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FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER

EDITORS: R. BARCLAY SPICER, LYDIA H. HALL, RACHEL W. HILLBORN, ELIZABETH LLOYD, ELIZABETH POWELL BOND. BUSINESS MANAGER: CHARLES F. JENKINS.

News items, for insertion the same week, must reach us not later than Third-day morning; longer articles as much earlier than that as possible.

Address all correspondence to N. W. Corner Fifteenth and Cherry Streets, Philadelphia.

PHILADELPHIA, THIRD MONTH 14, 1908.

OUR NEED OF PASTORAL WORK. One of the results of our steadfast adherence to our testimony in favor of a free gospel ministry is that nearly all our meetings are suffering from lack of pastoral care. By this is meant the kind of care that a minister in other denominations than our own is expected to give to the people of his congregation entirely aside from preaching to them. No one who reads this should have any feeling of alarm that because we are beginning to realize our need we are drifting toward a paid ministry. It is very seldom that one man is both a good preacher and a good shepherd. Have we not again and again heard members of another religious society, when they used to change preachers every two or three yearss, ay something like this: "The minister we have now is very good about visiting families but he is tiresome to listen to; we do hope they will send us somebody who can preach next time:" or, "Our minister is a good preacher but he spends too much time in his study; we want somebody next year who will make friends of the people."

It is entirely possible for our meetings, without in the least changing the nature of our ministry, to do effective pastoral work. A letter recently received from a small but growing meeting tells us how this is being done in one locality. It says: "We have one person who keeps a mental record of attendance on First-days and when she gets home she puts the record on paper. If anybody misses three consecutive First-days that person must be looked up. We have also gotten a list of names from various sources [of Friends living in the vicinity] and the secretary, if I may call her such, allots these names. On First-day morning she will ask me to look up some one particular person. I am given as much time as I want and can use any method I choose, but that is my definite work. Then I make my report to her and she keeps the record. The secret of success seems to

be to have a competent secretary who will keep the record carefully and use judgment in the assignment of work. Under this system the busiest person can find time to do one particular thing, and when the sum of these trifles is brought together we find a great deal of work has been done. Now for results. We find that since the first of the year twenty-eight people have been coming. They come long distances and husband and wife take week about [when there are children.] I believe not one of those twenty-eight has missed three consecutive days. Then there are about ten others whom we know of and they constitute our field for work."

Is there anything in this plan that could not be carried out in every small meeting? First, a committee might get a list of all the members living near enough to make it possible for them to attend meeting more or less regularly. Next a list might be made of all people near the meeting who do not go to any other place of worship. Then a good secretary or perhaps a judicious committee of three could be appointed. On First-day morning after meeting several of those in attendance that day might each have some person or family assigned him to visit in a friendly way, with the hope that through such visiting they would become interested in the meeting. This would have two good results: all of the families that ought to be visited, but are not when the visiting is left for any one who may feel a concern, would be looked after; and many who are now but indifferent attenders at meeting would begin to have a feeling of responsibility as soon as some definite upbuilding work was given them to do. Then if those who absented themselves for three successive weeks were visited or written to they would conclude that it made a difference to others besides themselves whether they went to meeting or stayed at home and their attendance would become more regular.

In larger meetings it is not quite so easy to take note of who are present and who are absent, but if a good-sized committee were appointed simply to keep a record of attendance, the members might be divided into groups and each member of the committee make it his business after meeting to see how many of his group were present that day. In this way systematic work could be done, each member might have something definite to do, and no one would feel burdened. No two meetings would go about this work in exactly the same way, but wherever there is in a meeting a handful of earnest Friends they may get together and begin. It does not require the consent of the Monthly Meeting for one Friend to visit another. Such visits may be paid as the concern arises, and

no one need be called upon to pay visits who is not willing to be used in this way. The essential thing is that wherever there are a few earnest members in a meeting they may get together and do something to promote that meeting's growth.

SPORT AND EDUCATION.

