Dean Roscoe Pound, of the Harvard Law School, has become associated with a movement to modernize church teachings. Dean Pound, joined a number of prominent educators led by Dr. Jesse H. Holmes, Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College, in sending to the "scientifically minded" a letter proposing to compile a modern bible to add to the ancient Bible.

Letter Widely Circulated

The letter was sent to a great number of educators, scientists, writers, and leaders of though in all occupations and makes a plea for the modernization of religious teaching. While praising the Bible Professor Holmes advocates ridding the modern man of the necessity of a formal acceptance of many "mediaeval superstitions" in which the great organized churches persist. "The modern mind cannot and does not accept them actually, so we have the unfortunate and essentially dishonest situation of thousands professing to believe what they do not really believe".

Superstitions Stultify Man

Among "mediaeval superstitions" Professor Holmes places the doctrine of Virgin Birth, the "fall of man", and the miracle stories of the Old and New Testaments. In discussing the Bible he says. "I do not only admit but assert the great value of the Bible as the time-sifted literature of a great people. Its legends and mythologies are mines of wealth in the understanding of primitive minds, which include the child minds of our own time. And no age will outgrow the stimulation and enthusiasm of the noble prophetic writings. But that does not involve the acceptance of their wonder tales as literal truth. Belief in the Jonah-Whale story could not make a man any better morally, and he must stultify his intelligence in accepting it."

Visions not Fulfilled

After showing that God has not fulfilled the phophetic vision of the Old Testament in the terms of the ancient world Professor Holmes explained the need for a religion made more of the dynamic inner ideals of modern man which drive him on in his actual life than of moral stories which are incompatible with his attitude of mind and its scientific method.

Modern Bible Ranks High

He concluded, "It might be possible, by drawing on our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution; by gathering some noble, prophetic essays such as those of Emerson and Carlyle, and poems of longing and vision from Lowell, Whittler and Tennyson, together with a few of Lincoln's addresses and other inspiring writings of our modern times, to make a modern bible to add to the ancient book, and it need not suffer by the comparison.

Replacement of Ideal

"I am proposing that we substitute the inspiring power of the vision of an ideal humanity for fear of hell and hope of heaven as a driving power in the life of men; and that God within--the unifying element which drives men to unity in a brotherly world--replace a medieval, imperial deity who makes irrational demands on his human subjects and savagely punishes or extravagantly rewards those who anger or please him; who looks upon this world and its happiness as immaterial or evil, centering all interest on a supposed life after death."

Pound does not Comment

Dean Pound, when reached yesterday, made no comment on the movement, saying that pressure of his duties had made it impossible to give the matter much thought.