Learning and Piety in
Ohio Colleges, 1900-1930
By SHERMAN B. BARNES*
FACED WITH AN expanding subdivision of
knowledge, grow-
ing vocational ambitions, and
increasing enrollments in the
early decades of the present century,
Ohio colleges began to
find difficulty in keeping in balance
their traditional system
of combining learning with religious
faith. When President
Barrows hoped that Oberlin would never
become "a place
where God is politely bowed out of the
classroom," he ob-
served that "study in itself . . .
may lead neither to unselfish-
ness nor to faith."1 Learning in a
Christian liberal arts
college had centered in the humanities
because the classics,
literature, philosophy, and theology
had challenged the stu-
dent to know and shape himself as a
person. This challenge
was to arouse "interest in the
things really worth while" and
awareness that "the man is greater
than his task. To be is
greater than to do."2
Literature and languages in the
literary societies, in stu-
dent publications, and in the
curriculum were means of artic-
ulating ideals of life and character. A
Muskingum student
in 1917 expressed the ideal aim of the
college:
* Sherman B. Barnes is a professor of
history at Kent State University. His
article is a continuation of one that
appeared in the October 1960 issue of the
Quarterly (v. 69, pp. 327-352) under the title "Learning and
Piety in Ohio
Colleges, 1865-1900."
1 John Henry Barrows, "The Ideals
of Christian Education: The Argument for
the Christian College," Bibliotheca
Sacra, LVII (1900), 494-511.
2 Alfred T. Perry, "The Place of
the College," American College, I (1910),
398-403.
LEARNING AND PIETY 215
Then go thou armed with this golden
rule,
If thou must measure take of man.
Nor take his height in inches; no,
Nor yet his years, but take the
span,
The breadth of soul, and its upward
growth.3
Browning and Tennyson were favorite
poets. President King
gave a volume of Browning to each
Oberlin couple he joined
in matrimony.4 A student
literary magazine ran an essay on
Browning.5 A Greek and
literature professor sought to
awaken the religious and moral
sensitiveness of his students
by using Tennyson's In Memoriam.6
Fidelity to the New
Testament had long motivated the study
of Greek. The strong
student missionary movement in the
early twentieth century
also had linguistic implications. In a
newly founded depart-
ment of missionary service at Hiram in
the year 1909-10,
Russian and Chinese were studied.7
Religion and the humanities had meaning
when a student
applied their wisdom to himself, coming
"to insights and
values and choices of his own."8
His vision should overcome
cowardice "in the face of
convention."9 That personal career-
ism too often replaced devotion to a
cause was the problem
arising in the new college contrasted
with the old.10 "The
utilitarian character of the age is
touching the college, as it
has touched every other department of
life," commented
3 L.
M. Hollingsworth, "The Growth of Soul," in Willis Hamel Wilcox, A
Hundred Years of Muskingum Verse (New Concord, Ohio, 1937), 24.
4 Donald M. Love, Henry Churchill
King of Oberlin (New Haven, Conn., 1956),
128-129.
5 Maxwell Cornelius, "Browning's
Relation to Music," Wooster Literary Mes-
senger, II (1913), 8-17.
6 Reserve 08 (Cleveland,
1907), 56-58.
7 Mary Bosworth Treudley, Prelude to
the Future: The First Hundred Years
of Hiram College (New York, 1950), 193-194.
8 Henry Churchill King, "The
Christian Ideal in Education: Methods of Its
Attainment," Association of American Colleges, Bulletin,
I (1915), 28-39.
9 Henry Churchill King, "The
Importance of the Christian College as a Factor
in the Making of America," in
Herbert B. Welch, Henry Churchill King, and
Thomas Nicholson, The Christian
College (New York, 1916), 31.
10 Charles W. Dabney, "The Old
College and the New," Transactions of the
Ohio College Association (n.p., 1904), 25-34. The Transactions of the
Ohio
College Association will be referred to hereafter as Transactions only.
216
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
President Thwing of Western Reserve.11
He related this to
decline of student intellectual
interest and to lessening interest
in the significance of facts: "The
present meaning of facts is
of some value, but the ultimate meaning
of facts is of the
greater and greatest value."12
Disapproval of a mere careerist
type of individualism showed in William
Henry Scott, presi-
dent emeritus of Ohio State:
"Self-activity has been an edu-
cational shibboleth for some two or
three generations. But
the very preaching of it, once so vital
. . . has now itself fallen
into routine and cant." The true
individualism was self-knowl-
edge and self-giving: "A possible
angel of light lies hid in
the deep silences of every soul of
youth. The Master Architect
has laid on the teacher the sublime
task to discover and develop
it."13 College
authorities realized that when they interpreted
modern learning and the current world
to students, they did
so for students who came to them with
faith.
That students arrived at college with
faith was often noted
and their faith characterized:
"The spiritual tone in most
of our colleges is all that could be
asked."14 "The college man
has a religion like his debating--direct,
practical, vital, sim-
ple, human," and belief in a
personal God is "far more general
in the college than in the community."15
A Bible instructor at
Lake Erie College regarded students as
"truly the most reli-
11 Charles Franklin Thwing, "Change
of Emphasis in Present College Life,"
American College, I (1909), 103-106.
12 Charles F. Thwing, A History of
Higher Education in America (New York,
1906), 466-467. In a lecture in 1909 to
the American Academy of Medicine in
Chicago, Thwing asked: "Is the
student a student? Has there not been a decline
in the intellectual interests of college
men? Has the decline in intellectual interests
been as great or not as great as the
increase in athletic sports? Are not an
increasing number of men coming to
college for what was formerly regarded
as its by-products? Have we not changed
the main purpose of the former time,
the purpose of culture, of discipline,
of efficiency for the by-products of that earlier
time--fellowship and acquaintance?"
Charles F. Thwing, Education and Religion
(New York, 1929), 105-106.
13 William Henry Scott, "[The
Primacy of the Inner Life]: Quarter-Centennial
Address Delivered at the Commencement of
the Ohio State University, June 24,
1908," Ohio State University
Bulletin, XII, No. 15 (June 1908), 25-40.
14 Alfred T. Perry, "Education in
Religion," Transactions (n.p., 1903), 29-35.
15 Charles F. Thwing, in The
College Forum, American College, I (1910),
523-525.
LEARNING AND PIETY 217
gious of beings, however much they may
assume indiffer-
ence."16 President King of Oberlin felt strengthened by
the
faith of students and faculty.17 Against
Clarence Birdseye's
muckraking of college students'
conduct, Ohio college officials
agreed that in Ohio "in no single
point, in a single institution,
are conditions thought to be as bad as
he indicates."18 Student
restlessness in chapel did not prove
irreligiousness.19 Because
man is "incurably religious"
even when throwing over reli-
gion "he is found clinging to some
poor substitute for it."20
It was considered imperative to respect
"the crudest forms
of faith, which will take no joy in
disturbing cherished beliefs
... while seeking to create new and
more intelligent forms."21
To aid the student's religious growth
there was widespread
confidence in the "life-giving
touch of courageous and believ-
ing personalities."22 A
past president of the alumnae associa-
tion of Lake Erie College desired
"that the Faculty of Lake
Erie might always be chosen with
reference to their possession
of spiritual vision and strong personal
faith in a personal
God. To know all the schoolmen can
teach, and not to know
God, makes a failure of the most
brilliant life."23 Not easily
taught, religion could be caught from
the right person:
We see you as you were--high on Faith's
rock
Lifting your torch above a weary land,
Sending your light against all clinging
darkness,
Dreaming great dreams, and hand in hand
with Him
Who is the Great Good Shepherd of the
world
Guiding our youth through the uncertain
years.24
16 Laura H. Wild, "The Moral and Religious Life of the College,"
Association of
American Colleges, Bulletin, III
(1917), 45-47.
