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More Than Nails. Wheaton's fourth president, 59-year-old Dr. Victor Raymond Edman (a minister in the Swedish Mission Covenant Group), sees the Bible and science as two separate systems of knowledge. "Jesus doesn't choose to speak to us on matters scientific," he says. "He could, but he doesn't. Science helps us understand a great deal about the universe, but not about the creator of the universe and his personality." How about the theory of evolution? Says Dr. Russell Mixter of the Plymouth Brethren, zoology professor and chairman of the biological sciences department: "It no more explains the fact of man's existence than nails and wood explain the existence of a house. The carpenter is the real source of the house's existence, and God is the real source of man's."
Wheaton students, predominantly Baptist (702) and Presbyterian (211), are fervent hymn singers and zealous doers of good works in nearby Chicago's hospitals and slums, but the lipsticked coeds and moccasined young men look as trim and handsome as those on any U.S. campus. The restrictions of Wheaton life seem to be no hardship; no more than five or ten students a year are asked to leave for breaking their pledge not to dance, drink, smoke, play cards or go to the movies.
"Our faith isn't blind," says pretty Pat Scheele, 21. "It's real. We have something to hold on to. I don't know where I will be next year, but God knows, and that gives me a good, secure feeling."