The Student 
 Young Men’s Christian 
 Association 
 
 library 
 
 STUDENT 
 
 department 
 
 international 
 
 committee. 
 
 Ii£Z 
 
 V— _ J 
 
 As it Relates to the Entire 
 
 Association Moyement^^ 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/studentmovementaOOcoul 
 
THE... 
 
 Student Movement 
 
 AS IT RELATES TO 
 
 THE ENTIRE ASSOCIATION 
 MOVEMENT 
 
 PREPARED BY 
 
 JOHN M. COULTER, PH. D. 
 
 HEAD PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 READ BEFORE THE CONFERENCE OF VOLUNTEER WORKERS IN 
 CITY, TOWN AND RAILROAD ASSOCIATIONS, LAKE 
 GENEVA, WIS., THURSDAY, JULY, IT, 1901. 
 
 CHICAGO : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SECRETARIAL INSTITUTE AND TRAINING SCHOOL OF 
 
 Young Men's Christian Associations. 
 
 August 1, 1901. 
 
It is the purpose of The Secretarial Institute and Training School 
 of Young Men’s Christian Associations to invite scholars of note and 
 Association men of large experience and ability to make extended 
 historical and critical studies of living Association themes and to pre- 
 sent the results in papers or addresses upon the platform of the Con- 
 ference of Volunteer Workers at Lake Geneva. Selected papers will 
 be published from time to time by the institution as a contribution to 
 the general investigation and discussion of themes vital to Associa- 
 tion work. 
 
 It is believed that this institution, educational in purpose, and 
 composed as it is of both volunteer and employed Association leaders 
 connected with local, state and international Association bodies, 
 is in position to furnish a platform where important questions bear- 
 ing upon the Association movement can be discussed with a freedom 
 and exhaustiveness not possible in state or international conventions. 
 It is to be understood, however, that neither this institution nor its 
 members necessarily endorse or are committed to the views expressed 
 or the positions taken in these papers or addresses. 
 
THE STUDENT MOVEMENT AS IT RELATES TO 
 THE ENTIRE ASSOCIATION MOVEMENT. 
 
 The Young Men’s Christian Association has been found to be 
 icniarkably adapted to student life. Colleges and universities are 
 peculiar and self-centered communities, which as yet hold but little 
 direct relation to the world at large. I do not mean that colleges 
 and universities are not serving the world, for their influence and 
 their usefulness are not only enormous, but increasingly so. Besides, 
 their work is coming to touch more and more intimately the general 
 human interests. What I mean is that the every day life of the 
 average college and university student is related to the college and 
 university rather than to the outside community. In consequence of 
 this, the college community has its own peculiarly intimate associa- 
 tions, which are also singularly influential. Independent judgment 
 and action may be shown by the college community in reference to 
 the judgments and regulations of the larger community outside, but 
 within itself, the judgment and behavior inherited from previous 
 generations of students are tyrannical in their claims. Nowhere does 
 precedent hold such absolute sway. In this strange community, 
 which was first developed as a thing apart by the old conflicts be- 
 tween town and gown, and which to a certain degree continues to 
 be a thing apart through force of precedent, the ordinary religious 
 methods of the churches made but little impression. It became a 
 notorious fact that nowhere, among intelligent people in a Christian 
 country, was religious life at so low an ebb as among students. Our 
 college secretaries have repeatedly given us remarkable statistics of 
 church membership in the leading colleges and universities less than 
 half a century ago, showing a condition of things that was appalling, 
 and that was a menace to the future progress of Christian work. 
 It was evident that in this particular field the usual method of 
 church propaganda was practically a failure. The agents of this 
 work were the members of the faculty, but a most unreasonable but 
 none the less effective precedent, based upon the theory that faculty 
 and students are two parties organized for mutual resistance, com- 
 pletely blocked such efforts. The fact that any large number of intel- 
 ligent people were in practical opposition to Christianity would have 
 called for special thought and effort on the part of Christians. The 
 
most serious fact, however, was that this special class of college 
 students was preparing for inevitable leadership in the larger com- 
 munity outside. They were to be not only leaders in position, but 
 chiefly leaders of sentiment. Their attitude towards Christianity 
 would have an exceedingly influential bearing upon its rate of prog- 
 ress ; and if they should carry out into their various communities, 
 from college or university, a confirmed habit of disregarding, or 
 even sneering at every Christian effort, the total result of this in- 
 fluence would be exceedingly difficult to counteract. 
 