17 Love, King of Oberlin, 105.
18 E. A. Miller, "Moral
Conditions," Transactions (n.p., 1909), 57-65.
19"The Plaint of Prex," in The
Reserve 1906 (Cleveland, 1905), 238.
20 King, "The Christian Ideal in
Education," 38.
21 Herbert B. Welch, "The Ideals and Aims of the Christian
College," in The
Christian College, 20.
22 Henry Churchill King, "The Obligation of the Church to Its
Adherents in
the State Universities," Transactions
(n.p., 1905), 35-44.
23 Louise Porter Smith, "The College and the Home," in Lake
Erie College
Jubilee Commencement, Fiftieth
Anniversary (Cleveland, 1910), 89-98.
24 Thomas Randall Berkshire, "In Memory of John Knox Montgomery,"
in
Wilcox, A Hundred Years of Muskingnum
Verse, 45-47.
218
THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
William Oxley Thompson emphasized the
priority of traits of
vision, "magnanimity, generosity,
world-mindedness and cul-
tural living" in a faculty over
"the subjects they may under-
take to teach .... Liberal education is
more frequently caught
than taught."25 Pietistic
reliance on the right teacher was
combined with a growing belief in Bible
study as a means of
presenting "the claims of
Christian service."26 In the curricu-
lum from 1890 to 1910 there was a shift
toward the English
Bible,27 in place of the
older Christian evidences or theism
courses. The latter, often "purely
philosophical in character,"
rarely touched "such questions as
the person and work of
Christ, or the historical effects of
Christianity."28
The growing importance of history,
sociology, economics,
and psychology in the curriculum
supplied new problems for
philosophic interpretation and
religious faith. President
Perry, who each year at Marietta,
1900-1912, taught sociology
and comparative religion,29 regarded
these subjects as prov-
ing "the truth that religion is
the greatest force in the develop-
ment of society . . . universally
acknowledged even by those
who reject religion for
themselves." Dr. Perry regarded the
"new science, the new Psychology,
the new History, the
new Sociology" as opportunities to
make apologetics more
positive with less time needed to
defend Christianity against
rationalistic errors or criticisms.
"The general decay of reli-
gious knowledge" should be
combatted by the Christian college
in a spirit neither homiletic nor
"coldly critical and severely
intellectual." Enthusiasm and
"fidelity to truth, loyalty to
facts not opinions, must characterize
every discussion."30 By
25 James E. Pollard, History of the
Ohio State University: The Story of Its
First Seventy-Five Years, 1873-1948 (Columbus, Ohio, 1952), 272-273.
26 Wild, "The Moral and Religious
Life of the College," 46.
27 Mary
A. Sawyer, "Do the Present College Curricula Meet the Needs of the
Young Woman?" Transactions (n.p.,
1910), 46-50. The author reported that of
the twenty colleges then in the Ohio
College Association twelve required English
Bible.
28 Perry,
"Education in Religion," 33.
29 Arthur
Granville Beach, Pioneer College: The Story of Marietta (Chicago,
1935), 227, 231.
30 Perry, "Education in
Religion," 29, 34-35.
LEARNING AND PIETY 219
the historical method applied to the
Bible, Albert E. Avey at
Ohio State aided his students to see
the truths of biblical reli-
gion as a living power and present
experience related to all
segments of life and not merely as a
book narrating long-past
occurrences.31 Using her
Bible class at Lake Erie College to
talk intimately with students on
"some of the deepest ques-
tions of life" Laura H. Wild
believed when the student "learns
how to be fair and square with the
books of Isaiah and Daniel,
the Gospel of John and the fifteenth
chapter of Acts, simply
from the documentary and historical
standpoint, he has begun
to learn how to use his mind fairly and
squarely towards all
the problems that confront him."32
Philosophers who had a system to defend
and impart saw
restricted value in the historical
method of chronicling all
opinions without constructive or
critical interpretation. At
Ohio State a philosopher of this type,
Joseph A. Leighton, a
pupil of Josiah Royce, believed it to
be "a grievous mistake to
attempt to be encyclopedic and to aim
at a full historical
chronicle of all the opinions and
thinkers that are included in
the average textbook .... The teacher
of the history of phi-
losophy must guard against historical
relativism and skepti-
cism, in the interest both of his
subject and his pupils."33 As
an idealist who saw cultures and
religions as media for the
ethical and spiritual growth of
selfhood, Leighton feared the
disintegrating results on the student
of historicism, of social
science divorced from ethics, and a
curriculum without phil-
osophical coherence.34 Such
a curriculum is "likely to produce
confusion and incoherence in the
student's mind. He may
come out of the university with very
hazy ideas as to what
life should mean for the educated man,
and indeed as to what
31 Albert Edwin Avey, Historical Method in Bible Study (New York,
1924),
168-170.
32 Wild, "The Moral and Religious Life of the College," 46.
33 Joseph Alexander Leighton, "Aims
and Methods in Introductory Courses in
Philosophy," Transactions (n.p.,
1916), 40-45.
34 Joseph Alexander Leighton, "My Development and Present
Creed," in George
P. Adams and William Pepperell Montague,
eds., Contemporary American Philos-
ophy (New York, 1930), I, 425-441.
220
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
education is all about; or even with
the question whether it
has any aims and values at all."35
If Leighton's views reflected
disappointment that his system was
being rejected, at least he
was not alone in his disapproval of
social science separated
from ethical theory. An Antioch
professor of economics and
sociology had already predicted and
deplored a growing
neglect of the ethical foundation of
economics. To him, man
and his purposes and satisfactions, not
wealth, should be the
postulate of economics and
"economic laws must needs be
relative to the nature and purpose of
human life."36
Philosophers were themselves a problem
to other philos-
ophers when they questioned absolute
ideals and prevalent
views of the soul. Against Titchener
and William James,
Elias Compton of Wooster argued that a
thought without a
thinker is as wonderful as Alice in
Wonderland seeing a grin
without a face:
Professor James showed as clearly as any
man the futility of the
attempt to interpret the I or knower as
a mere process or succession of
states. But he was also as determined as
any Positivist to be rid of the
conception of a permanent soul or
spirit. He will have psychology a
natural science, uncorrupted by
metaphysics. (Parenthetical query:
Why is it unmetaphysical science to
assume a substantial material brain,
and unscientific metaphysics to assume
an abiding spiritual self or
soul?)37
E. E. Phillips of Marietta ended his
critique of Bergson's
Creative Evolution with the discerning query whether Berg-
son would "go on to extreme
mysticism or ultra-empiricism
or evolve an adjustment of his theories
of the inert and the
living that would seem to do less
violence to the unity of the
knowing mind."38 William
Henry Scott, along with Elias
Compton and E. E. Phillips, upheld the
idealistic tradition in
philosophy. One of Scott's graduate
students, whom he guided
35 Leighton, "Aims and Methods in Introductory Courses in
Philosophy," 42-43.
36 Stephen F. Weston, "The Relation of Economics to Ethics," Transactions
(n.p., 1909), 77-84.
37 Elias Compton, "What Is the
Thinker?" Transactions (n.p., 1910), 51-59.
38 E. E. Phillips, "Bergson's Theory of
Knowledge," Transactions (n.p., 1912),
83-90.
LEARNING AND PIETY 221
through Kant's Critique of Pure
Reason in 1907-8, emerged,
the student wrote years later, "a
more intelligent and, I be-
lieve, a more earnest Christian than
when I went in."39 Presi-
dent King of Oberlin and Dean Trumbull
G. Duvall of Ohio
Wesleyan voiced optimism that the
positivism which in recent
decades had even denied the validity of
metaphysics as a
province of knowledge was being
overcome.40
Duvall challenged students with data from
psychology,
history, and science. A student who had
believed at least his
soul was his own complained that
now his work in Psychology was making
him uncertain on that point.
