Attendance Has Increased in Memorial Church, Says Sperry in Annual Report

"We are supposedly living in a period of declining church attendance, but the Harvard record for the Sunday services this year is at least 100 better than it was during the last years of the old Chapel," Dean Sperry says in his annual report to the President made public today.

Attendance at morning chapel for members of the University averaged 63 men daily, the report states. At least 1500 students were identified with the parish churches in Cambridge. About 2000 of the total number of men in residence in Cambridge are in some sort of touch with the organized religious life of the University or the city, Dean Sperry estimates. The report, in part, reads:

"This was our second year in The Memorial Church. During 1932-33 interest in the new building had given us record attendances at all services. Now that the Church has become an accepted fact in the University scene its activities may be measured more normally.

"Morning Services were held on 39 Sundays with a total attendance of 22,461 and an average attendance of 576. This includes Sundays in the Christmas and Easter recesses, as well as Sundays in term. Daily prayers were held in Appleton Chapel on 212 mornings, with a total attendance of 13,349, and an average attendance of 63.

"Special services were held on 32 different occasions, with a total attendance of 12,587, and an average of 395. During the Summer School of 1934 there were 30 daily services, with a total attendance of 1104, and an average of 37. Six special services during the same period brought an attendance of 1125. There were well over 50,000 attendants at services in the Church during 1933-34. In the same period 35,750 persons visited the building."