The College and Authority

If correctly reported in the Wellesley College News last spring, Wellesley’s Dean of the Chapel, Mr. Charles A. M. Hall, seems to have fallen into a vulgar error concerning the nature of authority. I rather think that Dean Hall has been influenced by some remarks in a recent thoughtful book, Dr. Alexander Mi1ler’s Faith and Learning (Exposition Press), though perhaps not so deeply influenced as he ought to be. Anyway, Mr. Hall’s sermon is useful as raising questions which are examined in the Miller book and in two other important books that touch on religious opinions in America today—Dean Robert Elliot Fitch’s Odyssey of the Self-Centered Self [reviewed in NR June 3] and Professor Denis Baly’s Academic Illusion (Seabury).

Kirk

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Russell Kirk

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If correctly reported in the Wellesley College News last spring, Wellesley’s Dean of the Chapel, Mr. Charles A. M. Hall, seems to have fallen into a vulgar error concerning the nature of authority. I rather think that Dean Hall has been influenced by some remarks in a recent thoughtful book, Dr. Alexander Mi1ler’s Faith and Learning (Exposition Press), though perhaps not so deeply influenced as he ought to be. Anyway, Mr. Hall’s sermon is useful as raising questions which are examined in the Miller book and in two other important books that touch on religious opinions in America today—Dean Robert Elliot Fitch’s Odyssey of the Self-Centered Self [reviewed in NR June 3] and Professor Denis Baly’s Academic Illusion (Seabury).

Kirk