UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1933-12-12_Page-002

83 MEETING OF THE EASTERN TRUSTEES OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY AT CAIRO Downtown Association, New York Dec. 12, 1933 The meeting was celled to order at 10:30 A.M. by Chairman William Bancroft Hill, with the following present: Messrs. Addison, Chamberlain, Demarest, Hill, Killough, MacCracken, Steele, Thorne, and in addition, President Watson and Secretary Lum. President Watson gave a very clear picture of the present situation in the Mohammedan world. In order to show the present-day working of the Mohamuedan mind, he traced the rise and spread of Mohammedanism, the effect of the Crusades, the type of Christianity that is in existence in Egypt today, and the lack of progress which has been made by Christian missions in Moslem lands. During the past summer, the constant opposition of the Moslem to Christianity has broken out in Egypt in open hostility towards all Christians, -- Protestants, Roman Catholics and Copts. Dr. Watson also outlined the religious policy pur-sued by the University up to the present time. This was preliminary to a full discussion of required and voluntary attend-ance upon chapel services and classes in religion. The opinions expressed by each Trustee in turn placed emphasis on a variety of points such as the follow-- ing; The necessity of selecting men for the staff who are eager to emphasize the distinctly Christian objective of the University and then of trusting them vs to how this should be done. The importance of not yielding to a mere passing wave of hostility to the Christian program. Dr. Chamberlain related this out of his own experience in India. Christian worship should be maintained always whether attendance be re-quired or not. This view was unanimously expressed. Hostility to chapel can often be overcome by a more attractive chapel service. Chapel exercises constitute essentially an act of worship, not a mere college rally or even an instruction period. Dr. Addison emphasized this point, as did others. In China, 90% of the colleges have made religious exercises elective instead of required and have reported very little falling off in attendance. Finally, Dr. hill summarized the discussion by stating that it seemed to be the consensus of opinion that a chapel service of distinctly Christian worship should be maintained, though some features in it pe-culiarly irritating to Moslems might be omitted. Whether attendance should be required or voluntary must depend largely upon the attitude of the students and their parents.