 It was into this situation that the Young Men’s Christian Asso- 
 ciation entered. It so happened that its whole theory of work fitted 
 exactly into the college conditions. For young men to work for 
 one another is to utilize the most potent influence of the college com- 
 munity, where the words of wisdom and of authority count not at 
 all as against the words of companionship. Not only did the Asso- 
 ciation methods thrive in the college atmosphere, but they have been 
 peculiarly effective. In colleges the associations are more intimate, 
 and the influence of student upon student far greater, than is possible 
 among men outside of colleges. 
 
 For this reason, the student work has developed with amazing 
 rapidity. By means of it the college community in general has been 
 absolutely revolutionized within a few years, and college students 
 are really living in an atmosphere of Christianity, rather than in one 
 of mediaeval semi-barbarism. There seems to be something pecu- 
 liarly winning in Christianity to the college student, when presented 
 in the right way ; and the statistics to-day show that the body of 
 college students, so far from containing a smaller proportion of pro- 
 fessed Christians than any other intelligent body of people in a Chris- 
 tian country, contains a larger proportion. 
 
 And now the student work has swept in the colleges and univer- 
 sities of the old world, and we have at last a real world federation 
 in the interest of Christian work. Not only has this work increased 
 in extent, but it has devised method after method of laying hold of 
 the college community, until now the old college tripos, consisting 
 of Greek, Latin and Mathematics, has been replaced by a new tripos, 
 consisting of the Class room, the Athletic field, and the Young Men’s 
 Christian Association. 
 
 I regard this as one of the greatest recent triumphs of Chris- 
 tianity, not merely because it has won for Christ a very large com- 
 munity peculiarly entrenched and difficult to reach, but chiefly be- 
 cause it has repeated the experience of Saul of Tarsus in converting 
 a powerful influence from being a menace to Christianity to being 
 
 6 
 
an aggressive advocate of it. The possibilities of Association work 
 among students can hardly be conjectured, for its progress has been 
 a series of surprises. It is in my mind that to the Association will 
 eventually be committed all the religious activities of the college 
 community. This would be logical if it is the purpose to secure 
 results from religious activity. Further than this, many other college 
 activities will be committed to the Association officially, as the most 
 effective possible agent where individual service of students is con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Not content with the regeneration of college communities, the 
 spirit of trained and consecrated young manhood has demanded a 
 place for work in the regeneration of the heathen world. This call 
 has awakened in them almost the same insistent desire to conquer for 
 Christ as did the various calls to the crusades in the young men of 
 hundreds of years ago ; and no one dares to predict the possibilities 
 of this wonderful volunteer movement. It is one of the marvels of 
 to-day, and one of the many indications that the world is to be con- 
 quered for Christ. 
 
 I am glad to make this statement as to the value, purpose and 
 possibilities of the student movement, especially since I wish to call 
 attention to a danger connected with it, and a consequent weakness. 
 
 The danger is, that the large and varied and peculiar activities 
 of the student work may lead to a forgetfulness of the fact that the 
 student department is but a part of the broader and larger Associa- 
 tion brotherhood. This is a common tendency of specialization, 
 which if unguarded puts a man at the bottom of his own particular 
 well, where he imagines that his own patch of blue sky is all there 
 is for him to see. Trained men must stand on mountain tops, where 
 the horizon is wide, and where one’s own work is seen to fall into 
 proper relations with other work. The effects of over-specialization 
 are nowhere more apparent than in the faculties of universities, and 
 the ear-marks of an extreme specialist are getting to be well known. 
 The most important is that his neglect of everything that does not 
 pertain to his own special work is absolute and complete. Ignorance 
 even of closely related fields is carefully cultivated, on the plea that 
 any diversion consumes time and energy which belong to the special 
 work. As for the world of knowledge in general, it is as foreign 
 as though its records were written in Chinese. Certain inevitable 
 consequences are observed. With vision focused upon some narrow 
 field, all perspective vanishes, and a single object fills the whole hor- 
 izon. This distorted vision grossly exaggerates a single subject, 
 and there is no conception of relationship. 
 