Speaking as one not born in the Society of Friends, but drawn into fellowship with them through admiration of their high moral and religious ideals, and speaking also as an instructor of youth with many years' experience, I feel constrained to express the hope that Swarthmore College will accept the Anna T. Jeanes bequest. I have all respect for those who in full sincerity argue against acceptance substantially on the ground that if the gift were taken on the prescribed conditions it would seem as if the authorities of the College could be bribed and its moral ideals purchased by money. Yet this view of the matter seems to be altogether wrong. Why not look at it in this light: Anna T. Jeanes had a profound sense of the benefits to be gained by our youth from higher education when properly safeguarded. She had an equally profound conviction that some at least of these benefits are lost to many students because of the distractions produced by an undue interest in sports, and she further believed that the interest might be kept within due bounds if the excitement arising from inter-collegiate contests could be eliminated.

Now it cannot be maintained that these opinions are absurd and unreasonable. All thoughtful, experienced teachers who have not themselves been inoculated with the sport virus, and such teachers, I believe, constitute an immense majority, and all other serious-minded persons interested in education and observant of recent developments and tendencies in our colleges and secondary schools will agree with the Jeanes opinion that sport has been carried too far, much too far in the case of many students. They do not put first things first, nor even second things. Their most active thought and their deepest feeling are not spent in the matters that will best promote their moral and intellectual betterment but rather in ministering to a pampered and somewhat morbid appetite for physical and emotional excitements.

If then holding such reasonable and incontrovertible opinions regarding the demoralizing influence of sports indulged in to excess, and wishing to call attention to that excessive indulgence and to check it as far as was possible to her, Anna T. Jeanes offers an endowment conditioned by the application of such a check, then the trustees of Swarthmore should gladly accept the grant and be

grateful to the person who called their attention thus forcibly to an evil the seriousness of which they had not hitherto realized.

There are, of course, additional arguments in favor of acceptance of the bequest. If refused, the refusal will be solely in the supposed interests of the men students, and indeed of only a minority of them, and the equally important interests of the women students will be sacrificed. Moreover, if the gift is accepted it may be handled so as not only to give a better education to the students who will attend Swarthmore in any case, but also by reducing the fees to make it possible for at least some to attend the college who otherwise would not be able to do so.

The Society of Friends have hitherto upheld the highest ideals in education and if this bequest is refused, I am sure that the general high estimate of Quaker character and judgment will fall greatly and the moral sense of a discriminating public will be irreparably shocked. Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

ANDREW STEVENSON.

AN ETHICAL QUESTION.

It has been urged that the managers of Swarthmore College should accept the Jeanes bequest provided the amount is sufficiently great. Those who take this view of the question believe that if intercollegiate athletics can be superseded by something more substantially beneficial, they should be abolished. This seems a very rational line of argument; for undoubtedly, with intercollegiate athletics as they are conducted at the present time, in one balance and the Jeanes bequest in the other balance, the latter would prevail, in point of usefulness from a moral and intellectual standpoint, and possibly from a financial standpoint as well.

cial standpoint as well. But the question does not end here, nor indeed does it begin here. In fact, this is not the crucial question that keeps coming to the front through all this discussion. The question is: Is it right for the managers of Swarthmore College to abolish intercollegiate athletics for a sum of money, however large? It is easy to believe it right if we consider only the great advantages to be derived from such a fund. But we must look beyond the material advantages and decide what is best for Swarthmore's future standing among colleges and universities from an ethical standpoint. Nothing is lost where a moral prestige is maintained. I would favor first the refusal of the Jeanes bequest. Then let the managers of Swarthmore College settle the question of intercollegiate athletics upon its own merits. The loss of the benefit that would accrue from this bequest is small in comparison to the loss of moral integrity that would be suffered in

