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THE GIFT OF
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STUDIES IN     THE SOCIAL
SIGNIFICANCE OF ADULT EDUCATION
IN THE UNITED STATES
A series of studies to be issued over a five-year period by the
American Association for Adult Education with the aid of
funds made available by the Carnegie Corporation of New York
PUBLISHED
1. Listen and Learn by Frank Ernest Hill
2. Why Forums? by Mary L. Ely
3. Enlightened Self-Interest by Dorothy Rowden
4. The Civic Value of Museums by T. R. Adam
5. Educational Experiments in Social Settlements
by Gaynell Hawkins
6. The Music of the People by Willem van de Wall
7. Women in Two Worlds by Mary L. Ely and
Eve Chappell
8. Man-made Culture by Frank Ernest Hill
9. The Public Library-A People's University
by Alvin Johnson
lo. Outposts of the Public School by Watson Dickerman
11. Parents in Perplexity by Jean Carter
12. Everyman's Drama by Jean Carter and Jess Ogden
13. Rural America Reads by Marion Humble
14. The Museum and Popular Culture by T. R. Adam
15. Educating for Health by Frank Ernest Hill
16. The Church and Adult Education
by Bernard E. Meland
IN PREPARATION
See page 115




THE CHURCH AND
ADULT EDUCATION
BY BERNARD E. MELAND
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR ADULT EDUCATION
NEW YORK * 1939




COPYRIGHT, 1939, BY THE
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR ADULT EDUCATION


George Grady Press New York




Foreword




DURING the World War pilot photographers rode through
the air, crossed boundaries, clicked their cameras, and then
dashed back to headquarters to reveal what they had hastily observed. My task in this study has been somewhat akin to that of
the pilot photographer. I have tried to get glimpses, here and
there throughout the country, of adult education activities now
going on in the churches and synagogues. My observations have
taken me into the church centers of New York, Detroit, Chicago,
and Denver; the Temple grounds of Salt Lake City; and churches
along the far West Coast from San Francisco to San Diego.
Through other eyes I have peered into meetings of Boston synagogues and New England churches; felt the stir and the pall of
long-time projects among the miners and steel workers in eastern
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia; trailed traveling educational projects into the Old South, and into the far northwestern
country of Montana, Oregon, and Washington.
What I have gathered and reported in these pages is but a
sampling of significant work being done. What I have omitted
or overlooked would doubtless fill many more pages. Enough has
been presented here, perhaps, to suggest the scope and character
of adult education which churches and synagogues are undertaking.
For much of my information, even the gathering of it, I have
had to depend upon many other people. Clergymen, rabbis, and
v




religious educators throughout the land have been generous in
providing me with material. To mention them individually
would obviously be impossible, but I acknowledge my indebtedness to them. I am particularly indebted to Harry C. Munro, of
the International Council of Religious Education; to Sister
Julie, of Rosary College, River Forest, Illinois; and to Samuel M.
Blumenfield, of the College of Jewish Studies in Chicago, who,
early in my explorations, gave me valuable suggestions. Prior to
my study of the field, Jess Ogden made careful inquiry into adult
education activities in the churches and synagogues, visiting
many centers throughout the country and gathering material as
he went. All his material has been put at my disposal and I have
drawn heavily upon it. In describing projects among workers, I
have used his report of interviews with leaders and church workers in mining areas. My indebtedness to his efforts are therefore
evident. Dorothy Rowden, of the American Association for Adult
Education, spent several days observing activities of churches
and synagogues in New York and Boston, and the results of her
investigations have been incorporated in this study. Notes on
interviews with Jewish leaders in eastern states were provided
by Eve Chappell. Wilbur Hallenbeck's "A Study of Adult Education in Thirty New York Churches," a manuscript prepared
for the Department of Adult Education of Teachers College,
Columbia University, has proved particularly suggestive, and I
have quoted from it not infrequently.
I wish to take occasion, also, to express appreciation to Morse
A. Cartwright and Mary L. Ely for their patient and encouraging
cooperation during dark days of preparation; and to Everett
Dean Martin for his sympathetic counsel and suggestions.
BERNARD EUGENE MELAND
vi




Table of Contents
PAGE
Foreword.......                              v
Part I OF MOODS AND TRENDS
The Church and the Modern Tempo.
Educator Through the Ages..
Toward Enlightened Living                     13
Part II GLIMPSES OF PRESENT SCENES
Adult Activities in the Modern Church        23
Public Forums.                              34
Ventures in Study Groups..                  47
Projects for Social Action                   72
Workers' Education in Churches               83
Part III COMPARISONS WITH CONCLUSIONS
Toward Standards...                        97
A Basic Issue in Adult Education.....    104
Index...............  109


vii








PART I
OF MOODS AND TRENDS








The Church and the Modern Tempo
xW   ERE a man of ancient or medieval times to saunter through
the modern city church or synagogue, as I have had occasion to do often in recent months, he would be bewildered beyond understanding. Doors! Many of them, opening into rooms
filled with busy people-busy with listening, learning, or just
"doing things." On a tour one Tuesday evening through a prominent city church on the West Coast, undoubtedly one of the
most enterprising parish centers along the Pacific, I counted not
less than fifteen doors that led into group meetings of one kind
or another.
"Here," said the minister, opening a door with obvious pride,
"are some of our people listening to a lecture on cooperatives."
So they were-fifty or more men and women, ranging in age
from college sophomores to graybeards beyond sixty, too engrossed in what they were hearing to notice our interruption.
"In this room," the minister continued, pointing to an adjoining doorway, "some of our women are planning a bazaar. Across
the way our musicians are practicing an oratorio. And in this
room to the right," he said, with rising enthusiasm, pointing to
a door ajar, "a young married people's dramatic club is selecting
a play for its next performance. They're an amazing lot. All
1




amateurs, of course, except Barnes, the director. He did a bit of
professional acting in his time, but was injured during the War
and had to give up the work for a while. When he was ready to
return to the stage, business wasn't moving fast enough to take
him up. He is in business here in the city; but on Tuesday nights
you'll find him in this room, coaching lines, putting up sets, or
going through some new play, just as he's doing now."
A striking figure he was, too. A dozen younger adults were
gathered about him, listening attentively. Now and then one of
them would break in with a question. The last one had elicited
lusty laughter.
We were coming to the church auditorium. The hum of many
voices and the sight of ushers at the door brought my question,
"And are you having a meeting here too?"
"Oh yesl" was the minister's quick reply. "The People's
Forum. The lecture tonight is on Current Philosophies. We'll
come and listen after you have seen the recreation room."
When the door to the vast social room, two flights below the
auditorium, had been flung open, we gazed upon a sea of swirling figures. A hundred, perhaps a hundred and fifty, boys and
girls, most of them of high school age, were dancing to "swing"
as one might find them doing at the Trocadero or the Wilshire
Bowl.
What is this phenomenal round of Church Night activity?
Has the church finally found its stride? Or has it lost its way,
following with enthusiasm many paths, with no clear objective?
The opinion of the churchmen themselves is divided on these
questions. "The church is part of the community, and, unless it
2




is leading the community in the things people are intent upon
doing, its doors will close." So say activist leaders who have found
their solution for the modern church in more activities.
"No!" insist others. "The church is not a club. It is a place of
worship! And if this is forgotten, the church is lost. It may as well
close its doors."
However churchmen may resolve this perplexing issue, the
fact remains that the church of many rooms and meetings is the
symbol of the modern parish. It matters little whether the creed
is of Calvin or Arminius, whether the tradition is high church or
low, or even whether the building be temple, synagogue, church,
or parish meeting house. A comparison of the architectural
structure of the modern church with that of traditional edifices
gives evidence of the new change of emphasis. Rambling buildings or impressive structures resembling schoolhouses adjoin
the sanctuary or church auditorium, eloquently declaring that,
in the modern church, education and recreation have joined
hands with worship.
In this quickened tempo of today's church are to be seen many
significant developments. One is the rise of religious education,
with its echoing of the principle of learning by doing. Another
is the growth of the social club. In some cases, these clubs are
initiated as relief or welfare organizations, but many of them
continue on a different basis as their members find satisfaction
in learning and working together. Still another development is
the transformation of the traditional midweek prayer meeting
into family night at the church, sublimating the evangelical concern into a more pronounced social interest.
Most recent among new developments is the interest in adult
3




education. Since the beginning of the organized adult education
movement in 1926, the educating of adults increasingly has become an interest of paramount importance to the churches. Like
others in the educational field, religious leaders were greatly impressed by the results of Thorndike's studies concerning the
ability of adults to learn, published in his book, Adult Learning.
They were intrigued, also, by news of the experiences of the
Scandinavian countries, especially Denmark, where the folkschool movement had achieved notable results among adults.
Reports from Great Britain, where the adult education movement had definitely taken hold, further served to stimulate their
interest. With the nation-wide emphasis upon correlating and
further developing adult activities, following the formation of
the American Association for Adult Education in this country,
a new impetus was felt among religious groups to take the church
seriously as an educational force in the community.
Pioneers like William Rainey Harper had long anticipated
this more general development in adult education through experimental efforts to communicate critical and historical scholarship to church people in the form of popular Bible study,
summer schools, extension courses, and weekly institutes. The
formation of The American Institute of Sacred Literature in
1889, under the stimulus of Dr. Harper, was the beginning of a
significant educational enterprise for adults. It is estimated that
"in a single decade Institute courses were pursued by 75,000
students, and in one year the number reached lo,ooo. Students
were enrolled from every state in the Union, every division of
the western hemisphere, every important European or Asiatic
country, and even from Africa and Australia. Among these were
representatives of every Protestant denomination, as well as
4




Roman Catholics and Jews. Six million pages of printed matter
were supplied in the form of directions for study."'
Before his death, President Harper arranged for the Institute
to be taken over by the University of Chicago. Subsequent directors of its work were Ernest DeWitt Burton, Shailer Mathews,
and Georgia L. Chamberlin. Under their competent leadership,
this widely influential enterprise continued to operate vigorously for half a century.
The Chautauqua Institution at Chautauqua, New York,
founded by Lewis Miller and John H. Vincent more than sixtyfive years ago, continues to be an active enterprise in adult education. "Chautauqua Institution is attended by many thousands
of people each year," writes Shailer Mathews in New Faith For
Old, "and has been a great influence in the development of
intellectual life in America. In it religion is given distinct recognition, but the Institution itself is not religious. Its interest is
quite as great in music, education, recreation, and current affairs. Many outstanding figures in these various fields have had
a share in developing its influence."
The Institute of the League for Social Service, another pioneer
effort to educate the adults of the churches, organized in 1898,
served to provide a clearinghouse for social information as well
as to conduct university extension work for social education.
"The Institute provided weekly study outlines for adult groups
in Sunday schools, Young Men's Christian Associations, and
other organizations, and successful classes were organized in
many parts of the United States and Canada.... It has been
estimated that over 40,000 people were reached by these courses.
1 Philip H. Lotz and L. W. Crawford, Studies in Religious Education.
Cokesbury, 1931.
5




... In addition to the study outlines, the Institute established
a lecture service, providing addresses for churches, ecclesiastical
bodies, and ministerial associations. Over five hundred such
lectures were delivered during a period of ten weeks."'
Along with these pioneer efforts must be mentioned also the
courses of study, night schools, and summer institutes developed
by the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A., which have become extensively established as educational institutions in their own right.
The Y.M.C.A. of the City of New York, for example, reports an
attendance at formal educational classes of over 350,000 for the
year 1938, with more than 183,000 attending informal activities
of an educational type-lectures, forums, clubs and groups, educational films, current issues, educational tours, vocational study.
Adult education is offered in remedial classes through its evening high school; in vocational courses through trade and technical schools, the New York Institute of Accountancy, and other
special agencies; and in cultural courses including art, dramatics,
music, languages, psychology, history, and political science. Similar educational opportunities are provided through the facilities
of the Y. M.C.A.'s and Y.W.C.A.'s in cities throughout the country. In their educational operations the Christian Associations
remain essentially institutes of adult education, catering to individuals beyond college age who are intent upon seeking educational advantages that were not available to them earlier in
life.
Within recent years, the center of educational activity among
the adults of the churches has been moving steadily toward the
churches and the synagogues themselves. Extension courses and
special institutes under other auspices continue, to be sure; yet
2Ibid.
6




the church and the synagogue seem to be becoming the focal
centers for the new ventures. Even where the Christian Associations or similar organizations have taken the lead in organizing
and directing adult education activities in a community, as I
found to be the case in Denver, the church and the synagogue are
the strategic centers through which educational programs are,being projected. The modern church is becoming an educating
church.
Something more than institutional expansion and the concern
to keep pace with a popular movement, however, has brought
about this development in the churches and synagogues.
Throughout all religious bodies-Catholic, Protestant, Jewish,
and Mormon, not to mention minority groups-the pressure of
the times is being felt. The pervading sense of confusion among
all classes of people has led preachers and rabbis to address their
congregations on such themes as "Clear Thinking in Confused
Times." The threat to cherished values of modern culture has
impelled clergymen, along with enlightened leaders in other
fields, to help modern folk appreciate, on the one hand, the
achievements of civilization that are still available to them and
to understand, on the other hand, the processes at work that
are endangering these achievements. The growing sense of insecurity that pervades this country today has made necessary
some attempt among church leaders to deal intelligently with
so mundane a problem as security in a changing world. Indeed,
the flood waters of the changing times have invaded the Gothic
sanctuary fully as much as the skyscrapers of Manhattan, and the
desire to cope with the rising tide is as evident in the pulpit and
its adjoining rooms as in the conference rooms of Wall Street
and the press rooms of the nation. It is not so much by choice,
7




then, as in response to insistent and imperative demands that
the church and synagogue have acquired the modern tempo. In
assuming an educational role in critical times, they have had to
become peculiarly sensitive to implications in the onrush of current events. If today the church sometimes seems to forget that
"sense of the eternal" and its traditional heritage, it but reflects
the weakness of all modern institutions that strive to confront
the issues of an urgent present. If this is lamentable, it is also
understandable.


8




Educator Through the Ages




EDUCATING the adult through the churches is not a new departure. The Jewish rabbi will tell you that "the ideal of
adult education has been the leitmotiv of Jewish life through the
ages. Not merely the rabbis and the scholars were expected to
engage in study, but all elements of the population-the merchant, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker-all would
set apart time for study early in the morning before the business
day began and late in the afternoon when business ended.
"The impetus received from the early synagogues and Talmudic schools helped maintain and preserve this cause of Jewish
education even through the Dark Ages. 'Thus we find in the
twelfth century the Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, urging the cause'of adult education as a cardinal law of Judaism
which every Jew must obey."
Every Israelite must engage in study, whether he is rich or poor,
whether he is healthy or sick, whether he is very young or old and has
no more strength; and even if he is a pauper who lives on charity or on
alms, and even if he has a family to support, he is in duty bound to set
aside some time of the day and evening for study. For it is written,
"Thou shalt meditate therein day and night."'
'Samuel M. Blumenfield, "Adult Education in the Jewish Community."
Address before Conference of Adult Education, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin,
Summer, 1938.
9




The Catholic priest will point out that the members of the
Catechumenal Schools, the earliest Catholic institutions of learning, were mostly adults until well into the third century; that
there is evidence of adult education in "the eighth century when
the monastic schools were spreading throughout Europe"; and
that, while the universities which arose in the eleventh century
"were naturally institutions that fostered advanced learning for
the more mature youth and the younger adults,... the university
professors were adult educators more perhaps in the spirit than
in the letter."'
The Protestant leaders will point to the Reformation as a
popular educational movement "in that it passed around to the
people the ideas that had hitherto been the possession of the
few."3 They will cite the new form of adult religious instruction
which began with the Sunday schools. They will recall, as an outstanding contribution to adult education, the Chautauqua Summer School which started as the outgrowth of a religious camp
meeting in the summer of 1874 at Fair Point, New York, with
a Methodist minister as its guiding spirit.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly
known as the Mormon church, will point with proper pride to
the fact that "the Church from its very inception has recognized
the values of education... that the founder of the Church,
Joseph Smith, the Prophet, stated that a man is saved no faster
than he gains knowledge; that he can not be saved in ignorance,
and that the glory of God is intelligence."4
2 Malcolm MacLellan, The Catholic Church and Adult Education. Catholic University of America, 1935.
3 Preserved Smith, The Age of the Reformation. Holt, 1933.
4Program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Manual for
the Senior Department of the Mutual Improvement Associations.
10




That the church and the synagogue have been educational
agencies throughout their existence, the records of history will
not deny. In fact, until modern times, both the synagogue and
the church have been so strategically related to the people and
to the inherited culture as to make them the natural centers of
educational stimulus for young and old. What the synagogue
was to the Jews of the Diaspora, the monasteries became to the
people of early medieval times-a center where competent
scholars could pursue together, or as individuals, the highest
learning of the times; and where eager and industrious people
of the community could come as students to share the stimulus
of scholarly pursuit, or perhaps just to live in the environment
of learning. When the folk movement of the twelfth century,
manifest in the work of St. Francis and the rise of the great
Gothic cathedrals, swelled the tide of religious devotion, carrying it beyond the doors of the monasteries into centers of the
common life, it opened the way for the growth of universities,
secular centers of learning, which, nevertheless, were to become
lay adjuncts of the church. These church-controlled universities
of medieval times were composed of many thousands of young
and old adults, ranging from sixteen to forty years of age. They
were mature people who promoted their own enterprises of
learning. They, rather than the professors, in collaboration with
church officials, managed the affairs of administration, even
hiring and firing their professors. As Everett Dean Martin has
said, the medieval university "was, in a real sense, arifnstitution
of adult education."
One thing is to be kept in mind, however, when citing the
church and the synagogue as vanguards of learning: Their instruction, without exception, has been weighted with doctrine.
11




The synagogue imparted the Torah and the rabbinical teaching.
The Catechumenal Schools "were organized to meet the need of
instructing the converts from paganism." Both the-monasteries
and the medieval universities provided a theologically centered
curriculum. The educational efforts of Protestants and Mormons
alike will be seen to have been motivated by the desire to
strengthen the individual's loyalty to his faith. This does not
dismiss the church's education as learning; but it defines the
character, as well as the limitations, of its educational outreach.
In so far as this distinctively doctrinal bent motivates their
educational efforts, the modern church and synagogue partake
of these qualifying limitations; which is the price they pay, or
the distinction they achieve, according as one views this matter,
in orienting instruction to a selective ancestral heritage.


