histori-
cal apologetic was related to rising
awareness that Christi-
anity was not a speculative system, but
a series of unique
events in history.
Realization that Christianity is
"preeminently an historical
religion"119 may have
contributed to cordial reception of the
115 Henry Churchill King was lecturing
on Buddhism at Oberlin in 1886. Love,
King of Oberlin, 50. The prominent clergyman who promoted the World Congress
of Religions at Chicago in 1893 was John
Henry Barrows, president of Oberlin,
1899-1902. It is evident that his knowledge of other
religions did not shake Presi-
dent Barrows' faith: "I see no hope
for the moral regeneration of Asia, except
through Biblical Christianity." John Henry
Barrows, "The World Pilgrimage,"
Transactions (Columbus, Ohio, 1900), 15-30. President George W.
Williard of
Heidelberg completed in 1893 the book he
regarded as his most important, The
Comparative Study of the Dominant
Religions of the World. See Edward I.
F.
Williams, Heidelberg: Democratic Christian College,
1850-1950 (Menasha, Wis.,
1952), 166.
116
Knight and Commons, Higher Education in
Ohio, 147.
117 Hubbart,
Ohio Wesleyan, 204.
118 Daniel A. Long, "Philosophy and
Christianity," Transactions (Wooster,
Ohio, 1894), 50-58.
119 Wright, Scientific Confirmations
of Old Testament History, 3.
350
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
historical approach. H. C. Haydn knew
that the Bible was
not a textbook of history any more than
of philosophy or
science, but the fact that it was
"incidentally" a work of
history may have contributed to his
feeling that history
study was a religious obligation and
that historical study of
the Bible was "the birth-throe of
a new era of life and power
for the Church of God."120 W.
D. Godman saw an incon-
gruity between neglect of history in
collegiate education and
the fact that "Christianity is a
historic religion; i.e., a religion
of facts . . . however mysterious and
incomprehensible."
Godman offered a list of both
ecclesiastical and secular his-
torians with whom ministerial students
should become ac-
quainted.121
Traditional ethical studies were
another force influencing
the rise of history and the social
sciences in college curricula.
The offerings in these fields at
Baldwin University in 1886
were described in its catalog as
follows:
One term each is spent in the study of
Civil Government, History of
Civilization, Political Economy, and
International Law. The factors,
principles and institutions that form
the basis of civilization are con-
stantly kept before the mind and special
attention is given to the present
living issues in National and Domestic
Economy.122
That these studies were seen as
extensions of ethics appears
from President Stubbs's statement that
"the ethical principles
that are fundamental in the treatment
of all questions in
government; such as taxes and tariff,
money and exchange,
capital and labor, must receive
adequate treatment, if any-
where, in the class-room of the
nation's Colleges."123 To
Stubbs, history and the classics were
useful in pointing to
"the corrupting extravagance of a
wealthy class and the
slavish dependence of a poor
class."124 In his
inaugural
120 Haydn,
The Bible and Current Thought, 28, 36.
121 Godman, A Post-Graduate Course, 15-16. The list
included Plutarch,
Josephus, Gibbon, Grote, Neander,
Mosheim, Schaff, Hallam, Mommsen, Bingham's
Antiquities of the Christian Church, Waddington, and Alison's Modern Europe.
122 Catalogue of Baldwin University, 1885-86 (Berea, Ohio, 1886), 22.
123 Stubbs, "The College of Today," 9.
124 Ibid., 12.
LEARNING AND PIETY 351
address as president of Oberlin, Henry
Churchill King saw
sociology as a corollary to awareness
of the essential alike-
ness of men and the value and
sacredness of the person, ideas
familiar in moral philosophy.125 His
knowledge of industrial
conditions in Pittsburgh combined with
a background in
theology and moral philosophy to
produce J. H. W. Stucken-
berg's Christian Sociology (1880).126
To a Kenyon professor
the economic system was "if not
anti-Christian, at least un-
christian."127 H. C.
Haydn proclaimed that "the overwhelm-
ing need is a practical rather than a
dogmatic Christian-
ity."128 Ethical
cradling of political opinion underlay insist-
ence by President Zollars of Hiram that
"it is a shame to a
college when on any moral issue, on
questions in which
honesty and temperance are involved, it
gives an uncertain
sound.... It has a duty to stand
against that monstrosity in
a republican form of government known
as a "political
boss.' "129 A similar background prompted an affirmation
from Ohio Wesleyan in 1890 that
"the University believes
in peace. It regards the settlement of
national or interna-
tional difficulties by the arbitration
of the sword as a scourge
of God. Upon the other hand ... a love
of justice and a love
of country may make war again a stern
necessity."130
Presidents and professors who pondered
the relations of
piety and learning in the late
nineteenth-century college in
Ohio sensed coming dangers to both
learning and piety. In
1916 G. Frederick Wright felt that his
mid-nineteenth cen-
tury preparation "did as much for
me as the wider and more
superficial courses of study of the
present time would have
done. The specializations which have
come in my later life,
have been all the more fruitful for the
thorough groundwork
laid in the prescribed course of my college
days."131 In 1906
125 King,
"Primacy of the Person," 27.
126 Lentz,
Wittenberg, 139-142.
127 J.
Streibert, "Christian Socialism," Transactions (Warren, Ohio,
1893),
57-70.
128 Haydn,
The Bible and Current Thought, 26.
129 Zollars,
"The Mission of the Endowed College," 9.
130 Hubbart, Ohio
Wesleyan, 284.
131 Wright, My Life and Work, 74.
352
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Charles F. Thwing doubted that the
colleges were developing
either the character or the thinking
power of the student as
well as was done by the instruction of
1875: "College studies
are in dire peril of being made simply
descriptive, having
picturesqueness and the motive of
interest as primary con-
ditions, and not being made
interpretative and comparative
of the more fundamental relations of
man and of nature."132
What Thwing expressed
"diffidently" President Zollars of
Hiram voiced more explicitly:
To educate without religion, by my
vision, is to deform the soul. To
civilize without an immortal hope, is
to drive the race to madness.
To equip men and send them forth,
uncommissioned and uncontrolled
by a supreme power, is to curse the sea
with pirates. . . . Our system
has its sun, and man a soul, and the
universe, God. And the college
plays with trifles that does not take
account of these things. . . . The
College has a mission with respect to
religion. To my mind there has
something gone radically wrong with a
young man who stands at last
in a realm of orderly and magnificent
truths, and scoffs at what may
lie behind it. Even an agnostic, if he
be wise, will still be reverent.133
Perhaps President Zollars' way of
expressing religion seemed
dated to Hiram students134 because his
liberal theology gave
them no convincing ground for remaining
or becoming
"reverent."
132
Thwing, Higher Education in America, 431,
456.
133 Zollars, "The Mission of the
Endowed College," 10-11.
134 Treudley, Hiram, 143.