UNIVERSITY CHAPELS

News from Princeton that The Daily Princetonian is renewing its perennial battle against--compulsory chapel attendance is both welcome and disturbing-- welcome in the indication that a worthy cause is being vigorously prosecuted, and disturbing in the forced realization that the authorities of one of America's greatest universities are so old-fashioned as to cling to a long outmoded institution.

It is difficult to understand the attitude of the Princeton authorities, an attitude meriting no other name than intolerance. The custom of forced attendance at church is a gross anachronism. More significant, it is a serious impediment to the cause of religion, struggling mightily to adapt itself to a changing world. To attempt to stimulate religious belief by cramming it down a man's throat is folly. The normal individual not only resents such a practice, but will have a lifelong prejudice against the food of which he partakes so grudgingly.

Those responsible for Princeton's policy would do well to view the conditions prevailing at Harvard. There is no reason to believe the student-body here is a whit more godly than at Princeton. But it is patently obvious that Harvard's stand towards religion, as manifested in the relation it fosters between the students and the chapel, is far and away the more enlightened of the two. Daily attendance at chapel is small -- though it has grown appreciably in the last three years--, and even on Sundays, the proportion of men who attend church, as compared with those who are otherwise occupied, is illuminating. But those few who attend fairly regularly do so of their own accord. They must start their day considerably earlier than would otherwise be necessary, and their willingness is an indication of their sincerity. These men are not likely to lose whatever advantages their faith may bring them; and it is at least certain that the few words and admonitions given them by the speaker during a short space of time do not fall on reluctant ears, and are thus wasted. The fact that attendance has grown may or may not be indicative of an increasing interest in religion, but it at least substantiates the claim that Harvard's Chapel services mean far more than Princeton's, wherein men read newspapers, play tick-tack-toe, and snore, through sheer boredom.

Religion today is either on its deathbed, or still in the cradle. No longer is man satisfied with time-worn dogmas and creeds. If the challenge of a new era is to be met successfully, the primary requisite is a faith as positive as possible in the realm of the unknown Such a faith can be attained, and advanced, only by a society which feels a need for it. But to require a man, in the most skeptical stage of his life, to listen to backward doctrines is injurious in the extreme. He will seek to satisfy the needs religion should fill in other, less beneficial ways; and the results will surely wreak harm to an age that cannot withstand many more drains on the morals, the fairness to its students, and out of consideration for society. Princeton should abolish compulsory attendance at chapel, and give religion a chance to meet the challenge of the times.