Harvard College's Chapel Reform in the Late Nineteenth Century

Rethinking the Secularization of Modern American Higher Education

Abstract

In 1886, Harvard College abolished a tradition that had been maintained for 250 years since its foundation: compulsory morning chapel services. The aim of this paper is to analyze the process of transition from compulsory to voluntary chapel services at Harvard in the light of secularization theories. At first glance, this chapel reform appears to follow the pattern of “differentiation” where religion comes to be set apart from other social institutions. In this account of secularization, it is understood that as American higher education went through modernization and specialization, religion, which had been an integral part of Western academic life for centuries, was marginalized on college campuses. Yet a close examination of Harvard's chapel services after the 1886 reform reveals a far more complex story. Analyzing roughly 200 sermons delivered by the college chaplain, Francis Greenwood Peabody, between 1886 and 1907, this paper points out a strong, almost reactionary impulse at Harvard during these years to keep religion relevant to academic life. Worrying that excessive differentiation of higher education from religion might turn students into selfish, heartless dilettantes, Peabody stressed that religion was primarily a dynamic “power” that gave individuals meanings and efficiency in their daily activities, including academic work. With his pragmatic emphasis on spiritual power's effect on all human activities, Peabody presented one way individuals could maintain a sense of religious wholeness in the otherwise increasingly differentiated modern world.