12




Toward Enlightened Living




W ITHIN the liberal wing of both Protestant and Jewish
churches, evidence of a more objective educational interest
has been increasing. The facts of science and the culture of today
have come within the area of the liberal's interest, replacing the
demands of traditional doctrine. With this change in perspective
has come also a concern for the growth of the individual in relation to problems of the present.
Reformed Judaism, which came into prominence early in the
nineteenth century after the breakup of the ghetto community,
has moved steadily toward the ideal of enlightened living. Having abandoned the racial taboos and practices of the traditional
faith which had tended to set the Jew apart from his contemporaries, the Reformed Jew has taken up the task of adapting himself to the environment of modern culture with a zeal not to be
exceeded, if, in fact, matched by other religious adherents. Under the leadership of such scholarly rabbis as David Einhorn,
Isaac M., Wise, Kaufmann Kohler, Emil G. Hirsch, not to mention contemporary reformists of the stature of Stephen S. Wise,
this movement in Judaism has been an energetic influence in
behalf of enlightened and socialized living in this country for
more than a century. Having come to terms with advancing
13




critical scholarship, both within the historical and the modern
scientific fields, the Reformed Jew has been in a position to cope
forthrightly with tensions between religion and science and
between religion and culture. Jewish educators of the reformed
group, trained in the thought of the times as well as in ancient
lore, have been pioneers, generally, in implementing present-day
educational methods and philosophies in the work of church and
community. Some of the most progressive types of adult education activities within organized religious groups have arisen in
the reformed synagogues.
Reformed Judaism, like modernism in Christianity, in divesting itself of traditional forms and language, has tended more
and more toward what is sometimes understood as a secularist
expression of religion; that is to say, it has sought to identify
religion with the affairs of the common life in so intimate a way
as to remove the traditional distinction between the sacred and
the secular. Religion thus becomes not a realm of activity different from the world of common affairs, but a more ethical and
significantly qualitative kind of conduct within the common life.
This direct identification of religion with modern life accounts
for the freedom with which the reformed synagogue and the
modernist church open their doors to what seem to the outsider
to be merely secular activities. To the reformist and the modernist, these activities are not secular in the traditionalist's sense;
they belong in the church, just as the church belongs in society.
One who would understand the educational program of the
progressive churches and synagogues, as well as the criticisms of
their procedure that come from conservative and orthodox centers, must grasp this basic fact.
More recently a new turn of thought has been developing in
modern Judaism, seeking to orient Jewish life to the interests
' 4




and demands of contemporary times without losing the sense of
a vital Jewish heritage. This movement, known as "Creative
Judaism," has been initiated by certain progressive groups of
American Jews, of which Mordecai M. Kaplan is the leader and
spokesman. Contrary to reformists and the Neo-orthodox, who
conceive Judaism as a religion, this group insists upon viewing
it as a civilization, the result of a peculiar social process, capable
of adapting itself to many varied environments. Creative Judaism, they suggest, must strive toward the present fulfillment of
this age-old social process, which is the Jewish civilization. Consequently, while the turn toward enlightened living is marked
here-as marked, in fact, as in Reformed Judaism-the concern
to retain a vital hold upon the ancestral heritage is decidedly
more in evidence. The influence of Creative Judaism toward
enlightened living among adult Jews is difficult to determine or
evaluate, partly for the reason that whatever is projected is undertaken in the context of Judaism itself and thus tends to be
regarded simply as religious adult education. Furthermore, the
emphasis upon Judaism as a civilization rather than as a religion
or a cult impels the exponents of Creative Judaism to minimize
the importance of institutional or formal methods of education.
"Jews must abandon the notion," writes Mordecai Kaplan in his
voluminous work, Judaism as a Civilization,' "that the Jewish
school, or the class for adults, is the primary conveyor of Jewish
education." Rather, Kaplan would have the whole collective life
of Jews, transformed through adaptation to contemporary life,
become the bearer of this heritage. To live within this creative,
social process would be to embody and continually to demonstrate the faith and culture that is Judaism.
I mention this new emphasis in Jewish thought because it
Macmillan, 1934.
15




doubtless represents the present renascence in Judaism and
underlies much that is being actively put forth within certain
Jewish schools and synagogues in the interest of preparing the
modern Jew to live effectively in modern culture within the
context of his ethnic faith.
Liberal Protestants have generally labored side by side with
liberal Jews in the cause of enlightened living. Like the Reformed Jew, the liberal Protestant turned from traditional interests which had preoccupied the orthodox to do battle with
the issues of modern life. The facts of the physical sciences, along
with the insights of the social sciences, have been given a priority
in their outlook that rivals, if in fact it does not replace, the
prestige of inherited doctrine. This openness to new knowledge
and the readiness to pursue experimental paths have placed the
liberal Protestant, along with the progressive Jew, in the fore
ranks of modern educators. Nothing that is knowledge or truth
to the man of science is alien to their cause as religious leaders.
Among Protestants, as among Jews, there have been left-wing
and right-wing liberals. Right-wing Protestant liberals have
hardly gone beyond Biblical criticism in applying scientific principles to religion and life. Their liberalism consists, in the main,
of an enlightened and tolerant use of the historical Christian
heritage. Left-wing liberals, in going beyond Biblical criticism,
have taken hold of scientific concepts issuing from the social
and biological sciences and have sought to make the church instrumental in helping people to use these scientific materials
intelligently and faithfully in the interest of enhancing human
living. Wherever this point of view becomes pervasive, one may
expect an active program of adult education, conveying the resources of scientific enlightenment to the people.
16




Catholicism has not lagged in the pursuit of problems concerning modern culture. That it has maintained a more rigid control
over the intellectual quest is obvious. Modernism, in the form
in which it developed among progressive Jews and Protestants,
was short-lived in the Catholic Church, and such tendencies as
began to show themselves within recent years in European monasteries and schools have come to no significant fruition. Nevertheless, an intellectual activity, reviving the philosophical influence of Thomas Aquinas, has become so potent within the
Catholic Church today that to call it a renaissance in learning
hardly overstates the matter. Protestant clergymen, as well as
prominent educators of Protestant leaning, have referred to one
exponent of this Neo-Thomist movement as "the most civilized
mind dealing with current issues of culture."
Unlike liberal Jews and Protestants, however, the modern
Catholic intellectual within the Neo-Thomist movement decries
the modern man's dependence upon science and its resources.
The Neo-Thomist looks upon all modern forms of thought, including modern philosophy, psychology, and the other social
sciences, as being strikingly anti-intellectual in emphasis. For
modern thought, they say, regards submental forces as determinant and formative. In this trek toward a denatured humanism
they see the source of our cultural confusion, our loss of a center,
and our steady slipping back into the control of a subhuman lust
for power. The way out for the Neo-Thomist is a true humanism
that centers man's life in a transcendent order of value.
In recent years, within the ranks of liberal Protestants, a rumbling of discontent with the man-centered creed of liberal
churches has been resounding with growing vigor. Some liberals
have abandoned the market place momentarily to meditate
17




upon doctrine, and not a few of them have paused to ponder
the civilized logic of the Neo-Thomist.
Wherever the desire pervades to communicate an enlightened faith and to impel men to relate religion to the problems
of culture or wherever men are sobered into rethinking the
fundamentals of faith and life, the modern church and synagogue have become energetic centers of learning.
Again, where bias is evident, discrimination is necessary. No
venture of learning, even among liberal Jews and Christians,
can be taken on face value to be free from an evangelical urgency approximating doctrinal propaganda. Both liberal Protestants and Jews, having abandoned certain orthodox enthusiasms, have seized upon the social objective implied in the
Kingdom of God upon earth with prophetic zeal. Thus in projecting their educational ventures they have become crusaders
for a better world. The intensity that this sense of cause brings
to their labors endows the workers with an earnest and contagious mood; but it infects them also with emotions that often
are responsible for their confusing strong impulsions with insight. Similar hazards threaten the efforts of Catholic leaders
and scholars. Their diagnosis of modern ills as the social consequences of an anti-intellectualism, evident in modern philosophies and psychologies, generally betrays both the motive
and the direction of their intellectual renascence. Neo-Thomists are intent upon one thing: to help modern culture to recover the center which medieval culture lost as a result of the
inroads of the Renaissance and the Reformation. While this
does not dismiss their significance for modern times-in fact
some eminent theorists and administrators in education count
i8




this their chief significance-it nevertheless defines the nature
and bounds of their importance for the modern scene.
Whatever is viewed within the modern church or synagogue
as educational activity, particularly as it relates to current issues, should be understood in relation to these dominant presuppositions which underlie their efforts and which give them
their character and purpose.


19








PART II
GLIMPSES OF PRESENT SCENES








Adult Activities
in the Modern Church
THERE appears to be ample evidence that the churches have
become awakened to the importance of adult education
and its opportunities. Writing in a Methodist monthly journal
as early as 1930, Harry C. Munro, of the International Council of Religious Education, reported "a rapidly growing interest in several denominations in a genuinely educational
approach to adult work. A strong impetus," he said, "is being
felt from the general adult-education movement." A national
executive of a large communion, when asked what he thought
of the possibilities of professional work in the adult field, is
reported to have said, "It's absolutely the greatest and most
strategic field open today."
The zeal with which national church bodies and religious
organizations among Protestants, Catholics, and Jews have
sought, in recent years, to promote adult education throughout
their constituencies is in itself clear indication that officially,
at least, educating the adult has become an accepted function
of the present-day church and even promises to become basic
to all other educational activity within the church. Speaking
recently to a gathering of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews in23




terested in adult education, Harry C. Munro quoted one
church leader as saying that if the church did an effective job
at parent education it could quit worrying about a Sunday
school. "Progressive churches," Mr. Munro stated, "have begun
to realize that otherwise effective programs of education among
the youth of the church are limited by the failure of adults to
cooperate with youth groups. Many young people have been
discouraged by the indifference, and even opposition, of adult
groups. What is the good of talking about youth building a
new world when adults are in control of that world? The changing of adult attitudes and behaviors is prerequisite to any further steps toward such social growth."
Convictions like these have led to the formation among Protestant churches of the United Christian Adult Movement. The
conference, held in August of 1936, at which this movement
was launched, was attended by representatives of twenty Protestant denominations from thirty-one different states and one
province of Canada. The movement, therefore, represents a
substantial portion of Protestant congregations, and its purpose is to build a unified adult program for American Protestantism. It is administered through a commission that meets
annually and represents various types of boards in the national
denominational organizations and all national interdenominational agencies. Administrative clearance is effected through
the International Council of Religious Education.
One of the concrete steps taken by the movement to extend
adult activity among the churches has been the launching of
its Learning for Life Program of guided study for adults in the
church. Plans for this program were formulated in a preconference committee meeting in May, 1935. The program has
24




since been adopted by most of the denominations represented
at the conference. The General Board of Christian Education
of what was formerly the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
announced in a bulletin on the Learning for Life School, adapting the program of the United Christian Adult Movement for
use in that denomination, that "over 600,000 men and women
are enrolled in the 30,000 adult classes in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Several thousand adults," the bulletin
states, "take part in study programs conducted by special study
groups meeting during the week. Thousands of these classes
and special study groups have used and will continue to study
elective units (of the curriculum of the Learning for Life School).
In fact, the increased use of the elective units... represents
one of the most significant developments in the Church's program of Christian education of adults that has taken place during the last twenty-five years."
Other Protestant denominations that had developed comprehensive educational programs for adults prior to the formation
of the United Christian Adult Movement are nevertheless cooperating, or correlating their programs, with this movement.
The Northern Baptist Convention, reported to have been the
first denomination to employ an adult director, continues to
give active support and emphasis to adult education among its
people. Through the American Baptist Publication Society it
provides materials for "Schools in Christian Living for Local
Baptist Churches," a sixteen-page pamphlet describing aims,
types, program, and plan of promotion; Adult Elective Courses;
and The Vacation Church Program for Young Adults and
Adults.
The Presbyterian Church has likewise extended its interest
25




in the education of adults. In "Study and Discussion Courses
for Adult Groups," issued in connection with the Adult Program of Christian Education, the comment is made that "leaders in the educational work of the local churches have been
awakening to the fact that for a number of reasons the Bible
classes which meet as a part of the Sunday School each Sunday
are not meeting the needs of all the adult members of the
church and of the community."... "Many adults," it continues, "do not share in the Bible study of the regular adult
classes... because these classes do not seem to offer them the
help which they feel they most need. Instead of resenting this
attitude, the leader in adult education in the local church will
wish to discover the real needs of these adults and to try to meet
these needs." Accordingly, the Board of Christian Education
has projected a series of study and discussion courses on Comparative Religion; Christianity, Business, and Industry; The
Christian and World Peace; Parenthood and the Christian
Home, and other subjects.
The Congregational Publishing Society, in announcing A
Little Handbook on Adult Education, calls attention to the
Learning for Life Program. This Handbook, prepared by the
Adult Department of the Congregational Education Society,
presents materials for adults selected and arranged for class
study, discussion groups, reading circles, and individual use.
Among the classifications are The Home and the Family, The
Church and the Social Order, Religion and the Fine Arts, and
Religion and Science, as well as topics in Biblical and theological fields.
Speaking of The United Adult Movement in its Adult Education Butletin, the Department of Adult Education of the
26




Congregational Church comments: "Whether it is a reality or
merely a hope, it suggests a direction in which adults may go,
in fellowship with others of like purpose. This movement may
be made the 'spring-board' for a new emphasis on adult education in the Congregational and Christian churches."
The Unitarian Church has long been a pioneer in providing resources for enlightening its laymen upon contemporary
religious and philosophical issues. In 1932 the Department of
Religious Education of the American Unitarian Association
prepared an excellent series of outlines entitled "Courses in
Adult Education," covering such areas of study as Comparative Religions, The History of the Christian Church, Religion
and Art, Personal Problems in Religion and Ethics, Religion
and Social justice, Modern Philosophies and Psychologies, A
Study of Character Through Biography, Practical Psychology
and Personal Adjustment, and The Community: A Project in
Discovery. These outlines are described as "possible areas for
a year's study by adults or by a conference group of adults."
Suggestions for supplementary reading are given. For example,
under,Modern Philosophies and Psychologies, the works of
William James, Josiah Royce, Alfred N. Whitehead, W. E.
Hocking, John Dewey, Henri Bergson, Irving Babbitt, Paul
Elmer More, Everett Dean Martin, and many others are cited.
The following outline for Practical Psychology and Personal
Adjustment is typical of the suggested themes for study: study
of the child and the adolescent, vocational guidance and vocational unhappiness, progressive education and modern emphases in education, problems of marriage and, parenthood, the
psychology of old age, the adjustment of unmarried persons,
other problems in personal adjustment.
27


A




The American Unitarian Association has consistently given
attention to reading in the home. In 1935, the Association issued, as one of the Religious Education Series, "Sharing Books
in the Home," a pamphlet consisting of an essay and a list of
books prepared by Marie Cole Powell. Books are grouped under such headings as The World We Live In, The World of
Nature, The Story of Civilization, The American Scene, Poetry
and Biography. The following year, the Adult Education Committee of the Association distributed an annotated list of books
suitable for use by adult groups. This list included volumes on
biography, poetry, philosophy, psychology, science, the economic
order and social adjustment, international relations, church and
state, and so forth.
The Ethical Culture Society has been referred to as "a religious organization wherein effort is centered in education."
Every phase of its program is educational in character. The regular services are avowedly educational in intent; the women's
organizations have groups studying many phases of civic affairs:
men's clubs meet regularly to discuss social and personal ethical
problems, and, in addition, they conduct several discussion
groups and classes of high order.
The Jewish synagogue likewise reflects the stimulus of the
adult education movement. David I. Cedarbaum, of The Educational Alliance in New York City, in a paper presented at a
conference in Atlantic City last year, referred to "the phenomenal growth of adult education within the last decade and
a half" as "one of the significant chapters in the recent history
of American education." "After some thirty years of effort in
Jewish education in America," Rabbi Cedarbaum said, "during
which the elementary school was the object of all our attentions,
28




we seem to be renewing an old Jewish tradition. As if by common consent rabbis and educators are calling for a reorientation
in Jewish religious education-a broader reorientation in the
direction of the Jewish adults.
"The extent of adult education in Jewish life would surprise
us if we could but have an approximate estimate of it. Consider,
for example, the work with adults in the congregation such as
the men's clubs, sisterhood study circles, sermons, lectures, and
forums. Add to these the educational efforts of such organizations as the B'nai B'rith, the Y.M.H.A.s and Jewish Centers,
the National Council of Jewish Women, the dozen or so varieties of Zionist wings, the Jewish workers' organizations that are
particularly active in their educational work, such as the Workmen's Circle and the Jewish National Worker's Alliance. Add
to these the thirty-five adult schools of learning, the extension
programs and institutes of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and of the Hebrew Union College, and the recent ventures into the field by the Jewish Theological Seminary. Then
include also the output of Jewish literature for adults by the
Union of American Hebrew Congregations and Jewish book
houses.... Think of the few museums, the beginnings of Jewish little theatres and of some excellent screen films recently exhibited. Sum these up-and you can add many more-and you
have an array of activity which, quantitatively at least, can be
called a substantial program of Jewish adult education."
Among Catholic institutions the National Catholic Welfare
Conference operates as the coordinating agency through two
councils-the National Council of Catholic Men and the National Council of Catholic Women-which are federations of
Catholic lay organizations throughout the United States and
29




