Proceedings by National Baptist Educational Convention Pt 1
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National Baptist educational convention.

v. 24 cm.

New York

[1870]-

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t/; P OC EED I NG S OF TIlE NATIONAL BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL CONVENTIONI HELD

IN THE PIERREPONT STREET BAPTIST CHURCH, BROOKLYN, }PRIL 19-21, 1 87o.

PUBLISHED BY THE BROOKLYN BAPTIST SOCIAL UNION. NEW YORK: \V. I. POOLEY, 331 PEARL STREET. 1870. ,.! I_ o-Soo

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PREFATORY NOTE. THE Brooklyn Baptist Social Union, by whose liberality the proceedings of the National Baptist Educational Convention were reported and a complimentary edition published, made over then the use of the types to the American Baptist Educational Commission, that copies might be multiplied for more general distribution at the lowest possible cost. The publication was placed in charge of a committee, to which the undersigned was added as editor. The collection and revision of the materials were found a much slower process than was anticipated, and the continued illhealth of the undersigned compelled him to transfer his duties, in respect to the editing, to his friend, the Rev. Lucius E. Smith, D.D., under whose most competent supervision the volume makes its appearance.

SEWALL S. CITTING. NEW YORK, July, 1870, LANGE & HILLMAN, Printers, 207

Pearl Street, New York. ,.. i ~z -,;E

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l DELEGATES IN ATTENDANCE. MAINE. Colby University.-President J. T.

Champlin, D.D.; Gardner Colby. NEW HAMPSHIRE. New London Academy.-W. H.

Eaton, D.D.; Rev. F. C. Towle. VERMONT. Northern Baptist Educational Union.-Revs. Charles Hibbard, T. H. Archibald. Edducational Committee of State Convertion.-Revs. E. Mills. M. A. Wilcox. Leland & Gray Seminiary.-H. Fletcher, D.D). MASSACHUSETTS. Newton Theological Institution.-President Alvah Hovey, D.D.; Professor Galusha Anderson, D.D.

Northern Bdptist Education Society.-G. W. Bosworth, D.D. WTorcester Academy.-Professor S. S. Greene, S. R. Mason, D.D. RHODE ISLAND. Brown University.-President Alexis Caswell, D.D., LL.D.; S. L. Caldwell, D.D.; J. C. Stockbridge, D.D. Rhode Island Baptist Education Society.-Revs. H.

C. Graves, William F. Cainbridge, A. F. Spalding, J. G. Richardson.

CONNECTICUT. Su,ield Academy.-Dwight Ives, D.D.; Principal Emmons Paley Bonc(. Connecticut Baptist Education Society.-Revs. C. B. Crane, D.D.; A.

L. Freeman, T. H. Gilbert. NEW YORK. New? York Baptist Education Society.-Samuel Colgate, S. T. Hillman, Revs. H. A. Smith, J. N. Folwell.

AMadison University.-President E. Dodge, D.D., LL.D.; Professors L. M.

Osburn, P. B. Spear, D.D.; Rev. Thomas D. Anderson, D.D. Hamilton Theological Seminary.-Professors George W. Eaton, D.D, LL.D., H. Harvey, D.D. University Grammar School.-Professor J. M. Taylor. New York Baptist Union for Ministerial Education.-William Phelps, Revs. J. F. Elder, A.- J.

F. Behrends, T. J. Morgan. University of Rochester. President M. B.

Anderson, LL.D.; Edward Bright, D.D.; Professors A. C. Kendrick, D.D., J.

H. Gilmore. Rochester lTheological Seminary.-President E.G. Robinson, D.D.; Professor R. J. W. Buckland, D.D.; A. B. Capwell. -Baptist Educational Commission.-Hon. William Kelly, W. A. Gellatly, Lewis Roberts, S. S. Cutting, D.D. Vassar College.-President John H. Raymond, LL.D. NEW

JERSEY. New Jersey Baptist Education Society.-H. C. Fish, D.D.; L. E.

Smith, D.D.; Co]. Morgan L. Smith, Abraham Cowles, M.D. Southi Jersey Instituste. H. J. Mulford, Rev. T. G. Wright. Highstown Institute.

Professor H. A. Pratt, W. H. Parmly, D.D. PENNSYLVANIA. Pennsylvania Baptist Education Society.-Revs. L. Moss, D.D.; Charles Keyser, J. W.

Castle, D.D.; G. M. Spratt, D.1). University of Lewisbury.-President J. R.

Loomis, LL.D.; Rev. A. J. Kelley. Crozer Theological Seminary.-G. D.

Boardman, D.D.; W. Randolph, D.D.

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DELEGATES IN ATTENDANCE. 1I~~ Y~~VIRGINIA. lichmould College.-Professor J.

L. M. Curry, LL.D.; J. B. Jeter, D.D.; Rev. A. E. Dickinson. Education Board of General Association. A. M. Poindexter, D.D.; J. L. Burro vs, D.D. Richmond Femnale Institute.-James B. Taylor, D.D. SOUTH CAROLINA.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.-Professors James P. Boyce, D.D., John A. Broadus, D.D. ALABAMA. E. Alabana Fenale (College. President Richard H. Rawlings. TEXAS. Baylor University.-President W. C. Crane, D.D.

Texas Baptist Educational COnvention.-Rev. Horace Clark, Rev. M. V. Smith.

Baylor Female College.-President Horace Clark; Willett Holmes. * MISSOURI.

TVillian Jewell College.-President Thomas Rambaut, LL.D. ILLINOIS.

Shurtleff Colleye.-Professors E. C. Mitchell, J. Balkley, D.D. Baptist Theoloygical UrTion.-G. S. Bailey, D.D.; E. Goodman. Baptist Union Theological Seminary.-President G. W. Northrup, D.D.; Professor W Hague, D.D. lUniversity of Chzicago. Professor J. W. Stearns. Almira Female College.-President John B. White. OHIO. Ohtio Baptist Education Society.-Professor John Stevens, R. Jeffrey, D.D. Denison University.-President S. Talbot, D.D.; Rev. A. H. Strong. MICHIGAN.

Kalamazoo College. President Kendall Brooks, D.D. Kalamazoo Theological Seminary.-J..M. Gregory, LL.D. CALIFORNIA. Baptist Educatio? Society.-Rev.

C. A. Buckbee, D. B. Cheney, D.D. DELAWARE. WTyoming College (Academy).-J.

S. Backus, D.D. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. Columbian College. President G. W.

Samson, D.D. iv

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PROCEEDINGS OF T E BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. FIRST DAY’S

PROCEEDINGS. MORNING SESSION. The Convention met in the Pierrepont Street Baptist Church on Tuesday, April 19, 1870, at 9: 30 A. M. The Secretary of the Baptist Educational Commission, Rev. S. S. CUTTING, D.D., read the call for the Convention, as follows: At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION, January 4, 1870, the following Preamble and Resolution were adopted: Whereas, From the correspondence of the Secretary, and from his personal interviews with educators and friends of education in the Baptist denomination, it seems desirable, an,d is desired, that a meeting of such educators and friends of education should he held, gathering into itself the widest practicable representation from Theological Seminaries, Universities, Academies, and Education Societies, and having for its object the consideration of questions of common interest, relating to the character and work of our institutions of learning, the increase and increased intelligence of our ministry, and the advancement of education in the great body of our people; therefore, Resolved,. That the Secretary is hereby authorized and instructed to proceed to make arrangements for such a meeting, to be held in April or May, the call therefor to be issued with the concurrence of such educators and friends of education as can conveniently be reached, who have signified their approval of the measure, and propose to unite in its deliberations. in pursuance of the above, the undersigned, therefore, respectfully invite educators and friends of education, including representatives of the Boards and Faculties of Academies, Colleges, Universities, and Theological Seminaries, and of Boards of Education Societies, connected with the Baptist denomination, to meet in the city of Brooklyn, on the 19th, 20th and 21st days of Aprilnext, for the purposes above named. It will be observed that this meeting is called in general and not in special interests, its design being to move, if possible, the Baptist denomination to greater interest in every form of education.

Topics for consideration will be published when collated and assigned.

SAMUEL COLGATE, Chairman of the Executive Committee. S.S. CUTTING, Secretary. The above call is issued with our concurrence: ALEXIS CASWELL, President of Brown University. M. B. ANDERSON, President of the University of Bochester. E.G. ROBINSON, President of the Rochester Theological Seminary. E. DODGE, President of Madison University. JUSTIN R. LOOMIS, President of Lewisburg University. ALVAH HOVEY, President, of Newton Theological Institution. HENIRY G. WESTON, President of Crozer Theological Seminary. G. W. SAMSON, President of Columbian College, D. C. -4 –

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NATIONAL BAPTIST The following gentlemen were chosen as permanent officers of the Convention: HoN. WILLIAM KELLY, of New York, President. Rev. ALEXIS

CASWELL, D.D., LL. D.,of R. I., Rev. J. B. JETER, I).D., of Va., Rev. J.

T. CHAMPLIN, D.D., of Me., Rev. G. W. EATON, D.D., LL.D., ofN. Y., GARDNER

COLBY, Esq., of Mass., Col. MORGAN L. SMITH, of N. J., Rev. J. C.

STOCRKBRIDGE, D.D., of R. 1., Rev. E. C. MITCHELL, of Ill., I Rev. W. C.

CRANE, D.D., of Texas, Secretaries. f The PRESIDENT, on taking the chair, said I thank you, gentlemen of the Convention, for the honor you have conferred upon me in calling on me to preside over your deliberations. It is a cause for congratulation that such an assemblage as this has been convened. Never before in the history of the Baptist denomination has the cause of education been represented by so able and numerous a body of men; never before had the friends of sound learning among us such reason for encouragement. Here are gentlemen distinguished for literary culture, from every section of our broad country, from Maine to California, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, who have come together as brothers, moved by a single purpose, partakers together of the generous hospitality of our friends, prepared to discuss in a spirit of Christian kindness topics connected with education, and to confer as to the best means of extending its blessings in our denomination. It seems to me an auspicious moment for a great movement, for none can doubt that there is clear evidence of a greatly increased interest on this subject among the masses of our people, and-there can be but little doubt that all wise measures here inaugurated will be liberally sustained. The programme of proceedings which has been placed in your hands, and which will doubtless be adopted by you, will impose on us a large amount of work for the three days we are to be together; let me say that, to do justice to the numerous subjects proposed, we must be economical of time, systematic in procedure, and adhere closely to the topics under discussion. On my part no effort shall be wanting to facilitate the business of the Convention. Let us humbly hope that our proceedings here may, by the blessing of God, promote the cause of sound learning, and tend to His glory. 6 I I Tlwx-Pre8idents. i i

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Prayer was offered by the Rev. Dr. Jeter. A Committee of Arrangements was ordered, and the following gentlemen were appointed: A. B. CAPWELL, Esq., of N.Y. SAMUEL CGLGATE, Esq., of N.Y. Rev.

A. M. POINDEXTER, D.D)., of Va. Prof. JOHN STEVENS, of Ohio, The following gentlemen were appointed a Committee of Enrollment: W. A. GELLATLY, Esq., of N. Y. Rev. F. C. TOWLE, of N.H. Rev. W. RANDOLPH, D.I)., of Pa. The PRESIDENT laid before the Convention the following communication: BAPTIST

EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. NEW YORK, April 19, 1870. The Executive Committee of the Baptist Educational Commission, grateful to God for the response to their invitation which has called together so large a number of educators and friends of education, from so many States, and representing so many educational interests, besides expressing a hearty and joyous welcome, beg leave to lay before the Convention some arrangements for the progress of business which it has seemed necessary to suggest in anticipation. These arrangements are not intended to interfere with the entire freedom of the Convention, but only to offer such a basis of procedure as may aid the Convention in its own determination of its methods and ends. The pre-arranged topics to come before the Convention fall generally under the following heads: 1. Questions of Education in Academies and Universities.

2. Questions of Theological Education. 3. Questions of Denominational Work in Education. And on these subjects respectively it would seem desirable to appoint standing committees at an early period after organization. In arranging for the disposition of time, it has been deemed proper to recommend i hat the morning sessions be held from 9 to 12:30, the afternoon sessions from 2: 30 to 5: 30, and the evening sessions from 7: 45 to 9: 80. Under this scheme of the sessions, the subjoined is submitted as the order of proceedings, the reading of papers to be followed by oral discussions, and the introduction of incidental or related topics. This arrangement will intimate the value of time, and the indispensableness of compacted and matured discussions. The authors of papers have been restricted in the call of the Convention to t/irty minutes as the utmnost limit, and a similar restriction by the Convention itself is suggested as equitable and necessary. The unwritten discussions will be reported verbatim by accomplished reporters, and this fact will naturally tend to carefulness and directness in debate. It is believed that the published proceedings will illustrate an intelligent, wise, and earnest zeal in the cause of education. It will be observed, by an analysis of the topics, that this Convention is called in the hope that its influence will not be limited to those who are in attendance on its sessions. If it fails to reach and move permanently our ministry and the mass of our people, stimulating every form of higher education, and making it a 7

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NATIONAL BAPTIST denominational habit and characteristic, so helping and strengthening our institutions of learning, and so, by the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, giving us,tout of a people thus set forward in the cause of education, a more numerous, a better educated and more adequate ministry for our churches, it will come short of the ends which have moved to its assembling. To accomplish this the best wisdom of the Convention will be put to task, in devising an organization which shall be simple and inexpensive, and which shall be efficient in making the cause of education one in our country, and in raising it to its true sphere as our present paramount denominational interest. The unassigned topics, which may be brought into the related discussions at the pleasure of the Convention, will be found appended.

Respectfully submitted to the Convention. SAMUEL COLGATE, Chairman Ex.

Gom. Baptist Educational Commission. SEWALL S. CUTTING, Secretary. Dr.

CUTTING: I beg to call attention to the fact, that the order of proceedings referred to in this communication, is made with a view to bring to the notice of the meeting the particular topics through the discussion of which the efforts of the Convention shall be brought to a result. The bearing of the topics will be found to be much more practical as we appToach the end. The Order of Proceedings was then read as follows, and referred to the Committee of Arrangements: ORDER OF PROCEEDINGS.

Submitted for the consideration of the National BaptistEducational Convention, Brooklyn, April 19-21, 1870. TUESDAY.-MORNING. 9: 30 to 10-Organization. I 10 to 12: 30-The place of Academies in a system of higher education, the standards to which they should aspire, and the conditions of their efficiency.-Prof. S. S. GREzNE, Brown University.

AFTERNOON. 2: 30 to 3: 30-The sphere and duties of Education Societies -

G. W. BOSWORTH, D.D., Cor. Sec’y of the Northern Baptist Education Society. 3: 30 to 4: 30-The duty of the church to provide the most advanced investigators and teachers in the departments of science, and, at the same time, to conserve the dis cipline and culture of classical and literary studies.-J. R. Loomis, LL.D., University of Lewisburg. 4: 30 to 5: 30-The question of Fellowships as a reward for eminent scholarship, and with a view to the rearing of a specially learned class, from which Professors may be taken for our Universities and Schools of Theology.-ALvAII HOvFY, D.D., Newton Theological Institution. EVENING. 7: 45 to 9: 30-The University of the 19th century-what it is, and what it will cost-M. B. ANnDRSON, LL.D., University of Rochester. 8

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. WEDNESDAY.-MORNING. 9 to 9: 30-The relations of our denominational papers to the educational interests of the denomination.-J. W. OLMSTEAD, D.D., Boston. 9: 30 to 11-The methods by which education may be made a specialty and a paramount or ganized interest in our denominational activities.-L. Moss, D.D., Phil adelphia.

11 to 12: 30Jesuit Collegiate Instruction, as affecting present questions of education and society.-G. W. SAMSON. D.D., Columbian College.

AFTERNOON. 2: 30 to 3: 30-The condition and prospects of education in the Southern States, as affecting both races, and the duties of the Baptists as thence arising-J. L. 1Ji. CURRY, LL.D., Richmond College. 3: 30 to 5: 30-The kind and extent of ministerial culture demanded in our time, and es pecially in our denomination.-E. G. ROBINSON, D.D., Rochester Theo logical Seminary. The most advanced ministerial culture as illustrated and vindicated ii the actual work of preacher and pastor.-E. DI)ODGE, D.D., LL.D., Madis,on University. EVENING. 7: 45 to 9: 30-The discussion of Theological Education continued. THURSDAY.-MORNING. 9 to 11-The duty of educators to lead the cause of education.-G. W. NORTHiRUP, D. D., Chi cago Theological Seminary. 11 to 12: 30-Reports and discussions. AFTERNOON. 2: 30 to 3: 30-The demand of the age for the higher education oI women, and how it should be answered. JOHN H. RAYMOND, LL. D., Vassar College. 3: 30
to 5-The question of endowments for our literary and theological institutions. A dis cussion. To be opened by EDw. BRIGeT, D.D., New York.

5 to 5: 30-Reports and discussions. EVENING. Reports of Committees, with discussions, concluding with a conference on the bearing of a general educational movement on the character and prospects of the denomination, and the duty of pastors, by public instruction and by private counsel, to cooperate in promoting it. UNASSIGNED TOPICS, To be taken up according to the time and choice of the Convention. 1. The advancement of our laity in the higher forms of education, as affecting the supply ot ministers, and the character and extent of ministerial training. 2. The necessity for an abridged course of studies in our Theological Schools, and the methods of making it effective. 3. The practical training of students of theology as connected with the theoretical. 4. The hindrances to the intellectual power of the ministry in the instability of the pastoral office. 5.

Methods of religious teaching and influence in academies and colleges. 6.

The education of our laymen in Christian schools, in view of the new developments of lay labor in mission schools and lay preaching. 7. The displacement of spiritual ideas by the materialism which seeks to propagate itself under the guise of educational reform. 8. The question of instruction in the elements of the Hebrew language, in the college course, to those who expect to study theology. 9

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Prof. S. S. GREENE read the first paper, on ACADEMIES.

The subject of this paper is Academies, their place in a system of higher education, the standard to which they should aspire, and the conditions of their efficiency. A system of higher education presupposes a gradation in the institutions which enter into it. The academy forms one of its grades; it is a step in a ladder, a link in a chain-a part of a whole. Its true value is not realized except it be considered as part of a system.

Considered with reference to our public or elementary schools, the academy belongs to what in Europe are called middle schools, the elementary schools being the first in the series and the university the last. They answer in kind, not in extent, to the Gymnasia of Germany, the Grammar Schools, or the Great Public Schools of England-as, for example, Rugby, Eton, and Harrow. They are intended to accomplish what was contemplated by the Pilgrim Fathers when they established the grammar school to train boys for “ye universitie.” The appellation academy does not seem to have been applied to them till near the close of the Revolution. The name was adopted from some of the celebrated Puritan Seminaries of Great Britain.

According to Milton’s plan, however, they were to be schools into which boys should enter at the age of twelve, and there complete their classical education. “This place” (the academy) he says, “should be at once both school and university, not needing a remove to any other house of scholarship except it be to some peculiar college of law or physic where they mean to be practitioners.” But in giving theni a place in the American system of education, their founders wisely made them strictly subordinate to the college, thereby forming the first grade in the series of our higher seminaries. Hence, regarded in reference to a system of higher education, they belong to the primary grade. Suclh has been the American academy from its origin, near the close of the Revolution, when Dr. Phillips and his nephews founded and nobly endowed the seminaries which bear their name. Academies, as they are administered in this country, are intended in most instances to accomplish two purposes, namely: First and foremost, to prepare young men for college; and secondarily, to supplement the primary instruction obtained in the public school, with so much of science and literature as is needed for teaching, or for the various departments of business. At least, such is the scheme of our first-class academies. The place of the academy, then, is well defined-a middle school-a school imparting secondary instruction preparatory for college or for business. But be it remembered, it does not hold an exclusive title to this place. Our college records credit their admissions to at least three classes of schools: academies bearing their various corporate names; hiygh schools, usually bearing the names of the cities or towns where they are located; and private school8 bearing various names, according to the choice of the founders. The academy, while performing the same functions as these other classes of schools, is further to be distinguished from each of them. It must be a public school, not in the sense of common-that is, open to all of whatever age, attainment, or aim in life-but public, in distinction from private. To this end it must have a recognized legal existence by an act of incorporation. It must be committed to the care of a Board of Trustees, who shall have in charge its funds; who shall establish its courses of instruction; who shall ap 10

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. point its instructors, and determine its general policy, both internal and external. Thus it assumes a responsibility before the public which it is bound to meet under the penalty of forfeiting its chartered privileges. The private school, on the contrary, rises into existence by the voluntary act of its teacher or teachers. It has no such public recognition as the academy. It is opened for a special purpose. It may be exclusive or not, at the will of its principal. Its courses of study may be limited or extended, to suit the fancy of the founder, or the taste of its patrons. It may control its own terms, determine its own hours of study, arrange its own classes, establish its own laws, adopt its own methods, teach much or little, do substantial or superficial work, govern vigorously, or by flattery and coaxing-and in all this it is responsible to no one but its peculiar patrons. If they are satisfied and continue their support, it thrives. If they become dissatisfied and see fit to withdraw their helping hand, it declines. To say the least, it is liable to great fluctuations, and its success and usefulness are mainly dependent on the good sense, the fidelity, the enterprise, the energy and the manliness of its teachers. Its range of studies is often so great as to embrace those of the highest and lowest grade. And yet we have many excellent private schools-doing precisely the same work as our academies, and doing it well. Indeed, the admissions to Harvard the last three years have been distributed about equally between academies, private schools and high schools. It is easy to see, however, from the nature of their organization, that private schools have not the same conditions of stability as our first-class academies; nor do they, as a whole, afford the same assurances of thorough instruction. Again, the academy must be afree school-not free in the sense of gratuitous, but free in the sense of open to all without distinction of class or condition, free to all who comply with its prerequisites for admission, who subscribe to its regulations and are faithful to its requirements, regardless of social, political, or ecclesiastical distinctions; free in its results-that is, in the sense of liberal-lifting the minds of its pupils above the narrow prejudices and unfounded opinions which are wont to accompany credulity and ignorance. But it will be said that the public high school as a middle school is free in another and most important sense: that it offers high instruction to rich and poor, high and low, without money and without price. This is to a certain extent true, and none rejoice in that truth more than those whom I now address; but if the public high school can give secondary education, can do it well, and do it without cost, where is the place of the academy? Why not abandon our academies altogether, and give our entire support to the public free schools? In certain cases this would be the wisest policy. In Boston, for example, the Public Latin School is doing all that an academy could do; no other similar institution is needed there. But, be it remembered, it does its work for Boston exclusively. In other words, it is strictly a local school; so that, with all its freedomi, it is to those outside of that city the most exclusive of all schools. The intervention of a single street, or even of an imaginary line, debars the children of one family from the privilege which his more fortunate neighbor is enjoying most freely. Compare with this the academy with its universal constituency, open to all whether from city or country. But let us not be deceived by a mere name. It is but here and there that a city like Boston can separate its classical from its English department. Boston has two high schools-one called the English High School, to give a higher English education; the other the Latin Grammar School, devoted excluasively to the preparation of boys for college. 11

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NiATIONAL BAPTIST Pass now to the smaller cities, and these two elements must unite in the one high school. Here the contrast between the high school and the first-class academy becomes apparent at once. As the high schoel is a public school, established and supported by public tax, it is but just that it should meet the public want. Now the want for the mass of boys is not a classical, but a business education. The order is, and should be, the scientific and business element first, and the classical second-just the reverse order of the first-class academy. Descending once more to the smallest cities and the larger towns and villages, and still we find what is called the high school; but it is devoted mainly to the higher departments of elementary instruction. Even though the principal teacher may be a graduate from the college, he can do little else than attend to the common branches, or to such higher English branches as a wise supervision will admit. What, then, if some few shall be allowed to study Latin and Greek, with a view to entering college? It can be only by sufferance-we might well say by suffering; for a threefold suffering there must be: that of the master who is attempting to teach the classics, without that inspiration which arises from a devotion to classical study; that of the mass of the school, who are losing just so much of the master’s time and attention as he bestows upon this few; and that of the unfortunate few themselves, who, by a cursory and superficial reading of the requisite amount for admission to college, may possibly enter, conditioned at various points, and struggle on through the four years’

coursealways at a disadvantage. Let us pass again from these to the smaller towns, where nothing bearing the name of high school can be established, and what kind of middle school shall supply the wants of this large and important portion of our population? In the adjoining larger towns, particularly in New England, academies were usually established at private expense, somewhat local in character, and often in operation only a part of the year, to which the young men and tile young women of the rural districts resorted. But, in the progress of public school instruction, these academies have either fallen into decay, or, more frequently, have been transmuted into strictly local high schools, thus shutting their doors effectually against all outside the limits of the more favored town where they are established. The question then becomes a still more vital one, Where shall the young men and the young \vomen of our small towns receive a higher education? Especially, where shall the young men prepare for college? This kind of high schools, as we have already seen, is not only an unsuitable place for this last kind of work, but, with all its boasted freedom, it is strictly an exclusive school.

Instead of an Academy which accommodated a whole county, we have now a high school restricted to one of its principal towns. True, in various instances some compromise has been made to accommcdate those living out of the town; but this is an exception to the system. Thus, while our public high schools are furnishing free instruction, they are doing it for a limited portion of the people. In fact, they are virtually depriving a portion of the community of privileges which they formerly enjoyed. These facts, showing the tendencies of education in our country, go far to indicate not only the place, but the character of our future Academies.

And it is well for us, just at this period, that we have come together as a Christian people; to consider such vital questions as the place of academies. We have seen the small academies fading away under the progress of high school instruction, and, perhaps, at times, in a thoughtless moment, we may have joined in the popular exclamation-” No place for academies; the free high school in its stead.” 12

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. But there is a place for academies-an imperative demand for those of the highest order. Yet we cheerfully concede that there is little or no place for second-rate academies-no place for the many small institutions which have arisen to gratify local ambition or personal convenience, rather than to supply a real public want. There is a demand for a limited number of first-class schools, wisely and judiciously located, so as to accommodate the people in all sections of our country.

None rejoice more than we at the general progress of education; but let us not suppose that, on this account, we have nothing more to do. If first-class academies are no longer needed, how is it that Exeter is sending forth annually its three score or more of students? How is it that Andover, Williston, and Wilbraham, are graduating such numbers to enter our higher institutions? For the last three years, Harvard alone has received from Exeter an average of over twenty students; and I am informed that out of the forty and upwards who entered the last Freshman class in Madison University, nearly three-fourths of tho whole passed directly from the academy in that place into the university. Our high schools, in their various localities, are doing much for secondary education, and all honor to the men who have given their hearts and their hands to the work of elevating them; but they cannot supply the wants of the whole community.

It may enable us to judge more accurately of the sources from which our Academies are filled, if we compare, in Exeter, for example, tlke numbers who come from the large cities, with those from other sources. In 1868, only about 25 per cent. of the whole number were from our large cities; in 1867, about 33 per cent.; in 1866, 32 per cent:; in 1865, 37 per cent. On an average, only about one-third. The greater part of the other twothirds, as appears from the cata logue, comes from the smaller towns.

Of those who receive a secondary educa tion, probably a larger per cent.

of those from the country pass on to college than of those from the city.

Take, for example, the Boston Latin School-one of the best, if not the very best, of our public schools-and it is by no means doing the work of one of our first-class academies, even in its peculiar work of preparing boys for college. According to a Report of Dr. N. B. Shurtleff, Chairman of the Committee on the Latin School, September, 1861, the average number prepared for college for the ten previous years was 16.8 per annum; and for the forty-six previous years, the average was 12.56 per annum. Be it remembered that this is the average number for the city of Boston-the Athens of America; a city having, in 1861, a population of 178,000, a valuation of $312,000,000, and a system of public schools in which were 28,000 pupils. Taking now the statistics of Phillips Academy at Andover for the last twentyeight years, during the preceptorship of its present able principal, Dr. S. H. Taylor, and for the ten years previous to 1866, the average number prepared for college was 46.9; and for the whole twentyeight years, 33X4. The contrast is equally great if we take Exeter Academy. Let it not be said, then, that the day of academies is gone by-that they have no place in our systems of higher instruction. They are, and they are to be in all coming time, the nurseries of our colleges-the institutions which are to gather in the unawakened material from all parts of the land, and inspire it with the true classical spirit. Let us inquire, in the second place, What are the standards to which they should aspire? In respect to the kind of instruction, the classical element should predominate; and this is saying nothing against Scientific Schools, Normal Schools, Technical 13

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lNATIlONAL BAPTIST Schools, Agricultural Schools, or any other of the many good schools which have arisen in the country for special purposes; but it is saying what the Academy should aspire to be. It should be a classical school; not of the highest grade, for then it would cease to be an academy, and become a university; but of the highest order in its grade-a preparatory classical school, in which the student begins to acquire scholarly tastes. In respect to quality, nothing short of the highest standards of excellence should be aimed at. As the academy is the initiatory school, it is important that the true ideal of scholarship should be set before the student at the outset of his career. To this end the instruction should be of the most thorough kind. It is a false idea that any one who has graduated from the college is competent to take charge of the preparatory school. We need experience, skill, and a thorough acquaintance with the subjects taught. We need at the head of our Academies men who understand human nature, or, as the famous Dr. Arnold would have it, “men who know boys.” In its range of studies, it should not aspire, on the one hand, for the sake of increasing its numbers, to receive those who properly belong to the elementary schools. The moment it does this, it degrades itself, and sinks in tone and character. On the other hand, it should not aspire to do the work of the college. It cannot do it well; and those students who remain in the academy to enter upon an advanced standing in college, almost uniformly regret it. It should confine itself strictly to the studies of its own grade; and in the doing of this lies its peculiar power. It is to impart secondary, not collegiate, instruction. In its moral and religious sense, the academy should be truly Christian. In this regard it has a decided advantage over the public high school. We mean by this that the positive and distinctive principles of Christianity can be, and should be taught and enforced, not as pertaining to any sect, but as set forth by our Divine Lord. In the high school, for obvious reasons, little more can be done than to enforce Christian precepts in a general way. But in the academy, the dawn of a higher intellectual and literary life may be accepted as the fitting season for spiritual quickening. He who has been instrumental in calling into greater activity the intellectual faculties, is most favorably situated for arousing the conscience, and thus awakening the whole inner life to thoughtfulness and duty. No lower standard than this should be aimed at. The disposition to do it is what is wanted, and a golden opportunity is neglected if, in this awakening of the intellectual powers, the seeds of religious thought are not scattered freely. How many a pupil has left home a thoughtless youth, and returned to thank God that his instructor’s mouth had not been closed by a jealous conservatism. The opponents of positive religious teaching know full well how successfully the persistent cry of sectarianism has ruled out of public high schools all direct religious instruction. But over the academy they can have no control. They are at liberty to with draw their sons at any time; and this is their only relief, whenever, in their esti mation, a one-sided Christianity is taught. But we greatly mistake our duty if we suffer even the fear of giving offence to divert us from performing an ob vious and positive service. In respect to the college, the academy should aspire to hold the most cordial and confiding relations. It should aim to meet the increasing demand of the college for a more thorough preparation. Indeed the time is not far distant when most of the studies of the Freshman year must be taught in the prepara tory school. Our academies must be elevated to meet this new demand, and 14

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. they should aspire to do it cheerfully, regarding it rather as an honor than a burden, that they are called to make this advance upon their former standing. In respect to thepublic whose patronage they seek, they should aim to make their influence positive and elevating. It is a blessing to any community to have within it a well-regulated academy. But we hasten to the last topic of our theme-the conditions of their efficiency. These may be arranged under the heads of locaclity, supervision, and endowments. In a discriminating report made to the General Court of Massachusetts in 1797 by a committee of which Nathan Dane of Beverly was chairman, it was recommended that State endowments as a general principle should be made to depend upon the fact that the proposed academy had an adequate territory to support it. While this committee were in favor of bestowing State patronage upon wellarranged academies, they were of the opinion “that no academy (at least not already erected) ought to be encouraged by government unless it have a neighborhood to support it, of at least 30,000 or 40,000 inhabitants.” The purpose of this restriction was to discourage the custom of multiplying academies to an undue degree to accommodate particular localities. For want of attention to this, academies were formerly, in many instances, mere local schools for temporary use, continued sometimes only for a part of the year and receiving all who applied, whether fitted or not. They thus lacked entirely that unity of character and purpose which is ever essential to an elevated standard; they were without endowment, without apparatus-without any of the various appliances now considered requisite in schools of much lower pretensions, and too often without a teacher of any marked ability. In these schools classes were necessarily so multiplied as to compel the master to pass slightingly over many of the studies, and consequently to give instruction at once superficial and ineffectual. In short, the constituency was too small to afford a sufficient number of pupils fitted to sustain and vivify the school. A wiser policy has been at work, transforming such academies into public high schools, and rendering them truly valuable institutions. These high schools have their place and should be maintained. At the same time, the previous existence and present fate of these academies indicate a prime condition of efficiency in establishing a first-class academy. Let it have an ample territory; let it occupy a convenient locality, easy of access, if possible where railway facilities will enable students within a circuit of twenty miles to avail themselves of its privileges, and yet board at home. In addition to this it should offer inducements to any, far or near, to leave their homes, take lodgings within its walls, or in the immediate vicinity, and pursue with energy its prescribed course of study.‘thus, we have a constituency not limited to a population of 30,000 or 40,000, but one of wide extent; yet it should not be so wide as to render it difficult of access. The catalogues of our best academies show that the homes of their students are scattered over the various States, North, East, South and West. Thus as the number of academies shall diminish, the efficiency will increase. A preference for the university from which a young man is to graduate, sometimes does more than mere locality in fixing the choice of a preparatory school. An academy often adapts itself to the requirements of a particular university, and acquires a high reputation for preparing young men for it. Thus, while this very reputation would naturally attract those who aim to enter that seat of learning, at the same time it indirectly leads others, who entered without any 15

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NATIONAL BAPTIST previous choice-drawn by a natural class sympathy-to enter the same university. And here we see the wisdom of those who have not restricted their benefactions to the highest seminaries of learning.

How can our colleges and our professional schools prosper, if we neglect the sources from which they draw their supplies? While thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been poured upon our universities and theological institutions (and wisely) for the last ten years, what has been done to encourage these nurseries and fountains of learning? It is a source of unmitigated grief that we must say it, they have been in a great measure neglected. And then the supervision of these lower seminaries should partake of that same vigorous character which has been so cheerfully exercised over our higher schools of learning. Any school will languish unless there is constantly held up before it a high ideal. This is the chief advantage of an intelligent supervision. A high standard is to be constantly kept before the instructors; and any lack in the practical administration must be brought to this standard by those who are entrusted with its interests. This supervision should be suggestive and coopertive rather than censorious, but always efficient. We pass to the closing topic of this discussion-the absolute necessity ot endowments. We need first-class academies; and we cannot have them without funds. It is in vain to attempt the elevation of one of these schools without sufficient means to support it in its days of trial as well as during its periods of prosperity, The tuitions alone can never support the kind of instruction which must be given, in order to render it a first-class school. Is it asked how it is that Exeter, Andover, East Hampton, and Wilbraham, have maintained their standing amidst the changes which have been wrought in public instruction in the last quarter of a century? The simple answer is, they are amply endowed. Exeter was established as a Preparatory School. It was not till 1808, some thirty years after its first foundation, that an English or Scientific department was established. This was continued about forty years, when it gave way to the increased demand of the classical department. The very reasons which many are giving for closing up our academies entirely, are the, reasons which induced the Trustees of Exeter to close only the Scientific department.

