STUDY OF RELIGION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22466, 9 July 1936, Page 15

STUDY OF RELIGION

WEAKNESS IN UNIVERSITY PROVISION SUGGESTED "Before leaving New Zealand, 1 would venture' to suggest through your columns two requirements in the University which have struck me very forcibly indeed," says the llev. C. F. Andrews, the noted missionary of India and author, in a letter to the Hk.RALD. "(1) While the profession of law is recognised and a course of study is provided, the supremely important profession of a minister of religion appears to have no recognition. No degrees in divinity are given and 110 chairs have been endowed The consequence is that New Zealanders have to go abroad lor study. Is it not possible—to give one instance —bv public or private donation to endow a chair of the philosophy of religion and a chair of New Testament JOxcgesis in Auckland? At Cambridge, such chairs . have been endowed from ago to age. Some go back nearly 500 years. New Zealand is a young country, but one of the first subjects of advanced study, in its University, ought surely to be religion. "(2) in the older universities, there are men of religion set apart to whom students can go for help in their intellectual and moral difficulties. There arc also services of worship in college chapels on a purely voluntary basis. Is it not possible to have one man set apart in each university centre for such purposes? "If attempts were made in these two directions 1 feel certain that great benefit would accrue."