Religion in Negro Colleges

It is the opinion of the writer that the value of this of thesis will be increased by a brief statement of his own religious philosophy. The reason is that one's religious attitudes are so deeply embedded in his feeling-life that momentary dissociation, even for such a task as this, is not practical, and if so might lead to confusion in thought. Dr. Charles A. Ellwood's magnificent treatise, entitled The Re-Construction of Religion, A Sociological View, sums up the writer's thinking on religion in a rich, philosophical manner. Because of its mature analysis, this book is being used as the source for interpretation of all that the writer has taken for his religious ideals. Religion sums up the positive and necessary values of the personnel and personality of human society and presents them to the world as the criteria of good living. A psychological evaluation of religion reveals it as a process of rationalizing man's emotions and impulses rather than his percepts. It causes him to adapt his feeling-side to the world in which he lives. Religion is social in nature and uses social values; it is a process of socializing the will, an agency of social control, which causes the individual to use his powers and energies for the good of society. It men spiritual. As a matter of fact, religion is part and parcel of the mores. It supports the best in the mores, thereby becoming an indispensable collective pattern idea that should be reflected in each individual reaction to the social group as a unit.' The writer believes with Hobhouse that a humanitarian religion makes the furtherance of the collective life of humanity the supreme object of endeavor.2 The collective aim of the college should be to prepare men and women for happy and pleasant association. Religion is an essential phase of this general aim. It is essential because it is a chief agency for social controlthe storehouse for social morale. The obvious duty of the college to its students, and through them to society, is to establish religion as a pattern idea in their emotional lives. This is a serious challenge to the power of the college, for the process of reconciling this aim with that fundamental social principle of consciousness of kind presupposes a balanced religious philosophy abstracted from a synthesis of science and religion. How far has the Negro college travelled in the direction of this ideal?