They say in the preface to their large Catalogue, embracing the history of the Sclhool from 1783 to 1869, “As good high schools were springing up in different localities all over New England, which dispense an excellent English education, the English was absorbed in the classical department of the academy, and probably will not assume a separate existence.” laet us see how this absorption of the English department has affected the School.

During the first decade after it was established, the whole number entering the institution was 367. From 1810 to 1820, it was 441; from 1820
to 1830, 378; from 1830 to 1840, 365; from 1840 to 1850, 357; from 1850 to 1860, after the absorption had taken place, the number rose to 567; and from 1860 to 1869, less than a decade, to 733-a number nearly double the average of the decades while the English department was maintained. This shows what we have already said, that the missions of the high school and of the academy are not the same. “About the year 1850”-I quote again-” it was found that there were pupils enough, and work enough to be done, in the classical department alone, for all the instructors who could be supported from the funds.” This shows that the “funds” sustain this high character of the Academy, and enable the Trustees to dispense with its English department, and yet increase the numbers in attendance. I have already said that an average of over twenty enter Harvard annually. About an equal number enter other colleges, besides a large 16

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. number who close their classical course at the academy. This thrift of Exeter is easily explained. Let me quote again-“

For one great advantage which the academy has possessed from the outset over other classical schools in New England, it is indebted to the wisdom and benevolence of its founder, who determined that meritorious students, whose circumstances required such aid, should not only have free tuition, but should be in great part maintained at the expense of the institution.”

Let me call attention to another fact resulting directly from endowments.

I refer to the permanence and stability which have given such high reputation to our best Academies. The history of Exeter extends through a period of upward of eighty years, and yet it hag had only two Principals.

Dr. Benjamin Abbot was Principal for over half a century, and Dr. Gideon L. Soule, after having been associated with Dr. Abbot for nearly seventeen years, was elected Principal in 1838, having served the institution almost an equal period. Dr. Taylor, of Andover, has been the Principal of that academy for a period of about thirty years. Nothing like this can be produced from our unendowed schools. Is it a matter of surprise that these seminaries have attained such a world-wide reputation? Let us not conceal another fact, that thoseuniversities and colleges which are in special sympathy with these academies, are reaping rich annual harvests from the thorough training resulting from such experience, such long and skilful service. We. sometimes look with surprise at the great numbers that flock to our ancient colleges. If we look back of them to these fountains of supply, we shall be no longer surprised; rather shall we be surprised at the lack of forecast which has attempted to build up the college without providing these permanent means of giving it students. If we look back for the last ten years and mark the general tendency toward our higher institutions, I labor under a great mistake if we do not see occasion for regret that our academies, as a whole, have been overlooked. In case of most of our permanent academies, their alliances with higher institutions are generally established-not necessarily, not by any undue influence-but each has its traditional and historic connections; so that to enter a given academy is almost equivalent to a choice of a college. Even where the choice has not been made, the general drift, the strong class feeling.

and the unconscious influence of the academic course, do much toward determining the future collegiate course. In this respect our high schools are supposed to be neutral, yet many of them, from various circumstances, have acquired a similar tendency. If, then, we are to offer to the public collegiate instruction, and provide ample means for it, a wise policy will also provide abundant sources of supply by endowing and sustaining academies. If any one is yet in doubt as to the special need of these institutions, let him ask which are the seminaries that come in contact with the masses of the people? Surely not our universities, not our professional schools, but our academies. They take young men from the plough, the workshop, or the mart of business; they take them, too, with the intellectual forces undeveloped; the material is in its inert and unformed state, and much of it will return with some degree of polish and refinement to former pursuits. But with another portion the development in the academy will be but the beginning of a career of liberal education.

How vastly important it is, to have at the head of these institutions, commanding ability, the power of insight to discriminate and encourage true genius, and lead it forward in the right course of training. Nothing short of liberal endowments can secure this. Look still further to the fact already stated. In our high schools and in most 2 17

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NATIONAL BAPTIST of our private schools, the religious element is assuming a merely negative character; indeed, in some of our institutions, even irreligious tendencies are. manifesting themselves. Who can estimate the withering effect of a significant silence or an ill-disguised sneer from an instructor, when some important religious question shall arise in the awakened minds of the young? These moments of intellectual and moral awakening are the special seasons when a truly discriminating and Christian teacher, better than any other person, can guide the earnest inquirer after truth. We need men at the head of our academies who are alike eminent for their scholarly attainments, and their power as Christian teachers. To such schools as these let us send our sons and our daughters, and let us place a higher estimate upon the education of all our children. We need not select this son for the bar, that for medicine, and another for the pulpit; but let us place them all where the best educational forces shall call out their undeveloped faculties, and leave the rest to Providence. Think you we shall thus have inferior jurists, less skilful physicians, less able preachers of the Gospel? Who are to be our future mayors, governors, representatives, senators, and men of power and influence? The boys who are now going through the process of education. Are we doing our duty to render the quality of that education what it should be? I submit, whether it is not this humbler position of our academies, that has occasioned this unfortunate oversight and neglect; but what can we do without them? Where shall we stand a few years lhence, if we continue to neglect them? I stand before you an accredited representative of the Worcester Academy in Massachusetts, and yet am connected with a college in another State. Holding this middle position, I can plead as otherwise I could not, for the endowment of that institution.

Situated in the heart of New England, accessible from every point of compass by railroads, occupying one of the noblest structures in that city or any other, and crowning one of the finest hills for which Worcester is famous, it offers peculiar facilities for establishing an academy second to none in the country. It has a large and valuable estate, free from debt; it is awakening to new life-but it has no endowment. Would that these words might reach the ear of some Phillips, some Crafts, or some Williston, who shall be moved, in the language of one of them, to endow an institution “for the promoting of virtue and true piety, useful knowledge being subservient thereto.” And in conclusion let me say, that if the deliberations of this Convention shall result in this alone, namely, a profound awakening to the importance of these hitherto neglected seminaries-if they shall result in an organized and well-directed effort to establish, endow and vigorously maintain first-class academies in suitable localities throughout our land-then our coming together will not have been in vain. Dr. CASWELL: I would simply inquire whether the Worcester Academy is open to females as well as males. Prof. GREENE: The faculty of this academy have not, in that respect, fully determined their policy. At present there are no ladies who reside out of the city attending thie academy; the accommodations for lodgings are at present confined entirely to them. Pres. RAYMOND: I would like to inquire of Prof GREENE 18:

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. what is the general practice of academies in New England, in this particular. Are females admitted usually to the academies of instruction on an equal footing with males? Prof. GREENE: At Exeter, none but boys are admitted; at Andover, none but boys. At Wilbraham it was the wish of the founder that for a time girls should also be admitted, but it was left entirely to the discretion of the trustees. Of the smaller academies I have but little knowledge; many of them have gone out of existence, but most of them admitted both girls and boys. Dr. SAMSON: There are some features of this matter which have in my mind a bearing beyond the range of the discussion in this paper. I have listened with a great deal of interest to it because of my former association with Prof GREENE, at the academy to which he has referred; but there are some ideas suggested that takle a form not fully brought out in his paper. I cannot but think it may be, after all, that even in New England, the academy must be brought under the wing of the college; in a large portion of our country not provided with academies, there are preparatory schools immediately connected with the colleges. Very early in the history of the University of Virginia, this became a part of the system, and now, all around that university, in the towns within twenty or thirty miles of it, there are schools, some of a very high order, but generally under the control or immediate influence of the university. These schools are conducted by very able men. The University of Georgia was established some twelve or fifteen years ago, and there the idea was further elaborated.

South of Maryland, and, I think, of Pennsylvania, it has been found absolutely necessary for colleges to have preparatory departments, and I cannot but think the very statements of the paper we have heard show the importance of retaining them. In Germany they have the gymnasia; and this suggests an important idea: The gymnasium there is a part of the college, and the preparatory schools that are needed for our colleges, are really a part of the college. The system cannot be relied on unless there is a close connection-a moral or a direct legal connection between the preparatory school and the college. This matter has also attracted much attention in France, as will be found by a reference to Guizot’s History of his Times. Four theories were current before the reign of Louis Philippe. The first Napoleon found the system of education which had formerly existed in France broken down by the Revolution, which carried before it all the old civilization. 19

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Talleyrand got up a scheme that did not work; Condorcet devised a set of schools on a system of equality-all crowded down into the same grade, and everybody crowded into the same schools. This not working, a third system came in, which was to allow anybody to teach anything he pleased, and anybody to learn or not, as he pleased. While things were in this chaotic style, came in Guizot, and I think we may find some very important ideas in his system. The question now in France is, how to connect the universities and colleges with all schools of lower grade so as to make the system one harmonious whole. Now in New England, to which reference has been made, Prof. GREENE remembers the history of the Worcester Academy, and it does seem to me as if something must be wrong.

Let me ask, if the academy, as far as its object is to prepare young men for college, is a part of the college, will not all the ends suggested by Prof. GREENE be secured? In the first place, there is your endowment-you are elevating the college when you elevate the preparatory department. The Professor in each department of the college will be the Professor in or will have the general supervision over the same department in the preparatory school, and the two will be made, therefore, that harmonious and perfect whole which is so desirable. And again, there is the matter of religious supervision. We have met here as Christian educators, I suppose, and right here is a point of vital importance. I cannot believe that in any of our colleges we are to have the creed of Socrates and Plato our sole religious teaching, and the Lord Jesus Christ excluded. This religious supervision, so essential, can it be better secured than by a connection with the college, with all its officers, with men of religious character and influence having the supervision over it? Dr. CUTTING: I feel a profound interest in the question of education in academies. It seems to me that it is not a very material question whether preparatory departments shall be connected with colleges, though I have very grave doubts in respect to the expediency of such connection. I think that the principle of division of labor applies here as elsewhere-that men do their work best when they do one thing; but whether academies shall or shall not be connected with colleges, I think this is clear-that we need ten academies where we need one college. All the academies, therefore, cannot be connected with colleges. That which I have on my mind and in my heart, as the ideal toward which the Baptist denomination should aspire in its work in education, is a system of schools which shall place higher education 20

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. within the reach of the whole body of our people.

And if a higher impulse shall seize upon our people, and they shall maintain a higher impulse in reference to the work of education, it will be necessary that academies be accessible to our people everywhere. It seems to me that the old Massachusetts principle, to which the paper read this morning has adverted, is the true onean academy to the population necessary for its support. I think that we need four academies in the State of New York. We need an academy on the Hudson River; we need that the academy at Hamilton, connected with the University, should be largely endowed; we need an academy in the Southern tier of counties; we need an academy in the Western part of the State: and every one of them, to do the work which the present state of education requires, needs an hundred thousand dollars for its endowment, besides the buildings paid for and its apparatus provided; and then we shall have academies brought near to the homes of our people throughout the State. And that which is true of New York, is true of every other State in the Union. It is desirable that our academies be so multiplied, and be made of such character, that there shall be no excuse on the part of parents, who have not the means, for not sending their children to them; and if we can but have academies after this idea, and in these numbers, then our colleges will not be empty. All our colleges will be filled, and more than filled; and never will they be filled until we thus commence at the bottom-until above our common schools, above our graded town schools, we have a system of academies, made accessible to all our people, where education shall be thorough.

Then, the blessing of God descending on these academies, the blessing of God accompanying young men who shall go from these academies to our colleges, and the blessing of God on those young men in our colleges, shall give us our ministry. I do not believe that the cause of ministerial education can succeed-I do not believe that the cause of higher education can succeed in our denomination, until, ceasing to be ambitious to multiply our colleges, we attend to this matter of establishing academies.

I have said more than I meant to say; lt I believe this to be the great necessity. I cannot but hope that the order of discussion which shall arise-for we have time to talk about this thing-will bear in this direction: so that we shall go to our homes all over this land to stimulate the establishment of academies, out of whose prosperity all our higher institutions shall prosper. 21

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Dr. HAGUE: In order to have our thoughts clear on the subject, I would ask Dr. SAMSON to state whether, in the course of his argument on the paper, he intended it to be understood as taking the position that every academy should be linked to a university, as a preparatory school, and he has a view that harmonizes with the doctrines of that paper touching the nature and design of academies? Dr. SAMSON: I would say, in reply, that this line of thought was running in my mind when the paper was read, and when I did not know what view Prof. GREENE would take on the subject. There are sections of the country where academies are not likely to be efficient, except where immediately associated with colleges. I have no doubt that is the case all over the South. In regard to the University of Virginia, however, I suppose there are six or eight of these schools that are under the immediate influence of the University.

Dr. JETER: Private schools. Dr. SAMSON: Yes; private schools, but under the influence of the University-as much so as if they were directly connected with it; and it is only because of their known connection with the University that they are patronized. These six or eight schools are within a scope of how many miles of the University? Dr. JETER: Twenty or twentyfive miles. Dr. SAMSON: But at the University of Georgia, they have but one, and that is a short distance from the college, and directly under its supervision. As far as New England and New York are concerned, the statement of Dr. CUTTING, I suppose, is true; still, I think that there should be preparatory schools connected with all our colleges, even in addition to others. I really believe it would be more effective. Prof.

STEVENS: I have something to say, which was not said in the paper, though Dr. SAMSON touched on it. We have in Ohio, with a population of something over two millions, I think, more than twenty colleges, living, acting, aifd claiming a right to be colleges, besides ever so many branches of colleges. The denomination represented here-I cannot say as accurately now as I could twenty years ago-constitute say onetenth of the population; and we have one college-thank God, not any more, in Ohio. Now our college classes are fed mainly 22

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. by our preparatory department; and my own view is, that we cannot have academies in Ohio, because we have so many more colleges. There is not room for more than twenty academies in the State, and how can we have academies when the colleges cover the whole ground?

Dr. CALDWELL: How many of the colleges are worthy of the name? Prof.

STEVENS: I beg leave to be excused from answering that. (Laughter). There is another view. We have a common school system, and the gentlemen who have charge of that department claim that it is inferior to none in the country. I do not know how that is. Dr. ANDERSON (M. D., afterward D. D.), who was principal of the Cincinnati high school, visited New England. He came across my Yankee notions a little there, came back, and reported that Ohio was altogether-this was twenty years ago or more-ahead of Massachusetts in popular education. New England men did something toward putting our school system into operation in Ohio. Our high schools take the place -and they were intended to take the place-of academies, and of preparing scholars for colleges. I will add a word more: I am of Granville, and I hope the head of the college will say something about the condition of things there. But for our primary department we could not do anything. We do something more than academies can do. My wonder is, that the Massachusetts folks and the Rhode Island folks have let these preparatory schools go down, as I was astonished a year or two ago to hear that some of the academies have gone down. Massachusetts ought to have academies, and Brown University ought to have academies. We cannot have them, because our preparatory department gives us all the students we have properly fitted to enter. Some time ago there came from our high schdol to Granville College, to enter the junior class, I think it was, a smart, rather talented boy, earnest in seeking an education. He came to enter the junior class, and I talked with him, and he said he did not know much about it, nor his teacher either, and I agreed with him. He entered the freshman class, and, by dint of hard study and zealous application, he was able to get along, and make himself something of a scholar. And in one of our cities a year ago I met a gentleman who talked of sending his boy to Granville, and seemed to think it a great place; “but,” says he, “I can do better at any other college than Granville; it is the -,23

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NATIONAL BAPTIST slovest college in Ohio. Why, I can send him to a college,” and he named one of the leading universities in the State, run by a company of Christian people, “and they will put him through a year quicker than at your college.” I gave it up at once. We cannot have our academies; we must support our preparatory department for the present, at all events. Prof. GREENE: I would like to inquire of the gentleman from Ohio how many of the young men prepared in the high school get into Granville? Prof STEVENS: I cannot tell; but I have never known one to be properly prepared. Prof. GREENEt: It seems to me that the plan proposed is only part of a general scheme to have our academies nearer to, and that to be influenced by our colleges. It would be utterly impossible for us to establish a system, at present, in which the academy should have a legal connection with the college. In New England especially, we can aim at nothing more than a moral connection; and I believe it must be the same elsewhere. We, as a people, should aim to make this moral connection as strong as possible. The bond of sympathy should be so strong, the affinities so close, that there shall be a natural and inevitable flow of students from the academy to the university. Our colleges cannot, at present, compete with others in a bid for students from general sources.

How it is in Ohio, I cannot say. I know they have good public schools. I am not acquainted with any of their numerous colleges; but I know that, in New England and in other places where I am acquainted, it would be utterly impossible to make our several academies, in any way, lower branches of different colleges. Our academies must accommodate different localities, and must be established each on an independent legal basis, with separate boards of trustees. To furnish students enough to fill one of our colleges, we must look to a large population spread over a wide area of country, and this area must be greatly increased if it has within it several competing colleges. He who knows anything of the practical working of our institutions, must know that young men in the different sections of this wide extent of country enter the academy with minds undeveloped, and, in most instances, without a fixed purpose to enter upon a collegiate course. How can they, then, first make choice of the college which they are to enter, and then 24

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. travel hundreds of miles to enter its academic appendage? Oln the contrary, they enter the nearest academy, and there, in the ratio of five to one, ascertain, if they have not previously learned it, that their vocation is to be not that of the student, but that of the business man. My thought has been well developed in our system of public graded schools-and we all know that some of the ablest heads ever engaged in education have been at work upon our public school systems. Ask them, and they will tell you that they plant their elementary schools in every section of the city, so that the little children, whose minds are yet undeveloped, may have schools near their homes. A certain per cent. of them, usually less than a third, will advance to the grammar school; hence one grammar school will be sufficient for a number of the lower ones, and one high school for all the grammar schools of a large city. Now, take from this its organic connection, and, instead of a city, substitute a large section of country, as New England, for example, and you have my idea of the relation of the academy-the elementary school of a system of higher education. It is a developing school. Few, comparatively, who enter the numerous academies of New York, ever pass on to the college. And here I wish to develop one thought which was merely alluded to in the paper.

Our best students in college are not those who are there by the previous determination of their parents, but those who, in the preparatory schools, have evinced aptitude, capacity, and energy-those whose determination to prosecute their studies has been the result of their academic developments. We want men at the head of our academies who have the wisdom, the discrimination, and the candor which shall prompt them to advise boys, who cannot profitably pursue a collegiate course, to abandon the idea. In this way, many a hopeless case would be eliminated before making the attempt to enter college, and many a worthy young man would be encouraged to go forward. Let us have a sufficient number of academies to accommodate the different sections of our country, and let there be places for the education of all our children; and especially to bring forward and encourage those whose talents indicate the design of Providence that they shall be liberally educated. It depends mainly on the impulse given in the lower schools rather than on the determination of parents, that these boys shall go to college. We have enough of these boys in college. We want boys who have been sent to the academy, and there have determined their character, their ability, and their capacity to go 2a

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N!ATIONAL BAPTIST through with a course of education. We want men there who can determine this, and tell boys who ought not to go to college to go home and go to work, and those who can go to college, to train and lead them. Every year we shall then draw into our colleges the young men who ought to be educated thoroughly, and we shall send away a great many young men who ought never to go into a college. We want academies to select us out these young men, and we want them all over the country. It seems to me, with that idea in our minds, it will be utterly impossible for us to establish anything like a legal connection between the academy and the college. Dr. CASWELL: I have listened with a great deal of pleasure to the reading of the paper and to the discussion upon it. I suppose that this discussion looks, as it should look, to the great interest of education in the country; and as we are here generally as representatives of the Baptist denoInination, I may say that it has respect to the great interest of education in a religious direction. We are not here to discuss the matter in reference to the particular advantage of any one college, or all colleges; or the particular advantage or disadvantage of any one academy, or any number of academies. As I understand the matter, we are assembled here to look at the great advantages of education throughout our country and among our people. Well, then, in the first place, as has been said, I think we have colleges enough. A friend of mine, who knows all the statistics which any of us are likely to know, and some that we do not know, mentioned to me that there are about thirty different Baptist colleges in the country. I think we do not need any more; and, according to the account of our brother fromin Ohio, we might well dispense with some that already exist in form; and the reason for that is, that there are but a small portion of the young men of the country who want a really liberal education, or who want to go through a college or university. The demands of business, and the straitened circumstances of so many in the country, operate to produce this state of things. Why, in the high school of Providence, where we have three hundred scholars, one hundred and fifty of whom are girls, it is difficult, as I understand, to keep the boys in the school through the whole course. And why? Because business makes such a demand for boys, even but partially educated, that they find inviting places of business before they get through with their school education. Of course such boys do not get to college. 26

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Then, again, there is another fact: I think we want ten academies where we have one college. It is quite idle to suppose that in New England, or in even the dense population of our cities, we could establish, under the eaves of the University, a preparatory school, that would furnish for the colleges all the men we want. Moreover, we do not care to bring the young men who are fitting for college into closer relation with college students two or three years before they are prepared to enter. It does not, on the whole, as we think, work well. Then, again, the expense of sending boys from the country to the city to fit for college, is a consideration too important to be overlooked in arranging our plans for education. The city must, of course, have its schools; so, also, must the country have its schools. Our academies must be judiciously distributed so as to meet the wants of our people. It is of importance to place them in proper localities, where they will be known and easily accessible, and where the expenses of living will be as moderate as circumstances will permit. The heart of a great city is no place for boys to fit for college. It has too many outside attractions-too many temptations. We much prefer to place them where they will imbibe the simple, sturdy, industrious habits of the country. Without being contiguous to the college, the academy will derive important advantages from close educational relations with it. The spirit and methods of instruction in the college will descend to the academy. The boy, on entering the college, will not be put to the awkward necessity of unlearning what he had learned in the preparatory school. We are enjoying the benefit of this relation in Brown University. The schools adopt the methods and spirit of the University. The pupil, in passing from the school to the college, is constantly advancing in the same direction. It is also worthy of notice, that a university or college always exerts a like beneficial influence on the common school in its vicinity. The city of Providence is noted, and I think very justly, for the excellence of its public schools. The University has had no small share in bringing them up to this honorable position. For more than a hundred years, with few or no intermissions, the faculty has been represented in the City School Committee. At the present moment, no less than six officers of the college are rendering service in that capacity. It is a matter of course, not to say of necessity, that the higher schools will mould and shape the lower ones. Under a proper arrangement, our academies will copy the 27

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NATIONAL BAPTIST methods of our colleges. The closer the relations established between them, the better for each. They, to a considerable extent, depend upon each other. The college furnishes teachers for the academy-the academy furnishes pupils for the college. The public must appreciate and nourish them both. Dr. BAILEY: I am deeply impressed with the importance of the question under discussion at this time. For years past I have felt that it was one of the greatest wants of our denomination, to multiply academies over our land. From the reading of this paper, and the discussion which has followed, I am convinced that you need them in New England, and you need them in New York, and I am sure we need them in the West. While it is true it may be desirable, in most cases, in our Western colleges, to have preparatory departments connected with them, yet one academy connected with a college by no means supplies the wants of the people. If there were half-a-dozen, or twice that number, of good Baptist academies in the State of Ohio, it would be a vast help to Granville. While we have a preparatory department connected with the University of Chicago, and one also connected with Shurtleff College, at Alton, we need a dozen good Baptist academies in the State of Illinois. We need to educate in these academies a class of persons that will never go to college. In the academies now established, not more than one-half, or, at most, not more than twothirds, of the students ever enter college at all. Our young men and young women need a higher education than they can obtain in the public schools. More than that, there is many a young man in the West who would gladly avail himself of the opportunity of going to an academy within twenty or thirty miles of his home, who does not know he wants to go to college. He does not know what an education is; his father does not know; but if he gets initiated for six months or-a year at an academy, he will find out by and by, and go higher. The multiplication of these academies would at once multiply the number of students very greatly, and there would be more of them who would seek for a higher grade of education in our colleges. Then there are a large number of ministers in the West who have never graduated from any college or university, and have never had an academy education. We need academies for the purpose of educating the class who can never go to college. Let a man acquire a good English education and some knowledge of the languages, in an academy, and, if he has not graduated 28

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. from a college, he may stand before a public assemblage and preach with effect. I conceive, therefore, that one of the things absolutely necessary for the full and complete success of our system of education, is, that we establish academies-not immediately in connection with our colleges, but place them generally all over our land.

In our own State of Illinois, and in the the surrounding States of Wisconsin and Iowa, we have numerous examples-schools under the control of the Congregational and other denominations, that have no connection with colleges; and such schools we greatly need. The paper suggests the idea of State endowments in New England for these academies, and, at the same time, it is insisted upon that they shall be under religious influence. I do not see how, in the West, we can ask for State endowments when we insist upon a thorough Christian control of these institutions. If they are made State institutions, we must put all sorts of men into them. If they are made denominational institutions, then we shall put into them, as teachers, only Christian men. But, in order to do this, I think we are bound to dispense with State endowments, and obtain the means from onr brethren-from those who love Christ and the cause of education. Dr. EATON: I should like to have one particular point brought more in relief, and that is, the especial province and scope of academy instruction. Now, if I understand the able author of the essay, he would very considerably modify the education given in our academies-that is, he would assign certain portions now given in the academies to our high schools, and impose upon our academies an especial relation to our colleges and universities-making education in academies part and parcel of a collegiate or liberal education I do not know but we can very easily come to unanimity in regard to this. I do not believe there is a more important subject to come before this Convention, than the condition and efficiency of our academies. I thoroughly agree with the essay as to the importance of the work done in them, and of their multiplication. We must extend and invigorate academy instruction. Why, it depends on this altogether, almost, whether we shall have feeders to our colleges, and lay the very foundation on which the grand structure of a liberal education is to be reared. We are suffering greatly for want of more thorough and complete instruction in our academies. We never can otherwise elevate the standard, as there is so much need of doing in our colleges and universities. Now, we should multiply these 29

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NATIONAL BAPTIST academies. In my opinion, we have a deplorable account to render in this State, so far as this matter is concerned. Where is there a highly flourishing academy within the control or under the auspices of the Baptist denomination? We have some preparatory schools that are very efficient, and in one respect they are very important; the academies can hardly take their place. We want academies to be established in different parts of the State, and to come under the shadow-or rather the light-of our denominational influence. We want to begin on religious education in our academies, while the minds of our young men, tender and susceptible, are exposed to sceptical speculation; and our religious instruction must not be attenuated, partial, or tinctured with doubt as to the great truths of Christianity, but deep, thorough, and convincing, so as to sanetify the student to the discharge of Christian duty and the service of our blessed Saviour. We must not be mealy-mouthed on that great and vital subject. It must be treated thoroughly in our academies and carried up as thoroughly into our colleges. Now, perhaps I have talked too long; but I should like to know, exactly ard specifically, the idea of the essay and of others in respect to the province and scope of academy instructionwhether our academies are to be regarded as preparatory schools to our colleges, or to prepare young men for business in the world generally. Let us understand that point, Is the academy to be a denominational institution destined to be a part of our great educational system, beginning at the foundation and furnishing a basis for a higher education? Prof. GREENE: I did not intend to say that I would demand State endowments. I did intend to quote the language of Nathan Dane, Chairman of the Committee in the Massachusetts Legislature, of whom Daniel Webster said he was one of the ablest minds in the State. I did intend to say that he, in advocating State endowment, proposed that the number of academies should be so restricted as to secure adequate patronage and efficiency. But while that question is up, I will say State endowments have been bestowed on academies in Massachusetts, and they have flourished under it and under denominational influence. The State has given freely to its academies. And then, in reference to the grades of study in academies, I hoped I made myself understood on that point. I intended to say that we cannot discriminate, but must take in all above the common school, where, as the people used to say, they are taught the three R’s, and, perhaps, a little more; and 30

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EDUCATIONAL CONV ENTION. from that point to go on up to the standard of preparation for college. We should seek to answer all the wants of the people, both in in the city and country. Many a boy goes to an academy, expecting to study only the English branches, and, perhaps, a little Latin and Greek; and then, feeling the impulse imparted there, he seeks to go further, and he appeals to his parents to go to college. “Father,” says he, “I want to go to college; and if you will let me have the means, I will work to get it to pay you back after I go to College.” The boy never had a thought of it before he went to the academy, perhaps. Dr. CUTTING: Is it not the province of the academy to give every form of education which stops short of college education? Suppose a young man does not wish to go to college, but desires an education the best which he can obtain short of that, to prepare him for whatever sphere in life. Do you mean that? Prof. GREENE: I said a proper scientific and business education. Dr.

EATON: My idea was that we should not restrict our academies, and that our desire should be to elevate the standard in regard to all classes of instruction given. Dr. CALDWELL: It seems to me that the statements which have been made since I sought to get the floor may render unnecessary what I might have said. The academy seems to have a double function. It has been complimented highly in the paper which was read, as a feeder for the college; but I suppose it has in the mind of the author, as it has in all our minds, another function, viz.: that it has an end in itself, as furnishing the means of education for those who do not expect to go beyond it. It is true our academies have answered this double purpose, and therefore have been multiplied, in order that they might provide this secondary education; and, in doing this, it seems to me they are made to answer a very valuable purpose; and therefore they ought to be sustained liberally where already established, and multiplied generously where it may be necessary. I suppose that most boys who go to college-I say most-I think it may be the majority when they start, their aspiration is not high, and their purpose may be comparatively feeble. They have a nebulous idea before them of acquiring an education, and if an academy is near which opens its doors, and offers them an 31

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NATIONAL BAPTIST opportunity of obtaining an education, they go in without knowing how far they may go. But, once there, there come upon them influences which stimulate their desires and aspirations to go higher, and precipitate their purpose to take a college course. And this is one of the valuable uses of the academy-that it defines for boys what they need to have defined, viz: the desirableness of a higher education than they contemplate at the start. I I think there may be danger of too excessive multiplication of academies in some parts of New England. The multiplication of them will tend to lower their character and high standard, so that our aim should be the endowment and support of a few, giving them the highest efficiency, that, while they are tributary to the college, they may also be the means of providing for our people an education higher than the common school, which is greatly needed. For, while we acknowledge as our ideal the collegiate education for all young men to whom it is possible, we know that there is a large class, both of boys and girls, for whom it is desirable to have a higher than the common school education, who cannot reach the college; and, therefore, it seems to me that the academy serves a most important use, and holds one of the most important places in our educational system. This subject certainly is one of the most important which is to come under our consideration. Rev.

Mr. BOND: I do not know that I ought to intrude at all upon the Convention in the presence of those who are at the head of the higher institutions; but, chancing to be at the head of an academy in Connecticut, I have felt very much interested in the discussion which has thus far proceeded, and if my own experience could add anything to the testimony on some of the points which were brought out in the very able paper which was presented, I should be very glad to add them. In the first place, with reference to the need of the academy: There are now a very large number of high schools established, not only in our cities, but our large villages; but many of these high schools do very little for the classics, and very little for science, except simply to teach its elements. It is only a very few of these high schools which teach the classics thoroughly, or even teach the sciences as thoroughly as is desirable for preparation for college; and sometimes I have had persons come to me, even from these cities-young men, who, by reason of poverty or sickness, or some other circumstance-were unable to go on with their classes in the high school in their own city, and felt 32

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. that they could not go back and be classed with boys, and yet wanted to have an education, and so they came to the academy. Then there are communities in the small towns that cannot support such schools to send their young men, who have many of them earned, or partially earned, the means of paying their way, and I do know that some of the very best students that our academies have come from this source.

Now, I am satisfied that the academy has a most useful work to perform here, and I am proud, if I am the only man on this floor to say it, that I represent an academy under the control of the Baptist denomination whose trustees are Baptists, and whose teachers are Baptists for the most part.

Of course we do not insist upon it as a sine qua non. And the fact that here we are called on to take mind that comes to the academy young and unimpressed to deal with at first, to prepare it for college, or prepare it for business, or prepare it perhaps to enter some of the professions, renders it exceedingly important that the academy should be looked to.

With reference to endowment: this has been very much neglected. We have had to struggle on with what we got from tuition, perhaps first obtaining enough for our buildings, etc., with no means of aiding those who are needy, and who would be glad to stay, because attention has been directed so to the higher institutions-none too much, but not enough to the academies, so that our system has become somewhat top-heavy. I am very glad, therefore, to hear such sympathy and liberal’sentiments on the subject here. What will men do in the colleges if they are not trained thoroughly in the Latin and Greek languages, and in mathematics and English grammar, in our academies? What can they accomplish in the college? This is the work we have to do, and it is a work that requires the very best talent. I know it has been said, in reference to our common schools, by men who have become famous in connection with them, that they want the best talent in the prmary schools; so this talent still higher, and difficult to command for want of means, we want in our academies.

