Divinity School at Crossroads, Awaits Commission's Findings On Possibility of Reformation

Created out of a Puritan dread of leaving "an illiterate ministry to the churches," the nation's oldest--and, perhaps correspondingly, wealthiest and most illustrious--university has, for the past two years, been quietly resolving the greatest paradox in its 311-year history. By Commencement next month, a special investigating commission will recommend to the Corporation a revitalizing treatment for one of the University's neediest members, the Divinity School.

Money, always a headache for religious organizations,--where to get it, how to get it, or what to do without it--is the major worry, too, of the Divinity School and University administrations, which have watched the School's twentieth-century books consistently topple over into the red. There are many overtones to the problem, however; and Divinity School Dean Willard L. Sperry, for one, hopes that the commission's still-undisclosed report will consider the place of religion in the University as a whole.

Uniqueness Blamed

The unique character of Harvard's theology instruction has been generally conceded as the cause of poor financial support. The Divinity School faculty preaches no dogma, but rather makes a historical approach to contemporary religions. By thus embracing rabbis to Humanists, it offers a contrast to the sectarian theological schools, which are currently flourishing and growing.

If religious scholars were predestined to go begging, Harvard divinity history portends the present low tide of endowments. It is true that the University owes its origin to the desire to feed Puritan pulpits and, significantly or not, the first faculty chair was the Holis Professorship of Divinity (1721); but the non-sectarian aspect of a Harvard divinity education can be identified with the College trend toward liberalism, as early as President Leverett's administration in the beginning of the eighteenth century. In fact, the Hollis chair, even though used for Congregationalist ends, was donated by a Baptist.

As Puritan ties grew weaker and weaker, Unitarianism appeared on the New England landscape, and the Divinity School was organized in 1816. Its constitution prescribes that "every encouragement be given to the serious, impartial, and unbiased investigation of Christian truth, and that no assent to the peculiarities of any denomination of Christians be required either of the Students or Professors or Instructors."

Few people are willing to spread their philanthrophy to the support of an undenominational school, Provost Buck has pointed out, when they can just as easily donate to a seminary of their own faith. For that reason, 130 years of Divinity School finance have been years of relatively meagre accessions.

Two Professors Missing

Evidence of low endowments is in the two chairs vacant since just before the war and in the small number of students that can be admitted. The tuition fee of $75 per term is not nearly enough to cover costs. Consequently, total enrollment is only 125--actually the largest in recent years, because of an influx of 25 former Army and Navy chaplains, but low in comparison to the schools at Yale and Chicago and to Union Theological Seminary, affiliated with Columbia.

Further signs that all is not normal in Andover Hall are in the undergraduate to graduate ratio and in the faculty and what it has to offer. A Bachelor of Theology degree is conferred after three years' study at the Divinity School, following receipt of a college degree. More advanced study is rewarded with a master's or doctor's degree in theology or with a Ph.D. Since the graduate students outnumber the undergraduates about 3 to 1, the inadequacy of basic theological study is obvious to the University administration.

Four Approach Retirement

University officials' brows furrowed again when they realized that, of the seven full professors on the Divinity School faculty, four, including Dean Sperry, will have reached the retirement age of 66, within the next two years.

Still another concern is the development of new fields in the School's curriculum. To change with the times, Dean Sperry feels that study should include social sciences and psychology as related to religion.

All these signs did not go un-noticed by the Visiting Committee appointed annually by the Overseers. Three years ago they submitted a report specifically mentioning the unfilled chairs, the lack of endowment for 40 years and the resulting deficit, and suggested that a survey be made.

The Corporation reviewed the problem and, in the spring of 1945, set up the investigating commission. John Lord O'Brian '96. Washington lawyer and former president of the Alumni Association, was appointed chairman of the seven-man group. John Moore, of Swarthmore College, was to serve as secretary.

Competent Men Chosen

In the remaining appointments, the Corporation was careful to pick men of varied experience and interests. They were Seelye Bixler, president of Colby College and last occupant of one of the two now-vacant Divinity School chairs; Ernest C. Colwell, president of the University of Chicago: Harry Cotten, president of the McCormick Theological School at Chicago; Remhold Niebuhr, professor at the Union Theological Seminary; and Reverend Palfrey Perkins '05, minister at King's Chapel.

Dean Sperry, this year celebrating his twenty-fifth anniversary as head of the School, has recommended to the commission a concern with the general subject of religion in the University and how the Divinity School may find closer ties with the College.

Making serious instruction in the field available to all students through the Divinity faculty is one of the Dean's pet projects. He feels that the undergraduate, while perhaps not being "hungry for religion," wants to know more about it.

In order to get this serious instruction, the student must shop around in sundry departments. Dean Sperry asserted in a Memorial Church sermon last March. "He must put together such pieces of the puzzle as he picks up on this expedition," he said, "through such departments as history, literature, philosophy, and Semitic languages." Comparison shows that an undergraduate can get a better education in religion at Yale, Princeton, Columbia, or Chicago. There are certain elementary Divinity School courses offered by the School faculty, which also belongs to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; but undergraduates usually find them too advanced or specialized.

A deterring factor is the bias frequently encountered in teaching religion. But the College, Dean Sperry said, tends toward neglect.

What Dean Sperry suggests is a group of elementary survey courses to be offered in most-closely related Arts and Sciences departments and to be taught as dispassionately as possible by the Divinity faculty. In that way, two dreams are realized: filling a void in College course-offerings and furthering integration of the Divinity School within the University.

Humanism Recommended

A vociferous alumni element has recently been proposing, in the pages of the Alumni Bulletin, that the School be converted to Humanism--faith in man substituted for faith in God. Aside from theoretical merit or demerit of such a proposal, it is legally blocked by the School's constitution, which definitely specifies that the School be undenominational.

Meeting every six to eight weeks for the past two years, evaluating the material it has drawn from the School, the commission has made its decision and, reportedly, will have its findings in the Corporation's hands in time for a pre-June 5 publication. Once the commission's work is made known only Corporation action will stand between epithets such as "cheapest place to get a Ph D." and a happy solution of the paradoxical dilemma of religion at Harvard.