I suggest five ways by which such indispensable union may be accomplished. These hints are based upon work now in progress in various places, and which is bringing together the church and college in Bible study. IV-How Can the Church and School First-A cooperating committee consisting of five or six members in a college town, including pastor, Sunday-school superintendent, faculty man, a student leader of the college Bible movement, and the general secretary of the college Young Men's Christian Association, when such an officer is employed. At Ames, Iowa, where Iowa State College is located, such a committee has been able to correlate the Bible work for students in a successful manner. When I visited this institution recently, 160 students were meeting in Bible classes in the church, and at least 400 were in classes in the college environment. Each section knew what the other section was doing. Bible courses and meth ods were suited to students meeting in churches, as to students meeting on the campus. Pastors were helping in the college Bible classes and the student workers were cooperating in forming and promoting the church classes. Second-Enlistment of college graduates in church Bible study in our large cities. Many a city pastor writes to me asking how he can obtain and maintain the interest and service of college alumni in the Bible cause of the city church. One of the first needs is to study the local church needs relative to engaging college men's attention. Has the church something concrete and practical enough to engage the graduate's time and sacrifice? He is used to definite tasks and often conducts Bible campaigns of some proportion in college. He responds when he is invited to take specific work, such as leading Bible groups or forming boys' clubs for study, service, and athletics. The college man, fresh from school, enjoys studying and applying the social principles of Christianity. He would be lured into taking leadership of such Bible movements in the church as those of organizing and leading campaigns for small Bible classes; forming large organized Bible classes for men; training Bible teachers in the life of Christ; or in the social and political teachings of the Bible; securing up-to-date reference books for Sunday-school classes; organizing young people's societies for Bible study and mission study; and assisting in making serviceable the Bible study in the church by enlisting Bible-class members in social, religious, or mission work in the town. The definite and valuable contribution rendered by college graduates in New York City, under the leadership of Mr. Orrin Cocks, graduate secretary of the New York City Intercollegiate Young Men's Christian Association, may be stimulating to those interested in this problem: A Cornell man, a member of the Committee of the Graduate Department, has seen the opportunity to serve Christ during the past years in a more satisfactory way than as an engineer, and has taken a position as secretary in a Young Men's Christian Association outside of New York. Another graduate of very good family has had his eyes opened to the social needs of the city through conversations, trips, and work, and has lately become a director of a settlement among the needy. A technology graduate said, after a trip among the missions, settlements, and tenements on the East Side, that he had received more from that trip than from any course he had taken in college. An Oberlin man decided, after several weeks' discussion of moral problems of the day at the Graduate House, that he would give his spare time to an East Side settlement, and is now in residence. A Cornell man, who was somewhat careless and indifferent in college, has been slowly coming to a realization of his religious needs, and was approached about a definite bit of work. In the course of the conversation, he agreed that this was the one thing he needed, and is now growing into the lives of a number of young men in a Brooklyn Settlement. Third-Training classes in colleges taught by ministers and leading laymen who are college graduates. Last college year there were 2,308 students leading Bible groups in North American colleges. Such students must be trained if the groups are to succeed in maintaining the interest of the men through the year. There were 305 Bible-training classes in colleges last year; there should have been double the number to cover adequately the different courses of study pursued. Here is the opportunity for men of mature minds and special Bible training. A clergyman would hardly have a greater, a more multiplying, or a more strategic privilege than that of meeting for an hour of training each week ten young student Bible teachers, who in turn are to teach 100 other students. Many ministers are at present helping to solve the question of the relation of the church and college in their communities by interesting themselves in students, and, in person, forming a living bond between town and gown. Fourth-Faculty men teaching Bible classes and training classes in the church. The church should find teachers of the Bible in college professors and in college instructAt a recent meeting of faculty men, which I attended in a large State university, ors. |