Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 61, Number 216, Decatur, Adams County, 13 September 1963 — Page 8

PAGE EIGHT

College Students’J Religion Reviewed

By LOUIS CASSELS United Press International Some young people lose their faith when they go to college. Others become seriously interested in religion for the first time in their lives. The great majority do not experience either kind of religious crisis — apostasy or conver&mn. They spend their college yeagpin “religious hibernation” and just don't think about God. This picture of college students is painted in two new reports — one by a Protestant minister, the other by a Catholic priest. • The Protestant minister is the Rev. Dr. William E. Hordern of Garrett Theological Seminary, Evanston, 111. He visited 10 campuses and interviewed students from six others, pis findings are being published jointly by three leading denominational magazines —the Lutheran, the Episcopalian and Presbyterian Life. The Catholic priest is Fr. Richard Butler, OP., national chaplain of the Newman Apostolate which operates centers for Catholic students at about 200 colleges and universities. His book, “God on the Secular Campus,” was published this month by Doubleday. Generalize Too Much Both clergymen warn that it is perilous to generalize too much about religion on the campus. Some colleges seem to provide a far more hospitable climate for faith than others. And in any one institution, there will be a great diversity of attitudes. Dr. Hordern says the fear often expressed by parents and pastors that young people reared in religious homes will turn into atheists in college — is borne out by a “small proportion” of students. But he was told by faculty and administration people that “today there are more students who find a meaningful faith on the campus than lose it.” Fr. Butler adds that many of the students who renounce religion in college “are weak in faith and morals when they arrive, if not altogether nominal in their church affiliations.” Although neither of them holds colleges solely responsible for the religious apathy displayed by many students, Dr. Hordern and Fr. Butler agree that some faculty members go out of their way to shake whatever faith they may encounter in the young people who attend their classes. Faculty hostility toward religion, Dr. Hordern says, “sometimes takes the form of an open attack upon specific religious beliefs. but more frequently it takes the form of a rather snide disparagement of religion.” Professorial sneers at religion are heard in denominational colleges as well as in secular institutions. Don’t Do The Job Fr. Butler says that state universities and other tax-supportecj institutions cannot properly be asked to inculcate religious faith, but they do emphatically have an obligation to be genuinely neutral. And often they are not. Im stead, they engage in “positive indoctrination” of students in the dogmas of secular humanism, which holds “that man himself is the ultimate value in life and he is confined to a material universe which produces him and eventually destroys him.” “There is a tragic irony in the p r esent situation when secular educators are warned not to inject religious beliefs or opinions into their teaching and yet are free to propose and propagate an irreligious view of life,” says Fr.

MASONIC Entered Apprentice Degree Tuesday, Sept, 17th at 7:00 P.M. Robert S. Workinger W. M. Our Ice Cream stand . . . east of Decatur will CLOSE FOR THE SEASON SUNDAY EVENING, SEPT. 15th We sincerely wish to thank everyone for their patronage and hope to 0 see and Serve you aagin next season. Mr. & Mrs. Carl Hurst