channels through which the knowledge, service, and experience
of the Conference are made available to the laity and lay groups.
Organizations with membership in the Councils include the
Knights of Columbus, the Daughters of Isabella, the Catholic
Daughters of America, the National Catholic Women's Union,
the Catholic Order of Foresters, the Catholic Association for International Peace, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Third
Order of St. Francis, and other agencies like the Catholic Unity
League and the Catholic Information Society. Besides the national organizations, there are state and local societies and clubs
affording educational facilities to their members.
Adult education as it operates through the churches and synagogues includes a wide variety of programs and procedures.
Enough interest in the movement has developed among church
leaders and laymen to impel them to provide many kinds of activity in their programs. In fact, they have often, in their enthusiasm, applied the term "adult education" to work that for years
has been carried on under the aegis of men's and women's clubs
and Bible classes. (Sometimes the change in name results in renewed interest on the part of church members, I am told.) I
encountered one program called adult education that consisted
simply of a class of fifty- and sixty-year-olds who come together
on Sunday morning to exchange opinions on the Hebrews' crossing of the Red Sea. I do not mean to infer that all historical
study of Biblical literature and religion is to be excluded from
the category of adult education. There are programs conducted
by Jewish, Protestant, and Mormon groups, based on their religious heritage, which, in approach and method of study, employ sound, critical scholarship. The College of Jewish Studies
is an excellent example. This type of study, which has now be30




come prevalent in the larger synagogues, according to Samuel
M. Blumenfield, Dean of the College of Jewish Studies in Chicago, began a decade or more ago as a means of rehabilitating
young Jewish adults who had developed a sense of inferiority as
a result of widespread opposition. It was hoped that their sense
of worth would be restored by giving them a knowledge of their
cultural heritage. "The College of Jewish Studies," said Rabbi
Blumenfield, "is a contribution to American democracy as well
as to the Jewish community. For no country is in health when a
large number of its young adults are frustrated by a feeling of
inferiority."
While I was in Detroit, I had opportunity to learn something
of the work of a College of Jewish Studies among lay members
of the Temple Beth El, under the direction of Leo M. Franklin.
According to Dr. Franklin, this College has been in existence for
twelve years. Once a week young adults of college age and above
come to the synagogue to attend courses in the historical study
of Jewish culture. Each student is expected to pursue a serious
reading program in addition to attending class lectures and discussions. The library adjoining the lecture room is well stocked
with standard reference books, including the works of eminent
Protestant scholars such as George Foot Moore's three volumes
on Judaism.
Over three hundred students enrolled at the opening of Beth
El College of Jewish Studies in October of 1938, according to
The Temple Bulletin-"a magnificent outpouring of young people and old seeking instruction in fascinating courses in Jewish
History, the Bible, Jewish Literature and Religion."
The course of study prepared for the Adult Department of the
Mormon Church would compare favorably with the syllabuses
31




of liberal arts courses in the archaeology of the Bible given in
many colleges and undergraduate departments of universities.
A perusal of its pages reveals that the materials of well-known
scholars, such as George A. Barton, R. W. Rogers, Ira M. Price,
William F. Albright, and others, have been drawn upon. The
1938-1939 edition of the manual, entitled "Ancient Records
Testify in Papyrus and Stone," contains an account of the new
archaeological study carried on in Palestine since the World
War, giving the findings of Catholic scholars like Pere Vincent,
of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, as well as the results of
American expeditions conducted by Harvard, Yale, and Chicago
universities.
Studies of this sort represent a type of adult education which
seems peculiarly proper for the church and the synagogue. Not
only do they provide valuable information concerning historical heritage, but they also contribute to a critical and discerning
appreciation of that heritage which, in itself, is a step toward
enlightened living.
Certain Protestant churches have included this historical type
of study of religion in their adult programs, but statistics indicate that courses in religion and philosophy are in the minority.
Of the thirty New York churches studied by Wilbur C. Hallenbeck,' less than ten per cent were offering courses in religion and
philosophy. The forms of adult work most frequently found in
these churches were parent education, forums on social problems, and discussion groups on social issues. With less frequency classes in English and speech, foreign languages, art,
dancing, and handcraft also were offered. There is not evidence
1 Wilbur C. Hallenbeck, "A Study of Adult Education Activities in Thirty
New York Churches."
32




that these findings are representative of the country as a whole;
neither are they totally unrepresentative, I believe, although investigation of offerings in other cities would doubtless reveal
different proportions and emphases. A survey of the most active
centers of adult education among the churches probably would
show a preponderance of interest in the psychological problems
of the family and in the public discussion of social issues; but
this should not obscure the fact that a considerable amount of
adult education along cultural lines is also being pursued.
In order to indicate the representative types of adult activities
in the modern church, I shall describe typical enterprises which
have come to my attention-public forums; study groups of various sorts, including classes and groups in parent education; special institutes and schools for adults; and other projects devised
for educational purposes.


33




Public Forums




AFTER three months of visiting and observing forums throughout the country, Mary L. Ely wrote, in 1937, "A forum movement is under way in this country.... Its tempo is quickening,
the elements that make it up are becoming diversified, and the
territory that it covers is being greatly extended."' Of the eighteen forums described in her study, four (The Sinai Temple Forum and the Anshe Emet Forum in Chicago; the Community
Church of Boston; and the San Diego Church Forum) were conducted through churches and synagogues or under church auspices, and a fifth (Ford Hall Forum) was initiated under church
auspices. These make up a small percentage of the many church
forums that have sprung up in recent years. Practically every
sizeable city in America contains at least one such enterprise.
Some outstanding examples are: the Cumberland Community
Forum, sponsored by the Brotherhood B'er Chayim Temple, in
Cumberland, Maryland; the Forum in the Temple Beth Emeth,
in Albany, New York; the Community Forum in Beth Zion
Temple, as well as the supplementing lecture series conducted
by the Rodef Sholom Congregation in Johnstown, Pennsylvania;
Mary L. Ely, Why Forums? A.A.A.E., 1937.
34




the Community Church Forum in New York; the Mid-Winter
Institute Lecture Series, formerly conducted by Henry H. Crane
at The Elm Park Methodist Episcopal Church in Scranton,
Pennsylvania, and the Wednesday Evening Lecture Course at
the Central Methodist Church in Detroit, where Dr. Crane is
now minister; the Chicago Sunday Forum, sponsored by The
Chicago Forum, New England Church, and Northwestern University; The Sunday Evening Club of Chicago; the Sunday Evening Club at the First Congregational Church in Los Angeles;
the Unitarian Public Forum at the First Unitarian Church, Los
Angeles; the Lecture Series at the Hennepin Avenue Methodist
Church in Minneapolis; the Open Forum at the Grace Community Church in Denver; the Open Forum at Temple Israel
in Boston; the Forum Lectures at Temple Emanu-El in Providence, Rhode Island; The Fall Forum and other lectures at The
Temple in Cleveland.
Most of these church forums have adopted the procedure common to all true forums-a lecture upon some timely theme or
issue, followed by questions and discussion from the audience.
Their programs list the names of such prominent speakers as
Will Durant, Everett Dean Martin, John Haynes Holmes, Glenn
Frank, Norman Thomas, Walter B. Pitkin, T. V. Smith, and
others.
Ford Hall Forum in Boston is one of the most remarkable and
popularly acclaimed public forums that have developed in this
country. Like the Cooper Union Forum in New York, upon
which it was modeled, it has attracted the interest and enthusiastic following of many types of people of diverse creeds and professions. For thousands of men and women, during the thirty
35




years of its existence, it has been an unfailing source of intellectual stimulus. Its story is a dramatic one and has been well told
by Reuben L. Lurie in The Challenge of the Forum:
On October 21, 1898, Daniel Sharp Ford, owner of The Youth's
Companion, signed his will, disposing of an estate of almost three and
a half million dollars.... "The need that Christian businessmen should
come into closer relations with the workingmen at this time," Mr. Ford
stated in his will, "seems to me to be imperative, because of his religious indifference, his feverish unrest, and his belief that businessmen
and capital are his enemies. The attitude of his mind and his tendencies forebode serious perils, and Christianity is the only influence that
can change or modify them."
Accordingly all his great wealth, with the exception of a trust fund
created for the benefit of his daughter, was left for philanthropic and
church purposes. To his Baptist brethren, Mr. Ford delegated especially the task of carrying on the work and to the Boston Baptist Social
Union, in particular, he left among other benefactions the sum of three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a building to be erected as its
home.... The Boston Baptist Social Union voted to accept the legacies
and to assume the obligations imposed by Mr. Ford, and as a result
there was erected on Beacon Hill, some six years later, the Ford Building, housing numerous offices and also the hall destined to become
world famous as the home of the Ford Hall Forum.2
The first meeting of the Forum was held Sunday evening, February 23, 1908. The beginnings of this enterprise should be encouraging to anyone attempting a new venture. Crowds were
expected, of course. Had Cooper Union not been crowded to the
doors? George W. Coleman, then president of the Boston Baptist Social Union, began puzzling as to how to handle the crowds
that were sure to come. How handle the overflow? How would
the hundreds of men and women be pacified who, with disap2 Reuben L. Lurie, The Challenge of the Forum. Gorham, 1930.
36




pointment, would read the sign, "Hall Full"? The evening of
Sunday, February 23, arrived. "Mr. Coleman climbed Beacon
Hill on his way to the hall. People walked by him but their
errands were elsewhere. Crowdsl Where were they? Ford Hall
was illuminated in all its brilliance. The doors were wide open
with friendliness. The speakers were ready. The musicians
awaited the signal. The stated hour came and the chairman
stepped forward to call the meeting to order. Before him was a
hall crowded to capacity only by discouragement. Row upon row
of empty chairs stretched in undisturbed monotony from the
platform to the rear wall. Here and there sat men and women,
and these men and women, a scant one hundred and fifty in
number, settled themselves in silence, and thus began the Ford
Hall Forum."8
But on the fourth meeting the dream came true: 1,400 were
present and 5oo had been turned away. From then on, the hall
was crowded every Sunday night.
Starting under Protestant auspices, Ford Hall Forum was soon
to become an interfaith activity. The figures of 1928 revealed
that fourteen per cent of the audience acknowledged Catholic
affiliation; forty-three per cent, Protestant. Twenty-nine per cent
were Jews; thirteen per cent acknowledged no faith in organized
religious groups; one per cent professed belief in minority movements.
The purpose of the Forum-"'to aid in the complete development of democracy in America by encouraging the fullest and
freest open public discussion of all vital questions affecting human welfare"-has made possible a widely varied program. A
series of forty-four lectures dealing with all aspects of the rela3Ibid.
37




tions of religion and church to our modern life has been the
largest unit in any one field. Other series have dealt with such
themes as Changing Aspects of Democracy; A Study of Personalities, analyzing the influence and works of Tolstoi, Lincoln,
Marx, Gandhi, Robert E. Lee, Walt Whitman, and others; Law
-Its Task and Its Conflict with Crime, in which men like Roscoe
Pound and Clarence Darrow were instructors; Literature and
Life; The Labor Question; The Negro; The Jew; Man, Woman,
and Marriage; Psychology and You; War, Peace, and the International Spirit.
Ford Hall Forum is no longer under church auspices. A crisis,
growing out of irreconcilable differences, brought that relationship to an end in the spring of 1928. But the church is still its
guiding hand. Reuben L. Lurie, the presiding officer of the sessions of The Temple Israel Institute in Boston, I am told, also
presides at the Ford Hall Forum and is responsible for the lively
discussion that follows each lecture.
The Sinai Temple in Chicago has also been a pioneer in the
public forum movement, having launched its first series of lectures in the fall of 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the World
War. Its story is one of steady growth, both in size and character
of program. During the last thirteen years, attendance figures
have "fluctuated between 1,800 and 3,500." "It has been no rare
occurrence," says S. D. Schwartz, the director, "to turn away several thousand people because of lack of seating or even standing
accommodations." This forum has consciously developed along
lines that appeal to a popular audience. Various types of programs have been presented, including lectures, symposia, debates, panel discussions, question-box analyses, and mere conversational discussion. Speakers of every shade of opinion and
38




interest and with varied affiliations are brought to its platform.
"Never has anyone been refused a hearing because of his views,"
the director stated. "At Sinai, fundamentalists, conservatives, liberals, and radicals of extreme types have been extended the hospitality of the platform."
The broad, popular appeal of this type of forum assures an
extensive program, reaching individuals of the community who
may have no other connection with the church or the synagogue.
"It is not unusual," says Mr. Schwartz, "to find people traveling
sixty or eighty miles weekly in order to share in this educational
venture."
Like statements could doubtless be made of other forums of
this sort. Although the lecture series at the Central Methodist
Church in Detroit is conducted in connection with Church
Night, at least half of the attendance is drawn from the nonchurch group.
There can be no doubt that this wide response in itself attests
the quality of the forums and is some indication of the value
people find in attending them. How effectively they serve an
educational objective would probably be difficult to determine.
When asked his opinion of the educational merit of the series of
lecture forums in his church, one minister frankly replied, "As
a lecture program, it is highly successful, and there is considerable enthusiasm for it among the people of the city. As to its educational influence, I am rather skeptical. It is perhaps as educational as any popular lecture course can be."
This seems to me to be a fair appraisal of the public forum.
It can not hope to be anything more than a touch-and-go type
of education; but occasionally a touch is all that is needed to
impel one or more of the listeners to go far beyond this stimulus.
39




Mr. Schwartz cites an example of this in an article in Character:
"A woman, the oldest of a family of seven children, had not in
youth been able to complete her elementary school education because of the need for her services at home. She was induced by a
neighbor to attend a lecture at Sinai on The Psychology of Fashion. She found this experience so novel and appealing that she
came again to other discussions on other themes and finally obtained a season ticket and came regularly. Finding these discussions so worth while and discovering for the first time her limited
knowledge of the world and its problems, she began to attend
other courses of lectures given consecutively on definite themes.
This went on for a number of seasons, and when her children
grew into high school age, she realized her need for keeping up
with them. She then registered at a local college to gain high
school credit. When this was achieved, she registered at the University of Chicago. Four years later she found herself accepting
a degree at the same time her son received his degree."' Variations of this story, I am told, have occurred again and again as a
result of attendance on forums.
Another incident reported at Sinai Temple suggests a further
means by which the popular forum may lead to a more thoroughgoing educational experience. As one of the features of the
1932-1933 season, Harry D. Gideonse, then professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and Norman Thomas met in
debate upon a popular issue on the Sinai platform. The interest
stimulated by the debate led to a request for an entire course of
lectures on economics by Dr. Gideonse. The course was received
4 S. D. Schwartz, "The Sinai Public Forum." Character, 1 19-22, FebruaryMarch, 1935.
40




with enthusiasm by a large attendance and was repeated in subsequent years.
Similar developments have followed other lectures. For example, in 1928-1929, A. Eustace Haydon of the University of
Chicago was induced to give a series of eighteen lectures on comparative religion, and Frank O'Hara and Percy H. Boynton, at
various times, were invited to lecture on contemporary aspects
of literature.
I was amused to hear Mr. Schwartz describe these more intensive series. "We don't like to conduct just mass educational enterprises," he remarked. "So we run these smaller discussion groups
on Thursday and Friday evenings concurrently with the large
Monday evening forums."
"And how many attend these small discussion groups?" I
asked.
"We keep them down to about four hundred," was his reply.
"You can't get much discussion beyond that number."
The public forum, like all mass events that are geared to appeal to a large, popular audience, is always in danger of becoming preeminently a commercial project. Even though a nominal
charge is made for the lecture series, the numbers swell the proceeds to a sizeable income. The net proceeds of one of the larger
forums of the Middle West during last year were slightly more
than $7,500. The fact that the program of this forum has been
imitated in many other cities throughout the country and that
those who appear on the program are eagerly sought as speakers
elsewhere would seem to suggest that something more than a
desire for educating adults is stimulating such interest. On the
other hand, there is no reason to assume, because an enterprise
41




meets with financial success, that it is necessarily a questionable
educational venture. Strange as it may seem for good education
and good finances to travel together, it is slightly possible that
the two may find each other congenial company. The danger that
is always present, however, is that what appeals to audiences and
what pays may come to determine more and more the policy of
selecting speakers and arranging programs, in which case the
educational interest becomes secondary, even incidental.
A type of forum, somewhat different from those described in
the preceding pages, for the most part of more serious educational intent, is exemplified in The Public Policy Forum in Denver; the Open Forum at Temple Israel in Boston; the Forum
Lectures at Temple Emanu-El in Providence; and the Lectures
of the Mid-Winter Institute at Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Public Policy Forum, conducted in St. John's Cathedral in Denver
under joint auspices of the Adult Education Council, St. John's
Cathedral, the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., the University of Colorado, and the University of Denver, restricts its lectures and
panel discussions to national and state problems. The program
announced for last January and February included these topics:
Is Business Being Crippled By Government Regulation? Would
Balancing the National Budget Help or Hinder Business? What
Should Be Colorado's Tax Policy? Would a Rocky Mountain
"T.V.A." Imperil Colorado's Water and Other Natural Resources? Should the Colorado Old Age Pension Law Stand? Be
Revised? Be Repealed?
The panels were composed of businessmen, university professors, clergymen, and other professional lay people.
At Temple Emanu-EI, in Providence, the forum lectures for
1938-1939 centered in the general theme, "The Jew in This


