One of the big problems of religious education is compulsion in regard to religious services. Where should that stop? Many are beginning to think that the religious value of the services is often nullified by the compulsory attendance. There are many conscientious objectors among the students who think the removal of compulsion would be conducive to better religious development. But the likelihood of some swinging from one extreme to the other is very great. It is still a problem left for the religious educators in the colleges to solve. The solution must result in the conservation of the good found in the compulsory system and the good to be found in freedom of choice.
Expressional activities are increasing in Negro colleges but with few exceptions these are inadequate in scope and number. It is true that not enough students are able to share in the social service projects. This is really one of, if not the most important factors in religious education. Men gain religious power by acting out their beliefs, allowing their convictions to flow out into service.
There is an unfortunate lack of coordination of religious agencies in Negro colleges. Frequently we find several organizations attempting to do the same thing and each makes a miserable failure in the attempt. More than that, this lack of coordination and correlation results in duplications which surely mean wasted energy and non-effectiveness. If all of the religious agencies were supervised in such a way that each would know his specific task and would not overlap that of other agencies, much more effective work would be the result.
There are signs of hope in the religious education of these Negro colleges. The almost unanimous recognition of the religious motive in efficient education by the educators and the manifest consciousness of needs of better religious education have been mentioned. There are others. An increasing number of trained teachers from Northern, Eastern and Western colleges and universities is evident. These men and women are coming from the institutions where the points of view and training represented in the previous chapter are found. The summer schools of the various colleges and universities in the North, East and West are offering many of these modern religious education courses and larger numbers of the teachers of religious education are availing themselves of the opportunities. Much literature of religious education published recently is finding its way to these schools, the most notable of which is the _Religious Education Magazine_.