Article August 18, 1928 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from William Lyon Phelps, T. Young, William Scarlett

[From the Congregationalist, Boston, Massachusetts]

The appointment of Dr. Robert R. Wicks of Holyoke as dean of religion at Princeton has created a good deal of interested comment in the press, as well it might. Of equal significance, possibly, and as another indication of a trend to be discerned in the academic world, there comes the announcement that the State University of Iowa has just opened a school of religion to be a department in its College of Liberal Arts. A board of trustees has been created, with Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant representatives as well as representatives of the university, and in this board is vested control of the school, which will give courses for undergraduates in the Old and New Testaments, ethics, and the educational use of the Bible. In the graduate field, the history of religion and a comparative study of religions will be represented by a number of courses. In his recent book, "Beliefs That Matter," Dr. William Adams Brown calls attention to the fact that at Harvard University request has been made by a student council for courses that will make possible appreciative study of the Christian religion. Courses of that nature have been introduced recently at columbia University. The trend is thus seen to be toward a more factminded minded and unprejudiced approach to the religion in the world. As the New York Times pointed out in an important editorial on April 22, there is more money now being given to religious institutions ever before, and there is in this the reflection of an underlying confidence conviction of deep significance.

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