42




Day of Crisis." Speakers were for the most part prominent Jewish leaders, although two or three of the lectures were given by
non-Jewish members of the faculties of Brown and Columbia
universities.
The Open Forum at Temple Israel in Boston in 1938 offered
a series of eight lectures on "The Search for Security" which was
presented during the months of January and February by such
scholars as Edgar S. Brightman, Professor of Philosophy in Boston University; J. Anton de Haas, Professor of International
Relations at Harvard University; Thomas H. Eliot, Lecturer on
Government at Harvard University; as well as by public leaders
like Abraham Epstein, Edwin S. Smith, and H. C. Engelbrecht.
In 1939 Temple Israel Institute, as part of the forum program,
held a series of lectures and discussions on "Religion in Action."
The program included, in addition to Jewish speakers, Christian
leaders like Willard L. Sperry, Dean of the Harvard Divinity
School; Albert C. Dieffenbach, Editor of Religion for the Boston
Evening Transcript; Norman B. Nash, President of the Massachusetts Council of Churches; and Michael J. Ahern, Director
of the Radio Catholic Truth Period. Six or seven hundred persons attended each session.
Forums of this sort, as one will see, have a more limited appeal
than the large, general forums that draw more than a thousand
in attendance. Like the "small" discussion groups of from four
to five hundred persons at Sinai Temple, however, they seem
to be pointed more effectively toward an educational objective.
A new experiment, a Social Justice Forum, is being tried at
the Temple Beth Emeth in Albany, New York, in connection
with the regular synagogue services. The Forum replaces the
sermon formerly given on Friday evenings once a month. The
43




entire service is conducted first in the Temple auditorium, after
which the Forum is held in the assembly room. "We hold the
Forum after services on Friday," Rabbi Bamberger says, "because this brings to the meeting a typical cross section of the
congregation, whereas special meetings devoted to social justice
problems bring chiefly those who are particularly interested already. By having the Forum in conjunction with the service we
also emphasize the essential relationship between Judaism and
social justice."
The Forum has been conducted almost without expense for
three consecutive years. Some typical programs have been a public discussion on the relation between public relief and private
philanthropic and social agencies; a lecture on the cooperative
movement by an official of the organization; a lecture, "What
Shall We Do With the Criminal?" presented by a member of the
congregation employed in the New York State Division of Parole; and a lecture on "The Problem of Medical Care" by a Jewish physician connected with the New York State Department of
Education. The policy of the Forum has been to draw upon the
resources of Albany and the immediate community for speakers
and leaders.
The public forum will always be a popular form of adult activity, especially in the synagogues and the Protestant churches.
It is in accord with the tradition of the synagogue and the Protestant meetinghouse. Certainly it provides a ready medium for
reaching a large number of busy people with a minimum of
demand and a maximum of reward for time and effort expended.
I overheard a group of rabbis and ministers objecting to it, however, as a means of educating adults. They seemed to feel that,
as it is usually conducted, the church forum or lecture series
44




simply duplicates what is being done as 'effectively, if not better,
by universities, high schools and junior colleges, and other organized groups outside the church. Such a generalization is not
altogether accurate, of course. If they mean that the churches
and synagogues are imitating the schools and other public organizations, the objection does not hold. Investigation would
doubtless reveal that synagogues and churches antedate the
schools and social clubs in this procedure. What is probably true
is that since the inauguration of the adult education movement
in this country, the schools and social clubs have taken over the
public forum and are systematically developing its possibilities
with new vigor. Consequently, the church forum appears to be
a sporadic rival of these more carefully planned enterprises. The
Jewish forums, on the whole, continue to maintain their prestige, although even here there is evidence of recession. I encountered a number of instances where Jewish community
forums had been discontinued, doubtless because of rival community forums, and in their place supplementary synagogue lecture series or study programs centering in Jewish interests or
adapting current problems to the Jewish situation had been set
up.
There is, in fact, a strong feeling 'among certain Jewish rabbis
that the synagogue should not undertake any form of adult education that simply reproduces what nonreligious organizations
provide. This attitude is especially prevalent among Jewish leaders who promote the Colleges of Jewish Studies. "Unless the synagogue has something distinctive to contribute," I heard one
rabbi say, "there is no occasion for its entering the field." Many
Catholic and Protestant churchmen would approve this sentiment. There is a difference of opinion, however. Thus syna45




gogues and churches will continue to conduct public forums as
a primary means of educating adults. Many of them, it seems,
will doubtless turn to developing courses of study or institutes,
employing the lecture series only as an appendage of, or climax
to, more intensive class activities.


46




Ventures in Study Groups


STUDY groups have not attained the prominence that has been
accorded forums and lecture series, for unless the activity of
the group assumes the proportions of an institute or an extension course it is not likely to be publicized. Yet considerable
adult education is being carried on in the churches through
study groups. An instance of this unheralded type of study was
brought to light last summer by Sister Julie of Rosary College
in Riverside, Illinois, speaking to an adult education gathering
at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. "I had a chance conversation with a
young man from Louisville who strayed into the office of the
Dean at Rosary College on business," she began. "In the course
of our conversation he told me that he was a member of the
Thomas More Society of Louisville, of which I, among many
others, had never heard. I was informed that the Society consisted of ten college or university graduates who formed a study
club, meeting every fortnight for discussion of questions of social
and political philosophy. The particular member to whom I
was speaking had evidently devoted much study to the Corporate State of Portugal. The conversation reminded me that this
sort of group is to be found in every city throughout the country.
It is a type of adult education which hardly lends itself to in47




vestigation, about which little may be known except personally
and, as it were, accidentally, but which ought to be mentioned
because it is an encouraging sign. There is so much uncertainty,
and peace is so rarely found that one may rejoice at an indication of man's innate love of wisdom and his willingness to exert
himself in its pursuit."
The Catholic Church has made peculiarly effective use of the
study group method in projecting education for adults. I learned
from Sister Julie that well-organized study-club programs are
carried on in many dioceses by various organizations. The best
example of a diocesan program, she informed me, is that sponsored by Bishop O'Hara, of Great Falls, Montana. In 1931 clubs
were organized throughout the diocese under the supervision of
a parish study-club chairman who directs groups of ten or twelve.
By 1934 more than five hundred study clubs were following a
uniform, well-defined program. The subjects undertaken for
study deal with religious, moral, and sociological issues treated
in the Encyclicals. The leaders are volunteers and have shown
great skill and ingenuity, Sister Julie told me. According to a
statement made by Bishop O'Hara, the best study-club leader in
the Great Falls diocese is a Bohemian farmer who had no more
than a year or two of high school education. "What has been
accomplished in Great Falls," Sister Julie added, "exemplifies
what is being done through diocesan organizations throughout
the United States. A recent conversation with a German-Russian
servant girl from North Dakota made me realize the splendid
results of a well-organized study-club program."
Parish study clubs, with programs devoted to the economic
and sociological aspects of contemporary life, are being formed
among Catholic women also, according to Sister Julie. "Last
48




year," she told me, "our Sister Vincent Ferrer conducted a study
group for women of St. Angela's Parish at the invitation of the
Reverend Father Hayes. The group met every other Sunday, and
evinced vital interest. Most of the married women were loath,
they said, to deprive their husbands of such an excellent opportunity to become conversant with the problems of their own
time, but it was judged best to maintain the original intention of
a study club for the women of the parish. Sister was a little fearful that the presence of husbands would deprive the women
members of the opportunity of becoming articulate on questions
of finance, wages, production and consumption, and cooperative
buying." In addition to the direction of this parish group, Sister
Ferrer lectured and conducted discussions on economic problems in a North Side Parish.
So important has the study-club program become in the Catholic community that the National Catholic Welfare Conference
has set up The National Study Club Committee, which has
issued detailed suggestions on planning a study club and how
to organize and conduct study circles.
The procedure of the study group method as used in Catholic
communities may be gathered from the following suggestions,
somewhat abridged, on setting up a group:
Adult education uses study circles as the agency to discover and
develop the personal qualities of the minds of the members of the
circle, to pool their thought, judgment, and wisdom, and to mobilize
them for action in economic cooperation. It is a democratic way of adjusting men to a higher social, economic, and cultural life.
The first thing to do is to talk the matter over with like-minded persons, friends, neighbors, members of your church, fraternal society, etc.
Each person should agree to interest one or more friends. Five to ten
persons will form a good study circle. The next step is to call a meeting
49




to discuss the details of procedure, when to meet, how often, what subject to start with. This meeting should also select a discussion leader.... As soon as ten members are enrolled in the circle, effort should be
made to form a second circle.
What To Study. The first determinant of the content matter to be
studied is the very lives of the members of the study circle. The second
determinant lies in the needs of the community itself.... The third
determinant is the unerring rules of human solidarity that are needed
to help the members in adjusting their lives in their communities.
With these determinants in mind, the study circle organizer will find
a motive for study in order to induce the members to study.... A credit
union, a buying club, a marketing club, a consumers cooperative are
enterprises which will not only motivate them to think and study, but
will also stimulate them into action.
How To Study. The study program of the circle should always avoid
abstract subjects, heavy textbooks, academic definitions. Concrete
events of everyday life, of the community, of industry and commerce
will supply adequate material to discuss.
Literature on the subject should be on hand as soon as the study
circle begins its work of discussion. It should cover the articles, press
reports, government releases, pamphlets, and books on the subject.
The leader and secretary of the circle should see to it that each member of the circle has a copy of the article under discussion, and is encouraged to read it before the meeting takes place. The assignment of
definite projects to different members for subsequent meetings will
lessen the leader's work.
The Mormon Church has initiated group study and adult
education projects, looking to the cultural improvement of communities. The Adult Course of Study for 1937-38 proposes "to
raise the cultural tone of our surroundings by beautifying our
homes, our places of worship, and our communities.... No adult
group should permit this season to pass by without giving careful consideration to these matters..-.. Look about you: first at
the interior of your home. What about its color scheme; is it con50




ducive to cheerfulness and a bright outlook upon life?... Good
pictures need not be expensive. Copies of the masterpieces are
quite within reach."
Study groups have been promoted among the women of The
Church of Latter Day Saints for a number of years. Originally
established as a Relief Society early in the nineteenth century,
the women's organization has become essentially a social and
educational enterprise. While in Salt Lake City, I took occasion
to look through the study programs as far back as 1913. These
early programs reveal a surprising amount of attention to interests and problems which have since become features of contemporary study courses in adult education. For instance, in 1913,
study was devoted to art and architecture. For the art symposium, "Great American Marine Painters" had been selected.
The study of architecture pursued the following problem:
The Mountain Home
Preparations: Let each member design a mountain home for her
own family. In this plan provide for a kitchen with stove and work
table and shelves; bathroom; if possible, a protected porch including
stationary table and cupboard for dishes; place for storing provisions;
clothes presses; book-shelves; suitable place for hammock; doors leading to creek; privy; windows in kitchen; screened living porch.
In 1914, art study centered about John Singer Sargent, Whistler, and John Hofen. The architectural group took up problems
like interdependence of landscape and architecture; spring landscape study; summer landscape; American architecture-the
formative period; the colonial period.
The study programs between 1924-1933 included a preponderance of psychological problems, although some attention was
given to modern American poets. One program was devoted to
51




child study, based upon The Child: His Nature and Needs by
M. V. O'Shea. Other topics were: Personality Study: Understanding and Controlling Human Behavior; Control Problems
Related to Child Health and Protection; Emotional Problems
of Childhood; Intellectual Problems of Childhood; Social Problems of Childhood. Standard psychological texts and references
were given as suggested reading.
I learned from two of the women in charge of the present work
of the Society that similar types of study programs are now being conducted. An examination of one of the programs in a recent issue of their magazine confirmed their observation. The
topic for study, very carefully divided into subtopics, was Habit
Formation and Revision; and the references for further study
included: James's Psychology; Overstreet's Influencing Human
Behavior; Starch's Controlling Human Behavior; and Woodward's Psychology.
One may not assume, of course, that the quality of educational
work indicated by these study outlines is actually being achieved
in all of the groups undertaking the programs. The leaders at
Salt Lake City admitted that "the results were rather uneven."
In some groups, where competent leaders are available, serious
work is being accomplished. In other instances, however, the
programs amounted to little more than recreational afternoon
club meetings, with one or two persons reporting on their reading. The women with whom I talked at the Temple grounds told
me that the most effective study groups at present are in rural
communities.
Through the Mutual Improvement Associations, the Mormon
Church provides a more general and inclusive program of adult
education for individuals between ages twenty-three and fortyfive. Groups meet once or more a month to review current books
52




and to pursue carefully planned programs dealing with ethical
and cultural problems. Projects are suggested in connection with
each study outline.
Protestant churches have undertaken some interesting experiments in making Church Night an educational venture. The
Mid-Winter Institute, conducted by Henry H. Crane during his
ministry at the Elm Park Methodist Episcopal Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania, from 1931 through 1935, proved to be a
successful and intelligent adaptation of the Wednesday evening
meeting for the educating of adults, combining the study course
and the lecture forum. The Institute ran for a period of eight
Wednesday evenings during January and February of each year.
Following supper and a social hour, a class period was held from
seven to eight o'clock, at which time members pursued a course
of study of their choice. The first year seven courses under the
general theme, Adventures in Understanding the Art of Living,
were offered and included such subjects as The Art of Home
Building, Vital Community Problems, The Art of Living with
Literature, Life and the Arts. In subsequent years the courses
were cut down to four in number. Some of the general themes
were Our Changing World, Understanding Our Times, Presentday Pioneering, and Civilizing Main Street. From eight to nine
o'clock., following the class period each Wednesday night, a
special lecture in keeping with the general theme was given by
a visiting lecturer. By integrating the lecture and forum series
with the courses of study throughout the eight-week period, the
program achieved considerably more cumulative value and provided more opportunity for continuous exploration in a given
area of thought than is possible in the forum or lecture series of
a more miscellaneous character.
Dr. Crane has now established a similar adult education pro53




gram at the Central Methodist Church in Detroit, conducting it,
however, as a Wednesday Evening Lecture Course, which runs
throughout the year, instead of as an Institute for a restricted
period.
Vere V. Loper, minister of The First Plymouth Church of
Ienver, began a group of seminars in the fall of 1934 held on
Thursday evenings over periods of six weeks. As a first step in
setting up the project, he distributed a questionnaire to determine the educational needs of his parish. The inquiry was presented to the congregation and to various church organizations.
Time was provided in the service one Sunday morning for filling out questionnaires. On the basis of results, six courses were
set up. They included Making Religion Vital to Our Children, Civic Responsibility in Denver, World Relations, Spiritual
Values in Contemporary Literature, Modern Interpretation of
the Bible, Problems of Religious Thought.
This undertaking has continued to be effective for several
years. Community leaders in Denver who have been active in
promoting adult education in the city spoke of these seminars
as among the best work being done by religious groups.
The Adult School of Religion developed by Russell J. Clinchy
of Mount Pleasant Congregational Church in the city of Washington was a similar project. The School ran for six weeks. Group
study centered in such questions as How Can We Create Wholesome Attitudes in Children? What Constitutes an Adjusted Life?
What Kind of a Social Order Do We Want? Has Business a
Responsibility for Economic Security? Competent physicians,
psychiatrists, and businessmen were secured as leaders. Following the class period, a lecture and open forum were held on
some theme relevant to the interest of the group.
54




For several years young married couples have been forming
groups in a number of the churches in southern California for
purposes of social and intellectual stimulus. George Gleason,
studying what churches were doing for young adults a few years
ago, discovered two hundred and twenty-two such groups in
Protestant churches in southern California. Most of them were
found in five denominations-Disciples of Christ, Methodist,
Baptist, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist. Some groups arose
out of a spontaneous demand from young couples themselves,
Dr. Gleason reports:
One of the first groups, organized in 1908, emerged from a young
people's class in the Santa Ana First Methodist Church. Four newly
married couples felt that they had interests different from the unmarried.... They therefore formed the Young Married People's Class. For
twenty-eight years this group has had a continuous existence. It now
has a membership of one hundred and forty. Following its precedent,
new groups of young married people were started in this church in
1913, 1922, 1930, and 1935. These five classes are still functioning.
In the Los Angeles First Congregational Church, in the fall of 1933,
the Junior Guild, composed of young married women, was meeting in
the church, partly for social fellowship and partly for an educational
program. Some of the wives proposed that they should have a meeting
of husbands and wives together and secure a leader for their discussions. The Young Married People's Round Table resulted. This group
of thirty members, all of whom have a college education or its equivalent, for three years has carried on a program of unusual intellectual
richness.
On investigating the programs of one hundred and five of
these groups, Dr. Gleason found, considering all the groups as a
whole, that great emphasis was placed upon social fellowship
and Bible study; moderate emphasis upon problems of the social
order, including civic affairs, economics, race and international
55




relations, parent-child relations, and recreation; and only slight
emphasis upon marriage and adjustment, health, vocation, home
finance, aesthetics, and consumer education. Certain groups,
however, gave considerable attention to problems of the home,
the most striking example being the Parents' Class of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church. Other church groups emphasized
economics and social change.
The First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles has a young adult
group which appears to be pursuing a program of unusually
high order. They call themselves "The 20-40 Club," and, as
their name indicates, they include young adults from twenty to
forty years of age. They meet every Sunday night, at which time
some competent speaker from the vicinity is invited to address
them. Twice a month they conduct seminars, dealing with economic and political problems, social problems, religious and
ethical issues, and psychological problems. On one occasion they
conducted a Symposium on the Movies with respect to culture,
labor, censorship, and education; on another, they sponsored the
meeting of the Western Consumers Union in the church and
invited everyone interested to attend.
This church also has a mental hygiene class for adults, in
charge of a professional psychiatrist, which meets each Sunday
morning.
Among the arresting programs of adult education which came
to my attention during a recent trip through the Middle West
are the Church Night Interest Groups in the First Methodist
Church of Evanston. These were born shortly after depression
days out of the desire to make the church serve the intellectual
and cultural needs of many people of the community who had
been cut off from other opportunities through depleted re56




sources. At the suggestion of one member of the church, the
minister, Ernest Fremont Tittle, called together some church
leaders, including the presidents of all the adult societies. Out
of their deliberations came the proposal that eight or ten interest
groups be established to convene once a week. When the time
came to determine the nature of the groups, there were many
suggestions:
"I'd like to be a member of a group to discuss current events.
Nothing could be more important at present."
"Couldn't we have a group to review new books?"
"What about an orchestra? I know a man who could lead it;
surely there are a number of people who would enjoy playing
together."
Then the minister joined in. "I have thought for some time
that we should have a group in art appreciation, but if we can
have an orchestra, I want to get out my fiddle."
"Art appreciation sounds good to me," remarked a schoolteacher, "and I know just the man to lead the group."
Another volunteered: "I think some adults have a secret
hankering to act in plays. Why couldn't we have a group in the
reading and production of drama?"
And so the interest groups were set up. The first series of group
studies was planned for an eleven-week period from the end of
September to early December. Tuesday evening was selected for
the meetings because, as one person expressed it, "nobody ever
does anything on Tuesday night."
The first series included a variety of interest groups. The
largest group followed current events, led by two instructors
from Garrett Biblical Institute. A book-review group gave atten57




tion to important books in the fields of fiction, art, and social
problems under the guidance of a lecturer on current literature
who had done some writing as well. A drama group was led by a
teacher of dramatics in Northwestern University. A local architect lectured to thirty or forty people on art appreciation, surveying art from Egyptian and Grecian times to the present.
Stereopticon slides to illustrate the lectures were borrowed from
the public library. Other groups organized to study religious
subjects.
A second series was planned for an eight-week period, but
increased attendance and interest made necessary the extension
of the program for another four weeks. In addition to the groups
set up in the first series, there were study groups during the
second twelve weeks in appreciation of music, business ethics,
decorative arts appreciation, handcraft, modern missions, and
sketching, all led by competent people. For instance, businessmen and two instructors from Northwestern University led the
group in business ethics; and a professional interior decorator
instructed the group on decorative arts appreciation.
This adult education program continues to be "one of the
best things ever attempted" at the First Methodist Church. Some
of its later series have included study groups in applied psychology, parent education, astronomy, European and American
drama, and great authors and their works.
Of all the projects and enterprises aiming to provide adult
education through the churches that I observed, this leisuretime program in Evanston impressed me as being the best general model, applicable, with possible modifications, to almost
any community. That the community of Evanston has unusual
resources for carrying on this kind of venture is apparent, yet
58




the people at the First Methodist Church are convinced that
many other communities would find this type of undertaking
equally successful and profitable. I was told by the minister of
the church that several hundred churches, many of them in small
communities, had made inquiry concerning the experiment and
in most instances had initiated similar projects.
Commenting upon the work in Evanston, Murray H. Leiffer
remarked that "in every community there are talented people
who have no avenue for the expression of their ability and who
would enjoy the opportunity of making a contribution in this
way. Usually certain of the teachers in the local high school or
college would be both capable and willing. Some well-educated
and well-read man or woman could be persuaded to direct a
book review or current events group. Other persons would be
particularly fitted to conduct groups in music. The situation
itself calls forth the leadership." This has been amply demonstrated in a number of very successful undertakings in towns and
villages of Michigan. Reporting upon a project in Branch
County, Howard Y. McClusky of the University of Michigan,
who has been the moving spirit in this experimental venture,
said: "It seems that as far as possible the whole front of community interest must be promoted and cultivated if specific
projects and separate aspects are to be advanced. Once this
fundamental principle was observed and a corporate attack
upon community problems was undertaken, the experimenters
in Branch County began to unleash significant latent resources
which the community itself had not realized were there. Actual
financial and material support, talented leadership, and enlightened interest-these and similar assets suddenly became
available for community enterprises."
59




