The President's Annual Address REV. WILLIAM FRASER MCDOWELL, D. D., LL. D. One year ago when we met in Boston we whispered to one another the fears which we were not willing to confess to the public. Most of us then heard for the first time of President Harper's serious illness. During the days of the Boston Convention we walked in the shadow of our keen anxiety. Today, the founder and leader of our Association gone from us, we sit alone holding in our hands the task he dropped from his. That task looks vastly more difficult and immeasurably more precious now that we consider it alone and remember how sacred it was to him. Among the many achievements wrought by this man who had the superb genius for organization and achievement, not one had deeper significance for life or a wider reach of beneficence than this. None had higher place in his own thought. He believed in it from the beginning and loved it to the end. In the year of triumphant suffering which ended with Dr. Harper's final victory the work of this Association was much on his mind. He gave a goodly number of the hours which were all too few to plans and thought for the Religious Education Association. His wise and convincing letter led the gracious woman to whom our third volume of proceedings is dedicated to contribute the money for its publication. It is not for us here to analyze his character or attempt a record of his life. He was, however, as Martineau would have said, "a living definition" of the great terms religion and education. He was a scholar and a saint. His services to religious education have been incomparable. His death brings to us and to the cause a loss unspeakable. With this word, all inadequate and unsatisfactory, we turn and address ourselves to the matters before us. After much consultation and study it seemed wise to hold this year a Conference rather than a Convention. We were aware of the danger of such a change, but believed it wise nevertheless. The purpose of the Conference may be broadly stated as follows: First, to gather up our achievements; second, to take our bearings; third, to plan our future. Three years ago this month the first convention was held. How tentative our plans were we all remember, and how increasingly clear and definite these plans have become we all know. We are not met, therefore, for the purpose of considering whether we shall go on. What then, speaking modestly, are some of our achievements up to date? First, we have defined the character and place of religious education as this has not been done before in our generation, if it has ever been done. Not that we have in a single phrase said finally the thing that is in our minds, but in our published documents we have made manifest the character and place of religious education in modern life, is our claim. Take for example the words with which we closed our convention a year ago, in which we defined the threefold purpose of the Religious Education Association thus: "To inspire the educational forces of our country with the religious ideal; to inspire the religious forces of our country with the educational idea, and to keep before the public mind the ideal of religious education and the sense of its need and value." Then in detail this purpose was more fully worked out in the document which might well be made a working platform for those agencies seeking to accomplish the great end of religious education. These utterances are of a piece with all that had been said in the three great conventions. Second, we have called attention to the necessity of religious education in a new and impressive way. Individual voices had often been raised in behalf of religious education. Denominational declarations in favor of religious education were not at all lacking. The term was not new when we took it up. We did not enter a wholly new field and announce some new thing to the world, but we have made such an exhibit of the necessity of religious education as neither individual voices nor denominational declarations could possibly make. And we have obtained a hearing for this great idea that could not have been obtained except by a body as representative as the membership of our Association. It is probable that we have made current the term religious education. Certainly never before was this term so universally used in newspaper, book, conversation, and public address as within the past three years. It is most significant that the great Inter-Church Federation held in New York City in November gave large and distinguished place to this theme. That this place on that program was obtained through the efforts of a faithful and wise member of this Association proves how much could be done in securing a hearing for this cause at such gatherings. Third, we have exhibited the scope and the methods of religious education in what I believe to be the most valuable body of literature ever produced on the subject. Three handsome volumes have now been issued by the Association. I do not hesitate to say that these three volumes contain the richest, fullest, most suggestive material upon all the phases of religious education to be found anywhere. The wealth of this literature will be apparent to anyone who sits down with the three volumes and carefully examines the tables of contents. He will find great themes and great names in abundance. Much of this literature has also been printed in the newspaper reports of the Conventions at which the addresses were delivered. Fourth, we have exhibited the relation and possibilities of existing organizations, and especially their possible co-ordination. and co-operation for purposes of religious education. It was one of the fundamental declarations that we proposed to work through existing organizations and with them. It was one of these fundamental propositions that no one agency could possibly accomplish