Faculty Eschews Pedagogical Proselytizing

Michel de Montagine, living in a France racked by sanguinary religious and civil war, wrote with a tolerance rare for his day: "It is setting a very high price on one's conjectures to burn a man alive for them. The skeptical Catholic would probably be delighted at the temper which prevails on the Harvard faculty today; for even the most convinced believers sharply divorce teaching from proselytizing, much less contemplating coercion by brand and faggot.

The University has become a sanctuary where one can avoid sectarian evangelism--a temple where the representatives of all creeds say prayers before the altar of Tolerance before laying their votive scholarship on the altar of Truth.

The pedagogical corollaries of Harvard's apotheoisis of tolerance are subscribed to by Faculty members of diverse beliefs and non-beliefs. In teaching history the lecturer divorces, as much as possible, personal evaluation from more antiseptic exposition; in elementary philosophy the conflicting claims to truth are all laid before the student; in courses on religious philosophy or writing the professor teaches about religion, and does not attempt to inculcate belief.

Philosophy May Shake Faith

Raphael Demos, Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity, introduces freshmen and upper-classmen to the various doctrines of philosophy in Philosophy 1. For the freshman, especially one who comes from a relatively sheltered religious background, the introduction to such thinkers as Spinoza and Hume may prove novel and disquieting. Demos admits some students may be shaken by an introduction to skepticism.

"In philosophy you cannot avoid it. We are going to question the student's dearest beliefs," Demos states. "I don't try to protect the freshmen, but I don't attempt to ram the ideas into them. I try to examine also the assumptions on which science is built. Our job is to examine everything."

This last sentence summarizes the dominant spirit of the College, even for the believers. Demos's method in teaching Phil. 1 reflects the divorce of believing and teaching which characterizes much of the faculty's approach. Demos admits frankly that he is "a believer," and he says furthermore, "Everybody who believes something should try to convert everybody else. I don't believe you should try to dissociate belief from the missionary spirit."

Yet Demos admittedly does not try to convert in his philosophy class. His self-described role is that of the actor, speaking for the various philosophers. For the instructor, the role of the believer yields to that of the impartial spokesman expounding the bits of wisdom and insight which each philosopher offers. The values of teaching many philosophical claims to truth thus take precedence over the teaching of the professor's own convictions.

Problems Arise in History

Other areas besides philosophy present similar problems. Conflicting evaluations in history, in psychological theory, in meanings of literary works, present problems for any professor; he must resolve the tension between his role as apostle and his role as expositor. This tension becomes evident in courses such as History 130, "Renaissance and Reformation," in which the problems of historical interpretation are augmented by those of divergent religious claims. Myron P. Gilmore, professor of History, admits that "It is not the business of the historian to inculcate belief." Gilmore does admit in History 130 that he has sympathies, chiefly with More and Erasmus, but he is sure to indicate that he is speaking "extra-historically." Gilmore probably speaks for the vast majority of the Faculty when he says, "I don't think anyone should give a course in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences qua Lutheran or qua Catholic."

By common agreement the University is "secular" and its teaching function toward the undergraduate demands that religious preconceptions be discounted as much as possible. Gilmore gives an example of the different ways in which a church and a university handle momentous intellectual questions: "Augustine would never say to Pelagius, 'Let us examine your position on grace, Pelagius ...' as Socrates would say to Thrasmymachus, 'Let us examine your position on virtue.' The atmosphere of the University," Gilmore holds, "must be the Platonic rather than the Augustinian one."

Questioning Is Healthy

Such a view of university teaching is held by Christopher Dawson, Charles Chauncey Stillman Guest Professor of Roman Catholic Studies. Dawson states that "It is healthy to extend examination to one's faith," as the University demands of the undergraduate. Presumably, such a strong Catholic as Dawson sees questioning as leading to a salutary strengthening of faith; if such examination led to disillusionment and apostasy a Catholic might see the student as ill-fitted for the relativism which the University offers.

Demos admits that the relativism offered at Harvard may not be a universal panacea, in fact may be unhealthy for some minds. "I assume that Harvard students can take it; they are supposed to be to tough intellectually. On the whole for Harvard students, who have time to reflect, the period of doubting may be helpful." Demos, however, is not convinced of the value of such doubting for everyone. "I've often wondered whether philosophy courses should be given in high school. For those who don't plan to go on to college, and will not have time for such reflection, it may not be good to introduce disturbing thoughts." Such a view implies a fairly elitist view of knowledge and philosophy; but there is agreement by both Demos and Dawson that the student who is qualified to come to Harvard is able, in Demos's phrase, to have "his religion buffeted by the winds of reason." The split between classroom exposition and classroom conversion is only one factor contributing to the College relativism. Demos says that in Harvard's case 'Veritas means that we are committed to nothing." Yet even those members of the University who are "committed men," who, like Demos, do believe, often see the critical examination of ideas as the best method for arriving at truth. Reverend George A. Buttrick, Preacher to the the University, sees truth arising "from the friction of friendly minds." Thus the University becomes almost a playing field where issues of possibly eternal salvation and damnation are gentlemanly tossed around by polite opponents. The danger with this method, however, is clear. If University discussion takes on the atmosphere of a sporting match, too often momentous ideas can become mere playthings.

Courses About Religion Approved

The relativism which Harvard fosters is reflected also in Faculty members' views on courses on religion. While there is enthusiasm for courses about religion, there is agreement that courses in religion would be abhorrent to the spirit of the modern, secular Harvard.