 7 
 
Such a specialist is inevitably narrow, and has shut himself off 
 from that kind of contact with his fellows and with the world at 
 large which would not only enable him to make his knowledge 
 effective, but which would certainly react upon him in the way of 
 intellectual breadth. Whenever I see such men, with only a single 
 point of contact with the world, I am reminded of men with single 
 senses. A man whose only contact with the world of sensation is 
 through hearing may become wonderfully acute in the recognition 
 of sound, with all its modifications of pitch and tone and direction ; 
 but with no contact through sight, smell, touch, taste, what strangely 
 distorted conceptions he must get. In my own particular science, 
 while the day of extreme specialization is still with us in ever in- 
 creasing intensity, a next stage has been reached which demands that 
 a specialist shall adjust his subject to its relations. The specialist 
 who has no regard for the larger subject of which his own is but a 
 part is looked upon now more as a curiosity than as a real member 
 of the working force of his particular science. 
 
 I fear that students, surrounded by an atmosphere of specializa- 
 tion, are tempted to specialize narrowly in student work, to the entire 
 neglect of the larger Association movement of which they are a part. 
 This failure to relate oneself to the whole scheme of which he may 
 be a part is weakness in other spheres of responsible activity, and I 
 see no reason to believe that its result is different in the Student 
 Department of the Association. 
 
 From my own observation, as chairman of the committee which 
 has to do with the student work of Illinois, I think I shall venture 
 further. This natural tendency to specialize in an atmosphere of 
 specialization is intensified in the student work for two reasons. The 
 first is the fact that the student field is so peculiar in many ways 
 that it must be cultivated in ways peculiar to itself. This increases 
 the impression that there is nothing in the Association work at large 
 which may be of service in the student work. It may be that details 
 are not to be suggested by the general work of the Association, but 
 I very much doubt even this. I cannot conceive of several depart- 
 ments doing the same type of Christian work which are not neces- 
 sarily full of suggestiveness to one another. A student, a railroad 
 man and a clerk may belong to very different categories, and may 
 present very different avenues of approach, but the principle of skill- 
 ful approach is common to all. It is just here that very many would- 
 be teachers fail. They seek for rules of teaching and apply them in 
 wooden fashion ; while what they need to discover is some under- 
 lying principle which may be adapted to the greatest variety of con- 
 
 8 
 
ditions. As a teacher of botany, I am as likely to get valuable sug- 
 gestions from a good teacher of Latin as from another teacher of 
 botany. In the same way, a student worker is as likely to get valua- 
 ble suggestions from a good railroad worker as from another student 
 worker. 
 
 The other influence which intensifies the tendency of the student 
 worker to specialize in narrow fashion is the attitude of student 
 secretaries of the International Committee. I wish to speak of this 
 very freely and frankly, for I feel that with these secretaries rests 
 largely the responsibility of the attitude of students towards the gen- 
 eral work of the Association. I do not believe that they are really 
 conscious of the presence and danger of this tendency, or they would 
 be doing something to check it. I have not been able to discover 
 any such attempt; but on the contrary I have found much to en- 
 courage the tendency. I very seldom hear of meetings of students, 
 arranged for in connection with general conventions, which are at 
 all well attended. Even when they are, there is a constant tendency 
 to divorce the student part of the proceedings from every other part. 
 This very conference is an illustration. Here is represented city, 
 town and railroad work, but where are the students ? They had 
 their own separate conference two weeks ago. I should have counted 
 it a privilege to have presented both of my papers to them as well as 
 to you. I recognize the necessity of special conferences, and perhaps 
 my illustration from the Lake Geneva conferences is not a happy 
 one ; but I am urging that these shall not be arranged to the exclu- 
 sion of general conferences, where the whole great movement of 
 the Association shall be discussed, and each department of work may 
 be made to feel that it is but part of a far greater whole. 
 