He wanted to know if I could give him .
. . a center around which he
might begin the reorganization of his
view of things. Especially he
desired help in getting his bearings in
the field of values, so that he
might discover sure ground for the
largest life of appreciation and
achievement.
Under Duvall's instruction the student
was not indoctrinated
with any particular philosophy, but
shown the history of
philosophy and what the alternative
philosophies were; college
was not a place where problems were
settled for the student,
but a place where "the
responsibility for settling things for
one's self grows most acute." To
those who grumbled over
the difficult problem of meaning and
values in life, Duvall
said their quarrel was "with Him
who set the problem." Even
chemistry unsettled the student who
said "Chemistry had dis-
solved his solid, material world into
mythical atoms, no two
of which in all the universe were in
actual contact, and, after
such a scandal, there was nothing
impossible to believe."41
The physical and biological sciences
were taking an increas-
ingly prominent place in the curricula.
New science buildings
arose on numerous Ohio campuses in the
pre-war era, often
partially financed by Andrew Carnegie.
Chemistry and phys-
ics, botany and zoology split into
separate departments. Pro-
39 Daniel A. Poling, Mine Eyes Have
Seen (New York, 1959), 50.
40 Love, King of Oberlin, 169-172.
41 Trumbull
G. Duvall, "The Place of Philosophy in the College Curriculum,"
Transactions (n.p., 1904), 18-21.
222
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
fessor Charles M. Knight inaugurated a
course in rubber
chemistry at Buchtel in 1909.42 That
the number of faculty
members teaching science increased was
indicated by the ris-
ing membership in the Ohio Academy of
Science, founded in
1891.43 Advocates of the new
science courses often borrowed
arguments from the humanities. A plea
for more chemistry
and biology urged that they would
enable the woman to serve
better as a Christian homemaker.44
The mental discipline
obtainable from chemistry was equal to
that in literature or
the classics in the power to develop
"the capacity for corre-
lating facts and drawing proper
conclusions from them."45
At the medical college of Western Reserve,
President Thwing
told students a doctor owed it to
himself to be "the largest,
truest, best, purest, noblest
man."46 Francis H. Herrick, pro-
fessor of biology at Western Reserve
from 1893 to 1929, saw
biology confirming "belief in the
immanence of God" and
leading man "to treat the higher
vertebrates with genuine
kindness."47
Science, religion, and the humane
values could coexist.
"Christianity and science may be
taught in the same univer-
sity without danger of conflict."48
President King paralleled
"the humble open mind"
demanded by both science and the
first beatitude.49 Believing
that the undevout astronomer or
undevout medical man was
"mad," President Thwing gave
42 A.
I. Spanton, ed., Fifty Years of Buchtel (1870-1920) (Akron, Ohio, 1922),
114.
43 Membership in 1900, 173; in 1910,
183; in 1914, 234. William H. Alexander,
"The Ohio Academy of Science,"
Ohio Journal of Science, XLI (1941), 300.
44 Sawyer, "Do the Present College
Curricula Meet the Needs of the Young
Woman?" 48-49.
45 William
B. Bentley, "The Place of Chemistry in a Liberal Education," Trans-
actions (n.p., 1909), 93-98.
46 "Medical
Ethics" (undated lecture, probably 1909), in Thwing, Education
and Religion, 189-209.
47 Frederic Marcus Wood, Sr., In the
Consulship of Plancus (Painesville, Ohio,
1941), 26.
48 David McDill, "Address on Behalf
of the Board of Trustees of Miami Uni-
versity," in The Inauguration of
Rev. Guy Potter Benton, A.M., D.D., as President
of Miami University September 18,
1902, with Addresses Delivered Upon That
Occasion (Hamilton, Ohio, 1902), 2-15.
49 Henry 'Churchill King, A New Mind
for the New Age (New York, 1920),
148.
LEARNING AND PIETY 223
to medical students a reason to be
devout cast in terms of
their own experience: "The
contrast between man dead and
man alive is so great that I infer that
man is something more
than dust."50 The
importance of distinguishing between sci-
ence and implications drawn from
science was a common
theme. Dr. David Philippson of the
Hebrew Union College
of Cincinnati distinguished between
science and "one-sided
scientific dogmatism."51
Similarly, President L. E. Holden
of the College of Wooster saw that
"the unbelief of our day
entrenches itself behind inferences
from the discoveries of
modern science" rather than in
science itself. Paraphrasing
progressive era reformers, President
Holden held that "the
cure for the doubt that starts in the
region of science is simply
more science."52 To
Charles W. Dabney, president of the
University of Cincinnati, there were
"two books, the Book
of Nature and the Book of Revelation,
including all that God
has taught man in past history; but the
two books have one
Author, and the man who would know Him
must study them
both."53 President
Dabney looked forward hopefully to the
coming epoch when there would be
"a union of the liberal arts
and scientific studies. Through such a
union the study of the
humanities will become more scientific
and the study of the
sciences more liberal." Even in
his own day he believed "a
reaction in favor of the liberal arts
is already upon us and
we need it." It would come to be
seen that a specialized scien-
tist may not make "a good citizen,
a good teacher, or even a
good investigator in his own line,
simply because he is not a
good man." Dabney drew a line
between science which deals
with facts and does not touch "the
larger whole of things,"
and science and ethics, affirming that
science gives no support
to humanitarian ethics; it does not
say, "Love your brother."54
Preference for the humanities guided
decisions of many
50 Thwing, Education and Religion, 206.
51 In a baccalaureate sermon at
Ohio State in June 1907. Ohio State University
Bulletin, XI, No. 14 (May 30, 1907), 3-10.
52 L. E.
Holden, Science at Wooster (Wooster, Ohio, n.d.).
53 Dabney, "The Old College and the New," 33.
54 Ibid., 32-33.
224
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
college presidents in respect to the
problem of organization as
a college or a university. Colleges had
adopted the elective
system reluctantly. By 1900 it was
under attack by the pres-
ident of Ohio State: "The tendency
to rambling, roaming,
desultory work has threatened the work
of a liberal educa-
tion."55 To another
president the elective system caused youth
to make a "mad hunt for sinecures."56
A third asked, "Does
the young collegian know himself well
enough to be certain
of his particular gifts?"57 Confidence
that the small college
was superior to the large university in
the power to conserve
the advantages of humanistic education
led to decisions
in favor of collegiate status at Baldwin-Wallace
(1913),
Wooster (1914), and Otterbein (1917).
The passing of
Baldwin University, University of
Wooster, and Otterbein
University clarified their educational
purpose as Christian
arts colleges. Throughout his
presidency at Oberlin, 1902-27,
President King resisted the university
idea as inimical to the
religious and moral function of the
college.58 Perhaps one
reason why up to the time of the World
War even Ohio State
was "looked upon...as simply
another college"59 was Presi-
dent Thompson's conviction that
"it is well to study a few
things, and study them carefully."60
At Miami and Denison
the term university was retained, but
their presidents em-
phasized the college approach as important "so
long as the
humanities are of interest to men and
so long as a good
foundation is a recognized necessity
for a superstructure of
specialization."61 Miami President Guy Potter Benton's
"real college" included
limited enrollment, coeds, fraternities,
55 William Oxley Thompson,
"Electives in Colleges," Transactions (n.p., 1903),
37-43.
56 Guy
Potter Benton, The Real College (Cincinnati, 1909), 88.
57 William F. Peirce, The Advantages
of the Small College (Cleveland, 1896),
8. See also Lillian W. Johnson,
"The College: What Should Its Purpose Be?"
