THE UNWISDOM OF COMPULSORY CHAPEL.

The agitation over compulsory chapel at Princeton and Pennsylvania has been accompanied by vague discussions of the question here. At present the men who go to chapel go because they want to. The result--an unusually serious religious atmosphere--has been testified to by Bishop Williams of Michigan in his article in a recent Alumni Bulletin and by other of the University preachers. A reversion to a general compulsory system would be a sad chapter in the history of the University's ideal; the problem in hand is to inculcate more men with the desire to go.

Primarily this should be done from the inside--by securing as fully as possible a list of interesting and inspiring men, and reducing as far as possible the number of stupid talkers. A step in the right direction has already been taken with the formation of a Committee of the Student Council on Religious Activities.

Secondarily, it may be done by reaching those men who might enjoy chapel, if they realized its nature, but who, because of natural inertia, do not go at all or until late in their college careers. Under ordinary circumstances the plan of requiring the attendance of Freshmen at chapel once a week during the first two or three months of their course would be worth trying. It would hamper their freedom little, and might open the eyes of many. But the world that knows Harvard has grown very nervous in the last few years at the tendency toward paternalism; and there is nothing on earth which would call forth such protest as a manifestation of religious paternalism. Again and again the powers that be have calmed the world's fears of the Freshman Dormitories by disclaiming all intention of restricting their inmates; it is no time for even the most lenient of compulsory chapel requirements to be inaugurated, especially when the value of such requirements is a matter of doubt, and their importance becomes less and less as the problems of internal provement are solved.