Then, again, with reference to the religious element: so far as my observation has gone, it is much easier to reach students in the academy than it is in the college; and I am glad to say, while on this point, that I can show that during about five years the academy with which I am connected, besides doing other work, has fitted half as many for college as the Boston Latin School. I am glad to say, also, that nearly all those who have gone out from us, with very few exceptions, have gone 33

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NATIONAL BAPTIST out Christian young men. Some of them, without going to college, have gone to the study of medicine, some of them are members of the bar, some of them are merchants, and some of them occupy other positions in the community. I am most heartily in sympathy with the remarks which have been made, that we so need to pay especial attention to academies, and that the range of study should not only be that which would fit young men for college, but which will fit the needs of persons who cannot go any further. Mr. CAPWELL: There is an idea associated with the word academy under the law of our own State that I like. When the term academy alone is used, it refers to an institution that is open to our daughters as well as to our sons, that furnishes alike instruction to both. We have female academies, and we have boys’ academies; but the term,academy, under our law, as describing a school which receives support from the State, as a rule applies to institutions open alike to both sexes. The discussion this morning seems to have been almost entirely in the direction of preparing our sons for religious or business duties. I would like to ask if this Convention is not prepared to give an impetus to female education in connection with academies as well as the simple preparation for college of the boys. We have now female colleges-where are the feeders of these, especially in our cities and towns? I wish, in the future discussion of the subject, those who are wise will give us the benefit of their wisdom upon this topic. I have expected that Dr. RAYMOND, who presides over our female college, would have been upon his feet before this time upon this point. Is it not our duty as Baptists to look after this department of instruction more than we have done? Then another thing in regard t our academies, in New York particularly. While they are under supervision and subject to visitation by the regent of the university, they are still free, and are governed by the local board of trustees. We have, in various parts of the State, as you are aware, academies of half a century’s standing, and some of them have been under the control almost entirely of Baptist trustees and Baptist professors. Shall we turn our attention to the mere making a selection here and there, and confine our endeavor to raise them, if possible, to the excellence desired, or shall we allow our influence to be extended over as large a field as lies in our power? I will not take up further time. 34

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Dr. BABCOCK: Mr. BOND, who spoke just now, belongs to an excellent academy in my native State of Connecticut, and and where, if I mistake not, there is about an equal number of young men and young women pursuing their studies, and he would gratify a good many of us here in stating the effect of that mingling. Mr. BOND: I would say that we have a ladies’ course, a little more extended than the general course of preparation for college. We can prepare the ladies for college, and we can carry them a little further, and the success of it, so far as concerns the development of the female mind, it seems to me is very happy, and it seems to me our young ladies have really done honor to themselves, and I think are ornaments to society in the position which they fill. We have not quite as many ladies as gentlemen. Since I have been there, I should say that the proportion had been about two to five on an average-two ladies to five gentlemen, or three to five, perhaps I should say; and one reason, perhaps, is because we chance to have fuller accommodations for gentlemen than we do for ladies; and another reason is, that in our region I do not believe the community are toned up to the idea that it is equally important to give as thorough an education to their daughters as it is to their sons. I do not believe it has come up to that point yet, but I hope it will all over the land, and that young men and young women will have these opportunities side by side to work, and let us see which can do the best. Dr. CHAMPLIN: There is one point which, it seems to me, ought especially to attract our attention, in the discussion of this subject. If we look over the field of our academies, we should find that it is the denominational academies that have generally prospered; and as we have met as Baptists, and are talking about the multiplication of academies, I suppose we mean Baptist academies. It is a singular fact, and an interesting fact in our present development, that most of the academies that are flourishing are denominational academies. The school in Connecticut, which is represented by the gentleman who has just spoken, is of that character-that very flourishing school being in my native State, although I have passed a large portion of my life in another State. I have kept watch of it, and felt a deep interest in it, and rejoice to hear so good an account of it to-day. It is just what we may expect when schools are fos.tered by a par 35

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NATIONAL BAPTIST ticular denomination in any State. In the State where I reside, most of our academies which were chartered early and were fostered by the State-and this is true also, I think, of Massachusetts -have declined and have lost very much of their influence; while certain denominational academies are flourishing at the present time, especially those of the Methodist denomination. They have two very flourishing academies under their direction, in our State, which are exercising a great deal of influence; and, if I mistake not, that denomination makes every provision for academies in their system of education. They make great use of the academies in their denomination, I know, in the State where I reside, and I presume it is so in other States. For one, I much prefer that an academy should be connected with us as a denomination, than with a college. Of course, we all understand there must be preparatory schools, and where colleges are young, they must depend largely on one or two academies close by; but I prefer much to have academies connected with the denomination, rather than with colleges; and, if I was going to connect them at all with any organized body, I would sooner connect them with the denominational organization of the State than with the corporation of a college or a university. And why? Because they are deemed to be popular institutions; and, however we may regret it, the community look upon our colleges and universities as aristocratic institutions, and I fear there would be a secret, damaging influence, if I may so say, that would go far to thwart and obstruct these academies if they were under the influence of a university. We do not need them to be thus controlled, and I believe it would be bad policy for them to be so controlled. And then, as was mentioned by the gentleman on the other side of the house, these academies are not only for boys, but they are for girls, and just now the question is agitated of sending young women to our colleges; though, as was said by the gentleman from Connecticut, I do not think the community is quite up to that yet. True, we need our daughters to be educated, and we need schools where they can be educated, and these academies are just the places where they are to get their education; and I believe every good academy ought to have connected with it a strong literary department for young ladies, where they may take some appropriate degree. Then, as to the religious influence which is to be exerted over the academy, how much better would it be to have it connected with the denomination rather than with the college. I know it would be a great deal better. We know 36

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. what the maxim is in politics, that the masses are generally ounder than their leaders; and is it not so in religion? And this spirit of speculation and scepticism which is causing so much damaging work in the world, is it not more likely to spring up and pervade our colleges than among the masses of the people? I believe, in every point of view, it is best that the academies should be connected with the denomination. I believe thoroughly in schools, academies, and colleges, and I would have a common union with the denomination, but not a common union between themselves. Pres. RAYMOND: I have been referred to as, perhaps, the sole representative on this floor of female colleges, and my friend, Mr. CAPWELL, has intimated that he had expected from me some manifestation of my duty to that interest. I can assure him and my brethren of the Convention, that I have listened to the progress of this discussion with very deep interest, and to every point in it relating to the interest which lies so near my heart; and have heard many suggestions that will be profitable to me, and many that created a warm feeling-deeper than it would be proper here for me to express-and some of them within the last few minutes. I rise now merely to define my position, and to state to my friend, and any who may share his anxiety, in regard to my discharge of duty-.the reason why I have not been on my feet, and why I stand squarely on my feet at this moment. In the course of this discussion, the special object of interest to the brethren has manifestly been the relations of the academy to the college-the means of increasing the usefulness of the academies as feeders to the colleges, not merely in sending students in sufficient numbers to these institutions of higher culture, but the sending them properly prepared, so that the colleges can take them, and build upon a solid foundation in the higher work they are called upon to do; and I have felt that the connection of the interest with which I stand particularly identified, in regard to that question, would hardly be recognized in this body. Indeed, we have had a partial confession from the head of a flourishing academy, and from the head of one of our most respectable colleges, of a sentiment that confirms my fear. It appears to me to be true that the community-and, when I say the community, I mean the Christian community, the educated community, the most advanced classes of educated people in our community have not yet got the true idea of a liberal education for women, 37

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NATIONAL BAPTIST and the obligation of Christian states and churches to make provision for the liberal education of women; and, until that duty is recognized, it behooves all who stand in the relation I do to the subject to be modest in pressing it and calling for attention. Our attention has been called to the fact that the academy, as it exists among us, has a twofold function, and I think that, within the last twentyfive or thirty years, it is obvious to all observation that that which was second originally has been rapidly gaining upon the other, and, to a very considerable extent in many of our academies, has almost obliterated the original idea of the academy as a preparatory school for colleges, and has almost superseded the academic course as subservient to the interest’ and ends of the college, for another course, of which a great deal may be said in praise, but of which we can only say this: that, in relation to our colleges, it is perilous and injurious, and a powerful instrument in the hands of that party among educated men who are unfriendly to the college system, and are doing what in them lies to weaken and pull it down. The academies in our State are not, as the older academies, subordinate to, and preparing pupils for, the colleges. They do more or less of that work, but they do a great deal of other kinds of work. They are educating all sorts, and for all purposes; and I recognize the idea suggested by our respected secretary, and entirely in harmony with that of Professor GREENE. I think the academy should embrace all this field; but there is danger and difficulty there. Our academies are not under the influence of our universities. There is no such legal connection as has been suggested by President SAMsoN, and the moral influence and control referred to is rarely exerted or felt. What is the effect? We are a very ambitious and aspiring people, and every young man thal; gets at the head of an academy, feels an influence tending to stimulate and excite him with the idea of doing the largest thing, and finishing the work. And there is a feeling of independence, which lies very closely akin to what I should call disloyalty, to that great system of liberal or higher culture, an adherence to which is, in my view, and ought to be inculcated as such, one of the first and most sacred obligations upon every president of an academy. Now, it may be said that, running on a parallel with the preparatory course of instruction for college in the academy, there is another general course, literary and scientifica course which embraces the total of scientific attainments. All the titles that are embraced in your collegiate system are taught there with scienti 38

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION.\ fic demonstrations and with apparatus to illustrate. Now, with the very imperfect idea the public generally have on the subject, how easy it is to produce in the minds of young people, and of parents and guardians, the idea that really there is no use in going to college, for here we have the entire college system; and we can study every ology that we care or need to know, and why not study it here? You can do it cheaper, in less time, and get to business sooner. Is there not a peril there? Is there not danger in the cause of high culture from the academy in the especial relation in which we have been considering it? I think it is one of the especial difficulties connected with this matter.

How are you going to control it? I do not know of any better way than by speaking the truth, and that is one of the objects of such a gathering as this, and what it is expected of it, that it will seek out and correct these evils, so that your academies, while doing also a larger and broader work, shall still be faithful and loyal to the colleges, and do all they can in the way that has been intimated to supply them with students, and properly to prepare them. Now, what has all this to do with female education? It has just this: The idea seems to be that we are to have a ladies’ course in the academies, and that a ladies’ course is very easy to teach, and that is all that a young lady would need. If that be the truth, I have a few modest suggestions on the subject that I want to submit before this Convention adjourns. If that be true, then the academies are perilous places for that interest-the interest of a higher education for females. We have female colleges, as brother CAPWELL says, but have we in fact? Hlave we endowed institutions, and is there such a thing as a college that is worth a straw that is not endowed, or was it ever heard of in history that a college was sustained without endowment? Looking at the course of those who have started with the highest hopes, how have they dwindled down, until they have become mere seminaries for boys, or their courses mere seminary ones! And what is a seminary course? Just like the ladies’ courses spoken of. They lack the essential elements of a liberal education, they lack disciplinary preparation, they lack both the spirit and essence of the study of any branch which is pursued, and they fail to accomplish the real ends of a liberal culture. Now, we have up at Poughkeepsie an endowed female college, and we are trying to elevate the standard a degree higher, if possible; but how is it to have any feeders, if our academies, that should feed us, are con 39

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NATIONAL BAPTIST ducted so as to throw barriers between the young women and the college? These barriers are in the form of ladies’

courseseffeminate courses, not liberal courses-worthless for the ends of a liberal education. If they are all that women need-if they are all that God intended for women, sustain them; if not, look after them, and ask yourselves how you are to have colleges for women, and have them sustained, unless you have a little element of truth on this subject thrown into the academies. At Vassar, we have a good many who come to us from the academies and from seminaries, and we have to put them all into our preparatory department. We need to have a preparatory department, although the majority of those who come have studied every branch of natural history, or more or less of natural history, physics, chemistry, astronomy, philosophy, Butler’s Analogy and Evidences of Christianity, and everything else, every branch I can think of; but yet they have to go right down and work their way through the preparatory department before the proper foundation for a liberal education is attained. These are the facts, and that is the relation of female liberal education to this whole question. I think I have justified myself in not having participated in the discussion thus far. Dr. LOOMIS: I felt, in coming to this place, that this question-which has been the prominent one this morningwas, and ought to be, the’ paramount question before this Convention. I would be glad, therefore, to have the subject referred to a committee-perhaps to the author of the address which we have heard this morning, in connection with some other gentlemen from the West and South, because the three regions present very different phases of this question, in order that there may be resolutions presented which shall bring before this Convention exactly the points to be considered, and prevent too wide a discussion without a distinct point before us. Dr. CUTTING moved, and it was voted, that Committees be appointed on Education in Academies, on University Education, on Theological Education, and on Denominational Work in Education. The subject then before the Convention was laid on the table, in order to be referred to the appropriate committees when appointed. A.

B. CAPWELL: Inl behalf of the Brooklyn Baptist Social Union, it becomes my pleasure to extend a word of welcome to the Convention now assembled. We take great pleasure in greeting you as brethren, and especially as a Baptist Social Union do we greet you here at your meeting. You are welcome 40

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. to our houses, and we shall endeavor to make you as comfortable as may be; but we expect to derive much more pleasure and reward in hearing you and seeing you, than you can receive from our hospitality. With this simple word of welcome on behalf of the Union, I would move, as the hour has come, that we now adjourn. The motion was agreed to, and the Convention took a recess until half-past two o’clock, P. x. AFTERNOON SESSION. The hour to which the Convention adjourned having arrived, the afternoon session was opened with prayer by Rev. Dr. MASON, of Mass. The first paper to be read at this session, prepared by Rev. Dr.

BOSWORTn, of Mass., was presented by its author, on THE SPHERE AND DUTIES

OF EDUCATION SOCIETIES. History answers this inquiry with refreshing clearness and emphasis; and although its voice may not direct our future course, we cannot wisely disregard its utterances. In the past, the sphere of these societies has been theological and liberal education. The foundation and support of institutions of learning, and the care of students while studying in them with the purpose of a better preparation for the ministry of the Gospel, have constituted the mission and duties of these societies. No answer less comprehensive, or with its statements inverted, would correctly represent the sphere in which they have revolved, or the functions which they have so grandly fulfilled. Whenever the churches of our denomination have been waked to a strong desire for an increase of the number and power of Christian ministers, this desire has crystallized in an Education Society. As early as 1689, at the first general meeting of the Particular Baptists in England, in which more than a hundred churches were represented, measures were taken to raise a fund for “the purpose of assisting such of their members as are disposed for study, have an inviting gift, and are sound in fundamentals, in attaining to the knowledge and understanding of those tongues wherein the Scriptures were written.” That movement was organized, and accomplished important results. It was also imitated by other Christian bodies. A century later, at that interesting epoch when the spirit of Christian missions descended with such power upon our brethren in England, other educational organizations were established among thlem, the work of which was the foundation of institutions of learning and the care of students preparing for the ministry. Among the churches of Baptists in America, things have moved on the same grooves as though they were cut by a divine hand. A fund for educational purposes was established by the Warren Association in 1791, and placed under the direction of a Board of Trustees, which was used principally for the aid of students in the college at Providence, at that time and for more than twenty years later the only institution of learning under the auspices of the Baptist denomination in the United States. 41

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NATIONAL BAPTIST In 1812 was organized “The Baptist Education Society of the Middle States.” In the address to the Baptist churches and congregations in behalf of this organization, signed by William Rogers, William Staughton, and others, may be discovered the desire and purpose of a grand educational movement. The second article of its Constitution runs thus: “Its avowed and explicit object is, with a divine blessing, the assisting of pious men in obtaining such literary and theological aid as shall enable them, with greater ease to themselves and usefulness to the churches, to fulfil the public duties of the Christian ministry.” As we examine the details of this instrument, we discover the purpose of establishing and maintaining an institution of learning, with suitable buildings, professors, and students. Under the patronage of this Society was placed Columbian College in its infancy, in 1818. In 1814 was formed the Massachusetts Baptist Education Society, to which belongs the distinguished honor of having laid the foundations of the institution known as Colby University, in Maine, and of the Newton Theological Institution, in Massachusetts. In 1819, the Baptists in Maine established an Education Society, to the auspices of which were committed the Seminary at Waterville, then but recently founded. The New York Baptist Education Society was formed in 1817, which originated and long sustained-if not indeed till the present hour-the Theological Institution at Hamilton, and the University connected with it. In the-same year was also formed “The Baptist Society in South Carolina and Georgia, for the education of pious young men designed for the ministry.” This list of facts is significant and instructive. That period was a spiritual spring-time remarkably glorious. The members of our churches were endued with power from on high to an extraordinary degree. The one great and sublime mission of the Christian Church, to become a witness for Christ unto the uttermost parts of the earth, was discerned with great clearness, and rested on the heart with great weight. Then the scarcity and inefficiency of ministers began to appear, and there rose to heaven the cry that the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers into his harvest. That that cry was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit, is manifest from the works which accompanied it; for the Spirit is not wont to throw from his hand upon the churches the ascension gift of our Christ, perfected and truly enriched. They are indeed begotten of the Spirit, but born of the Church, and nourished and trained under her care. That was a period of travail for ministers; and the solicitudes, the forethought, and care peculiar to such a period, produced and expressed themselves in the organism and organic action of the Education Society. This was the development wherever the churches experienced these special spiritual quickenings. It was attended by conflicts between prejudices and views deeply rooted among our people, and convictions and conceptions well founded and magnificent in their scope.

In the nature of things, such exercises of mind and heart must express them selves by an appropriate creation, by the formation of some organization which shall execute the specific work felt to be demanded.

And it was so. Our deno mination in this New World had bravely and victoriously fought out, against great odds, the idea that the ministry of Christ must be composed only of men converted, called, and consecrated.

They were prepared for the next step. Cautiously, but firmly and steadily, the foot was lifted and set down. The edu cation societies, simultaneously and widely multiplied, constituted that move ment. Their ultimate aim was a fuller ministry, well educated and trained. This object is announced in their constitutions with striking unanimity. But in the details of these documents, which define the means and methods of their operations, we find a remarkable comprehensiveness, vagueness, and flexibility. 42

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. They undertook whatever there was to be done-the opening of transient schools, the foundation of permanent institutions, the erection of their buildings, the collection of their libraries, the payment of the salaries of their Professors and the board of their students. Indeed, they shrunk at nothing, declined no responsibility or service which seemed to be necessary to push to a glorious consummation the sublime enterprise in which they were engaged. And the wonderful elasticity and ease in their movements clearly indicate that it was not the organism, but the life which animated it, to which the results should be credited. The career of those societies has been luminous with the smile of heaven; the work which they have performed is magnificent, and has become monumental. Among Baptists, however, all organizations but one-the Church of Christ alone is excepted-are transient things that can be shaken and removed-mere istruments that may become old, unattractive, and be thrown aside. Thus has it happened with many of the education societies. After accomplishing great good, after holding public attention steadily to a sublime work for years, they quietly ceased to be. Others still exist, pursuing their operations with diminished agencies, and fettered by narrow and inflexible rules. Many churches that were built up and nourished by ministers whom these societies furnished, have denied them the smallest favors; and from men whom they helped lift into ministerial eminence and success, they obtain no appreciable recognition.

Some of them still flourish. Those which operate in the older States find their duties contracted by what they have already effected. The institutions which they have founded have become independent organizations, and look to the societies, not for direction and government, not even for endowment, only for a limited patronage to a portion of their students. In the younger States, these societies are repeating their primitive labors in the older, and are thus vindicating the design of the Spirit in establishing them. Contemplating in the light of history the present and prospective condition and wants of our churches and Christian enterprises, and the character of our Education Societies, we must declare our belief, that their original sphere must not be contracted. We must continue to regard them, and to handle them, as organisms designed by the Head of the church to be used in the domain of theological and liberal education, the latter to be made subsidiary to the former. Nothing that belongs to this province of Christ’s empire should be considered foreign to them. Reduce them to mere agencies to collect and disburse char ities for a few students, and you doom them to a shrinkage which will inevitably prove fatal to their very existence; you shut them within limits from which are excluded their sources of inspiration, which prepare men for such a work, and sustain them in it; and you deny them legitimate contact with the churches at those points of momentous interest and common responsibility, around which enthusiasm is easily kindled, and a Christian enterprise is heavily charged with impulse and momentum. Room for expansion is essential to every form of spiritual life and activity.

Churches wither; ministers shrivel up for want of a great and growing work. The same law operates upon our societies. The means of recuperation are equally essential, that they may recover from the causes of depression which are evermore at work upon man and human affairs. These societies have their ebbs-sad, gloomy, disheartening: they must open into an ocean which will send back into their empty, naked, sickening channels, the refluent waves of a glorious flood. They will have their long, quiet winters, when all the fountains of their life seem sealed with eternal ice. They must have their springs, periods in which some new and extraordinary influence shall dissolve the repose 43 I

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NATIONAL BAPTIST of death, and summon forth new power for a noble and inspiring undertaking. In our judgment, we must provide for these necessities, sure to recur, in the size and sweep of the orbit to which they are consigned, and in which they are compelled to rotate. Let them roll within the range and reach of other orbs, the influence of which will facilitate their motion. Let them roam over the broad field of education, demanding of them only that all their discussions and movements shall bear directly on the great specific object, to promote which they were organized. Give them scope; hold them responsible for the culture of their wide domain; look to them for something worthy of their history, of your cooperation, and of the tremendous interest committed to their charge. Let them constitute the organized centres, around which the educational forces of the denomination shall be collected and combined for action, the mighty arms of the churches with which they shall perform this great Christian work. To the inquiry, “What are the duties of our education societies?” a moe specific answer must be given. But before coming to details, suffer us to remark, that the case before us is one in which the work of the organization extends greatly beyond its exclusive object. i The constitution of one of’these societies declares its exclusive object to be to aid, in acquiring a suitable education, such indigent, pious young men of the Baptist denomination as shall give satisfactory evidence to the churches of which they are members that they are called of God to the Gospel ministry. But a moment’s reflection will reveal to us that this object can never be reached, without passing many others. Institutions of learning must be established and supplied with the facilities of study and discipline. The fountains of general benevolence must be opened. Pious men, called of God to the ministry, must be called out, led in the right path, and sustained, and stimulated to make the most of themselves. In fact, the lines of this work radiate far and widely, and cut across interests and questions fundamental in their nature and of invaluable importance. It demands sleepless vigilance, an undying energy, and an endless variety of expedient. We say, therefore, let these education societies propagate and defend the great Scriptural ideas concerning ministerial education and training. Let-them dismiss and define the great questions of general and a’ liberal education, in their relations to theological culture, pulpit power, and the influence of the Christian pastor. From these societies should stream forth a sound, copious, and forceful literature on this momentous subject. New aspects thereof should be seized and brought before the public mind, and pressed upon the conscience and hearts of the friends of Christ. And the difficulties attending this work should stimulate to its performance. Let these societies also meddle with whatever pertains to the efficiency and perfection of our institutions of learning. They were the founders of most of them; it is but fit that they should watch them with sleepless eye, and hold them with steady hand to the solemn trust committed to them.

Questions of their mutual relations, their enlargement, and their importance, should be discussed with skill and energy. They should ever be on the alert to discover the varying fortunes and vicissitudes of the cause of the ascended Christ, and; be ready to trace their bearing upon the subject of ministerial education. We are ever in danger of being blinded to the emergencies of the present by the schemes and notions which worked well in the past. Many of our former plans and measures accomplished their results, in spite of their defects, by force of the vital energy with which we handled them. Their operation in the state of things which now exists, requires more power than we possess. When the elements of society change their character and combination, we must modify the agencies 44

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. with which to work upon them. Ministers-must be educated and trained to match themselves to men as they are; and, as the character of the education demanded varies, must vary the character of our schools. There is the secret of Spurgeon’s power and immense usefulness as an educator. His college is a nondescript-unlike anything that has gone before it; but his sagacity discovered the need of it; his practical wisdom organized it; and his versatile powers are working it with astonishing efficiency and grand results. Why should not our education societies be charged with the responsibility of watching for such necessities, and of bringing forward suitable expedients to match them? In reaching toward the end placed before them, while old and well-tried agencies and methods are adhered to, let them be free and prompt to provide for any new development in Divine Providence or the cause of Christ. The duties of education societies, with respect to student-candidates for the ministry, are very important, and their faithful performance demands the exercise of great discrimination and firmness. The position and responsibilities of the Dircctors are such as to require them to guard the pulpit from the intrusion of unworthy and worthless incumbents. In the case of those who seek aid at their hands, they are obliged to pass judgment on the question, Whether they have been truly called of God to preach the Gospel. Their task is the more difficult, because there are so many motives pressing them to accept and aid the largest number possible. Destitute churches and desolate fields are calling for pastors and missionaries. The institutions are anxiously looking for an increase of students. The young men presenting themselves for examination are eager to be endorsed and enrolled. They bear the prescribed credentials from the churches to which they belong. Under such circumstances, the Boards are strongly tempted to make the-experiment, hope for the best, and let them pass on. But the long list of students on whom such an experiment has been tried at great cost, and miserably failed, utter a tremendous admonition for fidelity in this work of judgment. Moreover, these societies should use extreme care in their efforts to draw men toward the ministry. In this direction, there is very much for them to do; but the work is perilous. The great value of a liberal education, as eloquently set forth by them, and the aid which they proffer to those who desire to obtain such an education to prepare them for the ministry, constitute very strong inducements for some young men to desire the office of a bishop, and to hear a call to preach-quite sufficient, in our judgment, to account for the call related by some applicants for aid. It is a question worthy of serious consideration, Should we set before candidates for the ministry, or conceal from them-should we deprecate and deplore, or present as divinely appointed stimulants and tests, the hardships, privations, and selfdenials, which ever have been, and probably ever will be, inseparably connected with the Christian ministry? In the distribution of aid to those found worthy to receive-a most delicate work-grave and difficult questions must be decided. How large a margin shall be left for self-sacrifices andt personal exertions? How closely shall their expenditures, incomes, and personal habits be scrutinized? What liberty shall be allowed them in selecting their place of study? and in making this selection, what consideration shall they be required to give to the claims of institutions founded and supported by our own’denomination, and what to the question of relative cost? And shall the same amount be appropriated to all the students aided in any one institution, without regard to the fact that their expenses increase as they advance in their course? A wise discrimination in matters of this nature will cost great labor, and call into exercise much wisdom and some of the noblest Christian sentiments. To handle sensitive and high-minded young men, to act as almoners of 45

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NATIONAL BAPTIST the churches in paying to them in advance a portion of the hi’e of which the Christian minister is worthy, and to detect the unworthy, and save the cause from the injury which they inflict-ah! a graver responsibility or a more delicate task has seldom been entrusted to men. It is not strange that blunders have been perpetrated by our wisest leaders-blunders that have almost crushed the societies, and turned their benevolent labors into sources of lingering evil. Finally, and practically of first importance, is the work of collecting funds from the churches, with which to aid needy students in their literary preparation for the ministry. Were our Education Societies to arrest their operations today, we venture to say, twothirds of the students in our Institutions who are looking to the ministry as their lifework, would be forced to suspend their studies for want of means to pay their board, and those Institutions would be obliged to part with those very students for whom, more than for any other class, their foundations were laid. The network of relations in this matter is singular and interesting. These Societies act as mediators between the churches and these students. Churches send their student-members to the Boards for assistance. The Boards appeal to the churches for thle means of this assistance. Here and there a church of large wealth provides for its own, in this respect. A multitude of wealthy churches have no such members to provide for. A larger multitude of churches, having but little material wealth, are greatly enriched with these superior treasures. The Education Societies are charged with the duty of collecting and distributing the revenues of Christ called for and consecrated for this purpose. Looking over the entire field of want, they must search out the needed supplies. They must know, must tenderly take up these sons of the church, and lay them back upon her bosom, to be nourished and cared for. They must devise expedients, and frame appeals which shall overcome that strange and profound apathy which widely prevails, concerning this important work. The tide of benevolence must be kept flowing, and its streams must be so distributed as to scatter fertility over the entire garden of the Lord. But the limits prescribed for this paper forbid its further expansion. This Convention must be closed, leave its record, and pass into history. The Education Societies will live. They will continue to utter the established principles and sentiment of the denomination, on the subject of education. Through these organisms the churches will continue to work for this cause. They need fostering care, lively appreciation, the countenance and patronage of the men of power and influence, among ministers and laymen-need these things, oh, more, far more than I could describe, had I a day for the attempt. If the papers and deliberations of this body of Baptist leaders could but react powerfully in the direction of these Societies, recall to some of them the prestige they once enjoyed, gather around them the sympathies of the churches, as at the first, an auspicious era for ministerial education would date its dawn at the epoch of this Convention. With a sincere prayer for such a result, devoutly to be desired, we submit what we have said.

Dr. BOYCE: I have nothing especial to say in reference to the subject which has been discussed so ably in the essay that has been presented to us, but in the introduction there were some statistics as to our denominational interests, and as there are some with which I am familiar, that were omitted, I think it will not be improper to add them here and place them before the Conven 46

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. tion. A Baptist academy in England was established in 1720; and, at the same time that this was established by our British brethren, or very soon after 1720, Mr. Hollis established a foundation for some scholarships in Harvard College, with a specific condition that the preference was to be given to students for the Baptist ministry. In consequence of that, in the year 1722, the Philadelphia Baptist Association passed some resolutions requesting the Churches to seek out such persons as should be hopefully pious and inclined to the ministry and desirous to study, that they might be sent to Harvard, to obtain the advantages of that institution. The earliest known Baptist high school in the country was established at Hopewell, N. J., and was afterward merged into the Rhode Island College, now Brown University. And with reference to Southern societies for educacation, I may state that the Charleston Association, which is an association of the Baptists of the South, occupying very much the position the Philadelphia association occupied in its scope and operations, was established in 1757, with but four churches, and yet, at the time that association was organized, there was a collection taken up of between 160 and 170, amounting to over $800 of our currency; and this merely from the delegates of these four churchs there assembled for the purpose of establishing an education fund for the benefit of the ministry. My impression is that it was the first contribution ever made in the way of an education fund by the Baptists in this country. Therefore, we may date back the period of our denominational efforts in the cause of education, to 1751; although, as I have already stated, that was twenty odd years subsequent to the time when the first steps were taken for the establishment of institutions of learning. It strikes me that we meet at a somewhat singular and important epoch so far as dates are concerned. We are here just one hundred and fifty years subsequent to the time of starting the denominational institutions in England and this country, and a very little more than one hundred years from the time of the chartering and establishment of our first Baptist college. Dr. CALDWELL: There is one point in the paper presented in regard to which some general expressions were used, where I should like for myself something a little more definite. The Convention may not make any allowance on all the points involved in the essay, yet, I suppose, it is better to commit definite responsibilities to different bodies of men, and then hold them strictly to them. Therefore, to enlarge the province of our education socie 47

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NATIONAL BAPTIST ties, so as to exercise any sort of supervision over the work which belongs to the corporations and faculties of our institutions, would be of no advantage to either party. I suppose that the education society has a definite work; that it has mainly a beneficiary function: that it is to look up and provide for young men who are to be educated for the Christian ministry. Having this definite and somewhat limited province, it has no call or right to undertake the supervision, or, perhaps, any direct and active influence over the proceedings of the faculties or corporations of the colleges; and it would seem to me to be a very great disadvantage if the education societies were to undertake this.

They would inevitably come in contact and even conflict with the corporations and faculties, and if our people were to look to the education societies rather than to the boards and faculties, for the proper conduct of the colleges and theological seminaries, it would be to the detriment of the education societies. It would be withdrawing them from their specific work and engaging them in a work they are not so well prepared to understand as the corporations and faculties to whom the responsibility is now committed. I do not suppose that the Convention proposes to endorse all the points in this, or any other paper presented.

I only wish to make the suggestion-at any rate, to suggest the inquiry whether it is not desirable on this point to use a little more definite language. Dr. BOSWORTH’: Allow me to say one word with reference to this point. I think the paper recognizes as the legitimate work of the universities and other institutions to govern and direct their students, and contemplates on the part of the societies only a general supervision and interest, and for this purpose to give the societies some practical points for the people of the churches. It has been my duty, not to say privilege, tp be connected, not only with some of our institutions for a good while, but with these societies, more than one of them; and the great trouble which I have experienced is the want of something to use when we come to the churches-something that will move them. You say to us, “Attend to your churches and you will get funds.” We go to the churches and we come before the people, and are expected to come with a report or paper, the object of which is to stir the congregations. Now, what shall we stir them with? That is the point. Why has my brother there (Dr. CUTTING), whom I knew for many years, why has he stirred this whole community on this subject, as it has rarely been stirred before? You sent him into the field and told him to talk as he wanted to do. 48

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Give us the privilege of saying something, and when it shall be found by the eyes of the directors of these societies that the gentlemen who are the heads of universities do not see every thing in the world,-and I think I may sometimes come even to that-let them have the privilege of sending others who know their views. That is what I mean. I think that is the specific direction of the spirit of the paper; and I wish that some of the gentlemen of the Convention would discuss the matter. You must raise an interest in the churches before they will give a dol lar. That is the great trouble with us now. The education society which I serve as secretary have now forty students, part of them in Brown University and others in Newton, and we can not do half enough to pay their board bills and a great deal more that is to come. There is the difficulty. I feel that these things are so, because the interest is not general. It is not sustained by the leaders in the denomination; or, rather, these leaders do not seem sufficiently concerned in this field of labor to move them. They have their hands full of work and they do not take any interest in other work. Dr. FISH: There are very few points of discussion more im portant than this. I rise to suggest a thought in the line of what my brother has just said, more for the purpose of bearing out his remarks than of making any extended remarks myself. I think it will be found to be true, if you look at the history of the thing, that what has been done in the way of stirring up interest on this subject has been done by educational societies, say what you will, and perhaps it will always be so. If we examine into the existing state of things, without bringing any charges against our universities or academies, I think it will be found that the impression is that the business of the men who are at the head of them, and of the professors, is to educate those who are sent there; and if they succeed in educating the men who are sent to the university, the college, or the academy, that is the end of their duty, and they have compassed the bounds of their obligation. Now if this be the true view of the case, I raise the question, upon whom does depend this matter referred to in the paper? It may be said that the pastors must attend to it; but it is demonstrable that the pastors themselves do not feel interested in it, and I have come, personally, to this view of the case: I have been working as secretary of an education society for twenty years in succession, and it seems to me what interest is stirred up, in the line of general education particularly, must be in the education societies. 4 49

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Once in a while you find that some of our prominent men from our seats of learning come out into our churches and make appeals to the congregations, but the occasions are very few. But let us suppose, and so excuse them, that their time is so much occupied they cannot leave their duties at their institutions-let us not say it is because their hearts are not in it, and they do not like to do it. But, practically, there is very little of that sort of work done, and I am a good deal of the opinion of the writer of the paper, that what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business, and that we must not only strike when the iron is hot, but must make the iron hot by striking; and I believe it comes practically to this, that our education societies must do this work, and if there are two or three men whose hearts the Almighty shall lead to this work in each State, then happy is that State. I do not bring any charge, or mean to intimate that the men who sit in our professors’ chairs do not do their full duty. I suppose that they do.- I assume, in the presence of so many professors of colleges, that their duties terminate when they have taught the young men sent there. But it is a fact that stirring appeals to our churches, written or oral, do not come down mainly from our universities or seminaries. If they come to us, it is for money, and it is well they do come for it. Would to God they came oftener for it, and got ten times more than they do. But here is a peculiar state of things, and I raise this point, and it seems to me a very important one: Upon whom does rest this matter of electrifying the denomination, of making the iron hot by striking it, if it is not on the education societies? Prof. MITCHELL: There is a point in connection with this matter which I had hoped some person here, more experienced than myself, would have brought out with the interest which, it seems to me, belongs to it. It has been, for the last fifteen years, with me, a continual inquiry, Why is it that this denomination alone, of all others in the country, are doing the work of education societies in detached portions, while every other denomination is accustomed to do it by one great national organization. Our brother, who has given us the valuable paper this afternoon, has said that one great difficulty in the way of accomplishing anything in doing the work of educational societies, is, that our efforts are exhausted on a small scale, confined to this or that State. This is, in a great measure, the truth; and yet we all know very well that there is no cause which, in our denomination, is more popular, and to which means are more readily and frequently 50

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. contributed, when it is fairly presented, than the cause of ministerial education. The difficulty has been in the mode of our organization. It seems to me that now is the time for us to discuss the question, and, if possible, to bring it to some decided and practical conclusion. Is it not possible for us to unite the beneficiary work of our education societies into some common method; or, if it is practicable, to go to that extent to rebuild our societies into one society, which will take the thing in charge with an effective machinery to carry it out, and bring a uniform pressure to bear on the whole denomination? If this could be effected, we might then put the cause of ministerial education on a platform which it deserves and demands, and on a par with all the important and leading interests of our denominational work. I am not sure this can be effected at once, but it seems to me that something of the kind might be organized here. I would suggest that the following resolution be referred to some appropriate committee: Resolved-That it is eminently desirable that some union of action or consolidation of form should be effected in the beneficiary work of the various education societies of our denomination, so that less machinery, with greater efficiency, may be obtained. The paper of Dr. BOSWORTH and the resolution of Prof. MITCHELL were laid on the table, to be referred, at some subsequent time, to a committee on the educational work of the denomination. The second paper assigned to this session was read by its author, President LOOmis, of Lewisburg University, Pa. THE DUTY OF THE

CHURCH TO PROVIDE THE MOST ADVANCED INVESTIGATORS AND TEACHERS IN THE

DEPARTMENTS OF SCIENCE, AND, AT THE SAME TIME, TO CONSERVE THE DISCIPLINE

AND CULTURE OF CLASSICAL AND LITERARY STUDIES. The investigation of the works of God properly devolves upon those who believe in and obey God. To make these investigations, and to teach both the methods and the results, has been mainly undertaken by such men-i. e., by the Church. It is true that some effort has been made to impose these duties upon the State; and, if wealth and political influence can give these efforts success, success will not be wanting. But it needs no prophetic power to assure us that, after the experiment of a few years, these State institutions will be so only in name, and that some religious body will virtually possess them. We hope tile time will never come when the elements of a common English education are not obtainable at State cost; because it is a State necessity. Not so with higher education. With us, that does naturally and necessarily fall into the hands of the religious public. The Church, then, is to furnish this higher education. The college is the agency of the Church in this work. We, assume, then, the objects of such education to be, first, to discipline the mind, and secondly, to communicate knowledge; and also that the only practicable mode of accomplishing the first is by the use of the second. What form of knowledge shall we use?……. 51

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Generalization has always been able so to compress and simplify, that within the period of pupilage an acquaintance with the leading principles of human knowledge may be attained. The vast minutiae of knowledge must be surren. dered to the professional man and to the expert. It is the province of the schools of liberal learning to teach these leading principles, and, by so doing, to give the requisite discipline of mind. In accomplishing this object, Natural Science cannot be omitted. It embraces as far as we may know of the works of God, but not the works of man. We should, then, separate from it Language and History, and Political Philosophy and the Fine Arts, and include a knowledge of the imprint of the hand of God in the world of matter and of mind. But we are debarred from more than an allusion to the world of mind, and even to those departments of the world of matter which are falling mainly into the class of the exact sciences. We must then surrender to a great extent Mechanical Philosophy, whether applied to the heavens or the earth, and consider those branches of natural knowledge into which mathematics has only partially and timidly entered. What, then, is the proper place of this limited, and yet almost limitless, sphere of knowledge in a Christian scheme of liberal education? We may say, then, first, that they are indispensable in the inculcation of method. Other departments of study are for other reasons equally indispensable. But there is no study that helps like Natural Science to shape the question for investigation, and illustrate the method of following up investigation. The man who desires to use his mental attainments to influence other minds, either as speaker or writer, will be greatly benefited by an intimate acquaintance with scientific method. A careful study of Davy’s discovery of the Safety Lamp, or of Wells in establishing the Theory of Dew, or Liebig’s investigations of the Chemistry of Life, or Le Verrier’s discovery of the planet Neptune-and the list might be indefinitely extended-will give to the student an idea of method better than he is likely to get from any purely intellectual argumentation. One such sample, thoroughly ingrained, will constitute his working model ever after. It is not difficult to see why Natural Science has this advantage. There are few, if any, other opportunities for such breadth of view, for such wide generalizations.

