There are few chapters in the history of higher education more encouraging than that of the presidency of the great Timothy Dwight at Yale. When Dwight became president of Yale, the anti-Christian forces were solidly in control that a reversal of the situation seemed hopeless. The new class that entered in the autumn of 1796 included only one freshman who was a "professing Christian," while the sophomore class contained none. The college church had itself dwindled to two members.

Dwight's strategy was to force the enemy to take the defensive. He encouraged the students to debate openly the validity of the Christian faith, allowing each student to state his case without fear of reprisal, and then the president entered the list of speakers himself. Shunning battle was not his way. He struck out in the open, full and hard, where all the world could see the enemy fall hard. For the next six months President Dwight preached steadily on the central subject of Christian Faith. Though his eyesight became so bad that only with the greatest difficulty could he write or read a single sentence, he still preached twice every Sunday, taught his class, and administered the college. He added to his official duties a special set of lectures on the Evidence of Divine Revelation. It was said, that he, "drove infidelity from first one lurking place and then another."

"After long and patient waiting, in the spring of 1802, a momentous religious revival occurred. Providence, at last, saw fit to reward a faithful servant's labors by sending down a shower of grace. One third of Yale's two hundred and thirty students became hopefully converted. Over thirty of these entered the ministry, while the others, in various ways throughout their lives, spread its influence." (Timothy Dwight: A Biography, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1942, p. 302).

Some externals of living has changed since Dwight's day, and our academic mission fields are more complex than was his, but details do not alter the major challenge. What has been done before can again be done, provided Christians employ their intellectual resources.