accepting it. On the other hand the gain in moral power and influence would be so great that the smaller loss of this well-meant bequest would soon be forgotten. The power of money is fast nearing its limit in this great country. I think we all deplore this power, and when it reaches the point of forcing a Friends' College to change its policy for all time, it is well to pause and consider. The value of money is unquestioned; but it should be restricted to its proper uses and never be placed in the form of a bribe to subserve or corrupt the natural intuitions. It has been said that "Swarthmore is already bound." If this is the case, let her managers be cautious how they bind her in the future. No educational institution can afford to bind itself to any permanent policy. It is better to be free to do wrong than to be bound to do right. This is God's gift to us: the freedom to choose between right and wrong. No growth is possible without this freedom of choice, not only to-day but to-morrow. How then can we of to-day choose what is right for those who come after us to-morrow?

Cynwyd, Pa.

LUCY PRICE MACINTIRE, Class of 1876.

A LOVER OF FOOTBALL.

In suggesting to the President and Board of Managers of Swarthmore College the possible desirability of the acceptance of the Jeanes Fund, provided it be large, I wish to class myself as a lover of athletics. I am not to be classed with that rheumatic or otherwise unsympathetic group of persons who believe that even football is of necessity a barbarity. I know it looks somewhat that way. I do not to this day exactly understand just how ten or fifteen of us can pile up so indiscriminately and so harmlessly as we do in a football scrimmage but I do know it to be a fact, for I have been joyfully through it many, many times and at this day the very feel of a football starts my blood and muscles as do those of a wellbred colt when given new liberty on a clear frosty morning. Nor am I a stranger to the youths' desire for the athletic medal. I have yearned for it with a yearning compared to which the wishes of maturer manhood are pale sentiments, and I have like many others, trained and striven and staggered across the finishing mark black in the face from the severity of the effort-nor am I repentant or ashamed. A college course taken one year at a time never gave me a chance to really be an athlete if I could, but, thirteen years after my first college classmates went forth, I still like to play.

In accepting the Jeanes Fund, athletics remain, only the intercollegiate contest goes. The real thing yet remains-with added emphasis upon its

real quality, sport for sport's sake. The games are reserved to all lovers of games, who can go forth and play without being brushed aside by the absorbing requirements of the first teams.

I appreciate the fact that this change will require that the vague but valuable thing called college spirit will have to be largely promoted on some other plane.

As to expediency-the seller of a particular commodity rejoices if he can establish the fact that his article is different from that of his twenty-five competitors. "Beware of imitations," he cries. The twenty five college presidents advise the refusal of the fund. Their colleges all have the intercollegiate contest, they all go forth into the field alike. Here is Swarthmore's chance to be the one different college, to appeal to that large and select clientele the country over, of Quakers and people like them, who could choose the college because of emphasis upon scholarship and moral training rather than athletic contests. Swarthmore has had somewhere between one hundred thousand and a quarter of a million dollars worth of gratuitious advertising. Tens of thousands of interested people await your decision. If the money is refused, this advertising becomes a blow and Swarthmore drops into the class of the twenty-five struggling contest colleges and shorn of many friends, with few if any new ones created. If the money is taken, the college becomes the one different college, and the fact is, free of charge, paraded before the eyes of millions of interested readers, hosts of whom had never heard of the college until this question arose and fixed their interest.

Your freedom will be hampered by a dead benefactor. True, but who has freedom? Colleges are always bound by the actual and hoped for benefactors of the present. Within a few years we have seen spectacular instances of college presidents and professors removed from their places because of their having given offense to the financially powerful friends of the institutions and the number who inconspicuously go for this reason is surprisingly great. I have been asked by influential Friends if a Swarthmore professor could openly oppose the acceptance of the Jeanes fund and keep his position.

The present desirability of using the fund appears to have been admitted by President Swain in a recent publication. Might it not be safe therefore to go ahead in full faith that if the contests are later discovered to be really worth two or three millions, the millions will come. Our Society is going to have constantly several members who could individually give that amount and never miss it except as a result of mathematical

calculation. Further, the payment of the Jeanes Fund if necessary, will almost inevitably be in a depreciated currency and therefore easier to get. Such a result is now generally conceded as the consequence of our enormous and increasing gold production and the consequent cheapening of money. The future million will be a comparatively small thing. Is therefore, the freedom so permanently jeopardized?

