In the case of five other institutions, therefore, I had students, Y. M. C. A. workers, interview the leaders of various activities in these colleges with a view to getting their candid opinion and the reflection of the opinion of the other students. In these various ways we secured data which represented a high degree of probability to say the least. Ninety-five per cent of the students in Negro colleges reckon the church service on Sunday a beneficial agency for religious functioning. They vary greatly as to the degree of good derived. In eleven institutions the singing and liturgy are placed first in the rank of importance and the prayer last. These same colleges think the sermon takes second place. By many of this same number congregational singing is given a very high place. The general complaint against the sermon is that it is too dry. I think what is meant by this is that the sermon lacks enthusiasm.
There may be two reasons for the impression of the dryness of the sermon, if the complaint is justified. In the first place, a large number of the college pastors begin their sermons on the assumption that a student's religious life is essentially different from that of the average person in a congregation eight blocks away in another church, a matter which cannot always be taken for granted. That assumption conditions his sermons in character of composition and especially in delivery. The minister works on the assumption that the college man will be interested and benefited by science, philosophy and so forth, regardless of how it is presented. In the reaction against excessive emotion he too often swings to the other extreme.
Again the college students in these universities have come from such a variety of environments. It would be a safe estimate to say that in all Negro colleges 90 per cent of the students are Baptist and Methodists. The registrar's records from these 38 organizations show the following: 983 Baptists; 790 Methodists; and 179 divided among the other denominations. This gives the Baptist and Methodists 90.8 per cent of the total enrollment in these 38 institutions. This means then that 90.8 per cent of these students have had a Baptist-Methodist environment for eighteen or twenty years. Well, what does that matter so far as the estimate of the value of sermons delivered to them? It means that, at least, it is not likely that the impression through childhood, youth, and young manhood or womanhood will be easily offset by the college religious environment in one, two, three or four years. Ideals theoretical, of course, change remarkably, but inevitably some elements of satisfaction afforded by the earlier environment will be demanded in the college environment by the students. Then the Baptist-Methodist environment among the Negroes is, if anything at all, an enthusiastic environment. The sermon is one of the conspicuous features. A student affected by such an environment does not necessarily demand all of the crudities but he does not like the swing to the other extreme.