 I would press it upon the Student Department that it is not mere- 
 ly sufficient to enter into an arrangement for general conferences ; 
 but the importance of attendance at these conferences should be 
 urged with all the zeal that marks the “working up” of a student 
 conference. So desirable is this wider grasp upon Association work 
 that I have often thought definite arrangement should be made by 
 every College Association to study the history and progress of the 
 whole Association movement. There are handbooks and there are 
 representatives of every department of work always available; and 
 such an education would mean grasp, and inspiration, and continuity 
 of interest. 
 
 This unnatural divorce of the student work from the general 
 work, and its consequent high specialization, segregates the student 
 body from the other local interests of the Association which should 
 
 9 
 
touch them. I have recognized for some time that State Com- 
 mittees, Metropolitan Associations and other local Associations 
 find it difficult to be of any real service in developing the col- 
 lege organizations with which they are naturally associated. There 
 seems to be no common bond of interest which can draw them to- 
 gether in mutual helpfulness. There can never be such a common 
 bond except as it is developed by a knowledge of one another. My 
 own personal observation has assured me that for some reason it is 
 the college man who has been taught to feel that he can neither 
 get help from the other departments of work, nor give it to them. 
 
 It is for this reason I suggest that perhaps a large measure of 
 responsibility rests with the leaders of student work to correct this. 
 The arrangement for the attendance of students at general conven- 
 tions, for their study of Association history and movements as a 
 whole, for their recognition of all contiguous associations of all 
 branches as a part and parcel of their own work, to whom they are 
 to give, and from whom they are to receive friendly service ; all these 
 things are easily provided for. 
 
 I have pointed out the danger of over-specialization in student 
 work. It remains to call attention to the points of weakness which 
 inevitably follow. 
 
 The first has been implied already and will be treated briefly. 
 Too narrow specialization results in less effective men. I do not 
 mean men who are effective in a general way, for that is self-evident ; 
 but men who are effective in their own special line. In other words, 
 a student worker, who knows somewhat of the general Association of 
 which his special field is a constituent part, is a more effective stu- 
 dent worker. If this be true, a knowledge of other Association work 
 becomes a matter of self-interest to the student worker. This result 
 follows for several reasons. In the first place, one is always a 
 broader man who has grasped large relationships. It gives him a 
 greater freedom of judgment and a truer perspective than can come 
 from a restricted survey. In the second place, a knowledge of the 
 whole Association movement brings a sense of power. To be a part 
 of such an all-sweeping movement inspires confidence. A man who 
 knows the Association as a whole will never speak the word of dis- 
 couragement, or regard any situation as so peculiar that it precludes 
 successful effort. I have been amazed, time and again, by the com- 
 plete ignorance of members, and even officers of college associations, 
 of the tremendous power and dignity of the Association movement as 
 a whole. It is as though they were citizens of some little hamlet, 
 plodding along in lonely fashion, with no conception of the extent 
 
 10 
 
and power of the great commonwealth which upholds and is ready 
 to aid and to protect them. 
 
 In the third place, contact with the larger work brings larger 
 contact with men of inspiration and power. To multiply such con- 
 tacts is like repeatedly tapping reservoirs of energy. It is person- 
 ality which inspires, and the consecration, the zeal, the confidence 
 that are in abundant evidence at every general convention, are full 
 of invigoration and renewed purpose to the student worker, even 
 if not a word about student work has been uttered. In the fourth 
 place, and even more specifically, the student worker who is a stu- 
 dent of the whole work has at command the whole experience of 
 a great and varied history. He sees how the work has been adapted 
 to every possible situation and to every possible condition of men. 
 His own problems are clearer, and his knowledge is a storehouse 
 of suggestions as to their probable solution. 
 