They give expansionT to the mind. They burst the bonds of littleness, and give it scope. Infinity we cannot compass, but in no sphere of human thought do we so approach it as when the computations of time fail us in geological records, or those of magnitudes and distances in the vastness of astronomical research. As educators, we are not at liberty to compress into childish littleness those minds to which Natural Science alone seems designed to give a measureless expansion. When I find by a student’s questions and his modes of expression that he has left his shell and is coming into a new life, when he begins to take in great thoughts, when truth in its vastness begins to shape itself in his mind, I become sure that he has a future, that he is not to live for himself alone, that he is getting that scientific prescience which will shape the thoughts of other minds. Of late we hear much said of object teaching. Natural Science is the great object teacher. It puts before its votaries nothing but objects.

It demands attention to them as the essential foundation of all that it teaches. The objects may require a carefulness in observation, and the use of all the appliances of art to give them distinctness; but, with such appliances, the parallax of Sirius or the phenomena of the spectroscope become as distinct objects of visual knowledge as the diagrams on a blackboard or the object pictures in a child’s atlas. It is the definiteness of this object-lesson method that constitutes an essential 52

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. part of its value; and there is but little object-teaching outside of Natural Science, for this embraces all natural objects. Its field is the material universe. It takes in all the earth and all the heavens. It is obvious, then, that if a man have capacity to comprehend the vast, he will find scope for that capacity in Natural Science. However much it may be exercised on other themes, this is the field where its first attempts are most naturally made; and when these habits of comprehensiveness are formed, they will transfuse themselves into any form of practical labor which the variable conditions of life may call for. It is scarcely necessary to refer to the direct practical value of Natural Science, because in a true view of liberal education direct practical results are not much regarded. And yet it is not a valueless thing for the pupil to see direct practica] applications of the knowledge he is acquiring; and since almost the whole of practical life has to do with the material world, Natural Science must be of the utmost practical importance. If agriculture and mining are fast becoming sciences, if steam and storm have their laws, if health and wealth are not things of chance, but of choice-then surely Natural Science has abundant claim of practical utility. Nor is it without value as the means’of removing from the range of mystery a large proportion of the facts of which men must become cognizant. It defines to the mind the limits of the knowable. It teaches where to stop investigation and where to press it. When this limit is understood, one understands the value of miracles. He comes to see that the world is subject to Law. The more unusual phenomena of earthquakes, and tempest, and pestilence, even the occurrences of everyday life, as those of alimientation and growth, the whole range of the facts of observation are mysterious so long as they are not reducible to law. As soon as they come into the domain of Science, they become expressions of the agency and the modes of God. As facts, they beget superstition. As manifestations of law, they cultivate a reverent and devout tone of mind.

If, then, Natural Science is to be taught in our institutions of advanced instruction, it is not far from a truism that they must have men skilled in this department of knowledge. A little learning is nowhere more dangerous; perfect safety is nowhere more surely the result of prqfound attainments. We have regretted that science should have become to such an extent monopolized by those who, to say the least-, are indifferent to the claims of Christianity. We do not believe them to be the best exponents cf science. It is a truth of wider application than it may generally seem to have been, that, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.” We should look for more trustworthy generalizations in science from Christian men. But we accept with all thankfulness the facts which have been gathered by men who either ignore or discard one of the sources of human knowledge. Nor will we hesitate to accept their conclusions, if they will bear the scrutiny to which all scientific truth must subject itself. We do not fear any truth, though it come from a near friend of the father of lies. The experience of the friends of revelation, for three centuries, ought to divest them of the timidity and distrust of science with which they have been tinctured. Whatever is from God will prevail, and what is not will maintain but a transient vitality; for this we may be grateful. How unwilling should we be to see the world where it would have been, if this distrust had deferred to our day the knowledge for which Gallileo was proscribed. If our enemies can help us to understand what the Scriptures teach, we should accept their assistance. If they help us to discriminate between the teachings of Milton or Archbishop Usher, and the Word of God, even though our prejudices are rD 3

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NATIONAL BAPTIST stronger for the former than for the latter, we will not complain. But Truth has its foundations, and cannot be shaken. But temporary evil-the unsettling of religious convictions, and not unfrequently widespread disregard of moral restraints-may result from the inculcation of untruth, to which the resistance of religious men of high scientific attainment would have been a barrier. But it does not follow, because we attach so much importance to Natural Science, that we would have less attention paid to other branches of liberal study. The present college curriculum-substantially one in American colleges has not been carelessly thrown together. It has been long tried and thoroughly approved. It may require adjustment in particulars, but he must be a bold, even a reckless, man who would demand a reconstruction of it. We shall not attempt an analysis of it, in the way of defending; but only refer to a few things well recognized as essential to discipline and culture. The use of pure mathematics, in giving concentration of mind and power of attention, is such that its place can scarcely be filled by any other study. Its value is, that, when attention is given to its processes, the conclusions are so obvious; and yet not at all so without this attention.

It is not the complication, but the simplicity of the process, and the necessity of the result. But the relations must be seen; and these, though simple, are not of such a kind that judgment has a thousand times been passed, and, therefore, needing no attention; they are so completely removed from matters of frequent use and common opinion, that attention must be given to them. The mathematics also accustom the mind to the inevitableness between premises and conclusions. The disentangling of a complicated argument may constitute a good praxis for a disciplined mind, but cannot be required in the early stages of an education. It is, then, in the simplicity and obviousness of the mathematical processes, and not in their complexity, that we find their value. Hence the importance of them in the early part of a course, and the propriety of an early discontinuance of them. For the study of language, we find other but equally valid reasons. Its relations to memory, to taste, to expressions of thought, to the history of man and the history of opinions, are sufficiently well understood to need no elucidation. The metaphysics, besides giving a practical knowledge of ourselves, have their place in a course of study. They use the attention which mathematical study has nurtured. They whet the mind, and give it acuteness. They teach it to discriminate, compel precision of language, and hence precision of thought. Many a naturalist would have been saved from life-long error, if he had learned, under the drill of metaphysics, the distinction between same and similar. Thus it is easy to point out the leading effects which each general line of study will produce, and therefore to determine, with some approach to accuracy, the kind and amount of the several lines of study required in the average of pupils, to meet the recognized wants of liberal education. But we may embrace in a single statement all that need be said in this connection: that every form of knowledge is supplemental to every other form of knowledge; and hence, that a well-constituted and well-trained mind must have received the influence, in its development, of a somewhat wide range of studies. Educators need, perhaps, to be more careful to prevent partial, and to secure symmetrical, development. An apple, stung on one side by a curculio, may have ample development on the other side, but it will not become marketable fruit. Men of large attainments, but only in one direction, have similar deformity and defects-useful if you can place them where only one side is to be used; but scarcely ever reliable, and often hurtful in society by their partial views, unwise councils, and pertina cious purposes. 54

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. We have thus endeavored, concisely, to state the importance of Natural Science in a course of liberal studies; of its being in the hands of Christian men; and of its being fully supplemented by other and various study. If there is any organized effort on the part of the Church to furnish the investigators and teachers of Natural Science, it must be through the agency of the colleges. It will have accomplished one part of its work when it has men who are able to expose the false conclusions which half science may have drawn, and to defend truth against the attacks which men of mere science are disposed to make. But to understand science is not enough. Much more do we need men who not only understand science, but who are themselves the promoters, the investigators-men who shall be the first to put their feet upon the virgin soil of science. We can scarcely hope for this, except through our institutions of learning. They should have the rooms, the apparatus, the men, and the money; and the men should not be overworked in the classroom, but have their time, and every inducement to push investigation. Discovery should be expected of them, required of them, made a condition of their retaining place, and the place should be worth retaining. There was a time when discovery seemed to be a matter of accident, and to speak of intentional discovery would have caused the smile of incredulity, if not of contempt. But that time has passed. We look for new knowledge, even though every new knowledge surprises, and seems to be the limit, beyond which we were not to go. We thought, when the telegraph became an established fact, that space was overcome, and that nothing more need be looked for in that direction. We were therefore surprised again when vastly greater space was annihilated, and we could subject to eye-sight proof the structure and chemical constitution of the sun and the fixed stars, and could cage and examine the auroral and zodiacal lights. And we may well believe that, as the Being is infinite whose laws we are seeking to understand, so the limits of knowledge may continue to grow wider, and God continue on in endless duration, to be ever opening up new knowledge, and thus increase the utilities of the world and the happiness of his creatures. To make these investigations belongs to the man of science. He finds his surroundings to be ignorance in larger proportion than knowledge. He leaves the things that are known, and passes toward the unknown. He is thus ever face to face with his ignorance. In other words, questions are continually presenting themselves to him which require solution. He stands on the borders of the unknown.

All resources of existing knowledge have been exhausted; only tentative filaments project out from the darkness of the unknown, and promise to be his clue in the labyrinth of the unexplored. And the Christian man will find them, as the hand of God, leading him into paths where man has not before trodden. This is the point of temptation to many; because, whatever may be advanced as truth from this standpoint cannot be refuted by existing knowledge. There are chances of, at least, short-lived fame, and the chances are eagerly accepted. It is preeminently important that the Christian man be there. Whatever purports to come from this unexplored region, has attractions that invite unprincipled men to be there; the darkness, into which it is necessary to peer, invites bold and reckless men to be there. If their hypotheses and alleged discoveries yield to fuller investigation, and thus seem to be merely forgotten, yet their work of misleading industry and weakening morals will not soon pass away. These evils are to be avoided only by placing at these outposts of knowledge Christian men-men who, though they may be deceived, will not willingly be so; nor will they project upon the world their theories, regardless of the established 55

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NATIONAL BAPTIST faith of men, and in defiance of cherished and sacred opinions. Let them be first to stand in the thick darkness and receive from the Divine Hand new truth-the “tables of stone written with the fing(er of God.” Let it be the mission of Christian men to be leaders in science, to guide learners, and to fix upon the age the impress of Christian thought and Christian science. On motion of Prof. STEVENS. of Ohio, seconded by Dr. CALDWELL, of R. I., the order of proceedings was so modified as to allow of the next paper being read, before discussion was entered upon. Accordingly the third paper of the day was ready by its author, Pres. IOVEY, of Newton Theological Institution, Mass. FELLOWSHIPS.

The question of Fellowships as a reward for eminent scholarsh’p, and with a view to the rearing of a specially learned class, from which Professors may be taken for our Universities and Schools of Theology. The theme of this paper is rather suggested than expressed by its title; for the academic meaning and use of the term “fellowships” belong especially to the college system of England, and it will be no part of our aim to advocate a reproduction of English colleges in America. We take it for granted that every nation has a life of its own, and will be served best by methods of education which spring naturally out of that life. Yet, as the deepest principles and wants of human nature are everywhere the same, it may also be taken for granted that institutions, which have proved useful with one people, may often, by slight changes, be adapted to the wants of another. And there are two features of the great English universities, which may be imitated, if not copied, with advantage by us.

The Fellows of a college in Oxford or Cambridge owe their position to eminent scholarship, and draw thteir support from the revenues of their college. Thus, men of approved capacity are enabled to advance their knowledge and culture, by a life of study prolonged far beyond the usual limits; and from this body of scholars go forth, year by year, accomplished teachers, preachers, and writers, to positions of the highest influence. Is it not both desirable and possible that some provision analogous to the college fellowships of England be made for a few, at least, of our young men? In answer to this question, we venture to lay before you the following considerations: I. The need of men thus cultivated is very evident to the careful observer. It was so, for instance, to the late Dr. Wayland. Though he was wont to speak with peculiar delight of the usefulness of ministers not trained in the schools, and to urge with special earnestness the importance of lay-preaching, for the good-of the masses, he never called in question our need of men thoroughly educated; he never thought it wise or possible to lower the standard of scholarship for those who are called to be teachers or interpreters. And if such a man as Dr. Wayland, keenly alive to the spiritual wants of the people, and fully convinced of the vast superiority of religious power to mental, felt the need of a learned class to explore the sources of knowledge and lay them open to others, such a class may be presumed to be necessary to the best good of all. But we do not rely on the simple judgment of one man, however far-sighted and spiritual. We note for ourselves the signs of the times, and learn from the events of every year, that we have few wants more pressing than that of a large accession to the number of young men in our ranks who are qualified, by their varied and exact learning, to take the place of leaders in the higher forms of education How many of you will lament to the last hour of life, the time consumed by you, at college, or afterward, in learning what you ought not to have learned, or in 56

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. not learning what you ought to have learned, while preparing for college under an incompetent teacher! And how many incompetent teachers are even now fitting young men for disappointment and chagrin when they come under the eye of a true master! But if it were in your power to dismiss all these teachers by a word, it would be unsafe for you to speak that word; for you could not fill their places with better ones. Do any of you know half a dozen genuine scholars who would hear a call to such a service? Our colleges and higher seminaries, certainly, have no men of learning and culture to spare. Indeed, some of them are looking abroad, at the present moment, for additions to their boards of instruction. Nor is there any superabundance of learning in our pulpits. A few more servants of God, deeply versed in his word and the history of his people, familiar with the great book of Nature, and ready to intermeddle with all wisdom for the purpose of making it speak for Christ, would not have to seek fields of labor in some other part of the world, because knowledge is at a discount here. They would be welcome to the best pulpits we have in the land. Looking at the matter, then, as one of present demand and supply, our need of men having superior learning and culture is manifest; nor will it ever cease, unless we adopt the false maximn, that “ignorance is the mother of devotion.” But our need of such men may also be affirmed on general principles; for no large body of Christians can wisely neglect any important source of knowledge: especially in yiew of the fact, becoming every day more evident, that the created universe is one, though manifold, and all forms of being and power, throughout its wide domain, interdependent. A devout scholar, starting from any part of that domain, will find his way at length to God: for all the paths of light conduct to him; but an undevout scholar, starting from whatever point, will be likely to move about forever, whispering in his heart, “No God:” for it is a truth not to be forgotten, that, close beside the paths of light-just over the style, as Bunyan says-lie the cool and shady walks of error, and these alluring walks, by a trend scarcely perceptible to the unsuspicious eye, turn the explorer’s face slowly away from the city of God, and lead him, as by the circumference of a great circle, back to his point of departure. But meanwhile he has found what he sought; his eye has seen the beauty which it desired: and now the whisper of his heart has become a word on his tongue. Having walked through the universe, and noted its wonders, he has concluded to say, There is no Godbut pr’otoplasm. If this be not a rigid statement of fact, it is, at least, as you very well know, like some of the Waverly novels, “founded on fact,” and not unjust to many leaders of modern thought. Mark, then, if you please, the tendency of research in two or three directions. Of late, the progress of physical science has been most rapid and cheering, the discoveries of one branch hastening those of another, until the rate of advance is nearly equal in all. But many explorers of nature are enemies of the Cross, and more than one reason can be given why Christian scholars should not abandon to them this magnificent field of inquiry and source of truth; for the word of Julius Miller is pertinent here, that, “the answers which truth gives to a man depend very much upon the questions which he puts to truth;” and “the manner in which he puts his questions depends very much upon the principles which rule his life.” Christian scholars should therefore stand on the high plane of Nature, side by side with those who despise faith, to remind them of what they do not see, and check their airy speculation; while they also speak with the assurance of knowledge to their unscientific brethren, dispelling doubt and fear, overcoming prejudice and sloth, and teaching them to rejoice in the lessons of Nature as well as the power of Grace. Mark, also, if you please, the progress of linguistic science at the present day. 57

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N8 ATIONAL BAPTIST Observe how, with even broader sweep, it has gathered the phenomena of speech from all ages and tribes, and how, with even grander audacity, it is grouping them for ultimate generalization. No sound or sign however rude and strange, if it expresses human thought, is despised by the cultivators of this great science. Every scrap of record on parchment or stone is looked upon as sacred, and studied with the zeal of a devotee, if not the reverence of a saint. But the distinctive aim of modern philology is this: to bring together and compare the results of a separate inquiry; to note affinities of structure and sound; to sort and group the various languages of earth, until, to the scholar’s eye, order takes the place of confusion, and to the scholar’s ear, the many voices of mankind blend in harmony, like the parts of a solemn chorus. And the logical issues of this science, who can foretell? They will, ere long, unite with those of history and geology, of physiology and mental philosophy, to answer for us some of the highest questions which now agitate the world,-questions in respect to the unity, antiquity, and origin of our race. It cannot, then, be safe for us to neglect this vast domain; for there are sounds in its atmosphere which unbelievers do not hear; there are hues in its sky which they do not see; and there are records on its stony tables which they do not read. It is, therefore, a part of our work, as a large body of Christians, to join them in exploring this domain-a service to the cause of truth which we can hardly render, without the aid of men who have improved superior advantages for prolonged study. Nearly the same may be said of every other department of human knowledge. Our argument is, therefore, cumulative, and its full power will be felt only by him who surveys the entire field of modern research, noting the lights and shadows which rest upon it. Such a man will see how much broader are the regions of twilight than those of noonday; he will detect the subtle influence of personal character in shaping the conclusions of science to its will; and so he will appreciate our need of men whose tried ability and ample knowledge qualify them for high intellectual service. But, granting our need of such men, it may, perhaps, be urged, that a provision analogous to that of college fellowships in England would prove futile, or worse than futile, here. The end may be good, but the means of reaching it are questionable. We propose, then, to notice II. Certain obstacles to the success of the measure in question.

The measure may be described, in general terms, as a provision for the support of a few young men of approved character, ability, and scholarship, during a period of study reaching five years beyond the usual course. We defer a consideration of its particular features to the last part of our essay; but ask, now, what may be regarded as obstacles to the success of the measure, as a whole, provided its details can be satisfactorily arranged? The most obvious of these is a want of funds.

There is small reason, it may be said, for supposing that our brethren, who are vexed with almnost daily appeals to erect buildings, support teachers, and assist students to finish the regular course, will undertake to give extra privileges of study to a select few. They will not take a step in advance until they have made good their present footing. They will not put their shoulders under a new burden, while their strength is scarcely sufficient for the old. In reply to this objection, we think it enough to say, that, if the measure proposed does not commend itself to the good sense of business men, it will, of course, fail; but, if it does, they can make provision at the outset for any number of scholars, from one to ten, as they deem most expedient; and it would probably be unwise to begin with a large number. We shut our eyes to the resources of our people, if we suppose them unable to 58

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. provide at once all the funds needed for the support of a few choice young men in the way proposed; and we underrate their Christian enterprise, if we fear a disinclination on their part to do this, when it is seen to be expedient. It may take a little time to put this measure fairly before their minds, so that they will appreciate its importance; but if they are led to look upon it as being truly desirable, as a measure tending to increase materially the influence which we are to wield for truth and for Christ, they will not withhold their money or their prayers; and, therefore, we should not hesitate, on the plea of denominational poverty, or of a mercenary spirit in our men of business, to look the question of post-graduate scholarships fully in the face; and, if the time has come when we need them, in order to accomplish our high mission as a body of Christians, to ask for the necessary funds, believing that they will be cheerfully given. It is our duty, as friends of learning, to beware of calling upon our brethren to found institutions or scholarships of doubtful utility; but it is also our duty to encourage them in a wise liberality-in such a use of the means at their disposal as will result in the greatest permanent good; and the Lord whom we serve will not hold us guiltless if we neglect to do this. Another of these obstacles is the alleged tendency of learned investigation to quench the ardor of piety. It seems to be a common opinion, that an earnest pursuit of knowledge must interfere with growth in grace, and even destroy, at last, the freshness and power of Christian life; hence, as piety is far better than learning, it is inferred that the portion of life which is devoted to study should be made as brief as possible. In response to this objection, we freely admit that there is some reason for the opinion mentioned. It is certainly possible to pursue any object-except, perhaps, the glory of God-with too exclusive a zeal. Men do this in all the walks of life. The lawyer, the merchant, the mechanic, the farmer, is very likely to give more thought to his regular business, and less to Christ, than he ought; and, on this account, ardor of religious feeling is sometimes subdued, and sometimes intrinsically weakened, by years of successful business. The same is true of the pursuit of knowledge; it may divert the mind unduly from direct efforts to save men and honor God. But neither a life of business nor a life of study is therefore to be shunned.

Both are necessary for the good of man and the glory of Christ. Business and science cannot be relinquished to the ungodly, on the plea that faithful men are liable to be too much absorbed in them; for the sources of knowledge are put within reach of Christians, not to be despised, but to be used. “Light is sown for the righteous;” and a life of learned research is by no inherent tendency unfavorable to warmth (;f religious feeling. Mental discipline and self-control may, perhaps, temper the glow of emotion, making it more spiritual and less dependent on sense; but they need not, and often do not, weaken its power. Breadth of view and generous culture may affect the style of expression, rendering it pure, exact, and strong, suggestive of even more than is said, but, at the same time, less demonstrative than ruder forms of speech. These effects of learning are pronounced, by one class of persons, good; by another, bad. But they are, to a certain extent, superficial; they have little to do with the compass and energy of the inner life; and that life will be sure, in some way, to make itself felt. It is, then, a mistake to estimate the piety of Christians by the greater or less vehemency of their expressions of feeling. The impulsive negro of the South may sing and shout, and respond with gushing emotion, where a thoughtful Christian, of riper culture, would be very quiet; yet the former may have less spiritual power than the latter, less depth of conviction, less steadiness of purpose, and even less pure religious feeling. Two years ago, I chanced to pass near a group of Irish mourners in a Catholic burial-ground, and, as the coffin 59

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NATIONAL BAPTIST was lowered to its place in the earth, most of the large company broke forth in loud groans and wailing. A year later, I stood with a group of American Protestants, beside the open grave of a friend extremely dear to us all; but, as the body was tenderly let down into its place of rest, the low sob and silent tear were all that spoke of grief.

Yet no considerate person, acquainted with the two groups, would say that the cries and groans of the former betokened deeper feeling than the sobs and tears of the latter. The lesson is obvious: Culture may greatly modify the expression of religious emotion, without affecting its purity or depth. And so, in fact, there is no more reason why we should decline helping a fit young man to prolong his studies beyond the usual course, than there is why we should hesitate about encouraging one to engage in business. The Christian scholar is exposed to no temptation, “but such as is common to man;” and if he is led away from God, it is not by any tincture of evil in his employment, but by the deceitfulness of his own heart. He needs, therefore, the same grace as men in other callings.

Without it, he will fall, even as they; with it, he will stand as certainly as they, and will serve the cause of truth in the high places of the field. A third obstacle to the success of the measure will be the call for able young men to engage at once in public service. The fields were long ago ripe for the harvest; they have remained so ever since; and they will continue to be so to the end of time. There will be a cry from Macedonia so long as the world stands. But there is an old adage, “Make haste slowly;” and we think it no heresy to apply this adage to those who are looking to the ministry as their lifework. There are kinds of business which cannot be taken up to advantage without preparation; and there are forms of spiritual labor which do not belong to a novice. The leader of an army needs more knowledge than is possessed by the raw recruit; and the same is true of all leaders in education or religion. This has sometimes been forgotten. Not rarely, in past years, have able young men been importuned to abridge their theological course, and enter the pulpit at once; and this importunity has too often prevailed. Perhaps we ought not to say “too often;” for we believe’-and it is a very wonderful fact-that nearly every church which has urged a student to curtail his preparation for the work of life, has felt itself to be, just at the time, in a peculiar state-in a sort of crisis -making it perfectly evident that no one but the young man of its choice could save it from disaster, and that he might be unable to do this at any moment but the present. And surely, if we can feel that, for every instance cf a young man cutting short his course of study for the ministry, a good church has been saved, it will do much to reconcile us with the past; for churches are of God-and if he plants them, they are worth saving. But ministers are also of God; and we therefore hope that our churches may hereafter be preserved from such peculiar crises, or else delivered from them by means which will not diminish through life the power for good of their own pastors. It must, however, be’hoped and expected that the call to immediate service will always be urgent; but it should also be borne in mind, that, if a given number of persons are to spend life in preadhing the Gospel, or in the higher departments of education, it is wisdom and economy to have them master-workmen, able to make the most of their native capacity and of their high office. Twentyfive years of superior labor, in moulding the characters and opinions of men, will be better than thirty years of inferior labor, even though the difference in quality appear to be slight.

But we question whether prolonging the period of preparation will shorten the period of public service. We suppose it to be a fact, that those who enter the Christian ministry after thorough preparation, labor, on an average, as many years as those who begin in earlier life, but with less preparation. And if this be so, the sacrifice 60

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. made by one who is urged into the pastoral work prematurely is well nigh equalized by the loss to the churches resulting from this course. But whatever may be said in favor of entering the ministry with little mental culture, there can nothing be said in favor of unlearned men for teachers in the higher branches of knowledge. There have, indeed, been a few distinguished educators, whose advantages for study had been limited; but they have taught in departments which did not require extensive and accurate learning. This is the rule, and we need not trouble ourselves about rare exceptions. WVe must, then, in some way, provide a corps of eminent scholars, able to fill the highest places in our seats of learning; and there seems to be no more feasible plan for doing this than the one now in question. We are, therefore, confident that young men, who have a genuine love of learning, a large capacity for investigation and acquisition, and a probable aptitude for teaching, will be ready to avail themselves of a suitable provision for post-graduate study, in spite of the inducements which may tempt them to go at once into public life. These, we think, are the chief obstacles to the measure proposed; and our conclusion is accordingly this: that neither the anticipated reluctance of business men to provide the funds, nor the alleged tendency of learned research to quench the ardor of Christian love nor the pressing claims of public life on the service of pious scholars, ought to make us doubt the wisdom of such a measure. We are rather of the opinion that these obstacles, and any others which might be namied, will only tend to the ultimate success of the plan, by insuring greater caution and wisdom in carrying it into effect. And this remark brings us to our third topic-namely: III. A statemnent of certain particulars embraced in the measure under discus 8ion. It will be recollected that two features of the English college fellowships were spoken of at the beginning of this paper as being worthy of imitation-viz.: That the fellows of an English college owe their position to eminent scholarship, and draw their support from the revenues of their college. Thus provision is made for the support of true scholars, and care is taken to select them wisely. And these are the cardinal points of the plan we have in mnind-though it will be found, when considered in detail, to differ in many respects from the English model. In order, then, to treat the matter practically, we shall speak of the selection of suitable persons to be supported; of the way in which they should employ their time; of-the period during which they should receive support and of the amount which should be given to each one yearly. 1st. The selection of suitable “fellows” to be supported. This is a matter of the gravest importance. If men of sterling worth and high scholarship can, as a rule, be selected, we have, indeed, begun to look in the right direction, and may move boldly on; but if not, it is better to pause before we start, counting well the cost, lest, after much effort, we fail of reaching the desired end. And we begin by saying that the fellowships contemplated-so far, at least, as they are founded by ourselves-should be, at the outset, for Baptist graduates of approved Christian faith and life. This limitation is suggested by the ends we are seeking -viz.: to provide competent teachers for our best institutions of learning; to foster a reverent search for truth in every field of science; to illustrate the concord between liberal culture and genuine faith; and, in a word, to do our part, as a body of Christians, in furnishing the world leaders of religious thought and masters of all good knowledge. To accomplish these ends, we must educate Baptist scholars; for no others will represent us in letters, or science, or theology. 61

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NATIONAL BAPTIST The time may come when it will be both wise and modest for us to establish fellowships, and give them to young men having a religious belief different from ours, or having no religion at all; but we do not think it has yet come. Our actual position in the world of letters, and the work we have to do-pro Christo et ecclesi-call upon us to provide the best educational advantages for young men whose views of truth agree with our own; and until we have made provision for them, it is hardly our duty to offer assistance of this kind to othersespecially as others, if members of almost any church, can have whatever help they need from persons of their own denomination. It is not, indeed, our view that any restriction of a religious nature should be put upon these fellowships, except by the founders; and we take it for granted, that a founder who belongs to any sect, will feel a special interest in providing for the higher education of those who agree with him in faith; while friends of science, who care not for religion, will be likely to establish fellowships for those who give themselves wholly to science. All this should be approved; but our present and urgent duty, as Baptists, is to make suitable provision for scholars in our own ranks. This is the point where we should begin, while we encourage others to join in the measure likewise. In the next place, we hold that the fellowships in question should be offered to those only who stand the test of a thorough examination by competent scholars-an examination similar, in respect of thoroughness, to that which young men are subject to on the continent of Europe before taking a degree. We lay great stress on this condition. If a man, who has been graduated from college, cannot pass successfully through this ordeal, he may as well relinquish the hope of becoming an eminent scholar; and still more emphatically may this be said of one who has also been graduated from a theological seminary. At this point, moreover, it would be natural, and perhaps desirable, to introduce the principle of competition, allowing more than one to apply for the same fellowship, and making the election depend in some degree on the result of the examination. We say, “in some degree,” but not wholly; for the judgment of teachers, founded on long and careful observation, should, of course, have an influence on the decision; yet their appropriate influence may, perhaps, be secured by making the privilege of examination for a scholarship depend on a recommendation from the student’s teachers in the college or seminary. Besides, it would seem to be necessary for the appointing board to look beyond the single question of learning, and have some regard to good sense and energy, likewise; for these are indispensable to success in teaching. Indeed, we are not quite certain that the benefits of competition would outweigh its evils, but are willing to leave the answer of this question to wiser men. In the third place, the fellowships under consideration should be given to such graduates only as are commissioned by the proper authorities to act as private teachers in the school from which they are graduated. This limitation was suggested by a usage which prevails in the great German universities. Young men of distinguished scholarship and great promise are licensed by the authori ties to give instruction to classes voluntarily formed in the university; and, being thus endorsed, they are able, it is found, to obtain a nearing and test their ability to impart knowledge, as well as receive it; and there is reason to believe that the privilege and responsibility of teaching, though without any salary, are of great service to these young men, by giving to their studies an immediate and definite aim, and by compelling them to put the results of their inquiry into form for use. But the advantages of teaching in this way cannot be greater to a German scholar than they would be to an American. They may be less; for the German mind cares less, we think, about perfection of form and style than 62

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. the American. Besides, if a young man of the finest scholarship should be found, upon trial, unable to hold a volunteer class together, and therefore unfitted for the work of teaching, he could be advised to relinquish his fellowship and the purpose which led him to accept it. Perhaps the continuance of support beyond a given time, say two years, could be made to depend on a reasonable degree of success in teaching or writing; but there would be some difficulty in fixing the limits of the period of trial. By restricting the benefit of fellowships to persons who meet the requirements just named, the only serious peril which threatens their utility would be set aside. 2d. The way in which the “fellows” should use their time.-This must be determined by the end sought, and the end sought will not be the same in every instance. One man may have such a predilection for the natural sciences as to make it evident that he should give them special attention. Another may have so great a love of the languages as to make it certain that he should give a large part of his time to philology. A third may be moved to the study of history by an impulse so deep and prophetic of his lifework as to indicate his chief duty for the time. A fourth may be drawn to theology, longing to explore its depths and heights, and this longing may point the way to the largest culture of mind and heart. For there is no great source of knowledge which does not mingle its waters at last with those from every other source. All the mighty streams of truth flow into the same ocean, even as they came originally from it. And therefore it is found that special studies may lead, in the end, to comlrehensive knowledge.

Hence, also, it is needless to propose any one curriculum for all who are aided by fellowships. But it should be distinctly understood, that this post-graduate course is not to be one of general reading or of learned leisure, but one of strenuous effort to obtain exact and profound knowledge. Nothing short of this should be accepted as satisfactory. And therefore every one who draws his support from a fellowship should be expected to avail himself of counsel and instruction from the faculty, or some part of the faculty, with’which he is connected. Should it be urged as an objection to this, that neither our college nor our theological seminaries are furnished with officers who have learning and time for the service implied by this remark, we beg leave to meet the objection by denying the fact asserted. It is a mistake to suppose that the ablest teacher in our chief seats of learning could not with ease render all necessary assistance, e. g., by directing students to the sources of knowledge, by clearing up dark or difficult points, by criticising results and processes of investigation, and by a weekly review and scrutiny of the work performed. Not a few of these officers would deem it a privilege to do all this for any young man of approved character and capacity, finding an ample reward for their labor in the spiritual refreshment which it would bring. And if several socii should wish to pursue the same study in the same school, they could have the benefit of more frequent instruction.

Moreover, the circumstance that we have as yet no proper university, our professional faculties being often locally separate from those of general culture, ought not to hinder the success of the measure proposed; for it will be natural for the young men to pass from one seminary or college to another, giving a year, perhaps, to each, and thus, in the end, coming into contact with the ablest minds we have. The only serious obstacle to their going thus from one school to another must be found in the importance of testing and cultivating their power as teachers. This may, perhaps, require them to spend at least two years in the school from which they are graduated; but it cannot prevent their studying in one or two others. 63 I

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Then, in addition to the best advantages for study at home, we would also have them reap the benefits of study abroad. The schools of Germany and France should be visited by them, so far as this can be done in a twelvemonth, for the purpose of meeting the eminent teachers of the European continent, and especially for the purpose of becoming familiar with the French and German languages; for a good knowledge of these languages, making it a constant pleasure to read them, is almost indispensable to the scholar of to-day. The time, however, is drawing near, if it has not already come, when the German tongue may be learned as well in our own as in the fatherland. It will be noted that we do not assign any place to the study of science, philosophy, cr theology abroad. Our reason is this: we believe they can, unless certain branches of science be excepted, be studied quite as profitably at home; and we owe it to our schools, founded at great cost, to do all we can for their honor and support. During a long time to come, there will be reasons enough for travel and study in the Old World, even if such travel and study are rated at no more than their true value; but we cannot think they should fill a large part of the time which the young men in question can add to their regular course of study. And this brings us to the next point-viz.: 3d.

