WORK OF PHILLIPS BROOKS HOUSE ASSOCIATION SURVEYED

"I shall always entertain a lively sense of the great kindness and hospitality of Phillips Brooks House. "Piety, charity, and hospitality', have become through the influence of the House my watchwords and motto throughout my life. It has been my life-long ambition to establish a Phillips Brooks House here in Calcutta University for the good of the student body and I hope I will be successful in it. The one real and lasting influence in my Harvard life is the Brooks House Association."

This statement is from a letter written by a native of India who received his doctor's degree at the University a few years ago, and who is now teaching to Calcutta University. Let us compare his testimonial with an extract from a address given by a former Brooks House man to a group of teachers in certain of the American schools in Turkey. Their subject under discussion was the proper type of institution for these schools to foster for the fulfillment of the diverse religious and social interests of the students of that country, students differing widely as to race and creed. "Certainly the most necessary attitude in life for the people of the Near East to acquire is one of wide tolerance for all races and creeds and lack of creeds. That tolerance is the very basis of the appeal of the Phillips Brooks House at Harvard University. By putting an emphasis upon conduct rather than creed I believe the Brooks House has assured its position forever in the respect and affection of students. I also believe that the demand for practical opportunities to express the formless personal religion of the individual is characteristic not only of Harvard men, but is the demand of students in every college everywhere."

Model of Religious Education

Both of these quotations express the conviction that the interests of the Brooks House might well serve as a model by which to pattern the programs for moral and religious education even in the universities of countries quite unlike America. But more important than the acceptance, of Brooks House as a practical working model of program and organization, more important by far, is the acceptance of the spirit of Brooks House as the ideal toward which the social and religious interests of the students of these countries should be directed: It is thus that the idealism of mutual service, of practical morality, and of brotherhood is being carried to universities all over the world by men who have been tough these principles at Brooks House. The Harvard man never loses his reverence for high standards of scholarship, nor does the Brooks House man lose his devotion to high standards of service.

They Brooks House aims especially to reach the 200 foreign students who are for a year or two the guests of the University while they acquire a knowledge and an opinion of "American ways." When these students return to their native countries they will carry either a favorable or an unfavorable judgment. The Brooks House aims to present to them the kindlier aspects of American life. Professor, American students, and American homes of refinement are brought to these strangers, with the inevitable result of an increase in mutual understanding and friendship. The sympathy thus engendered is an essential contribution to the establishment between our respective nations of amity and trust.

The spirit of service, shown in the work for foreign students, is also exemplified in the social service activities carries n in our own immediate community. It has been said that Brooks House serves as a clearing house where generous minded young men in the University may learn how to make their generosity count in the most efficient way,--a kind of school for training in the art of applied kindness. The actual social service work is done mostly in the settlement houses of Boston and Cambridge, where so far this year over 250 men have been teaching and leading boys clubs of various kinds. One man with musical talent is leading an orchestra. Two other men, one an H. man in football for three years, are teaching a class in tumbling, a subject in which a football man ought to be proficient. Several men are coaching basketball teams, others are teaching drumming, telegraphy, boxing, and wrestling, and still others Sunday School classes. Several men are reading to a blind student in the University and two men are reading to groups of blind workingmen in Cambridge. Men who can entertain are sent out in troupes to settlement houses and hospitals. Several of these entertainment's have been given this year, among them two for wounded soldiers. The fall collection of clothing and books netted 944 articles of clothing, over 200 books, and a ton of magazines. Some of the clothes have been given to needy students and the remainder sent to charitable organizations in Boston and Cambridge, besides a case sent to Mr. George P. Hayes, the representative of the Harvard Mission at Hobart College, Constantinople. The magazines have been given to the United States Merchant Marine and the books placed in the Text Book Loan Library. From this library over 1,000 books have already been drawn and from the Law Loan Library over 200 books have been lent.

Last year mention was made in my article in the "Bulletin" of the charity work done by students for the poor of Cambridge. The demand for this work came from the students themselves, who felt that they ought to be ding something to alleviate conditions caused by unemployment. Continuing this successful experiment, twenty dinners were distributed this year at Thanksgiving, and at Christmas shoes and stockings were given to twenty-five poor boys. All of these cases were investigated by the Cambridge Welfare Union, but the actual distribution was done by the students themselves. In this way, they were able to learn something of real conditions.

Among the other forms of community service this year is the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, which gives free legal advice to the needy people of Boston and Cambridge. Thirty-five law students have been assisting with this work.

The question of social service has been somewhat complicated since the war by the changes which have come about not only in the settlement houses themselves, but in the demands made upon the time of students. Despite the fact that the average student is busier than ever before, partly because of compulsory physical training for Freshmen and the divisional examinations, the number of men engaged in voluntary social service has remained at about the pre-war level.

Discussion Groups Carrying on

Coming to the religious work, the Christian Association has held devotional meetings once a week, which have been slightly better attended than last year. Plans are under way for a series of Bible study groups after the mid-year periods. The St. Paul's Society and the Catholic Club are carrying out their usual program of discussing groups, meetings, and corporate communion services. Among the other religious activities have been a mission study group, a discussion group composed of last year's Silver Bay delegates, and another group at the Dental School.

The work for Freshmen and other new students has been especially well done this year by the New Student Committee, which is made up of about 25 upper classmen. During the summer, a letter of welcome and a copy of the Harvard Handbook, of "Freshmen Bible," were sent to every-incoming student. Hundreds of students used the information Bureau, which was open two weeks before registration day, and furnished room lists, University pamphlets, and maps, as well as information about Brooks House activities. The reception to new students was held during the opening week and twelve Monday night, religious meetings for Freshmen have been held, among the speakers being Rev. Paul Revere Frothingham, Rev. Willard L. Sperry, W. H. Trumbull, Jr., Mr. W. J. Bingham. Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, and Dr. Richard C. Cabot. In addition, member of the New Student Committee have made personal calls on every new student and acquainted him with the work of Brooks House.

Activities from Natural Impulse

The significance of all these activities is that they have been carried on voluntarily by the students themselves. In this way, the religious and philanthropic, life of the University is just, as much an expression of a natural impulse as is the athletic or any other phase of student life. The fact that "going out for" this work does not bring the glory that accompanies achievement in other activities gives added significance to it.

The above survey shows something of the comprehensiveness of the organization and the work of the Phillips Brooks House Association. Its work is delimited by no creed, denomination, color, or race. It functions effectively in the University and the community, and at the same time, it does not over look the "stranger within our gates" who will soon return to his native land with a favorable or unfavorable judgment. In a word, the far reaching influence of Brooks House is another expression of those qualities which made Phillips Brooks a community and the