In his new book, Religion, Politics and the Higher Learning, Morton G. White, professor of Philosophy, emphasizes the differences between inculcating any type of belief and discussing religion in the same critcal spirit with whch philosophy is taught. White claims that teaching religion in any meaningful manner involves teaching a particular religion. Since the non-sectarion college is not prepared to do this, he argues that is must confine its instruction to teaching about religion, which "no more constitutes teaching people to be religious...than teaching about Communism amounts to propagating it."

Professor Demos also approves of courses about religion, but he replies that students are not merely taught about democracy. "Don't we teach democracy and science in the sense of indoctrination?" Certainly this is a valid point; American youth learn the democratic method through student government and the democratic hagiography in their history courses. Democracy, however, is an ideology almost universally approved in the United States, and its wide-spread acceptance leads many to over look the fact that education about democracy has been replaced by indoctrination in democracy.

To teach religion, on the other hand is to deal with issues which arouse division. To teach at most about religion thus seems a necessity in a college which desires to maintain diversity without strife and to provide a haven for many points of view. Buttrick recognizes this necessity. In his course on the New Testament, Humanities 124, he is concerned with showing the influence of Biblical "categories of thought." He states that "a university is for understanding. Our concern is not to say whether you should believe or not believe." Buttrick thus provides another example of the split that exists in the University teacher who is a committed man--the instructor who does believe and is convinced that his belief is one which is tremendously meaningful, but who must demur from advocating it.

Tillich Sees Spiritual Realms

Whereas professors like Morton White and Buttrick emphasize the difference between teaching religion and teaching about it, Paul Tillich, University Professor, sees an essential spiritual unity in all attempts at scholarship. In a disquisition last November to the Overseers on "Religion in the Intellectual Life of the University" Tillich concluded: "in many realms of the scholarly work of a university the religious dimension is revealed, independent of a concrete religious tradition." For Tillich, "the religious question is the queston of human existence generally."

Since in all the various areas of learning--sociologly, psychology, the sciences, history, philosophy, even businss administration--ultimate questions about existence are involved, these studies represents practical actualizations of a vast and embracing spiritual realm. In the Tillichian transcendental real there can be no divorce of preaching and pedagogy; each discipline is a partial manifestation of the Meaning of Being.

For Tillich, then, a University must by its very nature transcend mere secular considerations; it is an institution dedicated to matters of ultimate concern. For teachers with less of the Tillichian "vision," however, the questions of religion in education appear more controversial, for they are bound to earthly considerations of sect and creed.

Genaral unanimity seems to exist that Harvard is secular, despite its Protestant Divinity School. Harvard's present secularist position, through, represents the end product of a long evolution, and the vestiges of earlier evidences of a sectarian and religious past have sometimes caused friction.

Probably no one has been more concerned with the role of religion in a secular university than President Pusey. In his Divinity School address in 1953 and his Baccalaureate sermons, Pusey has stressed that the twentieth century has destroyed earlier illusions about man's nature, that the Christian psychology provides better comprehension of the nature of man better than did nineteenth century liberalism. President Pusey is evidently a sincerely devout man; and with the issue of faith so important in his own thinking, resolving the tensions between the role of a secular university embracing diverse beliefs and what he believes to be the central truths of human existence must be especially challenging.

In his Baccalaureate sermon of 1954 he declared: "This relationship to God--the attitude of reverence--this is the paramount thing. All of us stand perpetually in need in our lives of that basic affirmation which is the essence of faith." In his 1957 address, President Pusey disavowed any tie between faith, and sectarianism in the University: "In my judgment the people who are speaking for religion in universities today should not be understood as speaking in favor of a particular church. They are not asking for special privilege."

In 1958 President Pusey turned to the problem of secularism and tried to resolve the conflict between what he saw as the deleterious elements of secularism and the fact that Harvard was a secular university. Pusey clarified, "There can be no quarrel in a University with secularism itself, but only with it as it comes hubristically in its turn to pretend to speak for the whole of life." For Pusey, therefore, there is no absolute resolution of the dichotomy, but rather a balancing of religious and secular forces, each of which has its proper role in the University's tradition.

Such a balancing, however, seems an unstable equilibrium; it depends very much on a great deal of restraint and tact by both the opponents of religion and the advocates of it.

Moreover, there is not even a simple dichotomy between secular and religious forces in the University. For Harvard itself is based on a faith--summed up by the term Liberal Education--which is in potential conflict with other faiths. Perhaps at Harvard more than any other school the belief in liberal education is inculcated; however, its tenets are seldom recognized as the credo of a faith, which rests on assumptions as unprovable as any other faith. Knowledge through scholarship is justified and constant questioning become the chief paths to this summum bonum. There are of course all the institutional trappings of a visible church: the hierophantic gamut running from teaching fellow to full professor; the sacraments of grades and commencement, the semi-monastic existence of acolyte graduate students, and ordained faculty.

More than this, however, there exists a clear pervasive spirit of questioning, skepticism, tolerence--in sum, an apotheois of relativism and tolerance. At Harvard the values of relativism are quickly transformed from means to ends, from mere method to metaphysics they become the "practical postulates" of a University which wants to embrace spokesmen for opposing views in a harmonious institution. Even the religious person, moreover the believer in salvation through a particular church, must divorce his role of believer from his role of teacher. If he would teach he cannot by direct methods fish for souls.

The pupil too must become in some sense a split person if he holds some truths, explicitly or implicity, as sacrosanct. He must adopt the methods of Descartes, who wished to examine all truths, yet simultaneously set aside certain ethical and religious maxims for everyday life. The University demands a perpetual examination, a faith in non-faith, a paradoxical commitment to non-commitment which produces an academic dualism that reflects well the conflicts of the twentieth century