T/te period during which the “fellows” should be stpported.-This, however,- ~ will not detain us long; for the lights which can be made to bear upon it are fess and dim. But it the age at which our best students finish their course in theology be from twenty-six to twentyeight years on an average, it will be unsafe to ask them to add more than five years to their student life; and if the attainments requisite at the present time to qualify any one for a prominent place in teaching be fairly considered, it will appear unwise to add less than fire years to that life. We have, therefore, with almost no statistical data to guide us, fixed upon this as the maximum period, presuming that, in some instances, men would be called into active service before its close. It remains for us to say a word concerning 4th. The amount which should be provided for each’fellow” yearly.-OlOn this point differences of judgment may be anticipated; yet we see no good reason for discussing the subject at length. Believing that it is far better, in view of the object sought, to give a few really able young men the benefit of an extra course, than to give it to a larger number of less ability, we would place the standard of qualifications high, and make the provision for support liberal-at least as compared with what is given to undergraduates. It seems to us, therefore, that ten thousand dollars should be fixed upon as the basis cf a fellowship. The interest of this-six or seven hundred dollars yearly-would be sufficient, we imagine, to meet all necessary expenses; and if in any case more were needed, it could be earned without difficulty, and, we presume, without detrimenit to scholarship. If, now, the measure advocated in this paper is a good one, it should receive the prompt attention of those who wish to further the cause of truth. Learning is not grace-scholarship is not godliness; but learning may be made the handmaid of piety, and true scholarship may be joined with faith. The vain boast of ungodly men, that they are the only fearless disciples of truth, and the pernicious doubt whether this be not so, which has been infused into the hearts of timid believers by the loud-mouthed arrogance of Pantheism, should be met and neutralized by the education of Christian men. The people of God are neither so few nor weak as to justify them in leaving any great source of knowledge in the exclusive possession of his foes. It is their duty to rejoice in the 64

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EDUCATIONAL CONYVENTION, progress of science, even as they do, and to contribute their full proportion of men and means to hold the high places of learning. We do not charge them with any great delinquencies in the past, though we fear that our own denomination has done less than it ought; but we see reasons for greater zeal in the future. And we believe the time has come, when provision should be made, in connection with several of our leading schools, for extra culture on the part of a few young men. Dr. CUTTING: Dr. IHOVEY made an allusion to myself, remarking that, if I were so disposed, I could cast some light on the question of providing for fellowships. I may, I suppose, say,, without violation of propriety, that provision has been made very recently for the establishment, at a future period, of two fellowships, with foundations of ten thousand dollars each. Dr. CASWELL: I do not know that I have any particular claim upon this body to occupy any portion of its time now, but I can hardly refrain from an expression of the very great pleasure with which I have heard both of these papers. I think both of them were extremely able, and I like especially the idea of future progress shadowed forth. I listened with particular interest to the paper of my friend and former pupil, Dr. LooMis, and I only fear that one inference might be drawn from his paper, which, I am sure, on the whole, he did not intend to have drawn-that is, that the natural sciences have some particular and special claim to the consideration of scientific men.. I fully agree with him as to the great importance of pursuing these studies, and in the further fact that they furnish fine illustrations of the inductive methods of science; and I also agree with him that we never can dispense with the linguistic training that lies at the bottom of verbal usage, and teaches us how to handle the most delicate instrument which thought has ever used-that is, language. And I attach to it increased importance the more I hear and the more I know of what philologists have done, and what light philology is throwing upon some of the great problems of modern inquiry. I think we can never dispense with the classical training which we have heretofore had as a part of our collegiate course. I might say, further, that the mathematical training of which my friend spoke is, in my view, equally important. I look upon it as a great aid in cultivating the logical powers of the human mind. But I do not exacty know what he meant when he said it was in study easily learned, and -could be as easily laid aside. It might be laid aside, perhaps, were a man intending to prosecute these studies; but if the mathematics had not been profoundly studied, 5

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0 NATIONAL BAPTIST many of the most illustrious pioneers of science would never have been known to the world The remarkable discovery which has immortalized the names of Le Verrier and Adams could never have been made.

It was purely a mathematical analysis which revealed the position of the planet Neptune, as you all know. There was a small inequality in the motion of Uranus, which none but the most careful observation would have discovered; but that little inequality became so clear that there must obviously be a cause for it. It was easy enough to conjecture that it might be an outside planet, but who could speak with any assurance? And, what is much more, who could assign the position of such planet? To do this required all the resources of mathematical knowledge. No man, who has not been trained up to the very last degree of mathematical analysis, would have been competent to form even a guess as to the position of the disturbing planet. Le Verrier and Adams (and Adams before Le Verrier) both solved the problem, and determined the position and magnitude of the hitherto unseen body which produced the disturbance in the orbit of Uranus. It was one of the grandest achievements known to science, and it was a mathematical one. Le Verrier wrote to a friend in Berlin, Dr. Galle, and said: “If you will turn your tele scope to a particular point in the heavens, you will see the new planet.” And he did so, and on the very first night he saw it. Some of the marvellous results, in connection with the spectrum, to which reference has been made, would never have been reached but from a very advanced condition of chemistry and the physical sciences, particularly those which have reference to the physi cal constitution of the planets and nebulae. These results of spectrum analysis belong to the wonders of science. We want to cultivate, therefore, in our higher institutions of learning all the branches of human knowledge; we want to encourage all high attainments, and meet the demand for them. And hence the necessity in our colleges and theological schools of increased en dowments, and more ample facilities for instruction. We want for leaders in education men of the most liberal acquisitions and profoundest thought. I fear I am occupying too much of your time; but one or two additional thoughts occur to me, to which I beg to call your attention. The past gives us great en couragement. What has taken place within the personal recollec tions of some of us may well stimulate us to continued fforts. It is now nearly forty-eight years since I left Brown University as a student, and became a member of the Faculty of the Colum 66

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. bian College, in the District of of Columbia. At that time there were very few men connected with the Baptist denomination who had any acquaintance with the Hebrew language, and not a very large number who had made any considerable attainments in the exegesis of the Greek New Testament. We had no theological school. Some few of our ministers took private pupils and gave them such aid in their preparation for the ministry as they could. At the time to which I refer, I met at the Columbian College a Christian brother who wais my life-long friend Prof.

Irah Chase. He was teaching classics and Biblical interpretation in the col lege. He had gone through the regular course of theological studies in Andover, then, no doubt, the best which the country afforded. He was among the very few men in our denomination who had enjoyed such advantages. And in fact, he was the only one of whom I had any knowledge at the time, who had received the benefit of a systematic training in theology and exegesis. Prof. Chase came to me one day, and with great earnestness stated to me his conviction that the time had come when we must have a theological school; and that he had made up his mind to visit brethren at the North and consult on the subject, and see what could be done. He thought that some place on the banks of the Hudson would be the most eligible location He made his visit, reached Boston, and consulted with the brethren. And as I then supposed, and as I still think, that visit and consultation may be considered as the corner-stone of the Newton Theological Seminary. I need not say, brethren, what has been done since.

You all know. There are Newton, Madison, Rochester, Crozer and Greenville, not to mention several other theological institutions of less prominence.

They are none of them as well endowed as we could wish, but they are all prepared to render a noble service to the cause of ministerial education.

They are presided over by teachers of varied and profound learning, ardently devoted to their high calling. I trust I may say, without arrogance, that we have as a denomination made honorable progress in broad Christian scholarship, and have contributed our fair proportional part to the sound and thorough exegesis of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. We go to original sources. We drink at the fountain-head. I have been spending an hour or two to-day with an old friend, I mean of course a friend in youthful days-we can neither of us be considered old who has been showing me facsimiles of several of the earliest and most reliable 67

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NATIONAL BAPTIST manuscripts, on which any emendations of the Greek text must depend. I judge, from what I saw and heard, that my friend reads them as familiarly as I do English. We are prepared for thorough and critical exegesis of the Scriptures. And I beg leave to add that we, as Baptists, have a great interest in this department of study. We build our faith and hope upon the Bible alone. So long as we have access to the original Scriptures, the decisions of the “great councils,” whether ecumenical or local, are of very secondary importance to us. What is clearly revealed in the Scriptures, that we receive. By that we are held and bound. What is not revealed in the Scriptures, that we reject, to that we deny all binding authority. We claim to stand upon the soundest and most critical Christian scholarship. If we cannot stand upon that, we shall not stand at all.’ We go by what Christ and the Apostles have said, and beyond that we do not go by any compulsion. We hold to the right of private judgment in matters of faith and practice, and we do not acknowledge the authority of any thing which rests upon the mere dictum of priest, or bishop, or council. I have been a humble worker in the Baptist church a good many years. I have seen no reason to change my ground. The presumption is, that I shall die in that faith, unless there is some new revelation changing the order of things before I have finished my course. There is one thing more to which I wish to advert before taking my sent, and which will suggest additional reasons for making the best preparation in our power for defending the truth as it is in Jesus. It needs no prophet to foresee that evangelical Christians have a great conflict before them, and that, if they would win the victory, they must put on the whole armor of God.

The Papal church is becoming arrogant and aggressive beyond all endurance, and almost beyond belief. I hope all Protestants will read the little work recently published, entitled ” The Pope and the Council.” The authors, for there are supposed to be two of them, are liberal members of the Roman church. They appear under the name of “Janus.” They have written with a fulness of historic research, and a logical fairness and candor, upon the corruptions of the Papal church, and particularly of the Jesuits, which must commend this work to every honest inquirer. They show, I think, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the Papal power for the last five or six centuries has been built up.upon deception and falsehood and forgery, and the interpolation and mutilation of historic documents. It is, taken as a whole, such a gigantic 68

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. system of iniquity as the world has not before seen. This system is so compacted, so intrenched behind the massive defences of its own corruption, sends out in every direction and to all countries so many trained and cunning emissaries, that Protestants have got to do one of two things: either to arm themselves for defence, or be led captive at the will of the Roman pontiff. Is it, can it be, any question which we ought to do, and which we will do? I think not. We, as Baptists, have a great interest in this matter, and must not be wanting in preparation to meet the conflict. Then again, formidable assaults are made upon revealed religion from another direction. I regret to say that physical science, in some of its more advanced phases, is more than leaning toward atheism or pantheism, or materialism, or protoplasm, or whatever other name may be given to the theory, which excludes a personal, overruling Deity from the affairs of the universe. The leaders of this assault upon Christian faith believe in nature and in physical laws. They believe in the laws of gravitation and chemical affinity, but, beyond the mere laws, they can see nothing. To their vision there is no supreme self-existent Intelligence, at whose command the universe sprang into being, and the laws of matter, in all their vast reach and regularity, commenced their reign. These assaults must be repelled. We must arm ourselves to vindicate anew the eternal government of God against the covert attacks of perverted science. It is in view of these things that the age and-the church demand a many-sided culture. In view of this state of things, if we are wise, we shall lay broad and deep the foundations of our institutions of learning. Prof. GREENE: I have been delighted with both the papers that have been read, and have been almost surprised that such views as are put forth in these papers should have been put forth as strongly as they have been before this audience, and for the reason that from some of the organs of religious movements in this country there is going forth an opinion that we want a Christianity that has nothing of the supernatural element in it, and we have had now placed before us the natural, and apparently without any fear of this conflict with the supernatural. I am glad that those who have read the papers presenting these subjects have presented them with such force and fulness, and confidence that truth will stand, no matter what any of us may say in respect to it, and I am particularly pleased with the paper last read, because it defines just what we need in this growth of naturalism. We 69

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NATIONAL BAPTIST need men who unite education with faith in God. The only trouble, the only reason for any division on the subject, is that men have not faith, and study nature without faith. They study nature, and that alone. We want men who begin as Christians and are educated in an academy, a college, or in a theological seminary, and who go on with their education, studying nature in all its aspects, and with their practical knowledge of nature and the sciences, keeping steadily up their faith in God, so that, when they are raised up to this eminence, they will be prepared to meet the claims which are put forth so boldly, that we are called upon by the teachings of science and nature to set aside the Gospel and our religious faith. We want men trained among ourselves, who can study nature and still keep a loving faith, so that, when the point is raised, they can meet on their own ground the men who shall put forth these bold views so subversive of Christian faith. We shall never have them until we ourselves educate men up to this point. Prof. STEVENS: I desire to suggest a thought or two. I wish to’ speak from one standpoint not yet occupied here. I will assume the other extreme. I am fully in harmony with the sentiment and the expression that as thorough, complete and profound theological education can be obtained in our seminaries now as anywhere in the land; but I was not so when Prof. Irah Chase studied theology; it was not so in my early life and that of others here; but we have mounted up, in the way we have, until now we can show as good theological teachers as any denomination in America. Now then, as a Baptist, as a Christian, and as a supporter and friend of education, I look to our colleges and our theological seminaries as the essential means to raise us up to the highest elevation to which ministerial education can go. No doubt that they themselves will do that duty, but as to the essential thing, to raise up the ministry to the highest elevation to which it has any right to go and can go, the education societies can render valuable and efficient assistance. I have admired with the most admiring these papers that have been read, and to such a degree that it made me almost afraid to say-what I am yet not afraid to say, and what I am saying-that I cannot but ask the question, Is not the movement for fellowships premature? Are we ready for it, and are we not climbing up as fast as we can go without it? My word is Evangelize. We want, in the colleges and seminaries, an interest in the preparation for evangelism.

And when it was said that the church must furnish the most advanced 70

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. men in natural science, I thought: well, the church must furnish the best farmers and the best mechanics. Mere knowledge, other than as a help to evangelism, is likely to do mischief. I want to see Christian men, men of science and of the highest science; but are we ready for this movement? Dr. CUTTING: I wish for one moment, for I see that the time for adjournment is just at hand, to call the attention of the Convention distinctly to the form of the topic of the first of the essays read this afternoon. It is not to be doubted that in England, and quite extensively in this country, advanced science is in the hands of men and is taught by men who do not fear God, and they are making it a reproach of the Christian Church that we are afraid of the investigations of science, that we are afraid to know nature, that we are afraid that we shall find Revelation in conflict with the conclusions of Science. Now, believing nothing of the kind, believing that the God of Nature is the God of Revelation, that in the end Science and Revelation will always be in harmony, it seems to me to be peculiarly the duty of the Christian Church to enter this field, to declare its faith, and to assume the duty of furnishing the most advanced teachers in science. And the simple question is, whether the Christian Church, by their universities and colleges and by their fellowships, shall rear the men who shall perform this service. I will not protract these remarks. I only rose to call attention to the form in which the topic is expressed-that to the Christian Church is assigned the duty of making progress in science and for the sake of Christian ends.

I move you now that the papers which have been read be laid on the table for reference to the Committee on University Education which shall hereafter be appointed. The PRESIDENT: The Chair has received power from the Convention to appoint comnittees of five members each; but, on arranging the committees, it seems quite apparent that three of them would be rendered more effective if they consisted of seven instead of five. The Chair will therefore ask the Convention for the discretionary power to enlarge these committees. The papers were laid on the table, to be referred to a Committee on University Education. The following Committees were appointed: On Questions of Education in Academies. Rev, W. HAGUE, D.D., of Ill. Rev. S. TALBOT, D.D., of Ohio. Rev. W. H. EATON, D.D., of N.

H. Rev. EMMONS P. POND, of Ct. Rev. T. H. ARCHIBALD, of Vt. Rev. HORACE

CLARK, of Texas. Rev. H. C. FisH, D.D., of N.J. 71

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Qustions of Tniversity Education. Rev. S. L. CALDWELL, D.D., of R. I. Rev. J. A. BROADUS, D.D., LL.D., of S. C. Rev. G. D.

BOARDMAN, D.D., of Pa. Rev. A. H. STRONG, of Ohio.1 Rev. A. C, KENDRICK, D.1)., of N.Y. Questions of Denominational Work in Education. Rev. KENDALL

BROOKS, D.D., of Mich. Rev. G. P. BAILEY, D.D., of Ill. Rev. A. E.

DICKENSON, of Va. Rev. J. H. CASTLE, of Pa. Rev. S. R. MASON, D.D., of Mass. S. T. HILLMAN, Esq., of N.Y. Questions of Theological Education.

Rev. J. P. BoYcz, D.D., of S. C. Rev. J. BULKLEY, D.D., of Ill. Rev.

THOMAS RAMBAUT, LL.D., of Mo. Rev. GALUSHA ANDERSON, D.D., of Mass. Rev.

H. HARvEYT, D.D., of N.Y. Rev. R. J. W. BUCKLAND, D.D., of N.Y. The Convention then took a recess until 7: 45 P. x. EVENING SESSION. The Convention met at 7: 30 o’clock, and was opened with prayer by Rev. H. C.

GRAVEs, of R. I. Pres. M. B. ANDERSON, LL.D., of the Rochester University, N.Y., read a paper on THE UNIVERSITY OF THIE NINETEENTH CENTURY: WHAT IT

IS AND WHAT IT WILL COST. [PREFATORY NOTE.] THOUGH the subject assigned to the author of this paper would seem to demand a general and comprehensive treatment, the space to which he was limited prevented him from attempting such a task. He has, therefore, confined himself to the discussion of such topics as seemed to him most to need attention at the present time; consequently he has not considered, except incidentally, the demand for increased facilities for education in physical science in American colleges. Elsewhere the writer has expressed himself fully on that subject. It is not from want of interest in these departments that he has given them so little attention in this paper. There is little danger just now of physical science being neglected, and hence he has assumed the position of a defender of those studies which seemed most likely to be undervalued, and of a critic of methods which require modification. It must be evident to every thoughtful mind that our institutions of learning, of whatever kind, must be local as distinguished from national.

The extet of our territory, the comparative sparseness of our population, thie organization of our country into distinct States, the vast anticipations of our citizens in respect to our future growth in population and resources, all tend in one direction. In the more newly settled parts of our country, where centres of wealth and intelligence are nowhere determined, but everywhere anticipated, there is a laudable ambition on the part of new towns to attract capital and population by the establishment, in name at least, of an academy or college. Real estate speculators have often appealed most successfully to the benevolent and religious public for the endowment of institutions whose location and establishment were deter 72

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. mined, not by an enlightened regard to the best interests of education on the whole, but with a keen eye to the sale of town lots or adjoining tracts of farming land. However much of evil to high education has resulted from this state of things, there are not among us, nor indeed in any body of Christians, if we except the Romanists, any practical means of neutralizing the influence of this local ambition which works so powerfully in a newly-settled country. But it must be admitted that if the money which has been scattered so generously by the benevolent among institutions established in advance of population, and in ill-chosen locations, had been concentrated upon a few points, we should have had several wellendowed colleges, able to meet all the demands of the age for solid learning and elegant culture. But though we may regret this state of things, on the whole, there will be compensating blessings in the future.

It is of no use to complain of mistakes in the past; we are here to look at the future, and make the best of the present. It seems clear that our colleges must be local, that no considerable number of them can be united, or concentrated into one city like the numerous colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. If they must be local, as a natural consequence they must and ought to be endowed and supported by those States or groups of States through whose agency they have been founded. Nearly all attempts to consolidate institutions of learning which have once obtained a local hold, have failed. It is the policy of the law to recognize in various ways vested rights of locality to any institution which has struck its roots into the soil. It seems to me the part of wisdom to accept with equanimity a state of things we cannot directly remedy. The people of every State will continue to found institutions; but they should bear in mind that in so doing they assume the responsibility of their endowment as well as their administration. Let this be once understood, and those who found new institutions, no longer permitted to depend upon distant States to endow them, will count the cost and examine all the elements of success before they assume the responsibility involved. Indeed, capital and population are becoming so. rapidly equalized as between the old States and the new, that the local support of educational institutions may be hereafter assumed as not only practicable, but equitable. Our college system must also be American, as distinguished from European. Every nation has its own peculiar tendencies and laws of growth. The attempt to transfer the institutions of one country to another is quite sure to result in failure. Especially is this true in education. Too many educational reformers have limited their effobrts to the reproduction here of systems which work well where they are indigenous, but are without adaptation to our Government or population. We hear much of the excellence of the university systemn of Germany, and many hastily conclude that all those particulars in which our system differs from that are so many defects, to be remedied only by conforming our methods of education in all respects to the German type. The German system has great excellences, but even these cannot be intelligibly compared with our system without taking into account very many essential elements of difference. 1. The disciplinary work of education in Germany is accomplished mainly in the gymnasium. This, speaking loosely, holds the place occupied in America by the academy, and the first three years of an American college course. In all this time, including several years, the pupils are carried through a regularly prescribed curriculum of study arranged by the government, in which very little range of choice among studies is permitted (after the course is once entered upon) either to pupils or parents. These prescribed courses of classroom drill form the foundations and a great part of the superstructure of German education. It is from this part of the German system that the most valuable and instructive 73

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NATIONAL BAPTIST lessons are to be derived. And, strange to say, reformers who quote and recom mend the German system of education give it comparatively little attention It is the splendid drill of the gymnasium, with its years of training in graded classes, made obligatory on all, which renders the university system useful or even possible. The completion of this course, and the passing of a severe outgoing examination, takes substantially the place of graduation in the arts in an American college. When this course has been completed, the pupil enters upon his course of professional study. He selects his profession, and, like an American student, enters upon it in some university. A German university is best understood by considering it as a group of professional schools of the highest order. While the student of law, theology, or medicine is acquiring his professional learning, he is expected to attend courses of lectures on subjects such as are generally taught in our college courses in the senior year. He is expected to supplement the general and disciplinary education acquired at the gymnasium by a certain amount of attendance upon those lectures, which lie outside of his strictly professional course, but which are considered necessary for a broad and complete professional education. These courses of extra-professional study may be more or less extensive, according to the means, taste, or time of the student. Thus, we see that the theory of the American college system is to supply to the student the general and extra-professional culture which a German student gets at the university by the studies and lectures of the senior year. Unlike the Europeans, we generally isolate professional schools, and confine the pupils in them exclusively to the special line of their chosen professional course. While professional schools are sometimes nominally connected with a college corporation, there is no vital connection between them, and courses of general science and literature are not provided or deemed necessary for their pupils. When a student begins to study a profession, his general education is presumed to be complete. That which seems to me to make the special feature in the German university system is the provision full and ample for a course of lectures for those who design to make literature or science a profession, or to engage in the profession of public instruction. In this respect the Germans, and all the nations of continental Europe, are immensely in advance of us. While we make provision for professional instruction in the departments of law, theology, and medicine, we make none whatever for the teacher beyond what he acquires in the college course, or by his own unaided efforts. We do not need, then, to replace our colleges by a system like that of a German university, for, without the preceding classroom drill, students would not be prepared to avail themselves of the advantages which it would offer. Such a change would destroy the foundation upon which all sound education must rest. We need our college system. It is doing good work. It is a natural, indigenous growth. It is adjusted to us, and we are adjusted to it. Let it be retained as a system unchanged, but improved in its details, adapted with wisdom to the growth and differentiation of all knowledge. Let it be rendered more and more efficient, liberal, and complete. It furnishes a good foundation. Let us strengthen and build upon it, but not destroy it. What do we need in the way of enlargement of this system? We need professional instruction in science and general literature for those who, having passed through the college course with special honors, shall desire to devote themselves to public instruction, or to the increase and diffusion of knowledge. This would secure us a body of men prepared for scientific and historical investigation, and furnish us what we most need-adequately trained teachers for our academies and colleges.

It would also tend to elevate and dignify the teacher’s profession, and ultimately to secure for it rewards in some degree com 74

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. mensurate with those earned in other learned professions. In order to make this provision available, we need a number of fellowships attached to every college, which shall be attainable only by men who, by their success in study, have shown a decided vocation for scholarship. The enjoyment of the revenue of these endowments should be conditioned also on spending in special study a time equivalent to what is spent in preparation for the learned professions. Provision for higher instruction and the endowment of temporary fellowships would be the natural complements of each other. Worthy pupils would be thus furnished for the higher courses of instruction which we have had in view. In order to elevate the regular college course, we need a healthy public opinion which shall compel professional schools to require for admission to their studies a disciplinary education equal to that furnished by an average American college or a German gymnasium. As we are now situated, the theological seminaries alone require as requisites to admission a college course or a substantial equivalent. Neither the schools of law, medicine nor general science require a preliminary liberal education. Young men who are graduates do enter upon these studies, but, in most of such schools, no examination for entrance nor any evidence of the possession of a respectable disciplinary education is asked for. As a result, only a small portion of such professional students are college graduates, or make pretension to any acquisitions worthy the name of liberal education. Those who control such professional schools by their practice advertise to the world, that neither law, nor medicine, nor general science demands any more training than the common handicraft trades or farming. It is true that intelligent gentlemen in all these professions deplore this state of things, and the depression of professional ability consequent upon it, but, in the professional schools which are carried on as private speculations, the interest of the teachers is more powerful than the often-expressed wishes of the more intelligent members of those professions for which their pupils are training. It is a sad fact that the most depressing influences bearing upon college education in our country comes from the schools of physical science, law, and medicine. Among professional schools, those of theology alone steadily encourage and support high education. It may be worthy the attention of all well educated lawyers and physicians that, while the average standard of education for all other classes in society is constantly rising, the standard in these two noble professions is, on the whole, going relatively downward. The large incomes returned by teachers of law and medicine is not seldom a measure of this depression. In most European countries government remedies the evil tendency to which we have referred by stringent enactments. The reason why the higher institutions of learning in most European countries are so thronged with students, is due to the fact that no schoolmaster can teach, no lawyer or physician can practice, without the best education, both general and professional, which the country can afford. It is not my purpose to point out the remedy for these evils. I only wish to call attention to their existence. A system of education for our country should take into account the element of time. As no education worthy the name can be forced forward beyond a certain degree of rapidity, so on the other hand the young man cannot, and ought not, unless in exceptional cases, to spend the best years of his life in mere preparation. Life is for work, youth is for preparation to do work. In a country like ours, where the demand for labor, and especially for brain labor, is so much in advance of the supply, the educator needs to be specially mindful of the value of time. All our arrangements should be so made that a complete education, general and professional, can be secured before the age of twentyfive. There will be many who begin later, and must take more time, but this is their misfor 75

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NATIONAL BAPTIST tune. Those who are designed for business pursuits ought to be able to finish their general education before the age of twenty-one.

By a proper regard to energy of discipline, and to improvements possible or already accomplished in methods of instruction, the processes of education may be accelerated and simplified to an extent of which educators in general are not fully aware. With proper attention to the present state of the art of teaching, and the science of philology, I believe that the time requisite to fit a young man for college might be diminished nearly one-third. There are schools in numbers in which the longer a boy remains the worse will be his preparation for college. I see no reason why a dead language cannot be learned as rapidly as a living oneassuming them to be of equal inherent difficulty. I imagine that there is much to be learned in the methods of acquiring the Greek and Latin tongues. Our college system should also assume, within certain limits,, to guide public ‘opinion in the matter of education. Teaching is a learned profession. Our legal friends have a maxim, that the man who assumes to be his own lawyer has a fool for a client. I will not claim so much on behalf of my own profession as is involved in this maxim of the lawyers, but I submit that the teacher has a right to all the consideration for’his opinion which is properly conceded to experts in other professions. There are certain elementary principles in education which are settled with much of the certainty which attaches to positive science. It is sometimes said that the teacher should furnish always that kind of edulcation which is most in demand-that he should offer to the public that which has the highest market value. Now, the physician or lawyer who should act on this principle, would justly be called a quack or a shyster, and the clergyman who should adjust his message to the wishes of an ignorant and godless generation would fall under the severest denunciations of God’s word. The Athenian sophists taught for money such doctrines as were most in demand.

Socrates, who rebuked social and political immoralities, taught his fellow-citizens what they needed rather than what they asked for, and was poisoned for his services; but is not Socrates rather than Gorgias the type of the teacher? The function of an institution of learning is to prescribe methods and subjects of instruction, not to receive them from those whose ignorance and inexperience alike incapacitate them for forming a sound judgment. The course of study best adapted for a college curriculum has been much discussed, from the revival of learning to the present time. It is too vast a subject for the time allotted to the whole of this paper. A few general remarks on the subject must suffice. The studies in the course of a liberal education should obviously be determined by the end which such a course of training proposes. This end would seem to be the foundation of correct moral and intellectual habits through the scientific comprehension of specimen portions of the field of organized knowledge. Unorganized facts have very little educational value.

Discipline is secured by compelling the mind of the learner to go through the process of thought by which the master minds of earth have coordinated, classified, and reduced to law the varied facts and forces of the wide field of the knowable. This world of knowledge possible to man, falls naturally into the two classes of thoughts and things, mind and matter. But these two kinds of knowledge are so connected that for their scientific comprehension they must be studied in connection. Man in his individual constitution, society and its formative laws, the totality of matter in all its forms of more or less complete organization, culminate in the infinite mind, will, and personality of God. Objections to the ordinary college curriculum fall into two classes. (1.) The suggestion of modifications in detail, saving the substance of the present course. (2.) The demand for a complete reorganization of the present system, especially 76

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. by throwing out the Greek and Latin and filling their places by physical science. Reserving the discussion of the first of these points for the present, we will make a few statements concerning the spirit, aims, and purposes of those who advocate an entire change in our college curriculum. An adequate examination of this subject would require a volume. What we say must be fragmentary and incomplete. It is well for the Christian public to bear in mind that the severest attacks directed against the study of the Greek and Latin classics come from the propagandists of materialism. I would not be understood to say that those to whom I refer are all dogmatic materialists like those who bore the name in the latter part of the eighteenth century. I refer to a class of persons who, while they do not deny the reality of spiritual existence, deny that it can be known, or that its laws and forces can become the subject matter for positive science-who dismiss as utterly unreal and valueless, under the name of “metaphysics,” all studies of God and the soul-who hold philososphy and theology, in the ordinary sense of the terms, as utterly impossible. These men, holding that matter and its forces and laws comprise all that man may know, seek to exclude from education all courses which assume or involve the existence of anything beyond what can be weighed, measured, and expressed in the formulas of quantity. Now, these views are held by some consciously, but by a far greater number unconsciously. This last-named class practically ignore spiritual facts, and give the full weight of their influence to the propagation of materialistic tendencies. If there is any one point in which Christians of the present and past ages are agreed, it is in the desirableness of keeping alive and vigorous the study of the Christian Scriptures in their original tongues. This feeling is founded in just principles, which they hold in common with Jews, Mohammedans, and nearly all nations whose religious faith is enshrined in books written in an ancient or non-vernacular language. While the Latin tongue has not the same claim with the Greek, it is evident to every scholar that no adequate examination of the elements of our faith, its early triumphs, its progress and development, can be made without an acquaintance witll the language of Rome. The whole church controversy which to-day fills all Christendom, and in our country takes hold of our entire system of popular education, turns upon documents which translations cannot bring into our language. Tile dogmatic history of the past, both before and since the Reformation, is embodied in the same language. That the clergy should study the tongues, all admit. Can an education for a layman be called in any sense liberal, or in the highest sense Christian, which fails to put him into a position for a scientific study of the origin, growth and development of our common faith? Can any layman be educated so as to be the best way prepared to do good Christian work without some acquaintance with the elementary knowledge, held to be indispensable for the minister of religion? Perhaps nothing has done more to injure Christianity than the separation between clergy and laity which marks to a greater or less degree all forms of Romanism. Could the monstrous forgeries upon which rest the superstructure of the “Canon Law,” and consequently the claims of the papacy have been introduced, had any considerable number of the laity been able to make a critical investigation of the “false decretals?” Religious knowledge is religious power. Exclusive power held by an order or class in the Christian Church is now, and ever has been, corrupting. The distinctive feature of modern Protestantism is the utilization of lay Christian labor-the reintroduction of that method, which, after the martyrdom of Stephen, sent the early Christians over the Roman Empire, everywhere preaching the Word. The Christian Associa tion, the Sunday School, the Bible class, the prayer meeting, the lay preaching of our time, are so many different manifestations of this spirit. Is the Christian 77

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NATIONAL BAPTIST public prepared to throw from the course of liberal study all those branches which are indispensable to equip the Christian layman of the nineteenth century for his work in the whitening harvest of the future? God forbid that the originals of the oracles and early documents of our faith shall ever become the exclusive possession of a clerical order like the priesthoods of Egypt and India. The proportion of students who go from our colleges into non-professional and business life is constantly increasing. Let all Christian young men who are able to secure a liberal education be furnished with the means for understanding and applying all the elements, safeguards and forces of our faith. More than this, such men, after some years spent in secular pursuits, are not seldom influenced to devote themselves entirely to religious work. If they desire more strictly professional training, its appropriate basis has already been laid, and in a short time they pass into the ministry, carrying with them the rich and varied expe. rience of business life. An education in physical science without classics shlluts men out from that range of thought and discipline which is the best preparation for moral and religious work, and consecrates them almost of necessity to pursuits and ideas that are material. If they become subject to religious impulses and desire to change their pursuits and devote themselves to the moral education of their fellows, either partially or entirely, they find themselves incapacitated by their deficiencies in early culture for the scientific study of religious truth. They find often when it is too late that a material education has bound them hand, foot, mind and tongue to material pursuits. Have these considerations had any weight in determining so many advocates of a purely material philosophy-who would abate religious labor and ideas as obstacles to their conception of progress-to their intense and bitter opposition to classical study? Opposition to classical studies and opposition to Christian culture are so often coincident that it gives rise to the suspicion that propagandism of materialistic modes of thought not seldom comes before us under the respectable alias of educational reform. It is sometimes affirmed that the course of study now in vogue in our colleges was arranged in reference to clerical education and is a relic of the middle ages. This is all a mistake. Up to the thirteenth century there was no literature worthy of being made the basis of an educational course in any one of the European tongues. The Latin was the language of law, science, religion, politics, and literature, all over Western Europe. Hence, whoever learned to read at all learned to do so in Latin. Greek, as an element in education, came into Europe with the Renaissance. Its introduction was both the cause and consequence of the Reformation. The mendicant religious orders resisted its introduction stoutly. The study of the New Testament in the original, as well as Greek literature in general, was the distinguishing badge of all progressive minds in all departments of thought. The objections to our college studies were tersely summed by Mr. Lowe not long since. His idea was (1.) that we ought to teach things rather than words. (2.) That we ought to teach things practical rather than speculative. (3.) That we should teach knowledge of truth rather than error. (4.) That we should teach knowledge of the present rather than of the past. The first of these propositions seems to contemplate education as an indefinite series of “object lessons.” These may be amusing, and even useful, to children. But the attempt to teach science without words, without making them the principal means of conveying instruction, would be vain and futile. We have already said that it is organized knowledge which we need for education. It is knowledge reduced to scientific form, forces referred to a common law, facts classified by fundamental marks into genera and species, phenomena traced to common and real causes, which are needed for all high education. How is this construction of science 78

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. accomplished? Obviously, by signs. Signs are either diagrams or words. When diagrams are used, they must be such as will bear translation into words, oral or written. Thus only can they give their significance to others. By signs of some sort only can thinking be carried on. By signs only can the results of thinking be conveyed to others. Articulate and written signs are by way of eminence the conditions of the construction of all science, of the organization of all knowledge.

