Why Not Religion?

At Columbia University's fifth annual Conference on Religion last week. Economics Professor William A. Orton of Smith College spoke a mighty mouthful. Said he:

"I am not interested in courses about religion. I do not approve of courses about religion, to which only the few professionally interested students go and learn about religion. Every course is a course in religion, or should be, and any student is a student of religion whether he knows it or not. . . .

"The student comes to college with little or no knowledge of the Bible or of theology. He is, oftentimes in his first few weeks, required to grapple with the major issues of human existence--he may be plunged into the world of St. Augustine, Grace & Freedom, or into the Reformation, or the ancient tragedies, or medieval economic life--and all this with no more than a kindergarten child's knowledge of the great words and concepts of religion. It is no wonder that history remains a riddle to the ordinary student, and philosophy a dull and mysterious irrelevance. . . ."

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