Dr. T. A. Jenkins in his excellent letter in the Intelligencer of the 29th points out that the real advantage of athletics is "to come through a closer co-ordination of college teaching with athletic activities." Does not the intercollegiate contest hinder rather than help this? He further says "If it be the aim of Friends' schools to build strenuously a high standard of conduct and character, it is evident that they cannot countenance for a moment conditions which cause deterioration of character and conduct, even where it is a question of only a single student." Such deterioration occurs, he further states, when a young man has college expenses paid or aid given primarily because he is a good athlete and will play. That is a sweeping condemnation for an established custom. The willingness of financially

able alumni to send young men to college on these terms is very wide-spread, and there is certainly no reason to think that Swarthmore differs from others in this respect, and I have been vehemently informed by faculty supporters of your college athletics that it was something over which the faculty had no power whatever except to make the student so sent keep good class standing. That seems to be sound reasoning.

It seems therefore, that even Dr. Jenkins' premises might suggest the desirability of the fund's acceptance, which I hope may come to pass. University of Pennsylvania. J. RUSSELL SMITH.

FROM AN OHIO FRIEND.

In Intelligencer for Second month 15th, 1908, Elizabeth B. Passmore expresses so decidedly my own views and that of other Friends whom I know, in what she says in favor of accepting the Anna T. Jeanes bequest to Swarthmore College, and also against intercollegiate football being encouraged by a Friends' College, that in these few words I wish to bear my testimony upon the subject in question. I have held aloof, hoping I would be excused from any expression, on this very important matter. In this way I will not take much space in the good and helpful Intelligencer. I read every one carefully with interest and profit.

St. Clairsville, O.

JANE EDGERTON.

If the Trustees of Swarthmore College had the training I had in one particular there would per

haps never have been ball games there instituted. When a boy my father even objected to me carrying a rubber or yarn ball in my pocket, and as he passed the school house at recess or noon-spell on his way to mid-week meeting and caught me in a game of "long town" or "corner ball," it was one excuse to pick me up and take me with him. Sterling, Ill. GEO. D. JOHN.

I wish to add my sanction to the sentiments expressed by Elizabeth B. Passmore in the Intelligencer of the 15th inst. in regard to the Jeanes bequest to Swarthmore College.

Remembering as I do, the zeal and earnestness of the Friends with whom the project originated of establishing an institution of learning where their children could be instructed in the higher branches of a liberal education, without being deprived of the guarded care which Friends' schools were believed to furnish, and how faithfully they labored in the cause; and how their efforts were seconded, not only by those with abundant means, but by many who had little to spare, yet gave according to their means, that it might be made possible to lay the foundation for what they

hoped to see develop into a noble seat of learning.

From that time to this it has been an effort to secure sufficient funds for the constant and growing needs of the College; and it would seem like losing a grand opportunity for placing the institumuch-needed bequest. tion on a sound financial basis, to reject this ANN B. BRANSON.

Clear Brook, Va.

It is now pretty well accepted that it is the football feature of athletic sports that is the objectionable feature aimed at in the A. T. Jeanes bequest to Swarthmore College. It has not of course, been made plain whether or not that was the particular feature the testator had in mind, but the fact is that the consciences of all who have become interested and entered upon the discussion accepted that as the worst feature about it. I am glad the matter has been so thoroughly considered and discussed. It has proved to be a wonderful object lesson on the state of society and the tendencies that are so necessary to be observed to keep a healthful balance. keep a healthful balance. I can but think that the management of Swarthmore, whose duty it will be to render a decision is also glad, and I hope the members will have ample time to see and feel their way very clearly.