 Such direct advantages to the student work in the better equip- 
 ment of its workers might be multiplied, but enough has been said 
 to indicate that any tendency toward a narrow specialization, which 
 is indifferent to the larger movement to the point of ignorance, 
 dwarfs rather than enlarges men for their own special work. 
 
 The second point of weakness in the student work, which comes 
 from a failure to cultivate the broader relations of Association work, 
 is the fact that so few college men, even the leaders of student asso- 
 ciations, are found active and prominent in city Association work 
 after leaving college. I would regard this as the greatest weakness 
 of the student movement to-day, a weakness which must attract 
 attention until some remedy has been found to abolish it. This sit- 
 uation is really a serious one, and indicates some grave defect in 
 student training. The Association life in college, in the experience of 
 any man, should be an introduction to Association life out of college. 
 The strongest, most aggressive, and best trained men in city work 
 should be the yearly recruits from colleges and universities. On 
 the other hand, the indifference of college men to Association work 
 after leaving college is to throw the weight of their influence against 
 it. Such a result would be impossible were the college man, during 
 his Association life in college, properly trained in the general Asso- 
 ciation movements. Knowing only college men and leaders of college 
 work, having attended only conventions of college men, having had 
 his attention persistently called only to the student work, it is per- 
 fectly natural for him. when his college life has ended, to think that 
 his Association life has ended as well. Association life outside of 
 college he knows nothing about, and his Association experience is 
 
 11 
 
identified with all other college experiences, to be called up as a mem- 
 ory rather than as a present privilege and duty. In developing the 
 great movement that is to train and send men to the heathen, it 
 would be wise not to forget the development and training of men 
 who will go into the various departments of home work as volunteer 
 laborers. I do not see why every college Association should not be 
 made a center for developing in its members a strong desire, born 
 of knowledge, to take up whatever phase of Association work pre- 
 sents itself to them after their college experience. As was said in 
 the outset, these men are to be leaders in their various communities, 
 and they are in a position to do more than any other set of men in 
 influencing public sentiment in favor of the Association. 
 
 I must confess to a great surprise when I discovered the fact 
 that college Association men in general drop active Association con- 
 nections when they leave college. I had been taking it for granted 
 that they are prominent in the Association activities of cities and 
 elsewhere. In fact, I have long been arguing in favor of the devel- 
 opment of college Associations because they furnish a perennial sup- 
 ply of strong and leading men for the other departments of work. I 
 have met men who appreciate fully the great work done by the other 
 departments of the Association, but who cannot be convinced of the 
 advantage of the organization in colleges. I have been in the habit 
 of meeting them with the statement that it is the college work that 
 is supplying trained and influential men for the other work. I am 
 shocked and chagrined at the falsity of my claim. This thing cannot 
 continue to be, because it is not natural. It is certainly contrary to 
 what I have regarded as the natural order of things. When one 
 remembers that college experience is but an ephemeral stage in the 
 life of a man, to make Association contact of such a character that 
 it is as ephemeral as the college experience is a condition of things 
 that must not continue. I cannot argue for college Association work 
 on any such basis. 
 
 It may be claimed that college Association men identify themselves 
 with other forms of Christian activity when they leave college, and 
 that their Association experience in college after all has given them 
 a permanent stimulus to Christian work. This is undoubtedly true 
 to a certain extent, but the large abandonment of the Young Men’s 
 Christian Association as one very effective means of Christian effort 
 can only be explained by the fact that during the college experience 
 no interest has been aroused in Association work in general. If col- 
 lege men were interested in it, they would seek it wherever they hap- 
 pen to be. 
 
 12 
 
It is inconceivable that the larger work is not adapted to interest 
 college men, for it is known to appeal to them strongly when properly 
 presented. This suggests the still further weakness that not enough 
 college men enter Association work as a profession. The importance 
 and the dignity of such a life work has not been sufficiently presented 
 to them ; and yet there are scores of strong college men among the 
 graduates of every year who should become identified with various 
 departments of the Association. 
 