Transactions (n.p., 1904), 34-36.
58 Love, King of Oberlin, 157,
240-241.
59 Henry Eldridge Bourne, Higher
Education in Ohio and Its Historical Factors
(Columbus, Ohio, 1920), 18.
60 Thompson, "Electives in
Colleges," 41.
61 Benton,
The Real College, 22.
LEARNING AND PIETY 225
athletics, hearty school spirit and
yells, prescribed chapel, and
virile, Christian professors using the
Socratic method: "Noth-
ing more vicious in our modern
educational system has shown
itself than this stifling of unfolding
manhood by the so-called
lecture plan."62 At
Denison President Emory W. Hunt,
1901-13, battled against expansionism
and departmentalism
for his view of a college giving the
"broad foundation, in
general culture and Christian manhood
and womanhood, for
specialized professional courses which may follow."63 To
carry out this plan Denison trustees in
1913 still considered
Christian professors necessary.64
At Ohio Wesleyan the keynote of
President Herbert
Welch's era, 1905-16, was to keep the
college emphasis.65 Like
presidents King, Perry, Hunt, Benton,
and Thompson, Pres-
ident Welch valued highly the personal
independence of the
student, the personal relation between
professor and student,
and the need of a student to know
himself and what is worth
while. He felt his ideal of the
well-rounded person was
threatened by efficiency,
specialization, and materialism in
education. Religion was a necessary
base for character; the
student's religion was to be respected
but challenged, to make
more genuine Christians of those
nominally Christian, and
Christians of non-Christians. "To
win its students from sin
to righteousness is...the highest
achievement of the Chris-
tian college."66 To
accomplish this the right faculty is needed.
"A President's most delicate and
most important duty is the
selection of his faculty," in
which a sacrificial spirit is needed
62 Ibid., 158. Benton blamed the influence of the graduate school:
"It is painful
to contemplate the ambition of too many
new-fledged doctors of philosophy seeking
educational positions, whose ambition is
not to teach but to write." President
Clippinger of Otterbein had a similar
view: "The lecture method is in greatest
danger of being abused by teachers of
undergraduate students. It should rarely
if ever be used in its more formal
aspects." W. G. Clippinger, "Methods of
Teaching," Transactions (n.p.,
1916), 67-68.
63 G. Wallace Chessman, Denison:
The Story of an Ohio College (Granville,
Ohio, 1957), 247.
64 Ibid., 275.
65 Henry Clyde Hubbart, Ohio Wesleyan's First Hundred Years (Delaware,
Ohio, 1943), Chapter 8.
66 Welch, "The Ideals and
Aims of the Christian College," 21.
226
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
to safeguard students from becoming
"infected with the no-
tion that a place and a salary and a
chance to do congenial
work are the sole end of life."67
Ohio college officials and students
usually accepted Amer-
ica's entry into the war without
opposition and often with
crusading zeal. An exception was
President George Wheeler
Hinman of Marietta, 1913-17, who by
opposing America's
entry had clashed with his trustees and
resigned as a result.68
In many colleges courses were added to
interpret the war, and
at most colleges army training was
carried on. The presidents
of Oberlin and Western Reserve were
Wilsonians and sup-
porters of the League of Nations.69
President King, who
served in France with the Y.M.C.A.,
interpreted the war as
an effort to apply moral law to
political institutions and to
Christianize civilization.70 In
spite of the strain King felt at
Oberlin after the war, he still held
his ideals: "This world-
devastating war should have
demonstrated for us all the utter
futility of a nation or a civilization
or a world whose roots
go not deeply down into the spiritual.
It is a high Christian
faith that can face both the whole
world of nature and the
disillusioned world of men."71
An Ohio State student editor
and President King agreed there had
been, as King wrote,
"a comparative failure of our
education on the ideal side."72
This student editor regarded such
support as King gave the
war as the failure "of the philosophical
attitude" and "the
67 Ibid.,
22. See also Herbert Welch, "The Relation of the Faculty to the
Student's Life," Transactions (n.p.,
1906), 18-24; Herbert Welch, "Vitalization of
College Teaching," Transactions (n.p.,
1916), 69-70. For evidence of faculty dis-
content with rising specialization,
aimlessness, and shoddy class work, see the
article by an Ohio Wesleyan professor,
L. G. Westgate, "Efficiency and the Col-
lege Faculty," Transactions (n.p.,
1911), 31-39.
68 Beach,
Marietta, 278.
69 Lyon N. Richardson, "Charles Franklin Thwing," Dictionary
of American
Biography, Supplement Two (New York, 1958), 663-664.
70 King, A New Mind for the New Age, 65-104;
Love, King of Oberlin,
225-232.
71 Henry
Churchill King, "Seeing Life Whole," Ohio Teacher, XLIII
(1923),
258-259.
72 King, A New Mind for the New Age, 141-144.
LEARNING AND PIETY 227
real failure of education in
America."73 After the war Ohio
State students heard from Lloyd C.
Douglas that continued
use of propaganda techniques learned in
the war made "a
distinct set-back to the operation of
the Public's intelligence
and capacity for any mental
exercise."74 An engineer and a
physicist disagreed on science in
relation to the war. President
Arthur E. Morgan of Antioch, 1920-36,
thought that "if the
scientific spirit had controlled the
purposes of Germany, as it
did the instrumentalities, we would
never have had the war."75
Louis Trenchard More, physicist at the
University of Cin-
cinnati, felt, however, that the war
had brought an "awak-
ening" to the "havoc of
mechanistic materialism and the
subordination of the individual."76
To an Ohio State profes-
sor, writing in a student publication,
the war proved the folly
of belief in progress as the key to
history--he preferred Dean
Inge and Oswald Spengler to J. B. Bury
and H. G. Wells.77
In spite of the war, however, many
pre-war college ideals
continued to live in the post-war era.
College spokesmen in the twenties
struck many of the same
notes their predecessors had. This was
very evident in the
continued concern over the student's
personal growth and
self-discovery. In his inaugural at
Marietta, President Ed-
ward Smith Parsons, 1919-36, a Milton
scholar, defined the
task of the college as awakening the
mind to "a sense of its
own individuality and power and then to
introduce it to its
world."78 To a
physicist at the University of Cincinnati belief
73 James Light, in a review of Bertrand
Russell, Why Men Fight, in The
Sansculotte, I, No. 3 (April 1917), 8-9.
74 Lloyd C. Douglas, "Certified
Knowledge" (convocation address at Ohio State
University, June 1924), 14. Manuscript
in OSU Collection, Ohio State Univer-
sity Library.
75 Arthur E. Morgan, "Education for
Symmetry," Association of American Col-
leges, Bulletin, VIII (1922),
118-127.
76 Louis Trenchard More, The Dogma of
Evolution (Princeton, N.J., 1925), 11.
On May 7, 1925, Paul Elmer More wrote
Irving Babbitt that his brother Lou's
lectures at Princeton had been "a
howling success, and drove the biologists to a
frenzy of rage." Arthur Hazard
Dakin, Paul Elmer More (Princeton, N.J.,
1960), 229.
77 J. R. Knipfing, "Tolerance and
Progress," The Candle, III, No. 4 (June
1925), 26-30.
