ABSTRACT
In Union the broadly and fearlessly progressive Roswell D. Hitchcock wrote a book in 1879, which he called Socialism, presenting the concept as religious. George Albert Coe, the first professor of Religious Education at Union, in 1916 invited the maturing Harry Ward from Boston University School of Theology to give a series of lectures. President Arthur McGiffert was caught in the winds of the philosophic pragmatism of the day and tended to accept the scientific study of the Bible, using natural as opposed to supernatural guides for study. He seems to have been impressed with Harry Ward's initial lectures even though Ward criticized the materialistic incentive of private profit and upheld the principle of labor organization. The foreign students from Europe and Asia kept their teacher abreast of the social situation in their home countries and widened Ward's sensitivity.
