80 Making of the Complete Citizen
that their children should not be exposed to complete secular-
ization.
In the colleges and universities conditions are different.
In so far as in them religious beliefs are subjected to dis-
integration, this is due not to a frontal attack upon the
Scriptures or Church doctrine, but to the undermining by
philosophy, psychology, biology, or archaeology of the
bases on which the creeds have been constructed. This fact
devolves upon the professor the responsibility of securing
for immature minds fair treatment. Academic freedom
being assumed as a postulate, and the integrity of education
as essential, the teacher must have regard for the convic-
tions of others as well as his own. Considerateness in ap-
proach and modesty in statement are qualities to be ex-
pected in one who is aware that hypotheses are provisional,
and that history taught in a prejudiced spirit may pervert
the mind as effectively as false dogma. If this attitude
prevails in our universities, it should not be long until in
the more tolerant communities it will be quite feasible to
include in universities, as courses of study and investigation,
the most incomparable and influential of all literatures,
those of the Old and New Testaments. If I am not greatly
mistaken the day of the educational rebel is past, because
so much against which he rebelled is no longer potent; in
any case his place is not the professor’s chair. That should
be the seat of calm judgment and tolerant views, not of
propaganda.
But the hand of the Churches must not be reached out
behind the politician to stop the mouth of the teacher. If
at this behest the politician prohibits some form of teaching,
he simply induces the State to say, not that the teaching
is untrue, for the State is incompetent to pass such a judg-
ment, but that it is politically inexpedient. When this is done