What the experimenters in these Michigan towns discovered
will doubtless prove true in any similar venture in adult education among average American communities where an intelligent
and socially objective attack upon the problem is made. The
same principle found to be operative in these community-wide
undertakings would have application in some form to church
situations.
The College of Life at the First Congregational Church in
Los Angeles is another striking illustration of what can be
accomplished where the full resources of a situation are mobilized under intelligent direction. In three years this project has
developed into a center of adult education serving, over a ninemonth period annually, a total of more than seven thousand
adults of southern California. Its courses of study have drawn
people from Santa Monica, San Pedro, Long Beach, Whittier,
and Redlands, as well as from the immediate environs of Los
Angeles. This program of adult education began in the spring
of 1936 with fourteen courses and a total enrollment of 379.
When the fall term opened in 1938, 3,452 people were in attendance, and thirty-eight courses of study had been set up, three of
which were approved for credit by the Los Angeles City Teachers
Institute.
The guiding spirit behind this enterprise is Louise Emery,
Director of the College of Life. Miss Emery has lived and dreamed
adult education at First Church ever since she took over the
guidance of the work, and her perseverance has been matched
with imagination and a rare capacity for anticipating what would
succeed. Back of the college is the history of an emerging city
church that has defied hazards, overcome obstacles, and laid
hold of available resources-a church whose leaders have thought
6o




success. The result has been an enterprising institutional church
with i,6oo laymen in responsible roles of leadership and a membership of more than 2,500, ministering to an aggregate of
122,331 participants within the year.
Directing this phenomenal modern church is the minister,
James W. Fifield, Jr. The successfully active church, says Dr.
Fifield, is "the church whose program is capable of including
people of all ages, of all interests, at all times. Its vertical dimension commences with the Children's Church to age fifteen, then
the High School Church, the Church of Youth, and the Adult
or Parent Church. The horizontal plane of the inclusive church
involves multiple worship with nine worship services on Sunday,
Communion seven mornings each week, devotions seven evenings each week." This insistent channeling of energy reserves
through organized activities produces a religious institution
characteristically American in spirit.
Until this year, the adult education program of the First
Congregational Church operated as a phase of the religious education department. With its growth and spread into areas of
interest distinct from more clearly defined religious education,
it has assumed proportions that have made it necessary to set up
the program as an independent organization with a director who
gives full time to planning and providing for its activities.
The inclusive policy of the church has been carried over into
the work of the College of Life. Some of the courses offered in its
first semester included: Family Relations, World Affairs, Best
Literature of the Year, Planning Life at Any Age, Applied Psychology, Theory and Technique of Dramatic Production, Poetry,
Folk Dancing, Bridge. Courses, with groups meeting each Wednesday evening, were planned for four- to six-week periods.
6 i




The second term, opening in the fall of 1937, offered in connection with the Drama Workshop and Little Theatre a series
of courses including: Playwriting, Speech Development, MaskMaking, Straight and Character Make-Up, Marionettes and
Puppets, Eurythmics, Beginning Acting. The Drama Workshop
has now become a full-time activity, distinct from the regular
program of adult education. It operates throughout the week
from Sunday to Sunday.
In 1938-1939, the curriculum of the College of Life was more
extensive. Its feature offering was a historical course in American thought by Lewis Browne, a course accredited by the Los
Angeles Teachers Institute. Other courses were: Elements of
Finance, How Motion Pictures Are Made, Preparation for Marriage, Home Planning and Decoration, Ballroom Dancing, Vocational Counseling, Creative Writing, Copper-Tooling, The
Social Service Program of Los Angeles, World Affairs, Correct
English, Know Yourself! Improve Yourself!, Spending and Saving, Leather Craft, Price of Peace in Industry, Public Speaking,
Oral French, Japanese Brush Work, Vocabulary Building and
Correct Speech, Current Courtesies, Tap Dancing, What's What
in Government, Personality and Charm. To these have been
added in recent months courses in Radio Technique, Salesmanship, Flower Arrangement, Table Decorations and Favors, Spanish, Pictorial Photography as a Fine Art, The Normal Singing
Voice, Occupational and Job-Getting Conferences.
All of these courses are conducted by competently trained
people who are substantially paid out of proceeds from the
courses. "It is against our principles," the director said, "to
expect people to assume leadership of this sort for the church
at a rate of compensation lower than they receive elsewhere."
Professors from the faculty of near-by colleges and universities
62




as well as eminent leaders living in the environs have been employed for teaching or conducting the various courses. The two
most popular courses during 1938-1939, with an enrollment of
approximately one thousand each, were The Road to Nowadays,
given by Lewis Browne, and World Affairs, by Claude Buss,
Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California.
In the Riverside Church of New York, where Harry Emerson
Fosdick is minister, is to be found another carefully planned and
well-directed program of adult education. Hallenbeck's study
of ten New York churches revealed that of the extensive adult
activity at Riverside, only ten per cent was devoted to adult religious education. The remaining ninety per cent consisted of
adult education of a general, cultural character.
The spacious building of this church was planned to serve as
a social center for the large congregation and for the neighbors
who live in its shadow "on the hill." Every day in the afternoon
and evening the large elevators are kept busy taking men and
women to and from classes and meetings held in the many rooms
in the tower of the church. Monday is given over to women's
activities. There are book groups, current events groups, athletics in the church's big gymnasium, arts and crafts classes.
Tuesday night is men's night. After a chapel service, the men
meet in groups to discuss books, to bowl and play games in the
gymnasium. There are two public-speaking groups for men:
Some of the members come solely for fellowship; others expect
to be orators; others like to hear themselves talk. Wednesday
nights Dr. Fosdick gives a series of lectures, which is very well
attended. On Thursday evenings the Guild meets. Its membership is composed of people from eighteen to thirty-five. They
have an orchestra, a chorus, and a drama workshop where three
63




groups write, act, and stage and light plays. On Sunday evenings
members of the Guild meet again in groups to discuss such topics
as civic problems, appreciation of music, personal religion.
In addition to these activities, there are arts and crafts classes
working with various materials; classes in tap and in social
dancing; a camera club doing advanced work in photography;
a science group composed of men and women who take radios
and phonographs and other mechanical devices apart to find out
what makes them work and who report on new developments in
other fields of science.
Except in a few instances, all teachers and leaders of adult
groups give their time without charge. In cases where the teachers receive salaries, students are asked to pay a very small fee to
cover cost of instruction. The church bears the cost of heat, light,
elevator, and janitor service.
Mention should be made also of the work in parent education,
for in recent years this interest has become increasingly important at the Riverside Church, but before describing these classes,
which will naturally lead to a discussion of parent education
projects in other churches, I want to conclude this account of
adult education courses of the more general, cultural type with
a description of the Rosary College Plan of Education for Leisure. Rosary College is a Catholic liberal arts college for women,
located in River Forest, a suburb of Chicago. The members of
the faculty are Dominican Sisters. Sister Julie, from whom I had
the privilege of hearing the story of the Rosary College experiment, impresses one instantly with her sensitive and intelligent
understanding.
The College is an academic institution, embracing and communicating the heritage of the liberal arts as the Catholic tradi64




tion has preserved it, but it is also a vital institution of the
present, reaching out into the community with a genuine spirit
of helpfulness and social responsibility. The Education for Leisure plan was inaugurated by the College in 1935 as an experiment "to open to mature students who have the leisure and
inclination such courses as Child Psychology, Family Welfare,
Child Care, Home Economics, Social Ethics, Economic Problems, English Composition and Literature, French Conversation, Catholic Liturgy, History and Appreciation of Art and
Music." Classes began with a registration of about four hundred
students from River Forest, Oak Park, and other suburban areas
and from Chicago. When the program was first announced, the
course in Contemporary Literature attracted the largest number
of registrants. The next largest was the class in Philosophical
Problems. Public Speaking also proved popular. But, said Sister
Julie, "we noted a growing interest in the class in economics,
called The New Deal, and in successive semesters the courses
offered by the Department of Politics and Economics had the
largest enrollment and maintained the greatest interest on the
part of the students. Attempts of other more erudite departments
that shyly proffered courses in Paleography, Biological Problems
and Climatology met with a cold response such as scarcely warranted the repetition of the offerings. The learned professor of
classics won the undying gratitude of three students, two of
whom were Jews, for her course in the history of the book before
printing, a fascinating subject, but the College administration
doubts the wisdom of using one of its professors in this way.
"It may be," Sister Julie went on, "that the deepening intensity
of economic problems that have affected almost all American
families in the past four years is responsible for the concentra65




tion of interest in subjects vitally related to contemporary life,
rather than in those which are traditionally associated with
culture."
The Rosary College Plan of Education for Leisure is still in
the experimental stage, but it remains a promising venture.
Let us return to the classes in parent education at the Riverside Church. Two groups are devoted each Sunday morning to
the study of parent problems, one arranged for parents of young
children, the other for parents of older children. These Sunday
morning sessions deal with problems relating to the religious
growth of the child as well as with such specific matters as What
Parents Ought to Know About Children's Teeth and Their
Care; Significance of Standards, Tests, and I. Q.'s to Parents and
Teachers; and other practical matters. Besides the Sunday morning classes in parent education, Friday morning lectures are provided by some competent person in the field of child care. One
series dealt with the theme: Laying the Foundations of Personality and Character, and took up such topics as The Role of
the Parent in the Early Years; The Question of Obedience; How
to Balance Freedom and Authority?; and First Steps Toward
Emotional Maturity. People with special training from Columbia
University and other centers lead these groups and on occasion
give lectures on related themes.
Parent education has become a prominent part of the adult
education program in many churches. An investigation made in
1931 of what the Protestant churches were doing in parent education disclosed few undertakings, Harry C. Munro stated in a
publication issued at that time. Yet after a survey of ten denominations, H. Lee Jacobs reported in Religious Education in September, 1930, that "one of the more important specific trends in
66




the field of adult religious education may be seen in the emphasis
now being placed upon the education of parents. Leaders of
children are becoming convinced that the best possible way to
care for the needs of growing children is through working for a
broader intellectual outlook and for better skills on the part of
parents. This conviction has given rise, in a large number of
church schools in practically every important denomination, to
parent-teacher associations, child study clubs, and so forth."
Whatever the situation may have been a decade ago, it is clear
that in recent years considerable attention has been given to this
phase of adult education among Protestant churches, as the
account given by Regina Wescott Wieman in The Modern
Family and the Church' indicates. This growth of interest in
parent education among Protestants has been stimulated by a
number of agencies. The Committee on Marriage and the Home
of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, working in close cooperation with the American Social Hygiene Association, has provided a wealth of material in this field and has
actively promoted the development of study courses for young
people and parents in churches and through field conferences,
especially in large cities. Since 1931, the International Council of
Religious Education has sponsored a Joint Committee on Family
and Parent Education, which includes among its members representatives from the Federal Council of Churches, the National
Congress of Parents and Teachers, the National Council of
Parent Education, and the Child Study Association of America.
Its distinctive contribution has been the preparation of the
"International Curriculum Guide" and the Learning for Life
Program. Perhaps the most pervasive stimulus toward developHarper, 1937.
67




ing parent education in Protestant churches has come from individual specialists, like Regina Wescott Wieman and Blanche
Carrier, who have traversed the country, going from community
to community, speaking to church groups and conferences of
ministers, conducting institutes lasting a week to ten days, as
well as consulting with individual leaders and with the men and
women of the churches whose family life has demanded expert
counsel. The itinerary of Dr. Wieman's engagements alone would
be a fair index of the parent education being carried on through
the Protestant churches. On one occasion I witnessed several hundred men and women crowded into a large assembly room of a
Methodist Church in Berkeley, California, wrestling with problems of the parent under Dr. Wieman's guidance. I remained at
the meeting the better part of two hours, while hundreds of
others, after a brief recess, returned to continue throughout the
afternoon. The next morning I found Dr. Wieman in the midst
of some two hundred or more ministers from all sections of California, grappling with problems of the family with which the
church could deal. These scenes have been re-enacted many
times, not alone in California, but in Colorado, Kansas, Ohio,
New England, as well as in the deep South.
To enumerate sample programs of parent education in Protestant churches which have come to my attention would prove to
be tedious. This seems to be one type of adult education that has
come to be accepted as significant by both the laymen and the
leaders in the majority of progressive churches. In the main, the
quality of educational work done in this field seems to be of an
exceptionally high order.
Considerable attention has been given to this phase of adult
work in the Catholic Church. In 1931 the Family Life Section of
68




the Department of Social Action was set up by the National
Catholic Welfare Conference. Under the guidance of a special
director, Edgar Schmiedeler, formerly professor of sociology in
a Midwestern Catholic college, its work extends into such fields
as home economics, parent education, and family relationships.
While religion is given special emphasis, the aids offered by
sociologists and other scientists are employed in the preparation
of studies and programs. The projects and methods of carrying
them out include: "Developing and disseminating a popular and
advanced literature on marriage and the family, and on parent
education; aiding in the development of study clubs dealing
with family topics and encouraging individual reading and
study of family literature in the home; encouraging the development of Catholic leaders in the field, particularly by urging due
provision in schools and colleges for courses on Christian marriage, the family, and parent education, and by encouraging the
formation of voluntary study clubs in Catholic educational institutions; fostering an interest in family study among Catholic
young people outside the school system through such media as
sodalities or other young people's organizations." Striking experiments, such as that conducted in Great Falls, Montana, under
Bishop O'Hara, have been described in a foregoing chapter of
this book.
Traditionally the Jewish Synagogue has given attention to the
problems of the family, though instruction has generally taken
the form of initiating members into the practices of the cultus.
Today, especially among the more progressive synagogues, parent education is assuming a scientific turn. Temple Israel in
Boston, for instance, included among its extension courses for
1937, a series of round-table discussions on The Family, dealing
69




with such subjects as The Stable Home in a Shifting World, The
Nervous Home, Character Building in the Home, Growing Up
With Our Children, Sex Education in the Home, Helping Your
Child Choose a Vocation, Juvenile Delinquency, and so forth.
In November of 1938, Leo M. Franklin announced the opening
of a School for Parents at Temple Beth El in Detroit, which held
ten weekly sessions. The School was a part of Beth El College of
Jewish Studies and was led by the rabbis of the Temple, members of the faculty of the School of Religion, and experts in the
field of child guidance. In connection with the educational program of Temple Israel in Boston, during the year 1938-1939, a
child study class, under the sponsorship of The Sisterhood of
the Temple was projected. The specific purpose of this undertaking was to deal with the religious needs of the Jewish child,
supplementing the work done by the various nonreligious parent education groups. Among the topics discussed were: Religious Perplexities, Adolescent Cynicism, Embarrassing Questions Asked by Children, and Practical Suggestions for Religious
Instruction in the Home. In a paper presented at the Conference
on Experimentation and Research, arranged by the Commission
on Jewish Education, held in Atlantic City in 1938, David I.
Cedarbaum said, "There is scarcely a church which does not
have some forms of... parents' groups for parents of young
children, parents' groups for confirmands, and parents' groups
for adolescents, and marriage clinics."
Regina Wescott Wieman, in The Modern Family and the
Church,2 reported that "the rabbis of the more progressive synagogues are doing a considerable amount of counseling on family
problems, as well as promoting premarital education, in so far
2 Wieman, op. cit.
70




as their time allows. In the great majority of instances, this education is limited to an interview before the wedding ceremony.
A few rabbis have a full-time professional psychiatrist on the
church staff, particularly for the work with the parents on behavior problems and guidance of youth. Some others refer those
in difficulty to professional workers."
Leo Franklin, of Temple Beth El in Detroit, told me during a
visit at the Temple last summer that he utilizes every confirmation as an occasion for a careful interview with each child, primarily for the purpose of discovering any personal habits or
handicaps which should be dealt with by the professional psychologist or psychiatrist. The results of the interview are made
known to teachers involved and to parents, Sometimes the interview leads simply to counseling the child and the parents. Occasionally, however, it results in bringing in an expert psychologist
to counsel with the child and the parents. This significant use
of the religious rite suggests that, where intelligent guidance is
given, ceremonials may become fruitful agencies in the socialization of human lives.


