McMaster in the 1920s

1924 The Minister of Jarvis Street Baptist Church, T.T. Shields, began to publicly criticize the "modernism" at McMaster during the 1920s. The debate which began when Shields criticized the University for hiring a 'modern' professor, was hotly contested by the student body.

"Since 1909, when the McMaster University Senate defended the right of a professor to teach about the particular historical situation in which books of the Bible had been written, the university had been like a lightning rod for the charges of critics who wondered if this modernism would weaken the vitality of the concept of divinely inspired truth. In 1925, the university hired L.H. Marshall, a German-trained theologian somewhat in the modernist school of biblical analysis. Even before that event precipitated a showdown, the students had assembled a general meeting of the combined student bodies in January 1924 and reviewed the situation regarding accusations made against the faculty and senate. Asserting that they had 'a better opportunity of knowing the teaching ability and . . . to give testimony to the personal work of the Faculty and to test the validity of the content of their teaching' than outsiders, they voted almost unanimously to express unreserved confidence in 'the Chancellor and Faculty of the University.' Copies of the resolution went to the Globe, the Mail and Empire, the Canadian Baptist and T.T. Shields. The majority of students believed unequivocally in their faculty and moved their trust into commitment.

"Very few students took Shield's side, and, when Shields attacked the newly hired Marshall, only 23 names appeared on a petition calling for his dismissal. In March, 1926, the editor of the Monthly questioned the authority of the signatories to judge Marshall, because he discovered that only several had Marshall as an instructor, most were not full-time students, and no theology student signed. Students so admired Marshall that some made a practice of walking part way home with him. . . Tension and outrage climaxed in the student body when a petition of 60 resident students proposed that one individual should be ejected from residence as an 'undesirable person' because he had supposedly been acting in an improper manner, collecting information to bolster Shield's case against Marshall. In October 1926, the Baptist Convention upheld Marshall against Shields.

"While the grey heads had clashed, the expressions of youthful interest direct our attention to certain qualities among the students. They acted upon conviction and hounded those whom they felt guilty of unfair play against their respected mentors. The affair caused friction among a few students. Possibly one-third of the men became sufficiently involved to sign petitions. In a way, the call for ejection of a student disclosed a truly severe streak among students. Conceivably these acts of demanding loyalty and enlisting petition signers owed something to the Baptist heritage of congregational independence and membership by congregational consent and good behaviour. Finally, like a self-defined and covenanted community, McMaster closed ranks rather more often than it experienced internal friction. The students' conduct actually demonstrated just how fully faculty and student comprised a community that rallied against interference with educational enterprise and one of its own." (Student Days 31-33)

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