This system has been long enough in operation to enable us to
note in some degree its effects on religion, and these are
certainly such as to relieve those who have feared that religion
was necessarily bound up with the older instruction controlled
by theology. While in Europe, by a natural reaction, the
colleges under strict ecclesiastical control have sent forth the
most powerful foes the Christian Church has ever known, of whom
Voltaire and Diderot and Volney and Sainte-Beuve and Renan
are types, no such effects have been noted in these newer
institutions. While the theological way of looking at the
universe has steadily yielded, there has been no sign of any
tendency toward irreligion. On the contrary, it is the testimony
of those best acquainted with the American colleges and
universities during the last forty-five years that there has been
in them a great gain, not only as regards morals, but as regards
religion in its highest and best sense. The reason is not far to
seek. Under the old American system the whole body of students
at a university were confined to a single course, for which the
majority cared little and very many cared nothing, and, as a
result, widespread idleness and dissipation were inevitable.
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