71




Proj ects for Social Action




DUCATING through action has proved to be a successful method of adult education in churches. The advantage of this procedure over forums and study courses is that it enables the people
of the churches to apply their energies to useful, even necessary,
tasks in the community. In doing them they become educated
concerning new significant facts and the methods of laboring
together toward common ends. There doubtless are many enterprises of this nature being carried on by churches in various parts
of the country, but the ones that have come to my attention are
chiefly in the middle western and far western areas.
A group of church leaders, among them a Jewish rabbi, a professor of a theological seminary, and a dean of a university
chapel, were lunching together at the Quadrangle Club at the
University of Chicago. The conversation turned to unsatisfactory conditions in the city of Chicago and methods of improving
them through a scientific approach to the problem of reconstruction. Out of this casual luncheon conversation a significant citywide project was launched under the slogan "Re-thinking Chicago." Preparations were made for a series of project studies,
looking to the enlightenment of church people concerning the
problems of Chicago and intelligent ways of solving them.
72




A study made by Shirley Greene for a Master's Degree at the
University of Chicago was published under the title Re-thinking
Chicago: An Experiment in Christian Community BuildingS and
served as the text for further group study in the churches. A
manual on problems, setting forth suggested topics and projects,
along with a carefully prepared bibliography of social science
studies on the city of Chicago, accompanied the text. The outline of topics included What is Chicago?; City Builders; Making
a Living; The City Hall and the Politicians; Divorce, Desertion,
and Suicide; School and Press; The Underworld and the Gang;
Ways Out.
Projects suggested for those undertaking the study were trips
to the Chicago Plan Commission Headquarters and to the Board
of Trade Building Tower; visits to the Art Institute, the Field
Museum, the Aquarium, and the Planetarium; a tour of the
North Side, including "Bughouse Square," Eli Bates Neighborhood House, and Merchandise Mart; visits to the Stock Exchange, City Hall, the Divorce Court and City Orphanage, a
newspaper plant, a radical forum, the Boys' Court.
The study offered no ready-made answers to the problems
raised, although it did present some efforts that have been made
and are being made toward improving civic life in Chicago.
Another unique type of educational extension combined with
social survey among urban churches which came to my attention
during my inquiries in Chicago is the work of the Department
of Research and Survey of the Chicago Congregational Union
and The Chicago Theological Seminary, conducted principally
under the direction of Samuel C. Kincheloe and Arthur E. Holt.
At the request of local churches, the research workers of the
1 University of Chicago, 1935.
73




department go into the community and collect pertinent facts
concerning population trends, business developments and tendencies, the financial condition of the community, delinquency
situations, the degree of illiteracy, and other data which need to
be considered in the program-making of the churches. They
then turn the searchlight upon the churches themselves, considering historical or current data bearing upon the churches'
health and possibilities, as well as the reactions of members of
the congregations to possible steps toward improving the church
situation in the community. In the light of their investigations,
the research experts report to the congregation that requested
the survey, suggesting possible lines of action. "We never tell
them what they should do," said Dr. Kincheloe. "We offer them
alternatives with arguments for and against, and leave the decision to them." The members of the church come together and
deliberate upon the data that are presented. Sometimes the best
decision seems to be to do nothing. Then again, there is an obvious demand for action. One such survey in a community in
central Illinois led to the federation of all the churches. The
important thing, Dr. Kincheloe insisted, is that this procedure
supplies the people of the community with information concerning their churches and the community in which they are to help
develop the churches' future. It impels them to respect facts and
to proceed with scientific accuracy when those facts seem to demand action.
The use of social science techniques in studying church situations is not a new procedure, to be sure. It has been extensively
employed through agencies of the Federal Council of Churches
and in studies by H. Paul Douglass, Edmund deS. Brunner,
Benson Y. Landis, F. Ernest Johnson, and others, but the devel74




opment of such facilities within a church organization, and the
educational use of them in the manner I have described seems
to be a new, important trend. That churches are availing
themselves of this intelligent kind of fact-finding inquiry and
stimulating their people to study, deliberate, and act in the light
of sound data is indeed evidence that there is health in them.
A singular example of a church-wide project in adult education is the ambitious program of social action undertaken by
the Congregational churches. In the spring of 1934, an adventurous and socially minded group of Congregationalists, under
the stimulus of Arthur E. Holt of the Chicago Theological Seminary, proposed a new kind of churchmanship which would avail
itself of the. most competent and pertinent facts bearing upon
social situations, and, in the light of this information, project
such social action as seemed feasible. There are problems, argued
Dr. Holt, growing out of the church and state relationship, the
rural and urban conflict, capitalism and labor, and racial justice,
which the church and church people will be compelled to confront in the very near future, but which they will be incapable
of facing intelligently unless some effort is made to enlighten
them upon these issues. The Congregational churches, he urged,
should take steps to bring together a competent group of research workers and commission them to gather facts bearing
upon these problematical areas. These facts should, in turn, be
made available to the local churches, and, looking to some
specific project in social action, the formation of study groups
should be encouraged. Holt's proposal was presented to the Congregational Council, which met in Oberlin, Ohio, in June, 1934,
and the result was the establishment of the Council for Social
Action.


75




Two very interesting projects, both of which have taken the
form of adult education, have been initiated by this Council.
The first was a Peace Plebiscite, conducted in the fall of 1935,
in which over 2,500 Congregational churches participated; the
second was an Economic Plebiscite, conducted in 1938 which,
though not so successful as its predecessor, nevertheless proved
valuable as an educational venture. The Plebiscites, in each case,
were set up by social action councils in the local churches, using
study-guide materials provided by the staff of experts of the
Council for Social Action. After a six-week period of study and
deliberation, the members participating were given opportunity
to commit themselves to some specific form of action by balloting
on alternative proposals. The results of the balloting in 2,500
local churches were then sent to the Council, tabulated, and
given wide publicity. Over three hundred newspapers printed
the story of the Peace Plebiscite, and numerous magazine articles
and editorials took note of it. In the judgment of the Council
for Social Action and of ministers who helped to initiate the projects, the primary value of the Plebiscites lay in the educational
opportunities which they offered. At Claremont Community
Church in California, for example, professors in the social sciences from the faculties of Pomona, Claremont, and Scripps
colleges were secured as study-group leaders. Their task was to
present and critically interpret the data that had been provided
by the Council and to lead the discussions that followed their
presentations. Six meetings were arranged in the Community
Church, and student groups, conducted along the lines of the
church groups, met in the colleges. As a result, some nine hundred individuals participated in the final balloting, the largest
single return submitted by any local church.
76




For a number of years the American Friends Service Committee, in cooperation with the Council for Social Action of the
Congregational Churches, has sponsored a series of Institutes of
International Relations during the summer. Ten such institutes
were conducted in various parts of the country in 1939. If the
Institute in Whittier, California, which I had occasion to observe, was at all representative of the conferences held elsewhere,
these institutes must be ranked high as educational programs for
adults. Lecturers like Gerald Heard, Harry D. Gideonse, Guy E.
Talbott, and other eminent authorities in the field of international relations were heard in series of three or more addresses.
Each morning a panel composed of experts held discussions.
Approximately two hundred people were in attendance on the
mornings I visited the Institute. The majority were adults beyond forty, though there were several groups of youths of college
age. College credit may be given for attendance at the Institute,
and a minimum two-hour credit is accepted by the California
State Office of Education toward teaching credentials.
Similar social-action projects in the form of educational enterprises are undertaken by the Department of Social Relations of
the American Unitarian Association; the Department of Social
Education and Action of the Presbyterian Church; the Board of
Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Social Relations Department of the Protestant Episcopal Church; the
National Social Service Commission of the Northern Baptists;
not to mention activities fostered by interdenominational agencies like the Federal Council of Churches, the National Council
of Y.M.C.A., National Board of Y.W.C.A., and the International
Council of Religious Education.
Church Federations in various cities have promoted educa77




tional work on an interdenominational basis through institutes
and special study courses which, in some instances, have achieved
notable results. In 1930, in anticipation of a State-wide Conference on Politics, Economics, and Citizenship in connection with
the Massachusetts Tercentenary, the Massachusetts Federation
of Churches prepared discussion courses on seven vital problems
of modern life. The series included detailed outlines for such
topics as The Social Function of the Church; The Family; Christian Citizenship; Personality, Property, and the Social Order;
Economic Problems, Industrial and Rural; and International
Education.
In the fall of 1937, at the suggestion of the Federal Council of
Churches, the Chicago Church Federation, along with Federations in other cities, projected a series of Schools in Christian
Living. Twenty-five hundred people participated in the ten
Chicago schools which were held in churches in various sections
of the city over a period of a week. Seventy-five counselors and
faculty leaders, many of them from universities and theological
seminaries in the city, led discussions and gave lectures. The
courses dealt with social and international problems and with
home and family life. W. C. Bower, of the University of Chicago,
who was chairman of the Chicago Schools in Christian Living,
reports that "from almost every school came the request to repeat
the experiment another year." Speaking of the undertaking as
a national experiment, another leader reported that "experience
across the country seems to prove that it resulted, for the most
part, in being adopted as a major item in the field of adult
education."
An interdenominational project of significance in adult education has been conducted by the Religion and Labor Founda78




tion in the form of a series of traveling seminars. These seminars
have proved particularly effective in the South and the far
Northwest. Groups of churchmen, representing the Foundation,
go into various parts of the country and, after carefully laying
the groundwork in a community, conduct a seminar for clergy
and laity under the auspices of a local church or group of
churches. The seminars provide for a discussion of topics in the
industrial field on which there is a difference of opinion. The
conference method is used to bring together local leaders of
labor and capital in an effort to arrive at a genuine understanding of the positions and sentiments of both parties. In many
instances the results have been highly commendable and the
educational value considerable.
Commenting last summer upon the present social emphasis
in adult education among Protestants, Harry C. Munro remarked
that "education for social action is the hot spot in adult education in Protestant churches. It represents the one singular emphasis, in so far as Protestant adult education has achieved a
distinctive trend."
I found, however, that education for social action is a dominant emphasis also among other religious groups. The Union of
American Hebrew Congregations publishes a series of tracts dealing with such subjects as Judaism and Democracy, Judaism and
Socialism, and Judaism and International Peace. The pamphlet
by Abraham Cronbach, professor in Hebrew Union College, on
"The Social Outlook of Modern Judaism" is an illuminating
interpretation of the social point of view of recognized Jewish
groups such as the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the
Rabbinical Assembly of America, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the National Council of Jewish Women,
79




and the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods. Some of
the subjects considered are Friendship for Labor, Rabbis as
Mediators, Coping with Unemployment, Children and the Aged,
Housing, Civil Liberties, and Social Justice.
The importance of educating the public for social duty, says
Rabbi Cronbach, is recognized by the rabbis. The conservatives
have adopted extensive resolutions on the subject, the Reform
Rabbis have promoted numerous regional conferences for laymen on social questions, and have instituted in every congregation a committee on social duty and action. The establishment
of a Laymen's Commission on Social Justice was the result of
efforts by Reform Rabbis. As a part of the program of Jewish
education of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations,
The Commission of Synagogue Activities sponsors the study of
social questions. The Rabbinate as a whole, observes Dr. Cronbach, exerts on the laity a steady pressure toward a wider social
outlook.
The zeal of the Catholic Church in promoting social education among adult members is well known. Through the Catholic
Conference on Industrial Problems, well named a "Travelling
School of Social Thought," it carries on a continual and systematic program of social education. The Conference was organized in Chicago in December, 1922, at the Loyola University
School of Sociology under the impetus of the Department of
Social Action of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. Its
purpose is to study and understand industrial problems in the
light of Catholic teaching and to advance the knowledge and
practice of this teaching to industry. The conference method
and open discussion are used to carry on the work. Conferences
have been held in many of the most outstanding dioceses in the
80




United States. Looking through some of the Conference reports,
one comes upon such subjects as Wages and Working Conditions in Relation to Unemployment Relief, Income and Economic Progress, The Encyclical and Organized Social Justice,
Stabilizing Labor in the Agricultural Districts, Consumers' Cooperatives, A Solution to Agricultural Labor Problems, Cooperatives in the Field of Industry.
Following the Conference meeting in Denver in 1932, The
Christian Century declared that "the Catholic Church of this
region has demonstrated again its superior leadership in the
field of the social application of religion by its Conferences on
Industrial Problems." In 1933 Organized Labor, a San Francisco
paper, commented: "The Conferences have been a medium of
eliminating many misunderstandings between employers and
employees, and in a great many cases have brought employers
and employees together in frank discussion and thoughtful consideration of problems that are not only of mutual interest to
the employer and employee, but are also of tremendous interest
and importance to the American people." The Des Moines
Register in 1937 suggested that "the Catholic regional conference here ought to be but one of a thousand such activities by
men of good will, whatever their race or religion. It represents
the most hopeful of methods-the method of studious, zealous,
cooperative probing into conditions, causes, ultimate purposes,
and ways of marching together toward their realization."
These testimonials, largely from non-Catholic writers, give
evidence that the Conferences, whatever their limitations, have
singular educational merit and influence.
The achievements of the Mormon Church in the socialization
of its communal life and the education of its members in eco81




nomic problems bearing upon the group life are well known.
Through its efficient "stake" organization and the persistent
efforts of The Relief Society and Mutual Improvement Associations, operating as social service agencies and educational
forces, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been
able to maintain an enviable standard of economic and social
solidarity. This became particularly apparent during depression
days, when the Church assumed responsibility for the social
security of its members. The Mormon Church has been a society
within a society, and therefore its social efforts have been confined almost wholly to problems of its own constituency.
82
4




Workers' Education in Churches


-


MORE than ever before, the churches have begun to interest
themselves in the worker, and in some instances have projected rather remarkable enterprises in workers' education.
The Friends (Quakers) Church has been particularly aggressive in promoting education in mining and industrial areas.
In February, 1934, the American Friends Service Committee,
cooperating with the Federal Council of Churches, undertook
an experiment in community cooperation and adult education
in the coal fields of eastern Ohio and West Virginia. Among
other accomplishments, including the creation of library facilities, adult education classes of miners and other residents were
formed. In the spring of 1934, there were classes in English, Parliamentary Law, and Public Speaking. By February of 1935 the
course offerings had grown to twenty-one in number, and two
hundred and fifty people had enrolled. These groups met for
twelve weeks. The work has continued to be operative in seven
different mining communities in this region.
A project similar to the eastern Ohio enterprise has been undertaken in the Los Angeles area, and in the vicinity of Pittsburgh a rehabilitation project among miners has been under
way for some time. Jess Ogden, who visited this coal mining area
83




and talked with both leaders and workmen, tells this story of the
Pittsburgh project:
"About sixty or seventy miles southeast of Pittsburgh lies a
section of country where people are facing a terrific problem.
It is a coal mining district, in which there are many small, independently owned mines. Whenever the price of coal goes down;
whenever a fever of labor unrest sets in; whenever business gets
bad enough to frighten the mine owner, the people of that community are thrown out of work or into such sporadic work 'on
the side' as they can manage to obtain. When conditions improve and the mines are reopened for business, the people are
put to work in three shifts and so quickly work themselves out
of a job again.
"Add to this more or less uncomfortable situation the fact
that engineers have estimated that the mines in that district
will have worked themselves out in about fifteen years.
"Why don't the people go elsewhere? Where? To another
mining community where the miners are idle more frequently
than busy? How will they get there? The babies-and there are
always babies-can't walk. And if they could somehow be carried, the chances are that their fathers are already black-listed.
And if they are not black-listed, the chances are that they owe
so much money to local stores that they can't leave. Besides, their
homes are in Fayette County, and it's well-nigh impossible to
get people to leave their homes, even in flood country, let alone
in Fayette County with its rolling hills and the mines that aren't
worked out yet. And so the Fayette County miners do not move.
They wait.
"Tucked away in a saucer of two-hundred-odd acres in the
hills of Fayette County is the Rehabilitation Project of the
84




Friends Service Committee. The Friends apparently see quite
clearly that rehabilitation must be a slow process and that the
individual himself must initiate it. They are so thoroughly convinced of the truth of this theory that they are willing to give
time and money to prove it. That attitude is rare these days.
They send young couples out to a stricken area; they insist that
they become part and parcel of a community. When a man and
his family have demonstrated that they can tote their load; that
they are willing to face a new chance together and to make
a present sacrifice for an honest-to-goodness future gain, the
Quakers, through the Rehabilitation Project, can and do offer
them that new chance.
"To get to the Fayette County Project, you have to drive
through many of the villages that straggle out from Pittsburgh,
thence out on the state highway, then turn abruptly on to a
cinder road, go over a crest, and the beginnings lie before you.
A farmhouse, brand new, with a big barn lies on your right.
That's for the community's farmer. Just what his place will be
in the final state of the community is left for evolution to work
out. Right now he raises crops and sells produce to the cooperative store. He and his team do the plowing for the small plots
that lie behind each house in the community. Incidentally, the
present farmer is an ex-college teacher who has taught in folk
schools as well as in more formal institutions. To him the seventeen families that are already established are turning for help
in organizing a Sunday school. For their regular schooling the
children are now being sent to the public schools in a neighboring village, but the farmer-teacher will undoubtedly be called
upon to help with the organization of public schools in the community when it gets big enough.
85




"Beyond the farmhouse there are signs of what is to be a row
of houses: some cellars dug out, one cellar of gray field stone already built, another in the building. A master mason, experienced in directing unskilled labor in a government housing
project, has charge of the work. He is paid by the Friends. His
laborers are all members of the community who are working out
their time requirements.
"To the left of the road, and up the hill is a motley collection
of buildings. Most of them are brooder-houses, with here and
there a garage, and on each site the protruding foundation of a
cellar. The idea is this: Seventeen of the families are beginning
to live on the place. They put up a brooder-house first, if they
are going to raise chickens, and the family moves into it to live
there until their turn comes to have the men of the community
build their house. The field stone, by the way, comes from the
community's own quarry back on the highest hill.
"Farther down the road, still on the left, is an old red brick
house. This is the dormitory and dining hall for members of the
community who have not yet set up even their temporary quarters. Here also live David Day and his wife, who have organized
the Project and are carrying it through.
"Mr. Day took me across the road to a tar-paper shack in
which his 'office' and the cooperative store are both housed. I
had seen the Project as a whole; it was Mr. Day who gave me
the details. As I have already indicated, membership in the community is open to anyone within a certain small radius who has
enough vision to see the possibility of escape from the intermittency and insecurity of work in the Fayette County mines and
who welcomes the chance to become independent and to own a
home.
86