Without them, scientific knowledge can neither exist nor be taught nor transmitted. From childhood to old age we are conversant with words; we acquire, preserve, and transmit all our knowledge through and in words.

Hence, so far from studying things without words, we get our main knowledge of things through words. “Science,” said Condorcet, “est un langue bien fait.” A science exists only as it has a coherent and consistent terminology. A science is acquired and held in possession only by a mastery of its technical terms. Hence, the sesthetic, moral, and scientific culture of a people is shown in its language. It is always a record of the public mind. Mirabeau was right when he said that “words are things.” What is true of general science is true preeminently in literature. Hence, all the earliest masters of literature have moulded and given currency to the “winged words” which have made them and their works immortal. It is not without the deepest significance that our Saviour is called in Scripture the Worcd. While we study words that, as through clear avenues, we may reach a knowledge of “things” in their significance, their laws, and their relations, so we also find in the words which we use an organism more wondrous and beautiful than any objective science which it carries in its bosom. We find in its laws and facts, and relations of the laws of human progress, the constitution of the human soul, all the elements of society and government. When we analyze the speech of an ancient people, we get more than a knowledge of the external facts of their society -we enter into their daily thoughts, into their moral, religious, and family life and emotions. In comparing these languages together, we reach those laws which have everywhere presided over the development of human speech, and are made acquainted with the newest and most magnificent of all sciences, Comparative Philology. Here we have a science which more truly than any other may be said to partake of the joint nature of. the moral and physical sciences bridging over the vast chasm which might seem to separate them from each other. Truly, an education without philology cannot be liberal-cannot, in any proper sense, be called an education at all. To come to the second count in the indictment made against our educational system-that it is too exclusively conversant with speculation, while it should be confined to the practical: What is speculation? It is the search after the universal elements of the Creator’s thought, after the constitution of the human soul, of the physical universe, and the relation of both systems to the vast Being from whose mind and will they have sprung into being. Speculation thus viewed stands over against mere observation of particulars, which, taken one by one, are comparatively unrelated and insignificant. Speculation takes up these results of observation, separates the contingent from the universal or the necessary, and introduces us to the thought of God, into thle domain of law. All that is great in practical life and uses has of necessity sprung from speculation. The instant man begins the career of civilization, he begins to speculate, to search after the underlying and the universal in the everyday work of his common life. The rude codes of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors were as little as possible practical. By as much as their codes and processes excluded speculation, they included injustice. Inasmuch as their clumsy contrivances to carry out their rude notions of natural justice were unspeculative, they were essentially barbarous. But, 79

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NATIONAL BAPTIST with the introduction of the definitions and maxims of Roman law, with the infusion, little by little, of Christian morality, it has become a highly complicated and speculative system, and so a fit code for a civilized people. The doctrine of final causes is purely speculative, but when Socrates used it refuting the immoral and irreligious teachings of the Athenian sophists, it was in the highest degree practical. The same doctrine became practical in the hands of Cuvier when he assumed the plan and foresight of the Almighty as his guide in reproducing the forms and conditions of life which had covered the earth in past geological eras. The curves formed by the sections of a cone were discussed by the Greek geometers from a purely speculative interest, but to-day those speculations are assumed as the basis of physical astronomy, and enter into the construction of every nautical almanac. The speculations of Algernon Sidney, Rousseau and Locke, on the rightful equality of all men in the eye of the civil law, were called by the brilliant Choate, “glittering generalities,” as they lay inoperative in the Declaration of Independence, but in due time they became so practical that under their inspiration our continent shook with the armed tread of millions-so practical that they wrought out the most complete and remarkable social revolution that the world ever saw. Is it wise or even possible to shut out from education the thinking of thought, the discussion and testing of speculative principles, whose power for good or evil is so tremendous? But we are told that we must teach truth rather than falsehood. This is a specious mode of putting the objection against instruction in all outgrown hypotheses, all legendary and mythological literature. In the first place, this principle applied would shut out the entire history of science-science as matured through manifold abortive efforts and untenable hypotheses. No history is more instructive than that of the mind struggling after truth in the infancy of inquiry. We learn more by our own failures than by our successes. The failures of great minds are equally instructive to the learner. The history of philosophy, of the physical sciences, and of mathematics, are full of valuable instruction to the student. - While seveneiglihthlis of this history is of imperfect observations, unverified hypotheses, and false classifications, it is full of the waymarks of progress, furnishes a chart for future voyages into unexpected regions of discovery which no educator or cultivator of science can safely neglect. Truth can never be adequately appreciated except when viewed in contrast with its opposite error. The laws of scientific method can be best learned from a contrast of unsuccessful with successful investigation We remark, also, that the early political and social history of nations is best learned from mythology, legends, and ballads. The Homeric poems are so true to nature and manners, that they give us more and better knowledge of the early Greeks than any history which could, at that period, have been written. The Niebelungen Lied is vastly truer than the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Dante’s poems give a better picture of the century in which he lived than all the documents which have come down to us. No European would admit the claims of the Koran to be an authoritative exposition of divine truth; but what historical teacher can neglect the wonderful lessons which are taught by its control over the Eastern mind? Next to comparative philology, comparative mythology attracts the attention of modern scholars. Primitive worships are full of instruction to the ethnologist, the historian, and the theologian. No well-instructed scholar neglects the study of comparative beliefs. And such study is made possible only by a careful study of the completest and most widely influential of the mythological systems which have come down from the distant past. We are told that a knowledge of the present is better than a knowledge of 80

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. the past. This may be true as an abstract proposition, but it is inapplicable to education. The present we live in, and we know much of it by necessity; but its origin, history, laws of growth, must be found in the past-and, without familiarity with these, we can have no scientific comprehension of our own time. In fact, we cannot separate the ancient from the modern by any sharp dividing line. The old and the new in society and government, in literature and civilization, are as continuous in different nations as are the different periods in the life of a man. We make the attempt to separate the old and the new, and we everywhere fail. Do we try it in philosophy, we find the terminology of the Greek and medieval thinkers obtruding itself upon us; and the teacher of to-day is compelled, in spite of himself, to ground his pupils in the ideas which were current in the porch and the academy, the cloister and the schools, centu ries ago. Do we try it in history? There is not a fundamental question regarding legal, social, literary, or religious life, whose roots are not traceable to remote antiquity. Christian theolgy rests on documents older than the Roman empire, and, in their turn, are imbedded in the earliest writings of our race. Can we study philology without a knowledge of the language of the past? The very idea of such an attempt is absurd. Nor can we study any one modern tongue scientifically without being able to trace its roots at least to their proximate sources. The very terms, ancient and modern, suggest to us all something more than a chronological idea. It has been well said that the terms ancient and modern refer to a state of social development rather than to time. - The political philosophy of Aristotle commands the attention of the statesman and scholar of to-day, for he lived amidst a highly complicated social order. Society in his country and time was differentiated into organisms as manifold and delicate in their coordinated relations as any we see in our own time. His political experience among, the Greek municipalities, where every city was a state, was more various than a statesman of the present can make available by personal knowledge. He lived, in one sense, in modern times. Hence no social order has outgrown his maxims of political wisdom. We refer the Dooms of Alfred to modern history; but, in fact, they are elder by centuries than the law which was expounded and applied by Cicero and Hortensius. We call the ballad of “Chevy Chase,”

modern; but compare it with an ode of Horace, and who does not see that the poem chronologically the older, is, by centuries, more modern in the literary art and social forces which it represents. While we would repudiate that superstition of the Renaissance, which took for granted that everything written in the Greek and Latin is historically true, and that the masterpieces of ancient literary and plastic art must ever transcend all other efforts, we would also eschew that vulgar Philistinism which would reject all affiliations with antiquity, and refuse to profit by the wisdom accumulated in the experience of a hundred generations of men whose genius, sagacity, and patriotism have generated and adorned the splendid civilizations whose elements are wrought into our own. The traditions of the scholarship of Christendom are not founded in superstitious admiration of ancient learning merely because it is old; nor in a purblind conservatism, which refuses to recognize all and everything that is good in the nineteenth century. None are more impressed with the defects of our educational systems than those American scholars whose devotion to learning has consigned them, as a class, to ill-requited labor and certain poverty. They feel that a trust is committed to their charge on behalf of good learning and an intelligent Christianity. This trust they may not betray. Most of the popular arguments against our college system are such as’were directed against the English school and collegiate course such as it was forty years ago. The course of study in England has received very great modifica 6 81

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NATIONAL BAPTIST tions, and still greater are in progress. But of these changes very many writers on education seem to be entirely ignorant.

Arguments and ridicule which Sydney Smith used with truth and effect half a century ago against a system which has, to a great extent, been abandoned in England, are reproduced against our own college system, where the special evils against which they are directed never existed at all.

The amount of science and modern literature which is incorporated into the American system would more than satisfy the most radical English reformers. But, as a matter of fact, the popular judgment in our country, so far as it is clearly expressed, is coincident with that of the scholar.

Among those who seek a high education for themselves or for their children, the vast majority choose that combination of classical and scientific studies which forms the basis of our college courses of instruction. Statistics to prove this statement are superfluous in their abundance. Much of the dissatisfaction with our course of study is due, not so much to the subjects as to the mode in which they are taught.

Beyond question there is much to improve and modify in all our methods of instruction. The reasons for this are, in part, such as attach to everything that is human, and, in part, special to our own country. Our college officers are in general poorly paid and overworked, and the public at large give little attention to the mode in which they discharge their duties. They are apart from the ordinary impulses and motives which affect men in other professions. The ability of a corps of teachers, the intelligence and vigor with which a college is administered, have very little to do with its reputation or patronage. The most conscientious man may become weary when he knows that the most energetic devotion to his work and the greatest attainments will bring him hardly more of profit or reputation than a mere perfunctory and decently respectable discharge of the letter of his obligations to the public. Under such circumstances, nothing but the most earnest conscientiousness on the part of those responsible for its administration can prevent an educational institution from steady depreciation. The college of the future must supply some system of impulse and supervision which shall remedy the evils which thus grow up. Our institutions require an energy of internal administration like that which pervades our great financial corporations. The teaching of the future cannot be modelled upon the past alone. In the study of the classics, very material modifications of method must be adopted.

Intelligent teachers are constantly changing their processes for the better. In the future, new and simpler analysis of grammatical forms, more compact and philosophical statements of the principles of construction will be made, more general and comprehensive laws will be developed, so that the labor of memory in the mastery of languages will be lessened.

Comparative philology, which has done so much for the philosophy of language, must be made to assist the teacher in the work of instruction.

The tracing of common roots from our mother tongue through various languages, Grimm’s law of consonant change in the Indo-European tongues, must be made an essential aid to the memory by replacing an arbitrary method of association by a natural one. The study of modern languages-our own included-must be made in common with the ancient, and, by their aid, a means of the severest philological discipline. This will set aside the common objection to the study of modern languages, wherein it is urged that their study furnishes no philological discipline. If so, it must be due to the teacher’s ignorance or indolence. It is true that classical culture, to some extent, is anll essential prerequisite to such a study, but, with that as a basis, we see no reason why a constant tracing of grammatical forms and etymons from the Anglo-Saxon to modern English, from Greek and Latin to the French or Italian, from the McesoGothic to the modern German, and developing and illustrating the universal 82

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. laws of all human speech, should not give a philological and historical culture more rich and broad than aught which the old methods could give. Surely no teacher in our day can do justice to instruction in our own or any other culti vated language without familiarity with the processes and results of that new philology which, within a few years past, has cast into the shade the learning of the Scaligers, the Bentleys, and the Porsons of an earlier day. The ends of discipline, too, in all linguistic study, must be made consistent with constant additions to real knowledge in the largest sense of the terms.

There should be a constant aim in the study of Greek and Latin, especially to introduce the student into the heart of ancient life, so that its inner “form and pressure” shall be so stamped upon the pupil’s mind that all ancient art, culture, politics, and civilization shall be reproduced by the means of the very sentences which he subjects to analysis in his daily tasks. Thucydides and Tacitus should be not only text-books of Greek and Latin, but of history, of morals, of political economy and philosophy, as well. Plato and Aristotle should be read not only to learn Greek syntax, but for instruction in all the best thought of a great era in the world’s intellectual life-as a necessary preparation for all the philosoph ical questions of to-day. The old masters of literature should be honestly read and tried by such canons of criticism as we apply to the many-sided and thought ful productions of our own age. In studying ancient authors, in reconciling their contradictory statements, in correcting their personal and class prejudices, and sifting out fact from legend, and patriotic concealment and exaggeration from -real truth, the learner should receive a training in weighing evidence, testing the competency of witnesses, and handling the laws of interpretation, which shall prepare him for all the sternest conflicts of business, scholastic, or political life. I have spoken of our tongue as a part of a college curriculum. I believe that its origin should be studied in our immediate mother tongues, the Anglo-Saxon and Norman French, so that while our young men shall be taught all the elegance of expression which our best writers illustrate, they may also learn to have faith in the picturesqueness and graphic power of those native and homely idioms which are the chosen vehicle of all who would successfully wield the minds and the hearts of the rank and file of society. Twentyfive years ago, as I know by a bitter experience, it was vastly easier to settle a question of Greek philology than a similar one in our mother tongue. Then the mass of twaddle which filled the introduction to the first editions of “Webster’s Dictionary,” passed for Philology, and the” Vision of Piers Ploughman “was little better known than the “Vedas.” Now there is accessible to the teacher of English a cheap and valuable apparatus for study which, if still imperfect and crude, is worthy of rejoicing to the lovers of the early forms of that glorious “mother tongue wherein we were born.” In justice to my own feelings and convictions, I cannot avoid speaking of the need of instruction in the Christian literature of the Greek and Latin. Most of the investigations which historical, legal, and theological scholars are called upon to make are by means of the later forms of Latin and Greek.

When the spiritual conceptions of our faith were thrust into the vocabulary and idioms of those tongues formed under heathen culture, they were too strait for them, and they burst out, so to speak, on all sides.

Hellenisms from the New and Hebraisms from the Old Testament rushed in, and new Christian languages were formed. The vast growth of ideas which followed the introduction of Christian civilization made a new literature, somewhat rough and crude, it may be (compared with the heathen period), but still freighted with the germs of all that is pure and noble, and elevated in our modern life. The controversies which settled the doctrinal system of Christendom, the Roman civil and canon law, the Christian eloquence of the fourth century, 83

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NATIONAL BAPTIST the philosophical literature which stretches from Erigena to Ockam, so rich in suggestion to the historian and the philosopher, should no longer remain an unknown region to the young American scholar. I have often known students, who could read Cicero at the opening of the book, stumble constantly in Tertullian or Abelard, Thomas Aquinas or Magna Charta. The foolish prejudice, which condemns all literature not produced in a certain period, or by a favored few, as barbarous and unfit for study, is worthy only of the purists of the sixteenth century, who thought more of style than of matter. While the ridicule of Erasmus exposed the Ciceronians to contempt, we preserve far too much of the unhistorical and unscholarly narrowness of their views. With a good training in classical Greek and Latin, a short time will enable a teacher to introduce pupils to the forms and usages peculiar to the legal, philosophical, and theological literature of the medieval period. The weekly reading of the New Testament in Greek is quite common in colleges, and a comparison of the original with the best Latin versions, including the Vulgate, is worthy of thought.

This might be made an ancillary to the reading of the Christian literature, which in both Greek and Latin took its origin from the Bible Such a course would give interest and variety to the student’s work, prepare him for historical and professional reading, and above all bring him into vital relation with the great moral and intellectual conflict (so inadequately understood by ordinary scholars) which gave Christianity its first triumph over heathenism, and baptized literature and science into the name and faith of Christ. Tile imposing character and economical importance of the physical sciences have vindicated for them a large place in the curriculum. But the tendency in the text books and instruction in these departments is to have reference to the immense range of these sciences rather than to the ends and possibilities of a course of disciplinary and non-professional education. Text-books and lectures are too often overloaded with details, and too little care is given to bringing out and concentrating the elementary and fundamental principles of the sciences, while only so much of fact is given as shall illustrate tlenm clearly without overburdening the memory or absorbing more time than rightfully belongs to such departments. No man expects a college student to be made a lawyer or a physician; no more should he be expected to acquire the special skill of a geologist or engineer. A text-book or course of lectures for a student in college, and one for the student of engineering, geology, or military science, from the professional standpoint, ought to be prepared on very different principles. As the facts, classifications, and formulas increase in range and generality, it becomes more and more easy for an accomplished teacher to reduce to narrower compass and clearer statements the science whose elements hle teaches. The best test of the ability of any teacher is the power to sift out of a vast and confusing mass of detail the fundamental laws and principles common to them all, and by skilful expression and illustration bring them within the comprehension of a mind of average ability. A pupil is always interested and profited by what he thoroughly understands. The art of scientific text-book making seems to me to be yet in its infancy.

We have respectable treatises on science in abundance, but very few good text-books. Again, the historical element is too much neglected in scientific teaching. No man can adequately understand the principles of a science until hlie understands how it has grown. Let an hour a week be spent in explaining the history of algebraic formulas and the occasion and necessity of their invention, and all of them associated with the names of men distinguished as benefactors of the human mind, and a new light is thrown over the arid page, and the formulas are no longer looked upon as useless subtleties invented solely to puzzle fresh 84

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. men. Scientific method is the one great object to be sought for in scientific study, and that can only be learned from the critical study of the history of science. So profoundly am I impressed with the importance of the historical method in study, that I would have it preside over every department of instruc tion, even to grammar and logic. I would have introduced to the studies of the senior year a short and well digested course of illustrative lectures upon the fine arts. I use the term illus trative, for such lectures would be of little use unless there shall be accessible some well-selected collection of casts of sculpture and architecture, and a simi lar collection of engravings, photographs, and copies’ in oil which should be so selected and arranged that they should speak to the eye and illustrate the principles of art in and through the history of its progress. In this I would have no regard to the professional training of artists, but rather to the raising up of an intelligent body of appreciative patrons. Such an illustrative collec tion, made simply for the ends we have in view, might be made at a cost much less than is expended in most colleges for illustrations of a single depart ment of natural history. When the illustrative collection is present, there will be almost always found some teacher competent for the work of lecturing. I would be glad to discuss this subject somewhat more in detail, but must forbear to read what I have prepared. Happily, I:need not say much upon the subject of moral and religious educa tion in colleges. By far the larger part of the colleges in our country have been founded by religious men, and by prayer and faith consecrated to Christ.

By common and almost universal consent, the religious instruction made obligatory in colleges is confined to those elements of our faith held by evangelical Christians in common. The mode in which this instruction is given varies somewhat, but in colleges having a religious foundation the end sought is substantially similar. I would call attention only to that kind of moral and religious influence which may be called spontaneous or incidental. By far too much of our instruction of this sort is formed with the set purpose announced. With the elements of Christian faith in head and heart, it is impossible for an earnest teacher to avoid giving out constantly religious and moral thought and impulse. He must, of necessity, set forth his notions about God, the soul, conscience, sin, the future life, and Divine revelation. If hlie promises not to do so, he will fail to keep his word, or his teaching in science or literature or history will be miserably shallow and inadequate. Our notions of God and the moral order form, in spite of ourselves, the “base line” which affects all our measurements and constructions of science, literature, and history.

Nine-tenths of all good literature is conversant in some way with universal convictions concerning right and wrong, whose origin is in “the bosom of God.” History is scientific only as it recognizes and unfolds a moral order, connecting all the activities of moral beings into a system which the Christian calls Providence, and whose’consummation is “judgment to come.” All instruction unfolding the laws of science, literature, or history, should be permeated with the warmth, and light, and glory of the incarnate Redeemer. Incidental instruction in morality and religion, then, ought to be the main reliance of the Christian teacher. The ends of a Christian school. while working by its own laws and limitations, ought not to be essentially different from those of a Christian church. The principles which we have’thus indicated are universal in their application. If the Christian teacher must make the elements of his religious faith color all his teaching, the same must be true of the unchristian teacher. He who seeks for the most active propagandism of atheism and anti-Christian morality, will find it incidentally mixed up with lectures, essays, and treatises on science, history, and criticism.

We should look for this 85

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NiATIONAL BAPTIST as a matter of course. There is no good thinking which is not honest thinking. There is no good literature or art which is not the spontaneous outflow of the deepest elements of the moral and intellectual life. If parents wish to educate their children in Christian principles, they must seek out honest Christian men to be their teachers.

What I have just said suggests this great and vital question, Who are to be the men to do the work of administration and instruction in the colleges of the future? That they should be Christian men is involved in what I have just said. But they must be more than this. They need not be men of genius. For, indeed, genius, though it has its place among God’s good gifts to the world, is rare, and for the common, hard work of life, is a doubtful blessing. We want men of broad, roundabout commonsense; men who have in them the fibre and force to conquer success in any place from the Board of Brokers to the quarterdeck of a man-of-war. A professor’s chair is the last place to which a man who has failed in another profession should flee for a refuge. A college chair is the last place for dreaming dilettanti, too lazy for hard and distasteful work, and too feeble or too fastidious to give and take those sledge-hammer blows which alone can forge a manly and robust life. No class of men sooner pierce the open joints in a man’s moral or mental harness than the average college student. The teacher of the future must have a comprehensive idea of the condition of modern thought in all departments and the power and learning of a master in that which he assumes to teach. He must be able to go behind all text-books and manuals, make his own analysis of his subject, and be capable of bringing out fresh and original conceptions of his field of study. The teacher who cons over a set of passages or formulas till he gets them by heart, and then, abandoning vigorous investigation, plods on in the same tread-mill round for a score of years, is guilty of obtaining his salary by false pretences. He only can teach who looks down upon the elements of his department, from the heights of broad and solid attain ment. Moreover, whatever his knowledge may be, he cannot teach with vigor after he ceases to be a daily learner. He must keep the machinery of his own mind hot with action, if he would excite activity in the minds of his students. Example is better than precept, inspiration is better than instruction. When a class of students go out of the lecture room red in the face and wax eloquent over the subject matter of their studies, and delay their dinner hour in the ab sorbing heat of their intellectual combat, the teacher’s work is more than half accomplished. Like all human institutions, the success of the college of the future, in the best sense of the term, must be a question of men. That educa tion is the best, as a general rule, which brings the student into face-to-face con tact and relation with the greatest number of magnetic, controlling, and forma tive minds. It is not enough that a teacher be learned; he must be earnest, must love his work and love young men; he must enter into an unfeigned sym pathy with them in all their mental and moral life; he must pour out upon them the results of his reading, his thought and experience, with unsparing prodigality, forgetful of himself and his own reputation; even willing, like a true mother, to give up his own mental being if he can only see the life of other souls spring ing into power under his hand.

What will all this cost? We so often feel the need of money. and that which money brings, that we forget that the wealth of the Rothschilds will not alone suffice to make an institution of learning. Some of the best educational work of our country has been done in colleges whose only endowments were mental vigor and religious consecration. It seems sometimes to be a law of Providence that one or two generations of teachers must be sacrificed before an institution of learning can be endowed. An institution of learning must cost labor, anxiety, 86

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. care, tears, and life, before it strikes its roots and becomes firmly fixed in the soil of the ages. It is useless to make estimates of a general character. I can only say that if five hundred thousand dollars were given to-day to the institution with which I am connected, I would put myself under bonds to organize a plan for the use of its income before next Saturday night. Large increase of the salaries of teachers must be provided. Now a professor of the highest reputation, whose education has cost capital in time and money sufficient to start a small business, is thought well paid by a salary less than is given to a confidential clerk. This state of things must cease, or all first-class men, who have not a passion for a studious life, will be driven from the profession. There is an unmistakable tendency to reduce the price of tuition. Those institutions which, like Cornell and Michigan Universities, have been endowed by the United States, take the lead in this direction, in order that their numbers may be swelled. Most of the best scholars in our colleges are comparatively poor, and need assistance. It is vain to say that the law of supply and demand should regulate this matter. But we should remember that the whole system of Christian education is placed under the action of the voluntary system, which we accepted when the Church was divorced from the State. If we are to have high education distinctively Christian, we must pay for it, as we do for our churches, by voluntary endowments. Ini fact, nearly all the great and wealthy institutions of Europe have been founded in this way. It is best that it should be so. When once the public mind has been aroused to our necessities as a people, this want will be met. Fortunately for us, the law of entails is abolished. The policy of our laws is against perpetuating property in families, any further than those to whom it falls are able to keep it by labor or skill. Our men of wealth will soon come to see that the only permanent record which they can make of their ability in accumulation is to devote their wealth to benevolent, and especially to educational ends. An institution of learning, when it has once taken root, is the most permanent thing on earth, except the Christian Church. The great seats of learning beyond the Atlantic antedate every great state in Europe. Since the universities of Bologna, and Oxford, and Paris were founded, how many wars, conquests, revolutions, and dynastic changes have passed over European society. Like the unchanging ocean amid the upheavals and subsidences of the earth’s crust, these institutions remain essentially the same in constitution, and still working out their benevolent purposes. He who would leave aught that shall be permanent behind him, must connect his name and work with the moral history of man.

When the Christian men of wealth shall learn this truth, when they shall learn that by so much as they relieve their children from the necessity of labor, they put the strongest motives before them to become useless to society, all the wants of good learning will be cheerfully met. The questions they will be most ready to ask will be: How can I so invest my surplus wealth that I may best serve my day and generation? The colleges of the future will cost much, and in time they will receive according to their necessities. What would have been a splendid endowment forty years ago is poverty now. Those American scholars who in this generation are laboring in the cause of education are mainly laying foundations, working underground. They will mainly die without entering the promised land which, with failing vision, they behold in the dim distance. We shall pass away; but in better times, and under better auspices, others, whom perhaps we have reared and strengthened, will enter into our labors. Happy will it be for us if over our undistinguished graves they can honestly say that “amid poverty and selfdenial they wrought faithfully, and did what they could.” 87

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Dr. BROADUS: I do not rise to make a speech. I merely want to tell an anecdote that I was reminded of by some passages in the paper which we have just heard read (nobody will venture upon a speech after listening to it), and I hope that the anecdote may serve to emphasize one of the very important points presented in the paper. Somre persons here will remember Rev. Dr. Curtis, who came from England and settled in South Carolina-a man who was remarkable for his great ability and attainments. I heard him say once, at an educational convention, “that an institution of learning needs three Bs,-bricks, books, and brains.”

Said he, “Our people generally begin at the wrong end of these three Bs; they spend most of their money and sometimes go largely in debt for bricks; then, they have not much left to get books, and as for brains, they have to do the best they can. [Laughter.] Now, they ought to begin at the other end of the three Bs; they ought to lay out their money in brains; then, they ought to spend all they can possibly get in books, and do the best they can for bricks.” [Laughter and applause.] Is not that true? Brains-that is what we want. We want men-men who can teach in the log cabin and make the finest young men in the land respect them, and send them forth instinct with life. It is men we want, but your men do want some books. They must have books, but they do not have them. Where are your libraries? As to most of our institutions, it is wonderful, wondrous pitiful, the sort of life that your men are leading. They are struggling to be scholars: some of them passing years in unscholarly work, dreaming, perchance, that they could do some good scholarly work, but they have no books.. I speak for these struggling students-these would-be scholars, who say: “If you cannot give us means to make us respectable in the land, if you cannot give us means to educate our own children, but we must toil on at that after we are worn out with public teaching-if you cannot do any thing else for us, give us books, that we may learn something; give us books, that we may labor to some profit; give us books, or we die.” The paper read by Dr. ADEuRSOW was referred to the Committee on University Education. The hour assigned having arrived, the Convention adjourned till to-morrow. 88

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. SECOND DAY’S PROCEEDINGS. MORNING SESSION. The Convention met according to adjournment. Dr. JETER, of Virginia, one of the VicePresidents, called the meeting to order, and prayer was offered by Dr. BABCOCK, of New York. The first paper assigned for this session was prepared by Dr. OLMSTEAD, of Mass., and, in the absence of its author, was read by Dr. CUTTING. EDUCATION AND THE PRESS. The first half of the Nineteenth Century has been signalized, among its moral forces, by the diffusive power of the Press. This power we have seen pervading and shaping all current thought and literature. The same great influence exists within the realm of Art and Science. It is an influence, in fact, whichL permeates all modern civilization, and enters as a living factor into every department of modern society. It were hence only necessary and natural that we should see this same power asserting itself in all the walks of a general and of a higher Christian education. Such a power we are seeing manifested by the Press of to-day. Nor may we doubt that the second half of the present century will stand witness of its achievements, which shall place it, as an active force in the future, farbeyond all the parallels of the past. Especially must this view hold true of the religious periodical press. Early within this century, and e’asily within the remembrance of thousands who yet live, the Christian magazine and newspaper were wholly unknown. Sixty years since, the religious weekly had scarcely been conceived of. When the Boston Recorder and the Christian Watchman were first issued, a little more than fifty years ago, their publication, even in miniature forms, was then deemed a doubtful experiment. How far this apprehension was well founded, the facts of history for the last half-century show unmistakably. Compare thus the’

Christianity in America of 1815 with the Christianity of 1870, and the difference manifestly is one not less of moral power than of numbers. The whole grand machinery of modern Missions and reforms within that period of fifty-five years has been set in vigorous motion. With their light and life-giving heat they have reached every people and nation on the face of the whole earth. There is now no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. The inauguration of this era of philanthropic and missionary outgrowth, it is not too much to claim, could never have taken place had not the Religious Press been present, a guiding power through all these great years, diffusing, far and widely, those beams that are for the healing of mankind. No other agency a hundredth part so potential could have been looked to to achieve such results. If we make the dividing year of this century our standpoint, we shall see that what was effected by the Religious Press in the fifty years preceding that year, was small as compared with what we may look for in the fifty years that are to follow.

That Press is fast becoming a power that is a marvel even to itself. It is making tributary to its growth and manifold influence the ripest thought, the broadest, most generous culture of the age. These it moulds into such forms of life and freshness as to impress themselves at once upon living men, and the vital forces of society everywhere. For such an agency there is, there can be, no substitute. The work hence of popular education, and of education in all its higher walks, must run parallel with the work of the press,-especially so of the RE 89

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NATIONAL BAPTIST LIGIOUS PRESS. Since the church and the school-house have ever stood side by side, their work inseparable, so is it not less true of the Christian Press and the great work of true education. Here the true journalist and the true educator must stand together with mind to mind and heart to heart. Within our own pale as a denomination of Christian believers, estimate, if possible, the influence in New England, in the Middle States, and those then farther West, of the Christian Watchman and the New York Baptist Register, especially during all their earlier years, on our then youthful educational planting and growth. It is noteworthy that the schools of the prophets at both Newton and Hamilton came into being almost contemporaneously with the commencement of these two journals. It is not too much to claim that the work of men connected with these institutions and journals was one and the same work. Alexander M.

Beebee at Utica, Nathaniel Kendrick at Hamilton, James Loring in Boston, and Irah Chase at Newton, were co-laborers in a sense just as essential as if they had been of the same calling. They interlocked and complemented each other in one great common field of service. A similar remark might be made of other journalists and educators, afterward joined to these. Their influence on our then formative, developing systems of education, in nurturing and promoting institutions of learning, cannot be duly estimated. And never more than at this hour were these same agencies prepared to wield a mightier influence for good. The relation of the Religious Press to education, whether of the school, the college, or the theological seminary, is hence seen to be most vital and farreachihg. It is as between them essentially a co-relationship. As it enlists in fostering and promoting education, and the work of the educator, the active energies and ever-widening influence of the journalist, so they should each be able always to count on their mutual cooperation in a common service. Both should labor on together in the same great sphere of beneficent toil for the Master and for mankind. Both should stand hand in hand, vying with each other in a common calling, all interpenetrated by common aims and sympathies. That the people perish not for want of knowledge, is the chief aim alike of the educator and the journalist. Let them join in a closer union in one grand field of common toil and reward.

