Abstract
In 1919, Carl Rogers left his Oak Park, Illinois home to study scientific agriculture at the University of Wisconsin. Rooming with his older brother Ross, at that time president of the campus YMCA, Rogers proved to be both an able student and a devout Christian. Eager for cultivating friendships, he quickly joined the organization and spent much of his time with the “Ag-Triangle,” a subset of the larger YMCA for students interested in agricultural pursuits. Rogers embraced many service opportunities, including leadership of a boys’ club in Madison and a camp for indigent Italian immigrants at Sturgeon Bay, and he described association work as the most formative feature of his time at Wisconsin. He noted in 1920, in fact, that he had “learned more from the hearts and lives of men” in the organization than from his studies, attributing much of his growth to the YMCA.2
While a college Christian Association should offer protection and assurance to the tempted and buffeted student, it has a special mission to discover potential prophets of tomorrow.
—David R. Porter, 19331
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Notes
Howard Kirschenbaum, On Becoming Carl Rogers (New York: Delacorte Press, 1979), 19.
Carl R. Rogers, “An Experiment in Christian Internationalism,” Int 39, no. 9 (June 1922): 1.
Many leaders felt that youth were only acting in ways consonant with the larger culture. See Curry, Students and the Religion of To-Day, 9; Coe, What Ails Our Youth? (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925), 46.
Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Macmillan, 1907), 151.
A.J. Elliott, “Social Forces in Collegiate Life that Must Be Made Constructive,” Int 37, no. 8 (May 1919): 2. See also
Lyman Hoover, “Fraternities and a Fraternal World,” Int 42, no. 5 (January 1925): 115–116.
Edwin E. Aubrey, “Does the Fraternity Crush Individual Thinking?” Int 41, no. 7 (April 1924): 10–11.
“Tentative Report of the Subcommittee on Education,” 1924, 13–15. AYSD, Box 39, Folder 563. See also Tucker Smith, “The Effect of Athletics Upon Scholarship,” Int 42, no. 2 (November 1924): 5–7.
Gordon Chalmers, “Shall We Have Representative Students on the Cabinet?” Int 42, no. 6 (March 1925): 194. See also “The Perils of Popularity,” Int 36, no. 4 (January 1919): 2.
Harry Bone, “The New Association President,” Int 42, no. 7 (April 1925): 215.
J.T Hardwick, “Shall We Have Representative Students on the Cabinet?” Int 42, no. 6 (March 1925): 193.
Paul Super, What Is the YMCA? (New York: Association Press, 1922), especially 1–25.
Galen M. Fisher, Religion in the Colleges (New York: Association Press, 1928), 13–14.
These field councils were indeed created. In 1922, there was a national conference of field councils to determine policies on membership, organization, missionary and Bible study procedures, and life work guidance. See William P. Tolley, “National Conference of Field Councils,” Int 39, no. 6 (March 1922): 3.
Paul Super, Formative Ideas in the YMCA (New York: Association Press, 1929), especially 7–11, 98–102.
Ibid., 102. See also Clifford Putney, “Character Building in the YMCA, 1880–1930,” Mid-America: An Historical Review 73, no. 1 (January 1991): 64–69.
A.J. Gregg, “Two Great Resources for Religious Education,” Association Boys’ Work Journal 1, no. 1 (November 1, 1927): 10–11. See also
H. Parker Lansdale, “A Historical Study of YMCA Boys’ Work in the United States, 1900–1925” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1956), 181; Super, Formative Ideas, 34.
John Dewey, How We Think (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1910).
As religious historian William Hutchison pronounced, the combination of progressive education and liberal religion indeed represented a “match made in heaven.” Hutchison, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 219. See also
Sydney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 781.
Elliott, Training an Adequate Leadership, 2–3; Richard H. Edwards, “Some Glimpses and Principles of Service,” NAS 2, no. 6 (March 1914): 270–272.
Elliott, How Jesus Met Life Questions (New York: Association Press, 1920), 7.
Elliott, Building a New World (New York: Association Press, 1918).
See also A. Bruce Curry, “Better Bible Discussion Groups,” Int 41, no. 5 (February 1924): 26–27.
The war, in fact, stimulated discussions along these lines in YMCA groups around the country. In Florida, the campus YMCA proposed a more vigorous campaign of sex education because of the high incidence of venereal disease among servicemen, especially those from the state of Florida. Winfred Scott Hall was asked to come to campus to address students on “The Sex Life of Man,” and “The Social Evil and Its Cure,” among others. W.A. Lloyd to A.A. Murphree, 6 September 1918. University of Florida Archives. A book length study of such issues, Arthur Herbert Gray’s Men, Women, and God (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1922) was a wildly popular text in the 1920s. Exner did not concur with those who spoke of the colleges as morally depraved institutions. See
M.J. Exner, Friend or Enemy? (New York: Association Press, 1917);
M.J. Exner, Problems and Principles of Sex Education: A Study of 948 College Men (New York: International Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations, 1915).
“The College Situation and Student Responsibility,” 50–51; F.E. Morgan, “Helping Freshmen to Think,” Int 41, no. 4 (January 1924): 16.
David R. Porter, The Necessity of the Student Christian Movement (New York: The Student Division, National Council of Y.M.C.A., 1928), 8.
Porter, “Can You Kill a Student Association?” Int 38, no. 6 (March 1921): 7.
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© 2007 David P. Setran
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Setran, D.P. (2007). Building a Christian Youth Movement. In: The College “Y”. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230603387_10
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