"Each applicant has to submit to a most intensive examination by the community committee on admission, but let me
hasten to say that the items for examination have been worked
out not by the Friends but by the community members themselves. Since the success of the Project depends upon the combined efforts of all, no less than upon individual integrity, the
members naturally take every precaution to see that each person
who comes into the community shall be someone on whom they
can count to the full. The scheme is built upon a system of manhours contributed to the Project as a whole. There is no point
here in going into the details: a small cash outlay; a minimum
payment each year; a fixed number of man-hours of labor to the
community; and whatever of extra labor he can contribute to his
own place are the essential requirements for each community
member. The cellars are dug, foundations built, eventually the
houses will be erected, all in strict rotation, by all the men in the
community. If a man is working in the mines he usually works
eight hours there, sleeps eight, and applies the rest of his available time on the Project. A man-hour of a friend or relative
counts just as much as the individual's own and is entered on
the time sheet. Boys under eighteen years of age count for twothirds of an hour. The boy-hours' provision interested me almost
as much as any phase of the set-up. It indicated a return to the
old times, now almost lost, when good stout men-children were
a decided economic asset. I was particularly struck by the interest and zest the youngsters displayed in 'fixing up the old
man's place.' There didn't seem to be much compulsion. 'By
golly, you can see the place growin'' one fifteen-year-old said to
me as he tugged manfully away at turning the crank for a large
concrete mixer.
87




"The members of the Fayette County community are not satisfied to concern themselves only with plans for the administration and operation of the Project. They are facing forward and
considering what shall be done to provide secular and religious
education for their children, to increase their own knowledge,
strengthen their ability to handle their increasing problems,
and build an esprit de corps that shall carry them through whatever disasters, great or small, may come to them. At all times
they are conscious of the fact that they have less than fifteen
years of working their own trade of mining ahead of them. Even
now they are looking for some industry that they can develop
in their locale to support the majority of the community members. So far, the sale of poultry and eggs has been the only means
they have found to add to their slender earnings from the mines.
They are frank to admit that poultry raising will not suffice for
any sizeable population. So they are even now, before they have
built all their houses, on the lookout for something else that will
give economic stability to the community. Meantime they are
working.
"Education through a church? I've told my story pretty poorly
if you don't know the answer to that."
In his travels through the Pittsburgh area, Mr. Ogden encountered also work being done by the Catholic Church among
the steel mill workers.
"Clinton Golden of the Steel Workers' Organization Committee told me of the Catholic Radical Alliance in Pittsburgh,"
Ogden reports. "He wasn't sure just what the Alliance was doing, but he seemed very sure that Father Owens and Father
Hensler, who had organized it, were liked and trusted by labor;
88




that they had many times taken their places in picket lines; and
that it would be well worth my while to talk with them. He even
went so far as to make an appointment for me.
"I was not lucky enough to meet Father Owens, but I had a
most enlightening talk with Father Hensler. He and Father
Owens had organized the Catholic Radical Alliance, he told me,
because they felt that the perfectly good word 'radical' was being loosely used and even more loosely thought about, and they
were trying to bring it back to its original meaning of 'roots' by
connecting it with the church.... There had been numerous
protests (from the Pittsburgh Diocese) to the Bishop, on the one
hand, and, on the other, numerous inquiries about the Alliance
from workers, many of whom had attended its meetings.
"The Catholic Radical Alliance is not merely sympathetically
interested in the plight of the worker and- in his efforts to scramble a little farther up the ladder toward security; it is also allied
with the work that The Catholic Worker is doing in New York;
and in Pittsburgh it conducts 'discussion clubs.' I have to use
the quotation marks because, though Alliance discussions are
lively and opportunity is freely given for the expression of all
shades of opinion, there is the inevitable pronunciamento at the
close of every session. Both Father Owens and Father Hensler
are adept at picking up points in the discussions and interpreting them in the light of relevant opinions that have been set
forth in the papal Encyclicals.
"Father Hensler's account of the Alliance gave me the clearest
picture of the position of progressive Catholics that I gained on
my trip. I was conscious of no attempt to capitalize on the sensationalism of the title, though Father Owens and Father Hens89




ler are perfectly aware of its advertising value. The churches
have their own wares to sell, but opportunism can be laid at
their door as little as anywhere.
"The Catholic Radical Alliance, with Father Hensler and
Father Owens at its head, has earned recognition from the ranks
of labor in and around Pittsburgh, not by ballyhooing, but by
dint of good hard labor."
Here and there throughout the country, there is a church that
has organized its program wholly around the worker. The Grace
Community Church in Denver is such a one. Perhaps no church
in the country has identified its interests so thoroughly or so
forthrightly with the problems of labor as has this enterprising
community center (for it is pre-eminently that) near the heart
of Denver's downtown district. From a small mission Sunday
school, organized in an icehouse in 1873, Grace Church has
grown into an impressive institutional plant with an extensive
civic program, ministering to thousands of workers and underprivileged families through its Nursery, Mother's Clinic, boys'
and girls' clubs, labor college, open forum, and workers' services of worship in the historic Evans Memorial Chapel. "Grace
Church," says Edgar L. Wahlberg, minister of the church, "attempts to be a labor church and has been designated as such by
various labor assemblies and unions. Twenty-six unions and
radical movements think of Grace Church and Grace Center as
meeting places and use the equipment regularly. Two labor
unions have rented headquarters in the Church. Four other
unions are negotiating for rooms.... Twenty-eight years ago it
was generally felt by bakers that a bakers' union could not succeed unless its headquarters were near a saloon. Today this
union is in Grace Center."


90




Many different organizations meet regularly in Grace Church.
Besides the Bakers' Union, there are the Sheet Metal Workers,
Truck Drivers and Teamsters, Tramway Employees, Tank
Builders, Retail Clerks, Auto Mechanics, Cleaners and Dyers,
Fraternal Order of Business Men, Dental Laboratory Workers,
Poultry Cooperative, Milk Cooperative, Radio Service Men,
Janitors, Farmers' Union, and many others. Grace Church has
been widely known for its Labor College, which has just completed its nineteenth session. It is administered by a labor committee in cooperation with the minister of Grace Church. The
College, which meets on Mondays and Thursdays for sixteen
weeks each year, specializes in social and economic questions and
includes courses in Psychology, Economics, Public Speaking,
Labor News, Writing, Labor Law, Parliamentary Law, Labor
Propaganda, International Relations, and so forth. Twenty-one
classes are held each year. Following each class session on Monday and Thursday nights, a forum is held in which current
problems are discussed. In addition, Grace Church conducts an
open forum of a more general character where, from time to
time, panels and addresses on current topics by national and
local leaders of thought are featured.
The Mothers' Clinic conducted at Grace Church is said to be
one of its most constructive programs. More than sixteen hundred women received its counsel and aid during the year 1935 -1936. The activities of the clinic are numerous. Much of the
program could be described as hospitalization; yet a considerable amount of adult education is carried on in connection with
the medical care and also as a separate program. Counsel concerning matters of health is provided, intimate family problems
are dealt with, and many other forms of instruction are given by


91




a competent physician and a trained nurse. From what I was
able to observe while visiting the Church, its program of education for women, although not so extensive, is as effectively developed as its activities for men. Classes in music, drama, art,
home economics, personality development, and handcraft are
given throughout the year.
The Labor Temple in New York City is another striking example of adult education for workers carried on through the
church. Wilbur C. Hallenbeck, in "A Study of Adult Education
Activities in Thirty New York Churches," says "Probably the
most significant adult education program in any New York
church is that carried on by Labor Temple, a Presbyterian organization. For twenty-five years this church has conducted a
ministry to laboring people. The program has always been educational and for adults. Nearly fifteen years ago the Labor Temple
School was organized to afford industrial workers an opportunity for study and education. The school has a paid director
and a comprehensive course of classes. A forum where social
issues are presented by able speakers is an important part of the
program. A second emphasis is the study of such general subjects
as philosophy, contemporary civilization, important books, and
social politics. These activities are supplemented by classes in
health, the arts, and speech. There are classes every evening but
Saturday."
These glimpses of present scenes indicate that adult education
enterprises carried on through the churches reach a creditable
sum. The number increases when one takes into consideration
the fact that in a great many communities projects in adult education which appear to have no connection with the churches
have actually been initiated by church leaders and are directed
92




by the church staff, though no official affiliation is recognized.
The adult education program in Claremont, California, for
example, since its inception has been under the direction of the
minister of the Community Church, and the secretary of the
adult education council has been the church secretary. In other
communities where adult education councils or other organizations had taken the initiative in promoting educational programs, I found the churches sharing in some phase of the work,
either offering church rooms for classes or participating actively
in the planning of a program.
The Works Progress Administration program of adult education has enlisted the cooperation of churches along with other
public institutions. In looking through the program and locations of W.P.A. Adult Education Classes in Chicago, sponsored
by the Chicago Board of Education, I noted that one hundred
and twenty-two Chicago churches had opened their doors to its
classes. More than seventy-five per cent of these are Protestant
churches. According to Frank G. Ward, Supervisor of Public
Affairs Education under the W.P.A. program in Chicago, the
contribution of the Protestant churches in this area is very considerable.


93








PART III
COMPARISONS WITH CONCLUSIONS








Toward Standards
WAHAT baffles one in this maze of activity for adults in the
V churches and synagogues is finding a basis for fairly appraising its educational achievements and for relating it to what
is generally considered adult education outside the churches.
There is little advantage, it seems to me, in defining adult education arbitrarily and then attempting to discover what is going
on in the churches that may be said to coincide with the definition. A better procedure, it seems, is to observe first the many
forms of activity which have some educational intent, conducted
by the churches and synagogues, and then to distinguish between those that are peculiar to the church or synagogue and
those that are sufficiently similar to what is being done in other
institutions to be considered comparable to general adult education. This will accomplish two purposes. It will reveal, on the
one hand, the direction which adult education is taking in the
churches, in contrast to what some might choose to call secular
adult education; and, on the other hand, it will suggest the
extent to which churches and synagogues are becoming centers
of adult education in the general sense. By way of telescoping the observations, I have arranged under two headings the
various types of adult activities conducted by the churches and
97




synagogues considered in this study: I. Adult activities that are
distinctive of the church program, either because of their doctrinal bent or bias; their evangelical motivation; or their being
related functionally to the church or synagogue. II. Adult activities in churches and synagogues similar enough to adult programs outside the church to be considered comparable to the
general movement in adult education or even an integral part
of it.
I. ADULT ACTIVITIES DISTINCTIVE OF THE CHURCH
A. Because of Doctrinal Bent
Catholic study groups
Catholic conferences on industrial problems
Courses in Bible study, church history, or religious doctrine with sectarian
emphasis
B. Because of Evangelical Motivation
Learning for Life Programs, projected by the International Council of Religious Education under the United Christian Adult Movement
Social-action projects, Such as the Congregational Peace Plebiscite; Church
League for Industrial Democracy, and so forth
Schools in Christian Living sponsored by Church Federations
C. Because of the Relation to Church or Synagogue
Leadership training courses
Pastors' institutes
Colleges of Jewish Studies
Parent education courses dealing with teaching of religious ideas to
children
Mission study groups
Public forums centering in problems of religious heritage, such as certain
Jewish synagogues and communities are developing
II. ADULT ACTIVITIES IN CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES COMPARABLE
TO GENERAL ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAMS
Public forums: Ford Hall Forum, Boston; Sinai Temple, Chicago; Chicago
Sunday Forum; Community Church Forum, New York; Cumberland Com98




munity Forum, Maryland; Unitarian Public Forum, Los Angeles; and so
forth
Lecture series: in Sinai Temple, Chicago; Central Methodist Church, Detroit; Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, Minneapolis; Temple Israel,
Boston
Courses of study: in College of Life, First Congregational Church, Los Angeles; Church Night Interest Groups, First Methodist Church, Evanston;
discussion groups and classes, Riverside Church, New York; Mid-Winter
Institute, Elm Park Methodist Episcopal Church, Scranton; study programs of Relief Society, Mormon Church; seminar in Plymouth Church,
Denver; School for Leisure, Rosary College; and so forth
Projects: Re-thinking Chicago; Friends' Rehabilitation Project; Institute of
International Relations, under Friends and Congregationalists.
One will see from this distribution of adult activities that the
bulk of the churches' program in adult education is of a character peculiar to its institutional or religious interests. Practically
the whole of the adult program of the Catholic Church stands
r apart from the general movement in adult education because of
the doctrinal and authoritarian predilections that underlie each
of its phases. For example, its study groups have for their purpose the imparting of the Church's teaching upon various problems of current interest; likewise, the Conferences on Industrial
Problems are conducted avowedly to communicate the Church's
position in regard to vital social issues. In achieving this purpose, the Conferences, as well as the study groups, provide opportunity for analyzing and deliberating upon problems and
issues which are of equal concern to non-Catholics and to people
outside the Church. It is at this point that their activities come
upon common ground with those of the general movement of
adult education. By their own choice, however, the framework of
the discussion renders them distinctive of the Catholic Church
and specifically oriented to the interests and concerns of the
99




Church. One should probably consider the adult education of
the Catholic Church supplementary to that of the general movement, in the same way that the parochial school system is supplementary to that of the public schools.
Adult courses of study in the Bible, church history, or doctrine
with a sectarian emphasis are distinctive in a different sense.
Here both the method and temper of study, as well as the particular content, are outside the area of interest that concerns
the general field of adult education. I am distinguishing in this
classification between courses of study which are pursued with a
conscious sectarian bias and the scientific study of Biblical literature and history. The latter belongs properly to the general field
and could, conceivably, be pursued outside as well as inside the
church or synagogue.
In designating the Learning for Life Program of the United
Christian Adult Movement, the social-action projects of the various Protestant and Jewish groups, and the Schools in Christian
Living sponsored by Church Federations as activities distinctive
of the church, we are not altogether accurate. As in the case of
the Catholic programs, it is not wholly correct to speak of them
as doctrinal approaches to contemporary issues. There is a minimum of doctrinal bias in them, to be sure-as much as the liberal
Christian is capable of tolerating or, shall we say, formulatingbut it is not so much their intellectual predilections as the intent
motivating the undertakings that differentiates them from the
general field of adult education. They are kinds of adult education activities which are of peculiar concern to liberal Christian
people. This differentiation is made, not to discount their importance, but to define the limits of their appeal. Here, as in the
case of the Catholic study groups and Conferences, much of the
100




content of the courses and discussions is identical or coterminous
with interests of the general field. We should probably consider
these programs like the Catholic activities, supplementary to the
general type of adult education in current social and sociological
problems. They provide adult education oriented to the concerns of the liberal Protestant churches. The term "evangelical"
is intended to designate this distinctive turn.
The inclusion of Leadership Training Courses, Pastors' Institutes, Colleges of Jewish Studies, and similar efforts under the
third group of activities distinctive of the church and the synagogue, probably needs no further explanation. The subject matter of courses, especially of some of the Pastors' Institutes, is, in
many instances, on common ground with ventures outside the
church. For example, in the average Pastors' Institute the emphasis is on mental hygiene, psychology, and sociology, especially the sociology of the family and the home. Likewise, the
Colleges of Jewish Studies approach the historical study of Jewish institutions and traditions in such a way as to make them
ethnic studies comparable to any historical or anthropological
study of religious institutions. It is not uncommon for nonJewish students of religious history and culture to enroll in these
courses. What sets this group of activities apart from the general
adult education movement then, is not in every case the content
or the method of study, but the purpose for which they are set
up. They are designed specifically to accomplish certain institutional ends and should be considered distinctive in that sense.
The adult education activities that are found to be comparable to those of the general movement are programs that have
been initiated independently by individual churches or synagogues. The conclusion toward which this observation seems to
101




point is that, in their official capacities, the churches are at
present interested in adult education in so far as it serves or
extends the spiritual or the evangelical cause of the church.
Accordingly, adult education, where it is officially promoted
through churches, must be conceived as an agency of evangelism.
Many churchmen and leaders of adult education in the churches
and synagogues have expressed themselves as being in agreement
with this observation.
Where the more general type of adult education has been
projected through churches and synagogues, however, there is
evidence of a forthright interest in education for its own sake. It
implies that education in a broad sense is an integral part of the
conception of spiritual culture. I am not unaware that some
of the programs sponsored by enterprising clergy and laymen are
frankly steps toward "promoting" the church. I have before me
a folder, announcing a particular type of program of an ambitious character, which bears the blunt statement, "A Modern
Church Attendance Stimulus." I do not feel, however, that this
emphasis has been characteristic among churches offering the
more general type of adult education. One minister remarked
that he didn't know what he would do if everyone who attended
the forums and study courses of his church decided to attend
services. "We couldn't take care of them in one auditorium," he
added.
Whatever the motive, it has been demonstrated that eminently
significant enterprises in adult education, both of the general
pattern and of the more distinctly religious type, can be developed in churches and synagogues. In saying this, I am not simply
asserting a personal judgment, but recalling what directors of
adult education councils in various cities have said. "The best
102




piece of adult education work being done in this city," one
director told me, "is the course of study conducted by the ---
Church," and he named a Catholic enterprise. In another city, a
Jewish synagogue was cited as the outstanding center of adult
education in that area. Certain Protestant programs have been
mentioned with similar distinction. If, as yet, adult education
in its more definitive sense must be appraised as a minimum interest among the churches at large, the interest, wherever it is
evident, is genuine and full of promise.