When the Chief Shepherd shall appear, they may each, as faithful, hope to receive an unfading crown. Dr. CUTTING: Dr. JETER, of Virginia, is an editor, and I wish he would occupy a few minutes, until the order of the morning arrives, in addressing us on the relations of the press to the work of education. Dr. JETER, of Virginia: If there is no other business, I will make a few remarks. I am not an editor, except in a very general sense of the word, and, as I was coming in here, I was asking myself whether there was anything, I could say or ought to say to the Convention on the subject of education. I did not know that there would be such a report as has been read before the body; but it occurred to me that the periodical religious press has a very important bearing on the subject of education. The report that we have just heard read refers to the rapid progress made by that form of service. I do not know the precise 90

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. number of papers issued weekly from the Baptist press of the United States, but I suppose there are about 100,000 copies, and these are circulated throughout the whole country, and they are read by the most influential persons in our denomination, and, I suppose, by persons of very great influence in the whole community-by Sunday-school teachers, deacons, ministers, professional men, and statesmen-men who exert a moulding influence over society; and these papers are mostly read by persons who are predisposed to give a very ready hearing to all that is contained in them, and to receive their impressions from them. It is very obvious, then, that these papers must exert a powerful influence in whatever cause they may be enlisted; and, so far as I know, they are fully enlisted in the cause of education-popular education, academy education, collegiate education, and theological education. All the papers, so far as I am informed, without exception, are earnestly enlisted in the educational work, and they must exert a weighty influence in this work. In the first place, they are means of education. It was said by somebody, I do not know who, that any man who reads the London Times is educated-and, to some extent, this is true: they must be educated at the outset, and must receive a vast stock of information. The religious press exerts a direct influence on the education of the public mind; the readers of those papers have their minds disciplined and their memories stored with information, and are prepared, through the training which they receive through these papers, to exert an influence on the community. But then, they directly advance the cause of education. They found our colleges and endow them; they furnish our professors, and support them; they excite the public mind on the subject of education, and enlist the people in the support of our denominational institutions. There is no conceiving how great an influence they do exert on the community in the cause of education. How important, then, it is that the religious periodical press should be properly conducted! Whatever is mighty for good is mighty for mischief; and it is of great importance, therefore, that the religious periodical press should be conducted with good taste, liberal sentiments, conservative spirit, and in an earnest manner devoted to the cause of education; and it may be employed more efficiently, I have no doubt, in the cause of education than it has been. If professors in our colleges and universities will put their thoughts upon paper and send them to the editors of the papers, they will, no doubt, be published with great pleasure, and much may be done 91

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NATIONAL BAPTIST to enlighten the public mind and excite public support in behalf of the educational cause. I hold that the denominational press is of vast importance in this work, and should be supported and guided in reference to the great enterprise in which this Convention, and those connected with it, are engaged. Dr. POINDEXTER, of Virginia: There is one aspect of the educational influence of the religious press very potent, and extremely valuable, in my judgment, which has not been referred to. My recollections do not go so far back as those, it may be, of some in this assembly, but we all remember there was a time when, among us Baptists, and, in fact, in the community generally, there was but little disposition to use the pen. Our fathers read some, and thought more. They were effective in their work and in the sphere in which they moved, but they were not accustomed to writing; and the only inducement at that period to write was to publish a book, or to write sermons-a thing then not much liked anywhere. Well, now, the periodical press has demanded, has incited, has stimulated the use of the pen; and any man who knows anything at all about the process of self-culture, is aware of the fact, that the use of the pen is indispensable to high progress. And thus, unwittingly, if you choose, the periodical press is calling forth the minds of our brethren all through the land, and is doing more to educate our people than any college in the land. The second paper was read by Rev. Dr. Moss, of Pennsylvania, on “The methods by which education may be made a specialty and a paramount, organized interest in our denominational activities.” THE

ORGANIZATION OF OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK. By what methods may education be made a specialty and a paramount organized interest in our denominational activities? In offering some suggestions toward an answer of this question, you will not expect me to present all the details of a specific measure, but only at most the main outlines of a plan that shall be at once practicable and effective. And such a plan, in existing circumstances among us, it ought not to be difficult to sketch, although to put it in practice may be less easy. I. One feature of our general denominational character-sometimes spoken of by others as our reproach, but really a constituent element in our glory and strength,-has an important bearing on the topic before us. I mean, the necessity of inward life to outward organization and activity. In our denominational forms, as in the other works of God, organization is dependent on life. We have no method or outside force by which a piece of dead machinery can be made to do the work of a living power. Hence, before education can become a general organized movement, the movement itself must exist, and the organization will be in good part determined, as to shape and strength, by the vital energies which are thus seeking expression. 92

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. And such a movement certainly does exist within the Baptist denomination. We have great reason for encouragement in the prevalent and increasing interest among us in general and special education. The Convention here assembled, in the number and character and official relations of those who compose it, is sufficient testimony to our history and position in this matter. The first thing, therefore, to be done in securing for education its proper rank among our denominational activities, is to give to this movement greater comprehension and universality; in a word, to make our people see that education is vital to our social and religious welfare. Our whole system of agencies for creating and moulding popular opinion-the pulpit, the press, the school, the social intercourse of friends -must be used to deepen and extend the conviction that education is an imperative duty and divinely-appointed auxiliary in our work of evangelization. It is not enough to have our children converted; we want them fitted for efficient service in communicating the blessings of the Gospel to others,-so that all departments of human thought and all forms of human enterprise may be subordinated to the will and work of Christ. It is the preparation for such service that constitutes the aim and prescribes the methods of Christian education. Let us linger a moment at this point. It is not easy to separate Christian education from Christianity itself. The elementary vital forces in Christianity are the individual souls which have been renewed and set free by the sovereign grace of God. The divine energy, in originating and directing the kingdom of heaven on earth, first emerges into visibility at the point of personal regeneration. The whole being of the man is passed through the process of the new birth. But this is simply the beginning. It certainly is not intended that we shall remain just as we are born, and offer to God only that which costs us nothing. Our own perfection is dependent upon our ministering to others, and for both these, therefore-personal perfection and beneficent ministry-we must have culture and knowledge. Hence it is that discipline, training, instructionin a word, Christian education-lies as a necessity at the very basis of the Christian life. The world of undeveloped susceptibilities within us, and the world of facts around us; the quickening Spirit of God within, and the interpreting Providence of God without; the impelling desire for knowledge within, and the urgent call for intelligent labor without; the inward capacity to learn and the outward demand for learning; the adjustment of our native energies, on the one hand to the resources of the universe, and on ithe other to the wants of the race -all these show that Christian education is at the very heart of God’s plan and purpose for the conversion and sanctification of men. The central and formative idea of the Church is, that she is a missionary body-sent forth to rescue men from sin and train them for heavensent by her Author and Master into the world, even as he was sent by the Father, that she may sanctify herself and save the world by proclaiming his truth and repeating his life. But how can the. Church be such a missionary body, unless as a body she is “apt to teachl,” unless she is qualified to take her proper and appointed place as Teacher of the world -not in one relation only, but in all relations? Christianity is to be the dominant and moulding power, not in theology alone, but in law, medicine, literature, science, art, commerce, trade, industrial progress, social reforms, and domestic manners. In each and all these spheres of public and private activity, the Gospel is to be placed and held as the one plastic force that must permeate and charatterize them. The past success of the Church requires that she shall continually advance her aims and modify her instrumentalities. She does not need, and assuredly can never obtain, another Gospel; she can never get beyond the infallible and authoritative precepts of her Lord; she can never outgrow the spirit and devotion of the first disciples; but the Word of God is as comprehensive as 93

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NATIONAL BAPTIST the universe, and the capacity of the church is measured only by the possibilities of Providence. If civilization has been so affected by the doctrines and spirit of Christianity, as to suppress the rude and violent barbarism of earlier ages, and to produce the material, intellectual, and moral benefits which distinguish Christendom, it is the privilege and obligation of the church to use in her holy mission the instruments which she has either invented or improved. If the affairs of the universe are administered by the Head of the Church with direct reference to her interests and service, and if she is the appointed executor of Christ’s will and heir of his providential agencies, how can she do otherwise than use all the resources at her command for evangelizing the world? Looking beyond immediate rdsults,-important and indispensable as these are,-she must form her plans and fix her methods for a permanent and growing work, always in advance of other social leaders, and never overborne by them, until everywhere and by all men in all things the will of God is done on earth as it is done in heaven. We are not forgetting the simplicity of the Gospel, nor our absolute dependence upon the Holy Spirit; we are not putting culture in the place of piety, nor exalting a trained intellect above a holy heart, for we are pleading for a pious culture and a cultivated piety, where body, soul, and spirit shall alike be disciplined and sanctified; we are not depreciating the past, nor seeking to foster pride, nor slighting the poor; we are only trying to say that Christ expects his disciples to conquer the world-to secure for him the mastery in all departments of human thought and action-and that to accomplish this is the one comprehensive design of Christian education. In answer, therefore, to the inquiry, By what methods may education be made a specialty and a paramount organized interest in our denominational activities? we say, first, that the true conception and aim and obligation of a general and generous Christian education must be understood by all our people. The voices which have immediate access to the ear of the people-preeminently the pulpit and the press-must be constant and clear in their testimony upon this point. As the popular conviction grows and strengthens, it will find or force expression in special and organized forms. That, moreover, proper organization will greatly aid in nurturing and guiding this popular conviction, is a fact that we shall next proceed to show. II. Many of our existing denominational schools, of all grades, have sprung from the action of our local religious societies. An association, or cluster of neighboring associations, has originated an academy; a State convention has originated a college or theological seminary. Hence we have institutions whose managers are chosen by, and are responsible to, an association or convention. In other cases, where the schools have not come directly from the action of local denominational societies, they have been suggested and aided by them, or grown out of the religious feeling of which these societies were the recognized exponents. Sometimes this feeling has been organized in a special educational society, whose prescribed object was to establish and sustain an institution of learning, or to assist in caring for its students; but in such instances the institution is regarded as having peculiar relations to the churches and denominational societies within its field, and free opportunity for its advocacy among them. What we intend by this hasty glance at the connection of our schools with our distinctively religious bodies, is to emphasize two facts: 1st, That education is with us the authentic outgrowth of religious convictions and religious aims; and 2d, That the sympathies and contributions of our people in behalf of education are mainly solicited through the agency of our religious societies. Now this vital connection between our schools and our churches should not only be maintained, but greatly strengthened. Both parties would be injured 94

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. by the severance or weakening of this tie. No denominational school, however well endowed, can aftbrd to forego the opportunity of appeal to the churches. Officers and pupils alike need to feel the pressure and stimulus of responsibility which such an appeal implies. It is infinitely better, as a safeguard, than would be subscription to the straitest creed an infallible council could draw; it is better as an incentive than avould be the independence and personal security that may possibly seem to be sacrificed by it. The instructor, who is required to confer with his brethren about his work-not as their superior or inferior, but simply as assigned to a specific duty in their common service for the Master, and whose recitation-room is open to the entrance of any who choose to visit it, as a brotherly privilege and right-can never get very far with his heresies or eccen tricities. While, also, if there be this unconscious check, there is the encourage ment of a fraternal interest in his labors, and an intelligent appreciation of them.

What is true of the teacher is true of the trustee-is true of the school as a whole. If its connection with the religious community is close and cordial, and nourished by proper regard and cooperation, all the affairs of the school, external and internal, will be benefited. On the other hand, such relations are even more necessary for the churches than for the schools. In the training of those who are to be the leaders of their activity, the churches dare not be in different. The entire character and prosperity of their Christian work is involved. No duty is more intimately associated with the central commission given by our Lord to his disciples-to preach the Gospel to every creature. This certainly cannot mean the mere proclamation of Scripture truth by the official preacher, vitally important as that is. It must mean, as already said, the evangelization of all the energies and employments of men. The vigilance, the liberality, and the guardianship of the churches can alone evince their sense of duty and of opportunity in using these Christian schools as the channels of their living influence upon the world. A second answer, then, to the question before us is, that the relations between our churches and our schools should be most intimate in character, and be constant]y invigorated. Not only ought there to be direct fraternal intercourse between the schools and the churches in their vicinity, so that the latter may be familiar with the condition and needs of the former, but our institutions of learning should never be unrepresented in our general religious gatherings. No meeting of an association should be held without definite and full information respecting the denominational schools within its bounds, so that there may be counsel or assistance or congratulations-or all three-as the case suggests. No State convention should come together without a comprehensive report upon the Baptist educational affairs in the commonwealth, and a free discussion of the subject, if need be. Our simple idea of a Baptist association, local or general, is that it is a brotherly conference upon all the denominational interests within its field; and in such a conference only the direct preaching of the gospel to the destitute can fairly challenge precedence of education; in fact, the two are most vitally connected. III. But it is obvious that there is needed something more than we have yet named; and what has been said will wholly fail of its purpose if it does not strenghthlen the evidence of this necessity. The Baptist denomination in the United States is now a vast and rapidly growing body. The latest figures, in the Year Book just issued, give us 728 associations, 15,143
churches, with 8,787 ordained ministers, and a membership of 1,221,349. We have 26 collegiate institutions, and 14 theological seminaries or departments. Of denominational academies and schools for young ladies, I have no definite information. Now, there should be some method of concentrating this great force upon our edu 95

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NATIONAL BAPTIST cational work more effectively than is at present the case. Beside the popular interest which we have indicated, and the auxiliary action of our local societies, there ought to be a simple system of national cooperation. Such a system would greatly aid in promoting personal and local activity throughout the country, and secure other desired results not now reached or even possible. The Educational Commission, under whose auspices we are here convened, is the type (and germ, I trust) of what is needed. Its object, as stated in the first article of its constitution, is “the promotion, within the field of its operations, of Education and the increase of the Ministry in the Baptist denomination.” A Baptist Educational Commission for the United States, which shall in a measure coordinate all our educational forces, and evolve greater energy by inducing greater harmony, is the prime want of the hour in this direction. Permit me hastily to suggest some desirable things it could do. 1st. It could collect and distribute information about our educational affairs. There is a lack of knowledge among us as to what we are doing, and what we ought to do, and there is no one to supply the lack. The Press and the Pulpit would most heartily cooperate in aiding our schools, but they are in a measure shut out from them, because there is no responsible source for a definite and full statement of what is wanted. We need a recognized bureau of educational intelligence, for the interchange of facts respecting our denominational schools, so that the information of each may become the information of all. Such a Commission would meet this necessity. 2d. It could furnish facilities for conference among the friends of education, whether professional educators or others. Such conferences may oftentimes be highly serviceable to the entire system of our Baptist educational affairs, as well as to personal interests and the concerns of particular institutions. The existence of a body competent to call and arrange for this present meeting, is a suggestive providential incident. We ought not to be without the opportunity for such meetings, larger or smaller, sectional or national, whenever our educational interests demand them. A General Commission could provide for these, readily, and as circumstances might require. 3d. It could materially aid in wisely directing the attention and influence of our denomination upon needful educational enterprises. There is, perhaps, no danger of our going too far or too fast in the matter of education, but there is danger of our moving without a comprehensive and thorough knowledge of all the facts. We have suffered and are suffering from this want of intelligent cooperation and harmony. No institution of learning can exist for itself alone. It has relations of responsibility-of help or hindrance-to other institutions and other interests; and the higher the grade and aims of the school may be, the wider and more important and more intricate are its relations. A college or theological seminary affects to some extent-and possibly to a very great extent-the character and welfare of the entire denomination.

Hence the establishment of such an institution, in ordinary cases, ought to have the approval of the denomination. Where there is an appeal to the public for funds and confidence, the public ought to have some guarantee of the worthiness of the appeal; and the institution, if worthy, ought to have the advantage of influential endorsement. Without some system of mutual understanding and cooperation, we are liable to have, on the one hand, institutions whose establishment is unnecessary or untimely, and, on the other, institutions which need and deserve assistance, but cannot gain the public ear. Men who give their money to found or sustain a denominational school, have a right to ask for some trustworthy assurance that their benefactions are wise and seasonable. A school that is wise and seasonable in its requests, has a right to the full force of that advantage, as assured 96

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. by those who know, in making its appeal to the public. Now the General Commission, of which I have spoken, might well act as a kind of umpire and equipoise in our educational affairs. There would of course be no obtrusiveness or improper interference. No institution or individual would be compelled to c)ooperate with the Commission. Only those who voluntarily asked it, would receive its advice or assistance.

But we can readily see how general concurrence with the deliberate counsels of such a Commission would benefit all concerned. Several institutions might share in a general fund raised through the agency of the Commission, or each might take the field, in turn, under the Commission’s guidance and endorsement. Persons who wished to aid the cause of education would find in the Commission an adviser or an almoner rarely at fault. We have to.-day in this country not a Baptist college or theological seminary adequately endowed, with perhaps a single exception.

And this, not for lack of means,-but mainly for lack of proper information concerning these enterprises and of proper cooperation in their establishment and conduct. It is this lack which the proposed Commission would exactly supply. We need to-day, more than words can tell, academies and preparatory schools, for both sexes, in all parts of our country, and such a Commission would be able to give incidental but most valuable assistance in securing them. By what specific methods and in what special directions this Commission should carry on its operations, it would be presumptuous for me to suggest. But it is certainly within the province of this Convention to determine the main question before us, and I may therefore be permitted to close my paper by expressing the earnest hope that you will crown your deliberations, here and now, by organizing a Baptist Educational Commission for the United States. By this method you can most simply and effectively make education a specialty and a paramount organized interest in our denominational activities. Dr. BAILEY: I would like to hang up a little map, showing the extent of country through which we have to operate in this great work. [Map of the United States hung up.]

With your permission, I would call attention to the work which might come before this Society, if it were organized as the paper contemplates. I believe fully in the importance of a national organization to have this great interest in charge. Most of our institutions of learning are established in the East, and in the Middle States, and in the South. Most of the institutions of learning are in the area o f country lying east of that line [tracing a line on the map]; and here, west of it, is the vast region of country yet to be reclaimed by institutions of learning, furnishing a field as large as any human mind can desire for occupation in the future. The State of Califbrnia contains two thousand more square miles than Spain; the territory of Washington and the State of Oregon contain about the same amount of territory as Prussia previous to her new conquests; the territory of Nevada is about the size of England and Ireland; Utah and Arizona equal France; Montana and Idaho and Wyoming are about 30,000 square miles larger than Sweden and Norway; Colorado contains more territory than Den 7 97

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NATIONAL BAPTIST mark, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and Portugal, combined; New Mexico more territory than Italy and Greece; Texas 30,000
more square miles than Austria; Nebraska and the Indian Territory are larger than the empire of Japan; Dakotah is equal to another France. Thus West, these States constitute a region equal to the whole of Europe, leaving out the Russian territory, and including, too, Japan. So, were these new States, now only part beginning to be occupied, settled as densely as Europe is now settled, they would contain 314,000,000 of people. I conceive it to be of very great importance that we should organize a National Commission, or an American Baptist Educational Union, for the purpose of general control over this subject-a society to meet only once in three years, perhaps, but a society that should advise and counsel, through its board of councillors, in regard to the establishment of new institutions of learning, and render pecuniary assistance where it seems to be most needed. There is a pamphlet here, the report of a society which has been in existence more than a third of a century, for the purpose of furnishing collegiate and theological instruction in the West.

That society has already made a grand history, and has done a grand work; but I think we need a society to be broader than that-not merely to aid collegiate and academic education in the West, but to do it so far as may be all over our land, East, West, and South. I shall not attempt to-day to go into details in regard to this matter, but I am deeply impressed with the importance of this movement, and trust the wisdom of this Convention will carry it out in a complete and thorough organization. Dr. BOSWORTH: I hesitate to speak; but, as no one has started, I will utter a few thoughts on the subject. I have not examined the programme of themes with sufficient care to interpret this subject in the form in which it has been presented; but it has called up many thoughts that I have had about this thing, that lie in the direction of some of the utterances which I made yesterday. Perhaps my remarks may not, and yet they may, possibly, affect the general movement proposed. In the first place, organizations with us are frail things, and the history of them shows that they are the product of special excitements-I use the word in a good sense. Our educational organizations, as I endeavored to intimate yesterday, have been the result of strong impulses-noble impulses, which have grown out of profounder and more fundamental Christian convictions, sentiments, desires, and purposes.

The grand movement at the beginning of this cen 98

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. tury, of a missionary character, gave rise to many education societies to develop the learning needed to make ministers for the missions of higher ministerial power, and these societies were organized as instruments and agencies with which more readily to supply the large demand. In Massachusetts and in Maine, these societies were organized, and in the churches in Boston there were vigorous organizations for this object. But the societies for this particular object have passed away, and the large leading society now and since 1828 called the Northern Baptist Education Society, lives, but its power as an organization has been strangely diminished. Such societies have been employed in the new States to meet the same wants, bearing the same characteristics, moving in . the same line, working by the same agencies, and striving for the same ends, and accomplishing, to the extent of their existence and scope, the same great objects; and yet, as organizations, the power of these societies is comparatively feeble. The strongest of them that I know, or have been informed of, is the Education Society of this State, which adheres to its original field of work, and holds in a firm grasp, as I presume, the work with which it started, helping the university or theological seminary, and providing for it even to the erection of its buildings. Yet, I venture to suggest, or intimate, that it was for want of scope, it was for want of greater work, that these societies have generally come to an early decline. They had not enough to do; they had not enough to save; they had not within their legitimate range for their operations objects enough which you could handle, and with which approach and arouse the conscience and heart of the denomination. They had not enough for which to plead; they had not in the objects which they presented to the churches grandeur enough, sublimity enough, force enough.

Indeed, the load which they were lifting was too light to summon anybody to help. Well, what shall happen to anew organization? There are, it seems to me, difficulties in the way of the working of such a commission as is now proposed, and I will suggest them in the crude form in which they lie in my mind. There are plenty here who can see further and more wisely than I, and it may do no harm for me to utter my views. I will not say that there are conflicts between the claims and interests of our institutions East and West, but there are circumstances in the operation of things which are weakening in their effect. There is want of method, there is a want of cohesion, and there is an earnest, local urgency of claims, which would render it very difficult for a come 99

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NATIONAL BAPTIST mission of this kind to work. The Eastern institutions have indeed better foundations than the Western, but it is characteristic, and well enough, perhaps, that the West should wish at once to leap into the high position which our Eastern institutions have reached, and reached by long, patient, and weary toil and service. Yet to my mind, and I submit it to the judgment of my brethren here, it seems to me unfortunate that we may not as a denomination have two or three somewhat matured institutions, approaching, at least, the high standard we all have in view, and it would seem to be in the fitness of things that certain institutions, which from circumstances must be named as Eastern institutions, should be carried up to this high vantage-ground before others, especially so many of them as will be pleading for endowment, areattended to. It is well enough that the first child, or the elder children, in a large family should be established in business before those scarcely of age are set up-and that tells the thought that is in my miind. It would be very difficult for a commission of the kind to adjust the relative claims of our institutions, but if that object could be accomplished, and a Board could be formed to whom such questions could be referred, and who could act with firmness and judgment, and reconcile these things, it certainly would be very desirable. But it seems to me that to reconcile these conflicting or comparative claims, would be almost an impossibility in such a commission.

It is a matter to be considered in the formation of such an organization.

Again, I fear one effect might be to diminish after a while the power of our local societies. Say what you will, I think we must add to all we say, that in our denontination the local societies and organizations almost always manage to have their duty and their influence there. Our territory is a vast one. Why, the statistics just presented by our brother from Illinois are awful. They produce in my soul a shudder. It is fearful to think what an immense responsibility is cast upon this denomination of ours. Our numbers are awful, too-I wish they were not so great. I never say-I shrink from saying, that within our denomination are included a larger number of professing Christians than many others, for there is a tremendous inconsis tency between that statement and what we do. It is not a matter to be rejoiced over or insisted upon. Aiid I think of it-as I some times say of the church I preside over, when I am asked’ What are your numbers?’-as greater than I wish it was. If it were less, the inconsistency between our operations and conclusions would not be so manifest, and aggravating to my convictions of duty. As 100 i

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. to the vast area thrown upon us, as a consolidated mass of responsibility and work, who is to meet it? The very vastness of it, when thus scattered and put beyond our reach, disheartens us and tends to produce an apathy. Bring the work within range, bring it nearer, bring it somewhere where we can look at it, and look into it, and feel that it is to come to us in all its parts and operations, and our people will have something to lay hold of. But it will be impossible in the very nature of things, except upon a very great and broad generalization, that such a work can be brought to one body of men and be fairly considered, and be spread out before and upon the conscience of the whole denomination. I apprehend that to take our local societies and consolidate them into one great national organization, would disintegrate the work in the same proportion in which it was successful. The local societies would leave the field to them, would begin to feel that the ground was covered, and to say, “,This matter is disposed of, we have given it into the hands of a body that will take care of it.” I fear it will be so. I have said enough, perhaps-I have only indicated the thoughts and fears in my own mind. I will heartily go for anything and everything to the extent of my power, that shall be thought by my brethren-and they are wiser than I-to promise success. Only let us act with a clear and correct appreciation of the difficulties and obstacles, so that we match ourselves as far as possible to them. Prof. NORTHRUP: I desire to emphasize the point brought out by Dr. Moss in his essay in regard to some national organization, because it is a thought in the line of what I intend to say to-morrow, and also because I believe it to be of supreme importance in regard to the great work of education, whose interests we are called here to consider. If there is any class of men in the land who ought to be catholic, who ought to be comprehensive in their systems and views, it is the educators [applause]; and I think we need to take into our minds this thought, which has been suggested by Dr. Moss-in my judgment, one of the most fruitful that has been made on the floor of this Convention. I feel constrained also to say something here because of the suggestions made by the gentleman (President ANDERSON) who addressed the Convention so ably and eloquently last evening. I have the most profound admiration for the address and the gentleman who pronounced it, but I am constrained to differ from him upon one point. I will read what he says: “It seems to me the part of wisdom toaccept with equanimity a state of things 101

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NATIONAL BAPTIST we cannot directly remedy. The people of every State will continue to found institutions, but they should bear in mind that. in so doing, they assume the responsibility of their endowment as well as their administration. Let this be once understood, and those who found new institutions, no longer permitted to qepend upon distant States to endow them, will count the cost and examine all iie elements of success before they assume the responsibility involved. Indeed, capital and population are becoming so rapidly equalized as between the old States and the new, that the local support of educational institutions may be hereafter assumed as not only practicable but equitable.” Now I say we are here to consider the broad interest of education-not in reference to the East or the West, or the North or the South-but we wish to act here in a way to promote in the highest degree the culture and the power of the denomination, and I say there is work which can be done through such a national organization which cannot be done in any other way. The remark made may apply to some of the more eastern of the Western States; but look at the vast empire springing up in the West. Schools are struggling for existence, and if we are to control events, with reference to the highest interests of our denomination, the brethren in the East, who have wisdom, who have experience and who have financial ability, must give us the benefit of their wisdom, of their counsel, and of their financial aid.

Notwithstanding all the gentleman from Massachusetts (Dr. BOSWORTH) has said on this subject, facts, I think, conclusively prove that his objections are not well founded. There is a society of our Congregational brethren, founded many years ago, for the promotion of collegiate and theological education in the West. That society has aided sixteen different institutions. It has given between $600,000 and $700,000 to aid in the cause of education connected with that denomination in the West, and of five of these institutions the property which at first amounted to only $300,000 now amounts to over $2,500,000. There is no body in the land who is doing that work with such wisdom, and faith, and efficiency, as the Congregationalists, and it is because they have connected with it a society, the members of which are their ablest educators, who examine into the conflicting claims of institutions, and decide which is to be aided, and then exert all their energies to aid them. That is what we need. We need a body of men like those I see here, before whom the facts can be brought. Let them examine into three rival institutions in a State, if you choose, each struggling to be the university, or the college, let them examine into the facts connected with these institutions and decide which shall be preferred, and that will settle the question at once, instead of allowing them to struggle on during a quarter or more of a century, frittering away 102

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. their energies, powerless for usefulness. Now I know something of the West. I have addressed State conventions in almost all the Western States, and I know something of the East, and I know, therefore, you have something to do in the cause of education in the West.

I care nothing about the West more than the East. I care for the cause, and we ought to use our energies and our money in a way to further the general good, whether in the North, East, West, or South. Now we come to gentlemen in business, and we ask, Will you aid such or such an institution? and they tell you they have not time to hear you-they have got to go to business, they have not time to examine the details of the affair; but if you can go before them and say, Hiere is the judgment of the ablest educators in the land, this is their view in regard to the importance of the institution, that settles the question with them at once. That is what we need. In regard to another point that Dr. BOSWORTH
suggested, the same suggestion was made-to me in Chicago, some years augo, by a gentleman who had so much to do in endowing Newton Theological Seminary. He said, You must grow up as we have; we have been struggling fifty years. Why, we grow faster in the West in ten years, in these days when the flood of population is pouring out there, than you do in the East in many times ten years. We cannot afford to wait; we need to have these institutions at once. They will be established by other denominations. The Methodists and the Presbyterians have their own systems, by which they can bring the whole power of their denomination to bear on any point, and we must depend on some general national organization of this sort. The Congregationalists, as I have said, are pushing their work, and are taking the lead in every State in the West, simply because they have Eastern wisdom, Eastern experience, and Eastern money to aid them. But I have already occupied more time than I had intended I wish to emphasize the idea that some national organization is required, with as little machinery as possible, but an organization through which the deliberate and aggregate judgment of our educators can be expressed in regard to all our educational interests throughout the whole of our broad land. Prof.

MITCHELL: In connection with the remarks just made, I would like to state one or two facts which will occupy but a moment. Eleven years ago I went to the State of Illinois as a pastor, and, after a few months of residence there, I looked over the State so see what was the condition of things with regard to Baptist churches, and I found we had at the time in the State of 103

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Illinois nearly five hundred Baptist churches; and, upon examination, I ascertained that there were only seven men among the pastors of these Baptist churches, outside of Chicago, who were what you call thoroughly educated men-that is, who had had the opportunities of our theological seminaries. There were good men and strong men there, but there were at that time, only eleven years ago, but seven men outside of Chicago, among the Baptist churches, who had a regular theological education. I inquired with regard to the Congregational body and the new school Presbyterians, and I found that, with about one-fifth of the number of churches, twothirds of the ministry were graduates of colleges. I looked into the reason why, and I found -that the society just referred to-established twentyfive years ago by New England men, sustained by men of great influence and strength in New England, with Lyman Beecher, and others like him, as its active and earnest supporters-had planted out there, where we-had one struggling college, and one other just beginning, thirteen colleges, and that where we had no theological seminary, or attempt at one-I mean where a proper theological course could be pursued-they had five seminaries. Out of these colleges and seminaries has come the ministry which has made their churches; and although we had five hundred churches in I.linois, our vital strength and moral influence outside of the churches are not equal to that of the three other denominations built up there. Our churches, that were planted first, became dwarfed and dead for want of the needed power to meet the increasing inflow of intellect and education which came there among the laity from the East. Eleven years have passed away, and within that time two theological institutions have been established in Illinois; one of them, with which I have the privilege of being connected, has sent into the ministry about fifty men, who have been graduated, most of them through the regular course of three years, such as that of Newton; and one in Chicago, not so long in existence, has graduated a less number. And I venture to say, though I have not the statistics in my hand at this instant, that they have sent more men into the ministry than have ever gone from the entire West to Eastern institutions to be educated-I mean from among Baptists, of course. In the mean time, what has happened? We have organized on an average fifty churches a year in the State of Illinois; we have doubled our population in Illinois during that time, and we have built an average of fifty meeting-houses a year. The number last year was 104

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. seventy-five, I think, in Illinois, and these churches demand as sistance and support. Our work has only been h very tentative work at best, doing anything we could to supply the demand in our own field. The question is, how that demand is to be sup plied. The rapid growth of the West will not help us in our denomination, unless we are prepared to take advantage of it. We must have help to do the work, or the other denominations will, and thoroughly occupy the field. Therefore, I do hope the plan mentioned this day will meet with the approval of the Con vention. I have felt for the last thirteen years the necessity for it, for the reasons I have mentioned; and not only those, but I say that the society which has planted thirteen colleges and five theo logical seminaries, has done another thing, which is of equal importance-it has prevented the establishment of five or six colleges or seminaries, which would otherwise have been started by that denomination ill places where, in the judgment of the society, it -was not desirable to undertake to locate a seminary. Much of the work of that body is worthy of the consideration of our brethren in this body. If we can exercise a similar influence East and West over our institutions that shall aid them all, and keep them all engaged under one judicious and necessary organization, it is certainly worth trying to secure. There is a feature in that society, in regard to its operation, which is also worthy of note, and that is this: the society.of which I speak have a rule in their organization that they will only furnish temporary aid to the institutions, and they control to some extent the field in which funds are raised for any institution; and if any institution under their charge in their judgment is most needy, they say to them: “You shall have the field for the purpose of presenting your wants to the churches, and other institutions must wait.” But while they wait, if they need and they are helped until opportunity is afforded them to come in and present their claims, it seems to me a rule of this kind might apply as well to the East as to the West. If, for example, one particular institution should urgently require the immediate assistance of the denomination, then this society could provide for it. They could bring to bear the entire force of their influence upon the work of effecting the advancement or establishment of that institution, and could say to all other institutions for the time being, “You must wait until this is done.”

It seems to me a society operating in this way is not likely to do any harm to any one, provided it is guided by the wisdom which I believe we have among us for the conduct of such matters. 105

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NiATIONAL BAPTIST Rev. Mr. DICKINSON: I would not have opened my mouth, but for its being’suggested to me that it might be well for something to be said on this point right here in reference to the Southern country and its connection with this movement. You do not need to be told that all through the Southern land there are institutions that, with a little aid just now, might tide over troubles which otherwise may wreck them. If these institutions, here and there one, both for the white and the colored people, could receive the fostering care of such a commission, they might become a great power in the land. While the country is in an impoverished state, we may not be able for a year or two to pay back to this commission anything, yet in coming years we might return to such a commission tenfold, yea, an hundredfold. [Applause.] I do not stand here to represent the South especially; there are brethren on this floor to do that, who, if they have the opportunity, will point out to you the grand field now open before you, who will say to you that the grand occasion is now, and that if ever anything is to be done by you in this great work, it must be done now. It wil not do to leave us to struggle on, until when you come to help us we are beyond your aid. We want aid now, and I do hope this part of the field will be presented in this discussion. [Applause.] Dr. CASWELL: I do not intend to occupy much time; I have twice before been on the floor, but I am constrained from the love I bear to the Baptist cause, and the great enterprise in which we are engaged, to offer a single word. I have thought much on this subject, and circumstances within a year or two have compelled me to think more. What we want is unity of opinion and unity of action. [Applause.] We want harmony throughout all our churches and among all our leading men. One great propensity of us Baptists is to be a little opinionated very set in our opinions. I have no particular objection, but let us also be liberal. Do not let us stretch and subject every man to the same bed of Procustes, and require of every man to believe the same things, and call on him to set his name to the same specific creed. We must have liberty of opinion. There are great principles on which we all agree, and let us stand by those. I will work with a man whether he is a conservative or a radical, if he is a religious man, and prays for the peace of Jerusalem. I will work with a man whatever may be his trade or profession, if he goes for the cause of Christ, and for education. That is what I want to see here, and it is a principle I want to see encouraged everywhere. We have a great variety of wants to supply, and every man is apt to think his own 106

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. particular opinions ought to govern this whole enterprise and be adopted by the million and a half or two millions of other Baptists. That is impossible. You might as well try to control the human will; and therefore we must have liberty everywhere, all holding by the same great truths. So much on that point. Now, then, as to one other.

We have just passed through a great internecine struggle, a thing deplored at the time and deplorable in its consequences, some of them, yet most grand in other consequences; but it has passed, and we are again a great people. We must be a united people-one people. [Applause.] And we must, when we are looking to the great interests of the country, not turn our eyes away from that great Southern region, so rich, so abundant in. the agricultural products of the earth, and recovering so rapidly. Cotton, if not king, is money, and the cotton produced in 1869 is equal to twice what was produced in the two years previous. And it must increase, for there is no part of the world, so far as we know, that can ever come in competition with that region in the production of cotton, a fabric that is going to clothe mankind. We must look to the South, we must look to the colored people and the white people. We must look to the interests of education, of religion, and the cause of Christ, throughout the whole country. We must join hand to hand, I say, with our Southern brethren, and carry forward this great enterprise. This is what I wanted to say here, and. all I wanted to say. Dr. HAGUE: I move that this paper be referred to a cormmittee, with Dr. NORTHRUP as chairman-if you will allow me to name him-with instructions to bring in a report proposing a method for immediate action and organization; and, in offering this resolution for immediate action through a committee, I would wish to supplement and emphasize the words of Dr. NORTHRUP touching the subject, that we need and must have an organization through which our educators can express their ideas to the people. And while I would say that, I would add, that we must not only have a Commission through which the educators can speak, but an organization of educators, standing up in simplicity of purpose, to develop thought, and guide this great enterprise of which Dr. Bailey has spoken in connection with that great area and domain in the West. And in relation to what Dr. BOSWORTH has said touching that subject, I here take the opportunity thus furnished to make the distinction between this meeting and all other meetings, so that we shall not draw arguments from prob 107

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.NATIONAL BAPTIST lems concerning organizations that sprung up like mushrooms in the night and disappeared as soon. There is no such problem before us, and there never has been in our denomination a meeting like this to-day. [Applause.] It makes an epoch. Why, here we have the best body of educators that ever assembled in the nation-assembled from all over our broad area of territory, from Maine to California, striking hands on one great enterprise; and that is a guarantee of union, and a guarantee competent to the emergency. What, then, is needed? The one thing needed is organized mind to bear on the question, and lift up those millions within the scope of the Baptist denomination to an appreciation .of this grand educational question, and the higher culture which the times demand. That is the question. How is it to be done? By educators; the men who, in the beginning, are to come to the men in the pulpit, are to move them, and through them, by the grace of God, to awaken in the hearts of the people an active interest in this great cause. As has been said, the formation of these Social Unions last year is significant of a new era for the Baptist denomination. Speaking of their workings in Boston, a friend of mine said: “When a man comes from the West, or South, or from anywhere, to Boston for help, however meritorious and deserving of assistance the object may be, if he comes to my office, I cannot listen to him, I do not have time, and I do not give him, if anything, half the amount he deserves; but if I come to this Social Union, and you ask him to speak, and he develops his object, I understand the matter, and am able to dismiss it at once, Yes or No! ” This is the idea. These men of business are ready and willing to contribute to the cause. What is needed to guide them is a body of organized minds in whom they have confidence, to whom they may look and derive their opinions from them. The great question before us, as a body of educators, is this: the conversion of these millions. Why, it is just about the same thing as that celebrated man, Dr. Brownson, put to his church, when he left Protestantism and became a Catholic: He, bearing in his blood the American spirit, and coming into the Roman Catholic Church a teacher and a leader, began to talk to them, and, in his terse, nervous diction, said to them, three or four years ago-” You must change your policy and come in and take sides with the American public school system, and give your children the benefit of it, if you, as a people, are to make pro gress.” When he made that appeal, he thought he was going to do something; but when that appeal came out, Dr. Brownson was 108

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. persuaded to drop the idea, and he confessed that, while it was still the American idea, it was still one which the hierarchy did not approve, and he would yield it. There is a sign of the times for you! A Catholic leader telling his own church that, unless they can educate their children in consonance with the demand of the times, they will forsake Catholicity. And it is the truth. We have the millions of the South, the growing millions of the West to care for. Dr. BOSWORTH’says there are too many now; but no! it is your business, as ministers and as educators, to become the guide of these millions, and grasp them for Christ, and lift them up to civilization. [Applause.] That is the thing to be done. Why, you cannot stop it. [Applause.] I know Dr. BOSWORTH, and he learned, before he graduated from Newton, that, in any community whatever, if you have a free Bible, you will have a Baptist church whether you would or not. There never has been an age since Jesus Christ was on earth, that that was not true. You do not need an education society or a theological seminary to make Baptist churches; they make themselves in spite of you. I said to an Episcopalian rector once, who said he was going West to found a church, “We never do such a thing. As ministers, we only go to take charge of the churches that have already been founded before.” And it is true.