78 Beach, Marietta, 279.
228
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
in free will and personal
responsibility was so basic that if
denied there ensued "despair or
madness for the individual,
and anarchy and disintegration of
society."79 To an Ohio
Northern president education for
personal responsibility re-
quired religion and ethics because
intellect alone could not
"furnish sufficient energy to
bring ethical responses" or a
right view of the person as more than a
product of evolution
or a unit in a political or economic
system.80 President
Wishart of Wooster, 1919-44, believed
that when young
people are trained "with breadth
and symmetry and sympathy,
with intellect and character and
emotional life in a proper
balance, there will be no room for sad
young men."81 A pro-
fessor of history and government at
Otterbein believed his
subject should be presented from the
standpoint of the "effect
on the student rather than the point of
view or desires of the
teacher."82 There were
warnings against the new survey
courses as likely to substitute broad
generalizations for the
mental effort of the student to reach
his own conclusions.
Dean Brandon of Miami would have had
the student form
his own philosophy of life and conduct,
"not Dewey's or
James' but his own."83 In
their literary magazines students
chimed in with their note of personal
independence and sin-
cerity. With contempt an Ohio State
student wrote of the
apathy, conformism, and
"egolatry" of his contemporary
who instead of thinking for himself
read "the Lord Men-
cken every month; and changes from the
old to the new testa-
ment as the almighty himself deserts
the editorship of the
Smart Set for the Mercury."84
In their own way students
79 More,
The Dogma of Evolution, 337.
80 Robert Williams, "Education for
Character," Transactions (Westerville,
Ohio, 1931), 8-9.
81 Charles Frederick Wishart, The
New Freedom in the Natural Order (New
York, 1931), 50.
82 Charles
Snavely, "The Demand of the Social Sciences for Early Recognition,"
Transactions (Westerville, Ohio, 1924), 12-15.
83 E.
E. Brandon, "The Aims of the Junior and Senior Years of a Liberal Arts
College," Transactions (Westerville,
Ohio, 1925), 6-11.
84 Avrom Landy, "Brief Note on
College Youth," The Candle, II, No. 6 (May
1924), 7-9.
LEARNING AND PIETY 229
continued to be religious, regardless
of declining formal reli-
gious observances or philosophical
instruction. After review-
ing religious influences in Ohio
colleges, an observer in 1923
concluded: "I do not for a moment
mean to say that the pres-
ent college student is less
conscientious or less religious in a
certain sense than was the one of
earlier days."85
To aid the student to mature his faith
and not violate his
freedom continued to be basic.
Students, entering college
with faith and aware they were beings
of "uncoordinated de-
sires and scattering activities,"
needed help "to find themselves
. . . and the source and incentive of a
life with the quality of
eternity in it."86 Presidents
pondered the effects of curriculum
trends upon students' spiritual values.87
Perhaps this concern
explains why only moderate change
occurred in chapel ob-
servance during the twenties. At Miami
in 1923 President
Raymond Mollyneaux Hughes, a chemist
concerned about
rising "materialism,"
introduced a rotating chapel system to
take care of larger numbers of
students.88 At Marietta stu-
dent agitation led in 1927 to
substitution of voluntary for
required chapel, a student paper
regarding this as "substi-
tuting sincerity for a few for grudging
compliance by
many."89 Ohio Wesleyan
and Oberlin had their first layman
presidents in the twenties. It was this
decade that saw the
last teaching presidents--Charles E.
Miller of Heidelberg,
1902-37, John Knox Montgomery of
Muskingum, 1904-31,
Henry Churchill King of Oberlin,
1902-27, and William F.
Peirce of Kenyon, 1896-1937. After this
decade seniors no
longer had the teaching president, that
symbol of the unity
of purpose between faculty, president,
and students, to aid
85 Roscoe H. Eckelberry, "A Study
of Religious Influences in Higher Educa-
tion in Ohio" (unpublished M.A.
thesis, Ohio State University, 1923), 97.
86 Avery A. Shaw, "The Place of
Religion in College Education," Transactions
(Westerville, Ohio, 1930), 5-8. For
Shaw's impact on Denison, see Chessman,
Denison, 380-412.
87 A. H. Upham, "The Liberal
Arts," Transactions (Westerville, Ohio, 1930),
9-12; Albert B. Storms, "A
President's Message to His Faculty and Instruction
Staff," Association of American
Colleges, Bulletin, XVI (1930), 234-236.
88 Walter Havighurst, The Miami
Years, 1809-1959 (New York, 1958), 188.
89 Beach, Marietta, 306.
230
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
them to review and ponder life's
ultimate issues. The praying
professor was not extinct, for
throughout the twenties meet-
ings of the Ohio College Association
continued to open with
the offering of prayer.
Enforced loyalties continued to be
anathema. Students were
"free to make a conscientious
choice of their loyalties."90 A
philosophy professor insisted that
undergraduate teaching
should not deliberately attempt
"to make its students adher-
ents of a definite type of
philosophy" but should present the
alternative philosophies and let the
student choose.91 Church
college presidents apologized for
excessive dogmatism that
may have entered their approach:
"The dogmatic method,
therefore, from the start, is in danger
of substituting a false
process for a true one, even when one
is most certain con-
cerning the full truth of his own view.
That, I fear, is what
we have too often done in
education."92 To his students Pres-
ident Wishart said Wooster "has
not been neutral in the
religious sense, nor, please God, will
it ever be neutral," but
he went on, "we have desired that
you should do your own
thinking, and if we have ever
dogmatized or pressed our af-
firmations upon you, forgive us."93
Respect for learning and willingness to
consider all sides
led to a general acceptance of the
rising power of state edu-
cation. Church-state controversy rarely
arose in Ohio as a
result of state financial support of
church-affiliated colleges
and of state education department
regulation of teacher cer-
tification. At the one college where
dissension arose, sectarian
control was unusually strong. State aid
to Wilberforce Uni-
versity, beginning in 1886, led to many
years of friction
between state officers and clergymen of
the African Methodist
Church over control of local
educational policy.94 With respect
90 Arthur S. White, a Muskingum
instructor, quoted in Upton Sinclair, The
Goose-Step: A Study in American
Education (Pasadena, Calif., 1923),
346.
91 Albert E. Avey, "Principles for Building a Philosophy
Department," Trans-
actions (Westerville, Ohio, 1930), 29-36.
92 King, A New Mind for the New Age,
148.
93 Wishart, The New Freedom in the
Natural Order, 76.
94 Frederick A. McGinnis, A History
and an Interpretation of Wilberforce
University (Wilberforce, Ohio, 1941), 85, 106-119, 188.
LEARNING AND PIETY 231
to discrimination in favor of normal
school graduates over
college graduates, a Baptist president
feared possible en-
croachment upon the autonomy of the
college:
Objections arise from the point of view
both of the State and of the
college....The college ought not to
surrender its autonomy to the
State. Particularly as institutions of
the Christian religion, the principle
of the separation of the Church and
State places a difficulty in the way
of the suggested arrangement.95
As the century unfolded, however, more
conflict came "be-
tween and within Ohio's state-supported
colleges"96 than
between state education officials and
church colleges. When
President R. E. Tulloss of Wittenberg
College, 1920-49,
discussed fifteen hypothetical
objections against state control
of teacher-training procedures by the
state, he conceded on
each point the state's right of
control.97 Because of the ex-
panding public high school system, the
church colleges in the
period between 1910 and 1927, without
much regret, closed
their traditional preparatory
departments. Church colleges
accepted state universities and normal
colleges because they
provided a desirable expansion of
educational opportunity and
because church-related and state
institutions were becoming
intellectually similar.98 Moreover,
traditional chapel and bac-
calaureate services and clergymen
presidents, long retained
at Miami and Ohio State,99 dimmed
the distinction between
church and state colleges. On the other
hand, church people
may have withheld financial support
from denominational col-
leges because of their intellectual
trends.
95 Emory W. Hunt, "Ohio Colleges
and State Normal Schools," Transactions
(n.p., 1903), 7-11.
96 Phillip R. Shriver, The Years of
Youth: Kent State University, 1910-1960
(Kent, Ohio, 1960), 93.