103




A Basic Issue in Adult Education


A  U LT education, when it has had an objective, has sought to
provide stimulus for the full development of the individual
as a person. When one contemplates the implications of this objective, a question arises which concerns every form of adult
education, whether conducted by churches and synagogues or
other social groups: Under what conditions is adult education
contributing to the full growth of the individual? Is it serving
that end when it provides opportunity for enlarging the individual's mental horizon, when it develops in him a capacity for
appreciation and an ability to respond or to behave as a mature
person; or can it serve that end only through a social reorientation by awakening him to the imperatives and opportunities of
human existence, impelling him with the will to live responsibly
and to fashion the social environment for a more ample life for
everyone?
From the point of view of one group of educators, the social
scene is an order of relations beyond the range of educational
activity. They believe that education is a process of developing
individuals, not of changing the social order. Education can
enable individuals to understand, and perhaps cope effectively
with, the social environment, but it can not properly enter the
field of aggressively planning or promoting social change.
104




From the opposing standpoint, no education is worth doing
unless it leads to social action. Education at its best, this view
would have it, is a creative process committed not simply to releasing the powers and capacities of individuals to live in the
world as it is, but also to fashioning an order of living'that must,
in turn, be shaped by creative personalities. Individuals and society are not two distinct and rival realities; they are the plantand-soil context of one organic scene.
If impressions are trustworthy, it would seem that, with some
exceptions, the churches tend toward the social emphasis in education. Protestantism in particular, especially as it is represented
in the United Christian Adult Movement, evinces an avowedly
official preference for socially motivated adult education. Indeed, Harry C. Munro has said that "education for social action
represents the one singular emphasis, in so far as Protestant
adult education has achieved a distinctive trend."
In the main, Jewish and Catholic educators have seemed more
attentive to the cultivation of what may be called the personal
arts than have Protestants, although any generalization of this
sort is only partially true and should not be taken too seriously.
Yet the fact that.both Judaism and Catholicism embrace a cultural heritage of such antiquity that it has had time to season,
and the counter fact that Protestant groups are still near enough
to their reactionary periods when the fruitions of this seasoned
culture were defiantly disregarded, make inevitable, on the one
hand, a certain degree of habitual inclusiveness toward such culture of the spirit in Judaism and Catholicism; and as equally
inevitable, on the other hand, a habitual disinclination toward
it in Protestantism. There is clear evidence within certain Protestant groups of an effort to recover this more inclusive cultural
105




interest. Striking examples of this tendency among Protestant
churches and Protestant churchmen could be cited, but the evangelical impulsion in Protestantism is widespread; and, as we
have said, cultural interests and the evangelical temper tend to
be mutually exclusive.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Judaism is less
committed to a social orientation of education than Protestantism. As Isaac Landman of Brooklyn has said, "The creation of a
better social order has always been the chief concern of religious
education among the Jews." Yet the social education of the Jewish synagogue is so thoroughly oriented to an inherited culture
embracing elements that go beyond the prophetic ideal that, in
so far as it expresses the faith of the synagogue, it never quite
reaches the singular and restricted zeal of the social philosophy
that is rooted in the tradition of the Hebrew social prophets.
Catholicism, too, as we have seen, promotes an active social interest in education. Yet here, again, partly as a matter of policy,
but also as a result of a conditioning growing out of its more
inclusive cultural and intellectual tradition, its social education
manifests a restraint and a deliberative character that makes it
more analytical than impassioned.
If what has been said here has some basis of fact, the conclusion would seem to be that a predominant phase of adult education being undertaken in Protestantism under official auspices
and projected as a United Christian Adult Movement is strikingly in accord with the educational objectives of adult education leaders in the general field who find the focus of education in
social change. A considerable portion of Jewish adult education,
especially as it is projected through Reformed synagogues, can
likewise be said to be sympathetic to the emphasis upon social
106




change. Within Catholicism, while the social emphasis is prevalent and in some cases intense, there is not the same degree of
official commitment or endorsement of education for social action or social change.
The tension between the individual and the social conceptions of adult education is not so marked in the churches and
the synagogues as it appears to have become in the wider educational field. It is an issue of such importance, however, that it
can not be ignored wherever adult education is undertaken
seriously.
In viewing these two conflicting philosophies critically, it is
impossible to overlook the fact that they represent different
stages of thinking upon problems of the cultural life. The one
frankly holds to the ideal of the civilized self which was defined
by Renaissance thinkers like Erasmus and other classical humanists and by the Greeks before them. It puts a premium upon
refinement of personality in taste and intellectual acumen. It
urges a selective education which shall expend the resources of
education upon persons capable of a fine flowering. The other
philosophy is essentially mass centered, and thus socially impelled. It takes its stand with post-Renaissance thinkers who
have been stirred by the social demands of the industrial era and
by opportunities for the masses which followed the dawn of the
machine age. Where the one looks to the refining discipline of
philosophy and the aesthetic life, the other turns hopefully to
the experimental venturing of the social sciences. The one has
the confidence and clarity of seasoned reflection; the other manifests the impatience and zeal of a developing, though confidently
expectant, turn of thought.
There is little likelihood of any genuine rapport between these
107




two philosophies of education within the near future. In their
present forms, the two can not be harmoniously correlated, for
the tensions, historic in origin, at present remain strong. Yet
adult education would be greatly impoverished if either ideal
were to drop away, or to become obscured by the other. Each
represents a distinctive emphasis that is defensible; and, in a
well-rounded philosophy of life, they are complementary. The
one stresses the heritage and high tide of human culture in terms
of the civilized individual, to which an intelligent people must
always aspire. The other looks toward yet unrealized possibilities of the human spirit in terms of corporate accomplishments,
to which a democratic people must also aspire.
It has been the experience of other commonwealths that when
the individual has prospered, the masses have been abused; individual growth, in turn, has suffered when standards have been
determined solely by the masses. This situation is understandable, but it is not inevitable. In democratic America, there is
some hope that we may yet find the way to encourage the complete growth of the individual and at the same time further the
well-being of the people of the nation. The church is prepared
to work steadfastly with other agencies to make this hope a
reality.


io8




Index


Adult education in churches and synagogues, 3-4, 97-103; importance
of, 23; areas of interest, 30, 33;
number and variety of projects,
92-93; relation to adult education
outside churches, 97; types conducted, 97-99; direction of, 97-103;
and general adult education movement, 101-2; evaluation of, 102-3;
objective, 104
Adult Learning, 4
Ahern, Michael J., 43
American Association for Adult Education, 4
American Baptist Publication Society, 25
American Friends Service Committee, 83-88; Institutes of International Relations, 77; Rehabilitation
Project, Fayette County, 84-88
American Institute of Sacred Literature, 4-5
American Social Hygiene Association, 67
American Unitarian Association, Department of Religious Education,
27, 28; Adult Education Committee, 28; Department of Social Relations, 77


Ancient Order of Hibernians, 30
Anshe Emet Forum (Chicago), 34
Aquinas, Thomas, 17
Bamberger (Bernard J.), Rabbi,
quoted, 44
Beth El College of Jewish Studies, 31,
70; The Temple Bulletin, 31
Beth Zion Temple (Johnstown, Pa.)
Community Forum, 34
Bible study, 4
Blumenfield, Samuel M., quoted, 31
Boston, Community Church of, Forum, 34
Bower, W. C., 78
Boynton, Percy H., 41
Brightman, Edgar S., 43
Brotherhood B'er Chayim Temple
(Cumberland, Md.), 34
Browne, Lewis, 62,63
Brunner, Edmund deS., 74
Burton, Ernest DeWitt, 5
Buss, Claude, 63
California State Office of Education,
77
Carrier, Blanche, 68
Catechumenal Schools, lo, 12


109




Catholic Association for International
Peace, 30
Catholic Church, 7, 48, 99-100; early
program, o1; education in, 11-12;
Family Life Section of Department
of Social Action, 68-69; Conferences on Industrial Problems, 80,
99
Catholic Daughters of America, 30
Catholic Information Society, 30
Catholic Order of Foresters, 30
Catholic Radical Alliance, 88-90
Catholic Unity League, 30
Catholic Worker, The, 89
Catholicism, 105-7; present trend, 17;
Neo-Thomist movement, 17-19
Cedarbaum, David I., 28, 70
Central Conference of American Rabbis, 79
Challenge of the Forum, The, 36
Chamberlin, Georgia L., 5
Character, 40
Chautauqua Institution, 5
Chautauqua Summer School, 1o
Chicago, Sunday Evening Club of, 35
Chicago, University of, 5
Chicago, W.P.A. classes, 93
Chicago Board of Education, 93
Chicago Church Federation, Schools
in Christian Living, 78
Chicago Congregational Union, Department of Research and Survey,
73
Chicago Sunday Forum, 35
Chicago Theological Seminary, 73
Child: His Nature and Needs, The,
52
Child Study Association of America,


Christian Century, The, 81
Church federations, 77-78; Schools
in Christian Living, 78, ioo
Churches and synagogues, developments of, 3; religious education in,
3; role of, 3; adult education in, 3 -4, 23; as centers for adult education, 6-7, 97-103; range of adult
education in, 30; forums in, 34-46;
study groups in, 47-7; drama, 62 -64; workers' education in, 83-93;
types of adult education in, 97-99;
interest in and evaluation of adult
education in, 102-3
Claremont (Calif.), adult education
program, 93
Claremont Community Church, 76
Cleveland, The Temple of, Fall Forum, 35
Clinchy, Russell J., 54
Coleman, George W., 36-37
College of Jewish Studies, 30-31, 45,
101
Colorado, University of, 42
Congregational Church, 26; Council
for Social Action, 75-77
Congregational Education Society,
Adult Department of, A Little
Handbook on Adult Education, 26;
Adult Education Bulletin, 26
Congregational Publishing Society,
26
Cooper Union Forum, 35, 36
Crane, Henry H., 35, 53-54
Cronbach, Abraham, 80; "The Social
Outlook of Modern Judaism," 79
Cumberland Community Forum, 34
Daughters of Isabella, 30


110




Day, David, 86
de Haas, J. Anton, 43
Denver, Adult Education Council of,
42
Denver, First Plymouth Church of,
54
Denver, Grace Community Church,
90-92; Open Forum, 35
Denver, Public Policy Forum, 42
Denver, St. John's Cathedral, 42
Denver, University of, 42
Denver, Y.M.C.A., 42
Denver, Y.W.C.A., 42
Des Moines Register, The, 81
Detroit, Central Methodist Church,
39, 54; Wednesday Evening Lecture Course, 35
Dieffenbach, Albert C., 43
Douglass, H. Paul, 74
Drama, 62,63-64
Durant, Will, 35
Einhorn, David, 13
Eliot, Thomas H., 43
Ely, Mary L., quoted, 34
Emery, Louise, 60-61
Engelbrecht, H. C., 43
Epstein, Abraham, 43
Ethical Culture Society, 28
Evanston, First Methodist Church of,
Church Night Interest Groups, 56 -59
Father Hensler, 89-90
Father Owens, 89-90
Fayette County project, 84-88
Federal Council of Churches, 67, 74,
77, 78, 83
Fifield, James W., Jr., 6i


Ford Hall Forum (Boston), 34, 35-38
Forums, 34-46
Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 63
Frank, Glenn, 35
Franklin, Leo M., 31, 70, 71
Friends (Quakers) Church, 83-88
Gideonse, Harry D., 40, 77
Gleason, George, 55-56
Golden, Clinton, 88
Greene, Shirley, Re-thinking Chicago: An Experiment in Christian
Community Building, 73
Hallenbeck, Wilbur C., "A Study of
Adult Education   Activities in
Thirty New York Churches," 32 -33, 63, 92
Harper, William Rainey, 4, 5
Haydon, A. Eustace, 41
Heard, Gerald, 77
Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church
(Minneapolis), Lecture Series, 35
Hirsch, Emil G., 13
Hofen, John, 51
Holmes, John Haynes, 35
Holt, Arthur E., 73, 75
Institute of International Relations,
Whittier (Calif.), 77
Institute of the League for Social
Service, 5
International Council of Religious
Education, 24, 67, 77
Jacobs, H. Lee, 66-67
Johnson, F. Ernest, 74
Judaism, 7, 105-7; Reformed, 13-14,
18; Creative, 14-16; Neo-orthodox,


111




Judaism, cont'd.
15; adult education, 28-29; parent
education program, 69-70
Kaplan, Mordecai M., 15; Judaism as
a Civilization, 15
Kincheloe, Samuel C., 73, 74
Knights of Columbus, 30
Kohler, Kaufmann, 13
Labor Temple (New York), 92
Landis, Benson Y., 74
Landman, Isaac, quoted, 106
Latter Day Saints, Church of the, see
Mormon Church
Laymen's Commission on Social Justice, 80
Leadership training courses, 10o
Learning for Life Program, 24-26,
67, loo
Leiffer, Murray H., 59
Loper, Vere V., 54
Los Angeles, First Congregational
Church, 55; Sunday Evening Club,
35; College of Life, 60-63
Los Angeles, First Unitarian Church
of, 56; Public Forum, 35; "The 20 -40 Club," 56
Los Angeles City Teachers Institute,
60, 62
Lurie, Ruben L., 38; quoted, 36; The
Challenge of the Forum, 36
McClusky, Howard Y., 59
Maimonides, Moses, quoted, 9
Martin, Everett Dean, quoted, 11, 35
Massachusetts State Federation of
Churches, 78


Mathews, Shailer, 5; New Faith For
Old,5
Methodist Episcopal Church, Board
of Education, 77
Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
General Board of Christian Education, 25
Miller, Lewis, 5
Modern Family and the Church,
The, 67
Mormon Church, 7, 81-82; education
in, io; Adult Department, 31-32;
Adult Course of Study, 50; study
groups, 51; Relief Society, 51, 82;
Mutual Improvement Associations,
52-53, 82
Mount   Pleasant  Congregational
Church (Washington, D.C.), Adult
School of Religion, 54
Munro, Harry C., 66, 79; quoted, 23,
24, 105
Nash, Norman B., 43
National Catholic Welfare Conference, 29-30, 49, 69; National Study
Club Committee, 49; Department
of Social Action, 8o-81
National Catholic Women's Union,
30
National Congress of Parents and
Teachers, 67
National Council of Catholic Men,
29-30
National Council of Catholic Women,
29-30
National Council of Jewish Women,
79
National Council of Parent Education, 67


112




National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, 79
Neo-Thomist movement, 17-19
New England Church (Chicago), 35
New Faith For Old, 5
New York, Y.M.C.A. of, 6
New York Institute of Accountancy,
6
Northern Baptist Convention, 25;
"Schools in Christian Living for
Local Baptist Churches," 25; National Social Service Commission,
77
Northwestern University, 35
Ogden, Jess, 83; quoted 84-88, 88-9o
O'Hara (Edwin V.), Bishop of Great
Falls, Mont., 48,69
O'Hara, Frank, 41
Organized Labor, 81
O'Shea, M. V., The Child: His Nature and Needs, 52
Parent education, 64, 66-71
Pasadena Presbyterian Church, Parents' Class, 56
Pastors' Institutes, 1o0
Pitkin, Walter B., 35
Powell, Marie Cole, 28
Presbyterian Church, 25-26; Board
of Christian Education, 26; Department of Social Education and
Action, 77
Protestant churches, 7; early program
of, lo; education in, 11-12; liberal,
16, 18
Protestant Episcopal Church, Social
Relations Department, 77


Protestantism, attitude toward adult
education, o15-6
Quakers, see Friends Church
Rabbinical Assembly of America, 79
Religion and Labor Foundation, 78 -79
Religious Education, 66-67
"Re-thinking Chicago," program, 72
Re-thinking Chicago: An Experiment in Christian Community
Building, 73
Riverside Church (New York City),
63-64,66; Guild, 63-64
Rodef Sholom Congregation (Johnstown, Pa.), 34
Rosary College, 47-49; Plan of Education for Leisure, 64-66
St. Angela's Parish, 49
St. Francis, 1
St. Francis, Third Order of, 30
San Diego Church Forum, 34
Santa Ana First Methodist Church,
55
Sargent, John Singer, 51
Schmiedeler, Edgar, 69
Schools in Christian Living, 78, loo
Schwartz, S. D., quoted, 38-39,40,41
Scranton, Elm Park Methodist Episcopal Church, Mid-Winter Institute, 35, 42, 53-54
Sinai Temple (Chicago), 38-39, 40;
Forum, 34
Sister Julie, 47-49, 64-66
Sister Vincent Ferrer, 49
Smith, Edwin S., 43
Smith, Joseph, lo


113




Smith, T. V., 35
"Social Outlook of Modern Judaism,
The," 79
Sperry, Willard L., 43
Study groups, 47-71
"Study of Adult Education Activities
in Thirty New York Churches, A"
(Hallenbeck), 32-33, 63, 92
Synagogues, early education in, 9; see
also Churches and synagogues
Talcott, Guy E., 77
Talmudic schools, g
Temple Beth El (Detroit), 31, 70
Temple Beth Emeth (Albany), Social
Justice Forum, 34,43-44
Temple Emanu-El (Providence), Forum Lectures, 35, 42-43
Temple Israel (Boston), 69-70; Open
Forum, 35, 42, 43; Institute, 43
Thomas, Norman, 35,40
Thomas More Society of Louisville,
47
Thorndike, E. L., 4; Adult Learning,
4
"Travelling  School  of   Social
Thought," 80
"20-40 Club, The" 56
Union of American Hebrew Congre

gations, 79; Commission of Synagogue Activities, 80
Unitarian Church, 27-28, 77
United Christian Adult Movement,
24-26, 105, 106; Learning for Life
Program, 24-26, ioo
Universities, church-controlled, 11
Vincent, John H., 5
Vincent, Pere, 32
Wahlberg, Edgar L., quoted, go
Ward, Frank G., 93
Western Consumers Union, 56
Whistler, James, 51
Wieman, Regina Wescott, 68; The
Modern Family and the Church,
67,70-71
Wise, Isaac M., 13
Wise, Stephen S., 13
Workers' education in churches, 83 -93
Works Progress Administration, 93;
classes in Chicago, 93
Young Men's Christian Associations,
6, 77; New York, 6
Young Women's Christian Associations, 6, 77


114




STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL
SIGNIFICANCE OF ADULT EDUCATION
IN THE UNITED STATES
A series of studies to be issued over a five-year period by the
American Association for Adult Education with the aid of
funds made available by the Carnegie Corporation of New York
PUBLISHED TITLES ON PAGE ii
IN PREPARATION
(Titles given are tentative)
17. The Agrarian Revival by Russell Lord
18. The Worker and His Education by T. R. Adam
19. Motion Pictures in Adult Education by T. R. Adam
20. Training for the Job by Frank Ernest Hill
21. Programs of Social Work and Group Work Agencies
by Gaynell Hawkins
22. The Literature of Adult Education
by Ralph A. Beals and Leon Brody
OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES
WILL BE ANNOUNCED LATER




























I