 My thesis, therefore, is as follows The student movement is 
 wonderful in its successful adaptation to the student community. 
 Beginning with a most unpromising situation, its progress and the 
 completeness of its conquests have been unsurpassed in the history 
 of Christian movements. Its leaders have been men of exceptional 
 zeal and power. Not only has it revolutionized college life and en- 
 tirely changed the college atmosphere, but in its volunteer movement 
 it has inaugurated a missionary effort which is a constant surprise 
 in the numbers and in the consecration of the lives which are gladly 
 offered for difficult and often dangerous service. In the midst of 
 this great success and of this great promise for even a larger future, 
 there is danger of neglecting a duty close at hand. This duty is to 
 remember that all this great movement is but a constituent part of 
 a still greater movement, all of whose parts must be bound together 
 in common interest and loyalty. As distinct and as varied and as 
 extensive as the student movement may ever become, it can never 
 afford to divorce itself even in spirit from the greater movement, 
 any more than a branch can afford to divorce itself from the vine. 
 A constant separation of college interests from other Association in- 
 terests tends to an unfortunately narrow specialization, which so far 
 from increasing power really diminishes it. Specialization which 
 means an increase of available knowledge is always to be encouraged, 
 but specialization which means merely a narrowed vision is always 
 weakness. The evidence seems clear that the student work is in dan- 
 ger of being so specialized, and every effort must be made to avoid 
 it. The only effective method is for the leaders of the student move- 
 ment to adopt a policy in reference to the general Association, which 
 will in no way check their activities, but which will strengthen the 
 student Associations themselves, and be of great service to the whole 
 Association. This policy, briefly stated, is to urge the attendance of 
 students upon general conventions, to impress upon them the great 
 importance of some general knowledge of Association work, to make 
 this knowledge available through proper literature and representa- 
 tive men, to train them, so far as possible, for the broader activities 
 
 13 
 
of Association work, and to make it clear that beyond the few years 
 of college experience there lie the multiform activities of the larger 
 Association life, in which their training has fitted them to take a 
 prominent part. 
 
 It is my belief that this policy, vigorously pressed, will speedily 
 result in at least the following things : 
 
 1. A broader-minded, wiser, and more zealous set of men in the 
 college associations. 
 
 2. An increased interest in college associations by students and 
 by the friends of students. 
 
 3. A stimulus to the general activities of the Association by the 
 annual influx of trained and influential college men as volunteer 
 workers. 
 
 4. The presence of more college men on the professional staff of 
 the Association. 
 
 What I am exceedingly anxious for is an increasing unification 
 of our whole work, rather than a practical disruption through ex- 
 treme specialization. Each department of work is like an organ of 
 the body, adapted to some particular service, but none the less inti- 
 mately related to all the other organs. It must not be supposed that 
 I am deploring specialization. On the contrary, it is always an indi- 
 cation of great progress, and specialization in our work will become 
 increasingly pronounced. What I desire for the Association is all 
 the benefits and none of the dangers of specialization. We are a 
 brotherhood, serving different constituencies, but bound intimately 
 together in common interest and purpose. We are to shun the faint- 
 est indication of indifference to one another’s work, or the slightest 
 tendency to magnify our own at the expense of another. It is always 
 interesting to me to hear our zealous secretaries present their own 
 fields. To them their own facts are naturally the most important 
 facts, and they are swept along by a tide of feeling in regard to them 
 until they kindle within us a glow of enthusiasm. This is right, 
 for every good thing in turn should so kindle our enthusiasm as to 
 appear the most important. How many enthusiasms have been kin- 
 dled in you by the presentation of different causes? I believe in suc- 
 cessive enthusiasms. What I do not believe in is the single enthu- 
 siasm which distorts vision and diminishes power. My plea for the 
 student Associations, therefore, is that they be not made up of mem- 
 bers with a single enthusiasm, but that successive and different en- 
 thusiasms shall result in a broad and steady glow of interest in the 
 whole Association movement. 
 
 14