97 R. E. Tulloss, "The Problem of
Professionalizing Public School Teaching,"
Transactions (Westerville, Ohio, 1929), 27-34.
98 Willard W. Bartlett, Education for
Humanity: The Story of Otterbein
College (Westerville, Ohio, 1934), 261-263.
99 A student publication at Ohio State
satirically referred to an address by
an Ohio State board of trustees member
expressing the hope that the next presi-
dent chosen would be "a Christian
gentleman." The Candle, IV, No. 2 (December
1925), 9.
232 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The fact that their respective churches
did not give enough
financial help weakened many Christian
colleges: "The
Church of Jesus Christ has never half
realized the problem.
...She has not begun even to dream in
terms of ... adequate
support."100 Insufficient
church contributions together with
growing enrollments caused Buchtel to
turn into the munici-
pal University of Akron.101 Otterbein
suffered from insuffi-
cient monetary aid from her church.
Whether withholding
generous financial grants expressed
disapproval of the col-
leges' adaptation to modern
intellectual life is often not clear.
In one instance in the early twenties
where there was a clear-
cut controversy on whether the college
should retain its church
connection, the issue was decided by a
majority of the trus-
tees who wanted a college "that
made a man feel that he had
a spirit as well as an
intellect."102 It may have been the case
that the widening breach in the twenties
between Hiram Col-
lege and the Disciples churches in its
area was due to the
receptivity of Hiram under President
Miner Lee Bates,
1907-29, to the currents of modern
thought.103
Scientific study continued to expand in
Ohio colleges in the
twenties,104 with little
fear of the consequences for religion.
The retired Oberlin zoologist Maynard
M. Metcalf at the
Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee, was
prepared to testify on
the compatibility of rational
interpretation of the Bible with
evolutionary theory had Judge Raulston
given him the oppor-
tunity.105 An Ohio Wesleyan
zoologist, Edward L. Rice, had
long reconciled evolution and religion
for his students and
hoped to testify at Dayton.106 An
Akron University zoologist
regretted that anti-evolutionists
"jumble up religious doctrine
100 Charles Frederick Wishart, The
God of the Unexpected (Wooster, Ohio,
1923), 117.
101 Park R. Kolbe, "Municipal
University of Akron," United States Bureau
of Education, Bulletin No. 38 (Washington,
D. C., 1915), 42-44.
102 Chessman,
Denison, 281.
103 Treudley,
Hiram, 185-186.
104 Membership in the Ohio Academy of
Science grew from 299 in 1920 to 607
in 1930. Alexander, "The Ohio
Academy of Science," 300.
105 Ray Ginger, Six Days or Forever? (Boston,
Mass., 1958), 126-130.
106 Hubbart, Ohio Wesleyan, 338.
LEARNING AND PIETY 233
and the facts of the objective
universe. They unknowingly
discredit their religion by demanding
of it denial of new sci-
entific truths. . . . Evolution has
about as much to do with
religion or anti-religion as has the
rotundity of the earth."
To him the Dayton trial was
"farcical."107 There were schol-
ars able to see flaws in the reasonings
of the evolutionists and
justification for the alarm of
fundamentalists. To a Cincin-
nati physicist misunderstanding of
evolution had brought
confusion in social thought, and the
theory was "even more
dangerous" in religious thought.108
In a baccalaureate sermon
at Ohio State in 1927 Joseph A.
Leighton explained misuses
of scientific thought arising from the
failure to realize that
"physical science is a product,
not an explanation of the hu-
man spirit."109 At the
College of Wooster the liberal religion
of the zoologist Horace Mateer gave no
alarm to President
Charles Frederick Wishart, who,
opposing William Jennings
Bryan, was elected moderator of the
general assembly of the
Presbyterian Church in 1923.110
In his chapel talks and sermons at
Wooster in the twenties
President Wishart used emergent
evolution and the new
physics of Rutherford, Heisenberg, and
Jeans as reasons for
rejoicing that "after the
nightmare of physical and mechanis-
tic determination, we have passed out
into the light of a better
day."111 Wishart saw elements of
trust and belief within
science itself that he considered far
more significant than
theological dicta offered by Jeans or
Eddington.112 In science
as in religion it was necessary to
believe in order to under-
stand. In scientific method there was
"an implicit trust":
It is a philosophy of belief in our
instincts as well as in our intellects,
the response to the universe of the
whole person, rather than the intel-
107 Walter C. Kraatz, "Why Anti-Science in an Age of
Science?" The Acher-
onic, IV (1927), 13-19.
108 More, The Dogma of Evolution, 347.
109 Joseph Alexander Leighton,
"Mechanism and Human Values," 11. Manu-
script in OSU Collection, Ohio State
University Library.
110 Ginger, Six Days or Forever?, 33.
111 Wishart, The New Freedom in the
Natural Order, 14, 16-18, 22-23, 31.
112 Ibid., 1, 8, 12.
234
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
lectual segment of personality. And
because he has this trust, his scien-
tific curiosity is sharpened and
intensified. He wants to know and to
know and to know, not so much in order
that he may believe, but because
he does believe. If implicit trust did
not give a meaning to the whole,
it would not be worthwhile to look into
it.113
Both science and religion were
experiences which transcended
intellect. Neither atheism nor theism
could be demonstrated
by argument. "No one of us has
final demonstrations to live
by."114 Christianity
was the redemptive work of God in men,
not "its labored intellectual
dissensions."115 Religious educa-
tion could not "dispense with the
stern standards of scholar-
ship,"116 but
because reason itself showed that experience was
primary in religion, Wishart felt
sick and tired of everlasting
discussions about Christianity--of the
eternal pros and cons of learned pundits
who know philosophy and
psychology and sociology and history,
and some of them even Einstein's
relativity, but who from first-hand
experience know nothing about
religion whatsoever. I would rather
trust the deep wisdom of a good
mother or the unfettered instincts of an
innocent little child.117
A scholar who spent a lifetime in a
given field might become
"less fitted to pass judgment on
life as a whole than other
men of equal ability who reject narrow
specialization."118 In
his own efforts to interpret the
contemporary intellectual scene
to his students, Wishart was one of a
chorus of college leaders
who for a generation pondered the
spiritual and intellectual
consequences of specialization, a
highly subdivided curricu-
lum, and swelling enrollments.
In the post-war decade earlier fears of
the effects of large
enrollments, specialization, and
splitting of the curriculum
into unrelated fragments were
accentuated. A Western Re-
serve professor felt "the greatest
distrust of the success of
113 Ibid., 29.
114 Ibid., 76.
115 Ibid., 179.
116 Wishart, The God of the Unexpected, 135.
117 Wishart, The New Freedom in the
Natural Order, 189.
118 Ibid., 2.
LEARNING AND PIETY 235
mass education for college
students."119 Otterbein and An-
tioch responded to the admissions
demands in the twenties
by raising standards and setting a
maximum on the number
of students received.120 Students
asked whether large enroll-
ments were compatible with personal
intimacy between fac-
ulty and students and with idealism. A
cartoon in an Ohio
State humor magazine showed an
automatic machine able to
register one hundred students per
minute.121 Colleges became
too much centered around credits at the
expense of ideas:
"The average freshman comes to
college with ideas and ideals.