Butler. He adds that “more intelligent” students who have had a r good background of religious education before coming to college may see through the professor j who tries to peddle his own philosophical opinions along with his course in literature or history. - But the average undergraduate is s vulnerable to “brain-washing” by ■ teachers who either have a peri sonal antagonism toward religion, t or who “delight in the destruction of traditional ideas and val- > ues.” > Can Help Problem College administrators can re- , lieve the problem, Fr. Butler f says, in two ways: (1) By “cooperating with the churches in ’ providing for religious educa- . tion”; and (2) By making it plain , to faculty members that “acaj demic freedom” doesn’t give j them the right to foist their own , religious beliefs on their students, even if those beliefs happen to be largely negative. ' It is up to the churches, the ' Catholic priest says, to “assume the principal responsibility to ' teach their particular doctrines” tc college students, through well--1 located and well-staffed campus religious centers. Although major denomina- : tions have been slowly awakening i to this responsibility, Fr. Butler notes that there is still “only one , priest (usually part-time) to ev- ■ ery 3,227 Catholic students” in ‘ secular colleges, and “adequate” . Catholic centers have been provided for only one-sixth of the campuses where they are needed. “From my limited experience,” says Fr. Butler, "I would say that Protestants and Jews are working under even greater handicaps in these essential matters of facilities and personnel.” Dairy Association To Meet Monday Night The Adams county dairy herd improvement association will hold the annual meeting Monday evening, aacording to Leo N. Seltenright, county extension agent. The meeting will start with a dinner al 7 p.m. at the Parkway Restau--1 rant in Berne J<. Ward Calland ■ will be the featured speaker on ’ the program. Calland will relate f his experiences in Russia, parti- ’■ cularly those of an agricultural nature. Also on the herd testing pro- ■ g r am will be Sam Gregory, ex--1 tension dairyman, who is the state leader of the dairy herd testing program. Chairman Martin Habegger will conduct the meeting. An election of officers will be carried out during the business session. Dinner tickets are available from the chairman, secretary, Norman Becher; supervisors, Mr. and Mrs. Everett Rice, and the county exsion office. __ Agriculture Outlook Meeting October 15 Ronald H. Bauman, veteran Purdue University agricultural economist, will present the 1964 i economic outlook for agriculture at a meeting October 15 in the . 4-H building in Bluffton. The meeti ing will begin at 8 p.m. Bauman will take up a wide , variety of subjects ranging from • the outlook for international trade . in U.S. farm products to the prices i county farmers can expect to re- , ceive next fall for milk, hogs, and , cattle. County extension agent . Leo N. Seltenright points out that the meeting will be of interest not only to farmers, but also to persons in related industries, bankers and homemokers. All interested persons are invited. To Lay Cornerstone At Indiana-Purdue Site FORT WAYNE, Ind. (UPI) - Cornerstone laying ceremonies for a new Indiana - Purdue regional campus building will be held here Tuesday. The structure will replace the downtown campuses of both universities and provide classroom and other space for an enrollment of 5,000 students expected within the next 10 years. JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES KINGDOM HALL Corner Monroe and Ninth Sunday 3;00 p.m.: “Does God Favor a Union of all Religions?” is the name of a public Bible lecture to be given by Glen T. Gerber, an assistant presiding minister from the Huntington congregation. Sunday 4:15 p.m.: Watchtower Bible Study and discussion on the subject, “Protect the New Generation.” One of the scripture texts for consideration will be Ephesians 6:4, “Do Not be irritating your children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline authoritative advice of Jehovah.” Tuesday 8:00 p.m.; Area Bible studies in study aid, “Let Your Name be Sanctified.” Friday 7:30 p.m.: Theocratic Ministry School followed by the Kingdom Service Meeting. All meetings open to the public.

Says Federal Aid For Schools Vital HUNTINGTON, Ind., “We have reached a point in Indiana where our children will suffer if there., is no federal aid to schools,” Senator Vance Hartke (D.-Ind.) said here Thursday night. “Our children are the most im-

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portant resouce we have in Indiana. Yet, they are caught in a squeeze which is beginning to deny them the basic schooling that is of first importance. “Property taxes in Indiana provide the main source of money for schools. These taxes are at or near the legal limit in nearly every community. The property owner is finding that these taxes are near his breaking point. “The hands of the state are tied

because of the fight over the kind of taxes it should impose. Therefore, the. state cannot meet the needs of our youngsters. “So we are facing a crisis in the schools. We either provide some new way of paying for the schooling of our youngsters or we forfeit their right to learn and, thus, lose our most valuable resource. “There is much concdm today over drop-outs from schools and over juvenile delinquency. Are we

not promoting drop-outs and delinquency when we short-change oifr youngsters? “There is no bargain basement, sale-price schooling available. In today’s world, it is good schools taught by feood teachers or the pupils are short-changed. Knowledge is today more complicated than when we were young. Yet, it is getting increasingly harder to come by. “I am fully aware that schools

are the state’s responsibility by our American system. Yet, state and local government cannot meet the challenge—largely through no fault of their own. The federal government has the faiir and complete tax means to supplement state and local funds for schools. It has been done in so-called impact areas for many years without any taint of federal domination. Last year 110 Indiana school districts received nearly sl% million in this federal

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1963 - L - J ~ ' '

aid and there was not one single complaint of federal interference. Some $66 million has been given to Indiana colleges and universities for dormitory construction and this, too, has been without any complaint of domination. I believe we are going to have to extend this aid in order to insure that Hoosier schools give our boys and girls the knowledge they need to be good citizens and to earn a living in a fast-changing world.”