When I read the full text of the will of A. T. Jeanes as published in the Intelligencer sometime ago I experienced quite a feeling of sadness, a regret that the possessor and donor of such enormous wealth should first become known to Friends in general and the public at large, through this

possession so exclusively; a regret that some thought and active effort of her life had not shone out with manifest clearness to the world, and especially to Friends during her life time, rather than that the possession of such vast wealth should be the first thing to attract the attention of an easily excitable multitude.

If it could have been known that she was well acquainted with the subject she by this act spoke so decidedly upon; if it could have been known that by her own honest efforts this vast accumulation of property had come to her disposal; that somewhat of her own fiber was somehow worked into this ponderous cudgel with which she was wont to brush away an idol of a small but robust element; if she could have beforehand awakened the thought of this particularly affected portion of vigorous college life, and by the power of a clear, strong, womanly, persuasion led them to consider: that while all great men were in a very true sense great animals, that all great animals were not great men; that while it is most essential and of great importance that a good physical structure must not be lost sight of, and good health maintained by a baptism of the divine elements-sunshine and pure fresh air with much exercise, though only to the limit of where waste takes the place of building and rebuilding; because at this point the moral fiber is weakened and healthy moderation is not longer in command, and the man ceases to be master of the situation, the animal predominates; and the field-collegewhere it is the ostensible purpose to domesticate and to civilize this portion of animal creation the rising and succeeding generations by an equal development and training of all the nobler qualities of brain and mind is turned into a gladiatorial arena; if this educational process had been begun and carried to what seems the present stage of awakening and its logical result-enlightenment, the Society, and College might have been spared this shadow over Swarthmore; namely: to stand for the moment in support of one of the most

Let the College take the money and let the students keep their athletics. students keep their athletics. Why all this interminable discussion about so simple a matter! There certainly are enough lawyers on the Board of Managers to fix up a business-like and satisfactory solution to fill all legal requirements and give all parties what they want.

The way to do it is this. Let the managers take the money and make the college fine. Let the students form the students form the Swarthmore Borough Athletic Club. They might even make college training a requisite for admission. Any college in the country would be glad to engage in athletic contests with this gentlemen's club. The faculty might prohibit students from joining the club unless they were in good academic standing. By identically this means the cramping and restricting laws of the states are made harmless and the railroads, through their affiliated corporations, build up the splendid systems of which America boasts. In the ownership and profits of these railroads and their operations, the college, its trustees, its patrons and its friends freely participate through the holding of bonds and stocks. The same methods that work so successfully with their investments will work well with their college and solve a perplexing dilemma.

STUDENT OF Law.

Judging by the letters published in this paper, the reports of official action of some of the meetit is apparent that those who advocate the acceptings and the opinions that are privately expressed, ance of the splendid gift of Anna T. Jeanes have numbers as well. not only the best of the argument, but the best of

May those who have the duty of finally disposing of this important matter be so guided that Swarthmore may stand more firmly than ever upon the foundations laid so well for it by the worthy men and women who brought it into existence and go forward faithfully and loyally performing its important mission, ever worthy of the

brutal sports (as the writer has seen it practiced) pride and affection of our Society.

of any age or time. Thus, I wish we could have
known that this benefactress had considered and
grasped the situation thoroughly, and have ac-
knowledged the importance of some
of some athletic
sports, even if some intercollegiate games had
supplemented other intercollegiate exercises and
contests; it could be now seen perhaps more
readily just what was to outweigh this vast sum
of money, and the matter might have been left
with those over zealous athletes to decide as did
George Fox with William Penn as to when the
latter should leave off the wearing of his sword.
Maplewood Farm, Ind.

F. E. S.

Philadelphia, Pa.

YARDLEY T. BROWN.

"The Bible is full of the doings of men who have reached up to God just as we have to do, but it is more than this: it is a record of God's reaching down to lift man up and thus covers the whole stretch of religious experience. Our religious life-and our whole life-is a continued process of God's reaching down, and man's reaching up. If in the Bible we have a record of this, the Bible is a valuable study book in our training for the religious life."

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