By the time he is a senior, if he has
'fitten in,' he has ex-
changed them for . . . credit
hours."122 Complaining that
colleges were too boastful of their
"large numbers," and "mil-
lion-dollar stadia," an Oberlin
student asked, "Can knowledge
and the philosophical mind flourish in
such an atmosphere?"123
The traditional aim of the college to
aid the student to
mature his faith and see his life in
relation to the larger pat-
tern of reality was complicated by
rising departmental frag-
mentation and specialization of
professors. During the twen-
ties there were a few who interpreted
educational expansion
as retrogressive in its effect on the
student's power to affirm
"the unity and supremacy of the
highest life-values."124 A
Wittenberg philosopher said the
"whole world of natural as
well as of cultural sciences is broken
to pieces."125 A Cincinnati
physicist lamented the steady
decrease in the study of both
pure science and the humanities under
the influence of "voca-
tional and practical courses."126
President Avery A. Shaw of
Denison connected expanding knowledge
of technology and
119 Bourne, Higher Education in Ohio, 16.
120 Bartlett,
Otterbein, 88; Arthur E. Morgan, An Adventure in Education
(Yellow Springs, Ohio, [1926?]).
121 The Sun Dial, X, No. 2 (October
1920), 15.
122 Beach,
Marietta, 305.
123 Andrew
Bongiorno, "The College and the Present," Oberlin College Maga-
zine, XVI (1923), 3-7.
124 Leighton,
"My Development and Present Creed," 438.
125 Carl H. Schneider, "The Unifying Task of Philosophy in the College
and
University Curriculum," Transactions
(Columbus, Ohio, 1928), 25-31.
126 More,
The Dogma of Evolution, 325.
236
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
particulars with the loss of "the
total view of the universe.
. . . The elemental and abiding
realities have faded from our
vision."127 To a
Defiance College president the root of the
problem was "overemphasis upon
science and a consequent
neglect of philosophy."128 A
reduced proportion of time given
to religion, ethics, and philosophy,
together with the practice
in the twenties of establishing
religious education depart-
ments,129 created the
impression that even religion was merely
another specialty rather than "the
enlivening and integrating
spirit of the whole institution."130
Dean E. E. Brandon of
Miami connected loss of religion on the
part of the student
with the specialized curriculum:
"It is no longer the student
fashion to make a display of negation
on religious questions,
but in personal morals and social
controls, negation, doubt, or
indifference is too often the heritage
of higher learning, a
state of mind which dwarfs the
personality and renders the
man a silent menace to social
evolution."131 It can be assumed
that Dean Brandon had this result on
the student in mind
when he described liberal education as
suffering from "depart-
mentalization, technical teaching, and
narrow specialization of
purely college professors."132
Comment in student literary magazines
at times came close
to tying curriculum fragmentation with
the religious problem.
To an Oberlin essayist concerned about
the unification of
knowledge there seemed to be an
"almost hostile breach be-
127 Chessman, Denison,
380.
128 George
C. Enders, "Orientation and Philosophy," Transactions (Westerville,
Ohio, 1931), 12-17.
129 Beach, Marietta, 231; Hubbart, Ohio Wesleyan,
143; Harold H. Lentz, A
History of Wittenberg College
(1845-1945) (Springfield, Ohio, 1946),
264. In his
farewell address in 1921 after
thirty-one years as president of Western Reserve,
Charles F. Thwing saw collegiate trends
reflecting national lessening of interest
in philosophy and theology. Thwing, Education
and Religion, 248.
130 Chessman, Denison, 408.
131 Brandon,
"The Aims of the Junior and Senior Years of a Liberal Arts Col-
lege," 9.
132 E.
E. Brandon, "The Liberal Arts College, Its Place and Purpose in Modern
Education," Transactions (Westerville,
Ohio, 1930), 13-17. Brandon maintained
that the college teacher is closer to
the high school teacher than to the graduate
school professor.
LEARNING AND PIETY 237
tween the practical and the more
cultural studies."133 Student
discussions on the relation of science
and religion may have
grown out of needs unmet by curriculum
and professors. At
Marietta in 1929 The Olio editorialized
that
although the present generation of
college students are not predominantly
churchgoers, they are interested in
religion. They are not concerned
with dogma, but they are vitally
concerned with the ideas of scientists
who in spite of their achievements in
understanding the mysteries of
nature are still religious men. Many
collegiate "bull-sessions" are
devoted to the discussion of religion.134
In an appreciative article on Robert A.
Millikan an Oberlin
student approved Millikan's view that "the
combination of
the good qualities of both science and
religion is the only nos-
trum which there is for human
ills."135 Another Oberlin stu-
dent hoped for "a new Thomas
Aquinas to recast all the
doctrine of religion in the new
terms," while castigating
current doctors of divinity for
concerning themselves "with
Christian sociology and church
management and sacred pub-
licity."136 A Muskingum coed disliked Christ's
followers who
Set Him apart within a frame.
Select and proud they congregate,
Secure among the people's best,
To re-clothe in expedient use
The naked truths He left to test.137
Another Muskingum coed, however, was
roused to enthusi-
asm by a professor of philosophy who
raised the ultimate
questions in ways meaningful to
students:
He set our feet upon a higher path
And gave into our hands a holier brand.
133 Norman Studer, "The Next Step," Oberlin
College Magazine, XVI (1923),
3-6.
134 Beach, Marietta, 307.
135 T. M. Klotz, "Robert Andrews Millikan," The
Shaft, I (September 1925), 7.
136 R. H. S., "Behaviorism Old and
New," The Shaft, III (April 1928), 11-12.
137 Janet E.
Seville, "Into the Street," in Wilcox, A Hundred Years of Mus-
kingum Verse, 40-41.
238
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
He pondered with us in his gentle way
Those age-old problems that have ever
puzzled man.
What is appearance, what reality?
What is the nature of eternal good?
How can we think in universal terms--
Billions of light years, eons of time
untold?
Describe in finite words the infinite?
How short a time ago it was we sat
There at his feet and listened to him
speak,
Found it ennobling to attempt to keep
Step with his step, our thoughts abreast
with his,
While he would suit his mental stride to
ours.138
In a fragmented curriculum often
failing to probe ultimate
issues, did students become intellectually less
independent? A
student editorial complained that
"the average student accepts
textbooks and lectures with the same
attitude of dutiful belief
as that he grants the ten
commandments."139 An historian of
Hiram
judged that in the twenties, amidst talk of improved
teaching methods and the possibility of
independent study,
"independence and self-direction
were still desired by the
young but in their social relations
rather than in their intel-
lectual growth."140
Ohio college leaders by the end of the
twenties increasingly
discussed the issue of fragmentation
and made various con-
structive attempts to meet it. An
experiment at Ohio Wesleyan
in multiplying courses and departments
during the twenties
to meet "life needs of
pupils" ended with misgivings about
the wisdom of that policy and new
directions under the next
president, Edmund S. Soper, 1928-38.141
Also at Denison
from
1927 to 1940 President Avery A. Shaw did much to
counteract fragmentation by means of
religion.142 At Otter-
138 Helen Vernia, "In Memoriam--W. M.
McKirahan--1930," in Wilcox, A
Hundred Years of Muskingum Verse, 71.
139 "Rejected Thoughts," The
Acheronic, IV (1927), 17.
140
Treudley, Hiram, 210-211.
141
Hubbart, Ohio Wesleyan, 159-175.
142 Chessman,
Denison, 380-427.
LEARNING AND PIETY 239
bein a reaction occurred against the
type of instruction which
failed to produce "a point of
view, a philosophy of life, a scale
of values."143 Numerous
colleges established orientation
courses for freshmen because of
"the amazing mortality of
college students" and
"superspecialization," and because "the
integrating work of philosophy has been
neglected."144
Ohio philosophy professors were averse
to setting up their
own philosophical preference as an
integrating factor in the
curriculum even when defining
philosophy as "the preeminent
instrument for the evaluation,
unification, and justification of
the higher cultural interests of
man."145 Instead, they gave
all philosophies a hearing, together
with scientific evidence
and the claims of the spirit. Walter S.
