Basis of Studies

The discussion took as its main point the lack of basis in University studies. Scholarship in the Middle Ages pivoted on the Church, whether the approach was orthodox or heretical Today that over-all and underlying connection has vanished but nothing has taken its place. The majority of students leave the Universities as liberal rationalists, but this is a negative creed, if it may even be regarded as a creed. Christianity as a basis has not been denied, but rather disregarded, Professor and Lecturer implying in their subjects the non-relativity of Christianity to the student's life and aims. Such an implication, claimed Dr. Coleman lies in the up-till-recently-taught law that "Matter is indestructible."

Two answers to the problem were suggested. Feeling a need for unity among his students, President Hutchings of Chicago University, developed the idea of making philosophy a compulsory subject, and thus the basis for University education. To the question, "What philosophy?" he answered that he believed St. Thomas to be the most recent great philosopher with a comprehensive approach to life, A second solution was that the professor should at the beginning of his course outline the assumptions on which he based his teaching, whether these were Christian or otherwise, awakening the student into the realisation that a choice between various beliefs exists, and not instilling in and unconscious acceptance of Liberal Rationalism, so that any choice of creed he may later make must be conditioned by his earlier limited conception of life. This suggestion, actually adopted by an American professor of sociology, was accepted doubtfully as a valuable but not probably, a complete answer. Most of the group felt that the necessary stimulus must come not from the professors but from the students themselves.