Under the new system, presenting various courses, and especially courses in various sciences, appealing to different tastes and aims, the great majority of students are interested, and consequently indolence and dissipation have steadily diminished.

Moreover, in the majority of American institutions of learning down to the middle of the century, the main reliance for the religious culture of students was in the perfunctory presentation of sectarian theology, and the occasional stirring up of what were called "revivals," which, after a period of unhealthy stimulus, inevitably left the main body of students in a state of religious and moral reaction and collapse.

This method is now discredited, and in the more important American universities it has become impossible.

Religious truth, to secure the attention of the modern race of students in the better American institutions, is presented, not by "sensation preachers," but by thoughtful, sober-minded scholars.

Less and less avail sectarian arguments; more and more impressive becomes the presentation of fundamental religious truths.