Gamertsfelder of Ohio
University and D. Luther Evans of the
College of Wooster
did not consider themselves unfaithful
to science in rejecting
the behaviorism of Albert Paul Weiss at
Ohio State, because
other psychologists of note had
rejected the behaviorists' claim
that their method alone was scientific.
In the twenties numer-
ous voices warned against setting up
any one discipline as the
means of supplying unification, whether
it be "Spinoza's geom-
etry or today's psychology."146
Herbert A. Miller, a sociologist
at Ohio State, rejected the impulse of
some scientists to raise
their partial field into an explanation
of the universe.147 Presi-
dent Wishart at Wooster insisted that
Shakespeare could not
be reduced to "atomic
structure" or Beethoven to "'the scrap-
ing of horses' hairs on the intestines
of a cat.'"148 Similarly,
Joseph A. Leighton had scant respect
for theories which re-
duced values and purposes to
"nothing but gas bubbles exhal-
ing from blindly happening
physico-chemical processes." To
Leighton there was some "color of
pretext" in the funda-
143 Bartlett,
Otterbein, 264-265.
144 Enders,
"Orientation and Philosophy," 17.
145 Walter
S. Gamertsfelder and D. Luther Evans, Fundamentals of Philosophy
(New York, 1930), vii.
146 Schneider,
"The Unifying Task of Philosophy in the College and University
Curriculum," 26.
147 Herbert A. Miller, "The Quest
for the Real." Manuscript dated September
1925, in OSU Collection, Ohio State
University Library.
148 Wishart,
The New Freedom in the Natural Order, 3.
240
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
mentalists' fears of evolution, because
in fearing evolution
they dreaded a mistaken mechanistic
philosophy--mistaken
because "the theory of evolution
is not a philosophy, not a
theory of ultimate reality....[It] is
simply the completest,
the most generalized description of the
living processes by
which living species and the earth
itself have reached their
present phase." Leighton continued
his defence of the free
spirit in man by emphasizing the harm
which could ensue
from elevating scientific method into a
"universal explanatory
dogma": "It can only harm
physical science and do irreparable
harm
to the moral, spiritual, and social order dogmatically
and heedlessly to carry over from the
physical to the social
and cultural or spiritual, methods and
concepts that are irrele-
vant."149 Opposing the
effort to make science "the arbiter of
ethics," the physicist Louis T.
More deplored the "rapid and
fatal . . . descent from scientific accuracy
to the vague use
of scientific terms by the
humanitarians and sociologists."150
Together with rejecting the claim of
any special field to
provide adequate total explanation,
there was hope for the
continued vitality of philosophy by
means of profoundly think-
ing through each segment of knowledge:
"Every special disci-
pline when appreciated to the full
calls for a philosophy of
that discipline."151
Carl H. Schneider of Wittenberg thought
the student's longing for a totality
would be met by "the
tendency of the situation itself to
find a unification."152 What
Albert E. Avey and Carl H. Schneider
had in mind was, in
part, the actual relating of particular
segments. Before a
synthesis of theology, the humanities,
and the sciences could
be achieved, specific relationships had
to be established. For
example, Harold J. Sheridan at Ohio
Wesleyan did such con-
structive, partial relating when he
incorporated insights from
psychology into his thought on religious
education.153 Depart-
149 Leighton, "Mechanism and Human Values," 5, 9.
150 More, The Dogma of Evolution. 386.
151 Avey, "Principles for Building a Philosophy
Department," 31.
152 Schneider, "The Unifying Task of Philosophy in the College and
University
Curriculum," 25.
153 Harold J. Sheridan, Growth in
Religion (Nashville, Tenn., 1929).
LEARNING AND PIETY 241
ments or courses in philosophy of
religion, art, history, or
science indicated the reach for
philosophy through special
knowledge. Did a small class under
President Warren God-
dard at Urbana University in 1920-21
attend the first course
in Ohio called "Philosophy of
Science"?154
Arthur E. Morgan at Antioch, 1920-36,
conceived an
original way of solving the problem of
specialization. He
did this by translating the concept of
educating the whole man
into a program of alternating the
student's time between
school and employment. "Life does
not consist simply of
thinking," he believed. "Life
includes doing, willing, under-
taking. Life demands courage,
initiative, resources; it de-
mands such a knowledge of one's powers
that he can get only
by using those powers."155
Believing the student and not spe-
cialized areas of knowledge should be
the unit, he favored a
curriculum which provided "a
general view of the main fields
of human knowledge and interest rather
than a specialized
insight into a few."156 Four
years later he described Antioch
as handling chemistry, biology, and
physics in one way for
the specialist and in another way for
general education.157
His distinction between special and
general education implied
difficulty in relating the general and
the particular, in over-
coming what he called the flaw in
American higher education
of not seeing all values in true
proportion.158
To a course he taught at Antioch on life's
values Morgan
brought three presuppositions common in
the traditional col-
lege: belief in personal freedom, the
importance of finding
the worthwhile or meaningful in life,
and respect for knowl-
edge. In Morgan's treatment of freedom
there was a ring of
certainty. No divine plan or natural
law reduced personal
freedom to non-existence. He preferred
to live in a world
154 Francis
P. Weisenburger, A Brief History of Urbana University, 1850-1950
(n.p., n.d.,) 29. Weisenburger notes
that Goddard, a clergyman, served in that
year as "Instructor in Physics,
Chemistry, and the Philosophy of Science."
155 Morgan, "Education for Symmetry," 120.
156 Ibid., 125.
157 Morgan, An
Adventure in Education, 31.
158 Ibid.
242
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
without a divine plan than to live in
one in which he was the
puppet of a deity.159 "The
uniformity of natural law" was not
a "prison"160
rendering futile human efforts to restrict "the
range of infelicity."161 He
glorified human freedom: "If the
fates intended man to be a helpless
child of circumstance, they
made a fearful mistake when they gave
him intelligence and
a desire for the good, the true, and
the beautiful. Each new
vision of his becomes a cause of what
is to be."162 In respect
to the worthwhileness or meaningfulness
of existence Morgan
knew its importance as a basis for
entering "wholeheartedly
into the struggle of life,"163
but was uncertain as to its sanc-
tions, because there was no
"absolute datum to which all
human incentives and beliefs can be
referred."164 He appre-
ciated that "our modern world is
losing its old religious sanc-
tions, and has not found new
ones."165 On what to base the
values of happiness and the biblical
abundant life puzzled
Morgan. Assuming that the scientific
method was authori-
tative in areas beyond the sciences,
Morgan said the scientific
attitude "would accept revelation
as part of its basis of opin-
ion, if there were adequate evidence of
revelation."166 That
knowledge and revelation could not be
combined, except on
science's own terms, and that he must
follow evidence, he
implied when he confessed "the
grim determination" with
which he "would recognize the
facts, even if they should lead
me to destruction."167 That Morgan
had difficulty in facing
the facts of the history of religion,
comparative religion, and
the psychology of religion appeared
from the cool reception
he gave to Charles Francis Potter's
liberal religious human-
ism at Antioch in 1925-26. Potter's
dismissal at the end of
1926 may have been in part prompted by
unsolved questions
159 Arthur
E. Morgan, My World (Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1927), 109.
160 Ibid., 110.
161 Ibid., 107.
162 Ibid., 103-104.
163 Ibid., 7.
164 Ibid., 23.
165 Ibid., 5.
166 Ibid., 27.
167 Ibid., 33.
LEARNING AND PIETY 243
and tensions in Morgan's thinking on
the relation of learning
and religion.168 On such a
note of uncertainty this period in
the life of learning on Ohio's campuses
may appropriately
be brought to a close.
168 See Charles Francis Potter, The
Preacher and I (New York, 1951), 301-304.