the great task. It was one of our fundamental propositions that separate and independent activity on the part of various organizations would fail of highest fruitfulness. Some of these organizations already doing noble work were at the beginning a little suspicious lest it might be our subtle purpose to supplant them, and take out of their hands the work of religious education. Perhaps no result has been more satisfactory during the three years than the complete removal of that suspicion. Organizations that held aloof three years ago are ready today to receive from the Religious Education Association all possible assistance and co-operation. It is a part of this process of disarming suspicion also that we are no longer believed to have a hidden and sinister theological purpose. It was the easy declaration at the beginning that the Association was really for the purpose of monopolizing religious education in the interests of a certain school of theology. It has become as plain as day in the three years last past that we are not organized either for monopolizing religious educa tion or for a theological propaganda. We have shown how many men of many minds, men of all ways of thinking, can co-operate in this great and noble purpose. This possibly is the best exhibit of all, for it has been the weakness as well as the scandal of religious forces that they have been hindered from co-operation by minor divisions of opinion. Education in the republic has been permitted in large areas to become wholly irreligious because of these minor differences of opinion among religious people. These are among the achievements of the Religious Education Association to date. They do not admit of statistical tabulation. It would be unfortunate if they did. It is quite enough that we have established ourselves, that we have created an atmosphere, that we have set for ourselves an ideal, that we have awakened a consciousness and in three years have put ourselves in position to go forward to definite and magnificent achievements. Our second purpose, however, is to take our bearings. It was thought that we could do this better in a Conference than in a Convention. Here then are some of the facts with which we must reckon : First, we have not yet solved the problem of the general secretaryship. The arrangements into which we entered a year ago have not proved satisfactory. To this subject we shall need to give our very careful consideration. The General Secretary is the key to the situation. If this small Conference shall succeed in solving that question it will have accomplished more than a Convention of any size whatever. There is rare opportunity for the right kind of man. No single situation that lies open today offers larger possibilities than this. Our strongest man could do no larger work in the next ten years than here. Second, we have not wholly solved the problem of our finances. We come up, as the vice-chairman of the Executive Board will report, in better financial condition than a year ago. And a careful study of the necessary expenses and the regular receipts of the Association will convince any one that the financing of the Association is not the most difficult task. It is a problem to be considered and up to date is unsolved, but it is really not the greatest and most critical of our problems. And it does not seem at all an insuperable obstacle in the way of success. The financial exhibit will assure us that we can secure the finances necessary for doing our large work. Third, we have not yet pressed our splendid general principles and plans down upon localities and institutions in a vital way. These general plans need to find particular expression in local and departmental work. It was our hope a year ago that during the last year we might have a goodly number of state organizations and a larger number of local guilds. This naturally is the work of the General Secretary. It has not been done. As far as organization is concerned it seems to me the next thing to be done. Fourth, we have not yet successfully articulated our Association with other existing organizations. We have established relations of confidence with them and the spirit of the Religious Education Association has to some extent permeated other bodies. I have had a good many letters from college presidents and from Sunday School workers and from Christian Association officers asking that the Religious Education Association should be brought into a closer relation with these institutions. A typical request from a college president contains this question. "What is the Religious Education Association prepared to do to help me in the life of my college?" This double task of particularizing and localizing our general plans and articulating our Association with existing organizations seems to me of the most urgent moment. For this alone a Secretary of the right sort is imperatively needed. No one else can do this work. Fifth, we have not given our exceedingly valuable literature the circulation and consequent influence to which it is entitled. We have our three splendid volumes containing the immensely valuable materials gathered by our different departments along with the general utterances presented at the public sessions of the Conventions. The circulation of these volumes has not exceeded 3,000 copies in any case. As far as any wide-spread or general influence is concerned, therefore, this material is locked up in these volumes. If we had a magazine for general circulation backed by a publication fund which would enable us to institute a campaign of education with the materials we already have, we could work wonders within the next two or three years. One of the problems to which this Conference must give itself is the problem of the adequate publication and circulation of our material, so that this material shall have the |