What you ought to do, as a body of educators, is, to teach these people, and, God giving you strength, lift them up and show them the great end Jesus puts before them. Take up the work, and organize yourselves as a body of educators. It is a new idea. It could not have been done before the war, because there was not unity enough; it could not have been done during the war, because there was not strength enough. Now we have the strength; it is here bodily, and we have the unity. Before 1870, there could not have been such a programme as we have here in this Convention, and, therefore, this is the time and the hour for us to act. In organizing such a society, the broadest signification should be given to the term Educator. The trustees of colleges and ministers are educators under one system; the Peabodies, the Colgates, and the Vassars, are educators; all the men that give their money are educators. Bring them in; they want your experience, your counsel, and your knowledge; and you want their tact, their business force, and their power; and, working together as a body of educators, you will bring up the Baptist denomination to the achievement of its grand mission. I hope we shall act now on the motion to refer to a special committee. 109

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Dr. CUTTING: It was intended to be referred to the Committee on Denominational Work in Education.. Dr. HAGUE: Well, I move, then, that the committee be instructed to bring in a report on this subject, to be acted on here. Dr. GREGORY: Allow me to add a word before the question is taken. I do not represent the West. I come from the great centre of the country. I was a little disappointed when I went over the programme of this meeting, and I felt that I ought to have staid at home, as I found the practical questions that concern us as educators were really not provided for, but that we were invited to a literary entertainment simply. But I am glad to see that the discussion has’opened a field wide enough to enable us to touch at least some of the practical questions. If the other papers shall open a similar door, we shall touch more of them before we get through. I want now simply to say, in regard to this organization that is presented to us, that, while I second the idea, that I wish to fling back, if it is not indecorous to use such language, the charge that has been intimated or hinted at, that we are asking theEast to aid the West in what we have not any right to, and what the East needs for itself. Let me tell you this, that the East has grown rich out of the West. Your capitalists, when we were poor, came out and took up our wild land at ten shillings an acre, and we, the actual settlers, have paid you fifty dollars an acre for it. We have asked you for a few hundreds out of the millions you have taken from us. You have sat at the great gateways of commerce, and by your tariffs you have taken out of the agriculturists of the West a wealth that has built up these great cities.

I only speak of these things now, not to provoke recrimination, not to throw any animosity into the spirit of our discussion not at all, but to demand simple justice. Now, thank God, we in the West have ceased to look to the East. We are taking care of ourselves. In a life-long service in the cause of education, it happened to me, a few years ago, to be some little time connected with one of our Baptist institutions in the West, and I camne East to ask a little aid; but such was my experience, that I could not hold out, and I turned and went back and said to our people, “We must help ourselves; we helped to make these men rich, but we will not grumble-we will help ourselves.” Now, there is a common work for us, as that map yonder has shown you. There are States west of us, and already, every Sabbath almost, there come to our little churches, struggling for existence yet under debt, appeals to help to build churches in the regions far distant back of 110

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. us, which need a helping hand and require the care of our denominational institutions. We are ready to do our share of the work; but, if our brethren act in accordance with the spirit of the sentiments uttered here, I do not know what is to become of these new States. If they are to be left to take care of themselves, then we shall ask you to take off your tariffs, to release your hands from our wild lands, and not force us longer to pay to Eastern capitalists thousands and thousands of dollars interest on money to purchase them. But, as I said before, it is no longer for us; if it was a simple question as to what we would do for ourselves, I should have kept silent I should have done as I did a few years ago when I went home to Michigan and told them we must take care of ourselves without Eastern aid, and we did. But the question comes up as to the regions beyond us. How are they to be taken care of? I heard it said on this floor, and greatly to my surprise, that we were building too many institutions; but I say we are not building enough. We have not got too many colleges, we have only too few students-that is the trouble. And, instead of going around like two hens seeking to cover one chicken, let us go to work and hatch out chickens. [Applause.] Dr. HAGUI withdrew his motion, and the paper was referred to the Committee on Denominational Work in Education, and Professors NORTHRUP and ANDERSON
were added as members to the committee, and Rev. Dr. Moss appointed instead of Mr. BROwN, of Vermont, not present. The second paper, prepared for this session, was read by Rev. Dr. SAMSON, of D. C., on JESUIT

COLLEGIATE INSTRUCTION, AS AFFECTING PRESENT QUESTIONS OF EDUCATION AND

SOCIETY. For two reasons, it is difficult in our country to gain impartial and definite views of Jesuit institutions. In the first place, in Catholic as well as Protestant Europe, the power of prejudice and rivalry gives color to past discussions of their system; the opinions of the writer rather than his facts controlling the reader’s judgment. In the second place, the defences and assaults of friends and foes of the Jesuits give so large a place to the bearings of their organization on morals, politics, and ecclesiastical questions, that their methods of education are but imperfectly developed. In our country, however, if anywhere,-in the land where no prejudice of sect, party, or of nationality can be allowed,-the statements and criticisms of writers, Italian and Spanish, French, German, and English, who for two centuries have debated their merits, ought to be impartially weighed. Yet more, of the thirty colleges of the United States now reported as under Romnan Catholic control, sixteen at least are Jesuit institutions, two of these having their location at the seat ot Government; and these are open to comparison with other American institutions. Among the works of Jesuits themselves, the following are prominent: the “Historia Societatis Jesu,” and the “Synopsis Historie Societatis Jesu Primo Sseculo,” called forth after the first century of their palmy triumphs; also the ” Ratio et Institutio Studiorum Societatis Jesu,” first digested in 1588, fully elab ill

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NATIONAL BAPTIST orated and authoritatively fixed in 1599, and finally revised in 1832, presenting both the system of studies pursued in their colleges and the reason for it, and illustrating by its subsequent modifications its power of adaptation to the spirit of the age; and, finally, the various reports of the fathers of the Order in their world-wide missions from Japan round to Canada. Among the almost numberless documents from their opposers in the Catholic Church, may be named the works of Condrette, published at Paris in 1761; the “Allegemeine Geschicte der Jesuiten” of Wolf; Leipsic, 1803; the’Histoire Politique et Litteraire de la Compagnie de Jesus,” by Cre6tineau-Joli, Paris, 1844-46; “I1 Gesuita Moderno,”’ of Gioberti, a Catholic priest, former Prime Minister of the King of Sardinia in Italy, Lausanne, 1847; the “

(eschichte der Pddagogik,” of Von Raumer, Stuttgart, 1846; the “History of the Jesuits,” by Nicolini, a native of Rome, educated by the Jesuits, published at London; the unpublished lectures of Professors Miiller and J.

I. Dollinger, delivered at Munich, in 1859-60; the “Histoire des Jesuites,” by the Abb6 Guettee, Paris, 1858; and, finally, the familiarly known Provincial Letters of Pascal. All these testimonies, though sometimes not wholly impartial because of their spirit of partisan and personal antagonism, contain documentary statements of facts, and profound discussions of principles, which aid to a true estimate of the character and value of Jesuit instruction. Added to these authorities of the Roman Church, are many valuable contributions found in the researches and reasoning of able Protestant writers. Such is the work of Poynder’s, published at London; in the close of which is a statement from a Committee of the British Parliament, whose Chairman was Lord Broughlam, appointed to report upon the omission of Bible instruction in the schools of Roman Catholics. Valuable information and suggestions are met in ‘ (uizot’s Memoirs of His own Times;” who, as a member of the cabinet of Louis Philippe of France, tor many years as Prime Minister, and during four years as Head of the Department of Public Instruction, made a thorough study of the whole range of educationai institutions throughout that country. In the able discourse of Rev. William R. Williams, D.D., on the “Jesuits as a Missionary Order,” are suggestive hints; and in two articles of the American Journal of Education, published one in 1858 and the other in 1864, the latter a translation Iromn Raumer, most important information may be gathered. All these, however, should be subsidiary to personal study and thought upon thle Jesuit colleges as we find them in our own country. As education is training of the mind, every system of education, devised with care, is founded on some specific view of the powers of thie human intellect, of the mission of educated men, and of the motives which should direct them in its employ. It was a profound study of each of these preliminary questions, and a miasterly forecast as to the inevitable consequences of certain laws of human thought and action, which first suggested, and has subsequently given permanent shape to the Jesuit system of instruction. Common observation makes it manifest that the widest extremes of mental development exist among men-not only different and distant races and nations, but even the circle of children born of the same two parents exhibiting sometimes the widest contrast in natural as well as acquired power of intellect. It is the Creator’s manifest appointment that these differences shall exist; for we read that, among spirits that excel in strength and have kept their first pure estate, there are “dominions, principalities, and powers,” “angels and archangels,” subordinate and ruling intelligences. Since the fact exists, the human mind feels assured there is a reason for the fact. Hence, therefore, have arisen these inquiries: What is the Divine design in this appointment? How that design determ-nes the nature of education? What is the mission of educated men, and what means, and what motives 112

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EDUCATIONAL CON VENTION. to impel in their use educators may employ to secure the accomplishment of that mission? Depraved as man is, unlike the spirits above, unconformed to the law of su premne love to God and equal love to his fellows, it is natural for human beings to be found influenced by an undue aspiration for self-exaltation, the educated class seeking a supremacy that forgets the end for which superiority is ordained, and the spirit with which it should be exercised. As all educated men are human, this fundamental element is liable to appear, or, if it do not show itself, to work within all classes of educated men; “pure religion”

antagonizing against, but only gradually subduing this tendency. Yet more, among minds of a high order of development, different tendencies show themselves. Some, with the retiring spirit of the recluse, satisfied with the consciousness of superiority which pride and intellectual acumen and culture begets, withdraw themselves from men of less culture, neglect their high mission as instructors of the ignorant, and selfishly feed on the intellectual wealth given them to be dispensed to others. Yet another class, with thile liter ary as distinct from the scientific ambition; aspiring to have their acquisitions known and recognized, with the vanity (excusable when not undue) of reputation among men, seek the court instead of the cloister, mingle among men, seeking to guide and control thought and feeling and purpose in their associates, and becoming active as instructors of the young and inexperienced. Yet again, among those thus secularized, two classes will appear, developing two types of educators.

One class, possessed with the conviction that all man kind are created with kindred powers of mind, equally exalted and immnortal, and made for unlimited development, regard education as the need and the right of all classes and conditions of society. With them, elementary mental discipline may prepare every mind for independent thought and individual progress in knowledge, while higher education is designed to train men of superior gifts to be the aids and servants of their fellows in guiding them to truth and prompting them to ends of duty and of utility. The other class, resting in the idea that the masses of mankind are not made to apprehend or to investigate truth for themselves, but that they must, in blind trust, submit their judgment and will to the leading of their intellectual superiors-such secretly believe or openly act on the principle that all partial education, such as that which common schools give, is useless and even-injurious; since it does not furnish the knowledge adequate to self guidance, but, on the other hand, gives a self-confidence that opposes itself to the guidance of another better informed mind. Hence the design of higher education is to cultivate a power of compelling the assent of inferior minds, controlling the utterly ignorant by an appeal to the senses rather than the understanding, by authority and not by reason, and overcoming halfinstructed opposers by the subtleties of logic and by an array of learning either apposite or specious. The curriculum of study constituting the material of higher education, varying very little in the history of ages and nations, even from the time of the Brahmins of India and Egypt, who taught the first Greek scholars, has been adapted to two ends to be secured by college training-the power of convincing thought and of impressive expression. That the mind may be trained from the start to detect any errors in its connections of thought, early and protracted application is given to the mathematics, reasoning upon the relations of extension and of numbers, involving the ideas of Space and Time; since, in Arithmetic and Algebra, in Geometry, Plane and Spherical, in Analytic Geometry and the Calculus, the pupil knows for himself when he has erred, and can find and point out the precise defect in the process of his thought. This habit acquired, he is 8 113

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NATIONAL BAPTIST prepared to master the subtler principles of Metaphysics and Logic, and then to make the application of these principles in every department of human thought and action, and in each branch to which science and philosophy give light. Again, that the habit of correct expression may be attained, associated with precision of conception, the pupil is trained to grasp and then to put into language the thoughts of the most profound and cultured minds of other ages and nations, especially of the Greeks and Romans, whose literature has been the instructor and former of all modern culture; for it is impossible that a mind, for years accustomed to express, in his native language, the thought of a Homer or Cicero, should not have developed a power that will enable hilmn to seize the thought of any mind he meets, and to clothe his own independent views in language that will impress other minds. On this foundation the added storage of knowledge in varied science and professional pursuit may now rest; and, when to this is added the thorough culture of theoretical and practical rhetorical discipline, a mind has been developed which can make its own way among men as a leader in thought and action. This leads to the final preliminary consideration, that all mental training involves the two distinct elements of study and of discipline. Thought may be at random or to the point; the mind may career uncurbed or work in harness. It is quite as essential to efficiency in educational methods that the pupil acquire habits of perfect self-control over all the impulses of his nature, as that he be able to think comprehensively and to speak emphatically. Hence the discipline, the routine of order, that rules in the college. This essential part of education now, may take one or the other of two distinct characters. It may be imposed from without, the teacher acting as an ever-present restraint or censor, the younger pupils being made to feel constantly both the curb and the spur-a discipline which, in the mature man, becomes the habit of conformity to arti ficial rules of outward decorum, propriety, and courtesy. On the other hand, discipline may be a nurtured power of selfgovernment, an outgoing from within; in the youngest pupil a “training” proper, which does not seek to comn pel each new shooting tendril into the same cramped position and shape, but gives each issue of the soul a guide in its own natural direction, finding for it a trellis of support on which it shall lean, and only preventing it from falling in the way of companions that may cramp its growth, or of ravagers that might trample and destroy it if left utterly without guidance and protection. This discipline makes the youngest pupil self-reliant in all his acquisitions, self guarded amid the seductions of excited appetite and passion, and self-determined in all his efforts at success in his varied pursuits. The history of educational methods in different ages and nations illustrates the study in design which gave form to the Jesuit system of instruction. The colleges of ancient India and Egypt, whose discipline was illustrated in such pupils as Moses, Pythagoras, and Plato, gave thorough training in the Mathe matics and every branch of science then known, and also in language, the writings of Moses as well as Plato betraying acquaintance with the elaborate Sanscrit tongue. The colleges of Asia, however, sought only to prepare masters in intel lect who should be adored as superhuman by the unlettered masses among whom they moved as lords. The Hebrews and the Greeks held a very different idea as to common education, and the mission of thelearned man.

Moses pro vided that all the children of Israel should be trained to personal knowledge of history and laws. Common schools existed in Greece from time immemorial, higher culture in science and art being introduced into their order of discipline before the first great philosophers or artists arose; and when Pythagoras, with his Indian and Egyptian training, thought to introduce a system of instruction I 114

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. which virtually separated the class possessed of higher education from the mass of society as a mystic and ruling band, there was no spot in all Greece where such an innovator could find a community willing to grant his esoteric school an asylum. When again, more than a century later, Plato, dazzling the enthusi astic Greek mind with the brilliancy of his ideal conceptions, proposed principles which, while seeming to exalt human nature to its acme of nobility, yet fixed a system of civil polity which would perpetuate in a small favored class all intel lectual occupation, while it compelled a large class as city guardians to the hereditary employ of soldiers, and the great masses of all the population to the various necessary pursuits of handicraft and labor on the fields and streets-the shrewd intelligence of the partially educated Athenians awoke to the real char acter of that fancied Republic, whose conception promised nothing but exalta tion of the framer at the expense of his supporters; and both the dreamer and his dream were banished from the councils of practical men. Among the Romans, on the other hand, the distinction of patrician and ple beian among the people caused the Asiatic idea of class education toprevail; and though in the later days of the Republic the Grecian method for a time gained sway, the establishment of the Empire brought back the old system which excluded popular education.

The spirit of Christianity in its primitive purity reacted against class and caste control; but just in proportion to the sway of Asiatic and Roman secular influences was the return to the system of making the educated a fraternity isolated both in thought and life from the people. In the early and famed school of Alexandria, Egypt, the general and popular instruction given to all youth as catechumens, came to be supplanted under Origen by the training of a band of mystic interpreters who professed to a vision of spiritual truth unfitted to the mass of the Christian people. In the churches of Europe, however, the popular idea in the early ages prevailed.

When about A. D. 350, shortly after the accession of Constantine, mnonasticism began to gather its devotees into convents, it was at first only self-improvement by retired study and contemplation which such men as Ambrose and Chrysostom, Jerome and Augustine advocated; and the famed Trivium and Quadrivium of the college curriculum, which Augoustine seems to have perfected, was appointed-for schools not under the control of special orders in the church. When, however, nearly two centuries later, about A. D. 529, the order of Benedict was established in Upper Campania, and when, as we are told, the “nobles and religious men of the city of Rome began to resort to him and to commit their sons to him to be nurtured for Almighty God,” then a select education for a special service became the work of men consecrated by monastic vows. Two centuries and a half still later, a work began, about A. D. 800, which gave a new turn to Christian education, whose benign influence is not yet lost in any portion of Western Europe. The grand conceptions of Charlemagne of France, inspired in part by his intimate friendship for Haroun-el-Raschid, led to the effort to give elementary education to all the people, and at the same time to furnish higher education to those who were to be preeminently the educators of the people. From Bagdad on the Euphrates to the green isle of Erin, this enthlusiasm of the age had spread While the colleges of Haroun and his successors grew up at Bagdad in Assyria and at Cordova in Spain, at the Eastern and Western foci of Arabian culture, Charlemagne called Alcuin of York in England, and others, scholars of kindred spirit, to his aid. Learned in the Hebrew and Greek as well as in the Latin languages, Alcuin aided in planting schools which grew into universities throughout France, Northern Italy, and VWestern Germany. The higher education received in these schools, moreover, was only a means to an end; being mainly designed to train teachers and preachers who iio

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.NATIONAL BAPTIST should be the educators of the people. The celebrated monk of St. Gall, one of the learned corps whom Charlemagne brought from Ireland, then the centre of intellectual culture, as it is still of that polished refinement which such culture long entails-this enthusiastic actor in the scenes of that day, has left in a record still preserved the most interesting statement of the emperor’s personal visits to the public schools which he had established. In these schools the sons of the peasantry sat side by side with the nobility; while the monarch present at the examinations watched their comparative merits, and heaped special encomiums on the son of the poor man who excelled in industry and discipline. During the latter part of this period of revived learning, Alfred, according to reliable records, following up the example of Charlemagne, raised the church schools of Oxford to the character of a university, establishing in them that order of study laid down in the system of Augustine, which remained unchanged in that and other universities of the West of Europe till the times of the Jesuits. The close intercourse which at this era prevailed between not only Western Asia, but also Greece and the gallant sovereigns of France and England, gave a place never yet lost to the Greek classics in the curriculum of German, French and English schools; while, as a natural result, Aristotle in logic and Plato in esthetics contended for superior homage in the minds of their different votaries. After a decline, from the corruption of the orders of religious teachers chiefly employed in instruction, the character of education in Southern Europe took a new spring at the establishment of the mendicant orders; especially those of Francis and Dominic, both of which were formed about A. D. 1207. Prior to this period, by about a century, the Universities of Paris and Oxford had been advancing their standard of attainment, adding to the ordinary college course lectures on canon law, on medicine, on the arts, and lastly on scholastic theology; thus virtually engrafting the four departments of professional study attached in modern times to the university. The famed Abelard had stimulated an enthusiasm for liberal learning which not only filled the University but inspired the teachers of subordinate schools, The Benedictines were aroused to a new life which has not since been lost; the newly organized Franciscans and Dominicans entered the lists as lecturers; not only the Logic, but the Metaphysics and Natural History of Aristotle were translated into Latin and made text-books; and while many a keen scholastic applied Aristotle’s method in theological discus sion, Abelard developed a system of Christian ethics, and Roger Bacon antici pated by three centuries his namesake in a more appreciative application of the same method in Natural Science. Two important facts immediately connected with the organization of the Jesuits three centuries later are here to be noted. The rise of the Orders of Franciscans and Dominicans was promoted by circumstances precisely like those which originated the Order of Jesus. More than fifty years before the appear ance of Francis and Dominic a spirit of independent thought in religious matters had begun to manifest itself in France, Germany, England, Switzerland, and Western Italy. Though suppressed in the cities and thickly populated country, it gathered strength and found a permanent home in the natural abode of freedom, through the valleys of the Alps between Italy, France, and Germany. These independent thinkers, taking different names in different sections, “possessed,” as the bull of Innocent IlL, in opposition to them declares, “with the desire of literary productions,” and having “the Gospels, the ep)istles of Paul, the Psalter, the morals of Job, and many other books translated into the Gallic tongue,” could not be met except by an appeal either to the sword or to logic. It was to meet this necessity, called forth by the practical demand of a people trained to read and to think, that Francis and Dominic sought to prepare their thoroughly trained pupils. 116

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. The demand and stimulus of this era called fQrth the great Dominican, Thomas Aquinas, the comprehensive master in varied learning, whose theological trea tises brought to a climax the labors of the Scholastics, and whose philosophical system has become the favorite with the Jesuit Order. An Italian, born in the Neapolitan dominions of the south, but educated in the freer and more stimaula ting atmosphere of Bologna in the north, he went in youth over the Alps, and at Paris gathered around him an enthusiastic crowd of admirers, who listened to his lectures and embraced their teachings. Though a thorough student and adherent of Aristotle’s method, he set himself, as others before him had, against the abuse of his dialectics, which had led men of the Scholastic mould into dry and barren abstraction. Partially appreciating only the spirit of the great Grecian master, who in logic or the method of investigation has been the guide of comprehensive thinkers, even down to Hamilton, and whom in our day an Agassiz in Natural History, and a Bunsen in Philosophical History, declare the “Father of Science,”-partially appreciating only the Grecian spirit, Aquinas set himself to the task of developing a harmony in all departments of knowledge, which should gain the admiration as well as assent of all inquiring minds, while it brought into harmony all thought on the truth as to God, immortality, and spiritual redemption, revealed in the Christian system as the foundation of all valuable knowledge. With herculean labor of the pen, as well as of the brain, he has left some twenty large folio volumes as the embodiment of his comprehensive philosophy. Following his great master, his first four volumes are translations into the Latin, with extended original commentaries, of Aristotle’s Dia7termenia, or Circle of the Sciences; of his Posterior Analytics, Physics, Heaven and Earth, Generation, Meteors, The Soul, Minor Natural Science, Metaphysics, Being and Essence, Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, and Maxims; which are followed by his Apology or Defence of the Catholic Faith against opposers, or Polemic Theology; his great work Summa Theologise, or Systematic Theology, and his Commentaries on most of the books of the Old and New Testaments. Though seeking to be practical, the acute and comprehensive mind of Aquinas could not apply truth except with the light of his age. His subtle illustrations of such doctrines as the relations of Father, Son, and Spirit in the Divine Personality, his natural associations of traditional rites with tue spiritual influences of Christ’s redemption, and his efforts to make the ethical and political principles of Aristotle shadow forth the absolutism of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and of the civil despotism of his times, are failures, in applying his own high ideal, excusable perhaps in their utterance by a grand thinker of the twelfth century. They must, however, be judged by a different rule when made the Procrustean bed of a party, transferred from Europe to our land of free opinions-a party, too, whose determined and avowed purpose is to force first a European and then an American pressure, that shall at length bind all independent thought to the measure of this squared and jointed rack. No thorough student of philosophy, especially of theological science, can help feeling the strong attractive drawing of a brotherly tie as he lingers with this noble and earnest disciple of the Waldenlsian age of thought, though hlie was the opposer of its independence. He may, however, rejoice more in the inspiration of that intellectual quickening, which called out men to make as well as to match the Dominican. He may be yet more grateful for that power of truth which now meets the earnest and determined successors of Aquinas, who still, five centuries later, in less equal conflict, seek to retain the awakened world of thought in the old limits of reformed Scholasticism. The zeal of the age of Aquinas which aroused men like the Angelic Doctors to overcome by logic the spirit of free thought, only extended the fire of enkindling 117 0

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-N ATIONAL BAPTIST inquiry which it sought to quench among independent men; while it awoke a rivalry in the pale of its own ecclesiastical organization which has not yet, after five centuries, abated. The historic documents of thie time show, that, besidestheir own rival schools, the orders of Francis and Dominic had, in the times of Philip of Valois, King of France from A. D. 1328 to 1351, out of twenty-nine university professors in the Department of Theology, gathering in council at Vincennes, secured appointments for thirteen of their number. The universities of Paris and Oxford complained that these monastic teachers enticed their pupils away, and by direct influence on parents prevailed on them to send their sons to the monasteries instead of the universities.

Meanwhile the spirit of inquiry spread through all Europe. Such men as Johln Wickliffe at Oxford, England, in 1360; John Huss, at Prague, in Central Germany, in 1402; Andreas of Carniola, in Switzerland, in 1482; and Savonarola, of Florence, in Northern Italy, in 1498, were drawn to the spiritual experience of Augustine, while Aquinas had been only won to his logic. These reformers spread and enkindled through all Europe a longing for a new spirit in the ruling powers of the Christian church; which led to positive separation on the part of the Protestants, and to the rise in the Roman Church of the new order of instructors, the Jesuits, whose organization was designed to meet and arrest the current of free thought still deepening and strengthening. Daminus, the first historian of the Order of Jesus, begins his treatise reviewing the first century of their labors, then j ust concluded, with a glowing allusion to the Providence which had opposed the rise of Loyola to that of Luther; the latter born 1483, a monk who violated his vows, and left the cloister for the world, to lead away Germany from the church to the secular spirit; the former born in 1491, only eight years later, a man of fortune and military renown, who left the world for the cloister, and lived to bring the erring back to their ancient told. Fromn the day that this rivalry, thus announced, began with those two ecclesiastical leaders, rival systems of education have been contending for supremacy in every country of Europe; those of the Order of Jesus being antag onistic to the established colleges and universities in every country where they have gained a foothold. In the year 1538, Ignatius Loyola, then about forty-seven years of age, after a youth of worldly enjoyment among pleasure-seeking sons of the Spanish nobility, followed by years of a soldier’s life in the camp, during which hlie was severely wounded, brought nigh to death, and permanently deformed, led by his spiritual adviser in the hospital to study of the lives of martyrs and saints to see a new door of influence and distinction open for his active spirit, is found now at Rome, with nine associates of kindred spirit, urging on Paul III., reluctant, because of the rivalry of already existing fraternities, to allow the establishment of a new order of devotees peculiar in the bond binding them to each other and to the church which they were to serve, and peculiar in their entire system of effort. lingering for a year, and apparently about to fail in his effort, ill 1539, the king of Portugal, anxious to advance the interests of his new dominion in the Indies, obtained about forty years before by the discovery of the passage around the South of Africa, sent to Rome for an efficient missionary to China and Japan. Xavier, one of the waiting companions of Loyola, immediately volunteered for the service. The eclat of such a commencement was a new argument for success to the proposed organization. On the 27th of September, 1540, Paul III.

signed the bull, announcing the institution of the new order. Its direct aim was active home and foreign missions, specially designed, by the force of individual conviction and persuasion, to withdraw men in Christian countries from the influence of the independent churches. Its name of “The lis

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Order of Jesus” implied that, like the Divine Master, while possessed of the grace and wisdom equal to that of cloistered monastics, they were leavingcr the seclusion of the convent, “to go about” doing their Master’s work. Tlheir attitude toward the world, among whom they were to freely move, was that policy often justified by Paul’s statement: “I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some.” The bond of their union to each othier-entirely unlike that of all other orders previously organized in the Catholic Church, whose government is elective and representative, giving to every brother an equal voice-was made in this new order, the military subjection of every member to the mandate of their head, distinctively styled “the General.” To this special feature in their organization, Pope Gregory XIV. alludes in a bull, explanatory of their system, issued in 1591, about fifty years after institution, remarking: “Ignatius desired that the form of government in his society should be monarchical; and that everything should be decided by the will of the General alone.” Yet, again, the subordination of this independent order to the Catholic Church itself was so ill-defined, and their coordinate authority, even in respect to bishops and other prelates was so declared, that, from the very commencement of their career, jealousies of their powers were awakened in every department of their labor among ecclesiastic and lay teachers and ministers. Very early this missionary body found that the control of education was an indispensable auxiliary. It was nearly fifty years, however, after the establishment of the Order of Jesus before their system of education took definite form in the” Ratio et Institutio Studiorum Societatis Jesu.” This was elaborated by six fathers of the Order in 1588, authoritively published in 1599, and finally revised in 1832, after the trial of the popular revolutions in France and in other countries of Europe. In the preface of this last issue, their General remarks: “We present here nothing new, but the old original system-only modified to suit the times.” He adds:’; This ancient system has been approved by the fortunate experience of two centuries, and it should not be altered, except for EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. weighty reasons.” The course of study is divided into “Studia Superiora” and “Studia Inferiora.”

From the first, the main end is to train the pupil to a perfect mastery of the Latin tongue, fulfilling the maxim: “Lege, Scribe, Loquere “-Read, WNrite, Speak. Hence it is added, in the Ratio Studiorum, “Those only possess a perfect knowledge of a language who can both read, write, and speak it. The course of study adopted by the society is designed to secure this result.”’ “The exercise of speaking Latin must be unintermitted and absolute, to the entire exclusion of the vernacular in all matters pertaining to the school.” So allcomprehensive is this idea, that the acquisition of the Latin tongue is called “humarnita8 “-a synonym for liberal culture. The special end of this study, aside from its sanctity as the language of the Roman Church, is stated thus: “By the means of the classics we are to become familiar with the language of the Greeks, but especially with that of the Romans, and thus to form our style. Farther than this we cannot go.” “Style should be drawn almost entirely from Cicero.” All directions to pupils are “comprehended in the words of the rule’Imitate Cicero.’ As in the study of theology, we follow the divine Thomas (i. e., Aquinas), and in philosophy Aristotle, so in the Humanities, Cicero must be regarded our peculiar and permanent leader.” In poetry it is directed that selections be made from the epic of Virgil, and from the dramas of Terence and Plautus; and on this principle: “These plays, pure as may be their style, and well adapted as they are to impart finish and grace to the pupil’s knowledge, nevertheless ought not to receive so much attention in our eagerness for the favor of the people that we shall meanwhile neglect the true interests of the 119

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NATIONAL BAPTIST school. As subsidiary to the study of Latin, various suggestions are added fi)r storing the mind with varied knowledge, called “Erudition.” It is directed: “At the examination, the scholars are to be called on for the specimens of the erudition previously laid before them, viz.: for fables, historical incidents, antiquities, responses of oracles, sayings of wise men, examples of strategy, famous deeds, inventions of every sort, customs and institutions of various nations, eminent virtues,”

etc. “In the holidays, attention may be given to some of the less familiar subjects; as hieroglyphics, emblems, with questions bearing on the art of poetry (selected from the poetics of Aristotle, or of Father Jayi) relating to the epigram, the epitaph, the ode, the elegy, epic poetry and tragedy, the Roman and Athenian Senate, the art of war among the ancients, horticulture, dress, the banquet, the triumphs, sybils, and other characters of a similar class; add to which Pythagorean symbols, apothegms, proverbs, parables, etc.; moreover, inscriptions on shields, temples, monuments, gardens, statues, and the like; also fables, Roman antiquities, remarkable events, oracles, military stratagems, brilliant achievements,” etc. Returning from this general idea, whose character and tendency we shall soon have occasion to consider, we may note the sub-divisions of the two classes of studies above mentioned and the methods of pursuing them. Here we observe some very decided modifications, suited to the country and times where the general system is employed. In the original plan, the inferior or preparatory course embraced five classes or schools: first, Rudiments; second, Grammar; third, Syntax; fourth. Humanities; fifth, Rhetoric. Ii its early employ in Germany, Geography, Mathematics and Natural Philosophy were omitted. In the revision of 1832, these, together with Music, were introduced, this comment being made:” The demands of the age constrain us, in some points, yet without prejudice to the cause of sound learning, to depart from the usages of our fathers; and compliance with these demands is not only not forbidden, but it is required by the spirit and design of our establishment, which is to promote the greater glory of God.” Pupils generally spent one year in each of the four lower classes, viz., Rudiments, Grammar, Syntax, and Humanities proper; and two in the fifth class or Rhotoric. In the first year, or Rudiments, the declensions, conjugations, and simplest rules of syntax in the Latin tongue were acquired; easy selections from Latin authors were read and committed to memory. In the second class, Grammar proper, the study of grammar and syntax is continued, the former being virtually comnpleted, while Ovid, Cicero, and Virgil, are read. In the third year, Syntax, the entire grammar, including syntax, was completed, Prosody was begun, and selections from Cicero, Ovid, Virgil, Catullus, and Tibullus, were read.

Meanwhile Greek was made a parallel study, though far less time was given to it. The grammars employed were quite inferior, and those long superseded by more scholarly works.* So exclusively were the pupils required to devote themselves to the Latin, that their vernacular was to be abjured even in their play hours; the boys were made spies on each other to report any delinquent who chanced to utter himself in German instead of Latin, and such offenders were punished by being shut in during the next recess, and compelled to commit a number of lines of Latin poetry. This rigid system was enforced until the reaction against the Jesuit Order in 1703 compelled the restoration of the vernacular. Another feature was the strict system of religious study and discipline imposed on all the pupils. Teachers were enjoined, not only to require attendance on the school religious services, but “to habituate the scholars to the use of certain forms of prayer to God and to the saints.” “These,” it is said, “they may * The Latin of Emmanuel Alvarus, published 1581, and the Greek of Gretser. 120

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. repeat, now from the book, now from memory, lest by monotony they grow irk some; or, at times, they may go through with them in silence and mentally. They should chiefly make use of the Rosary Office and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.” Besides these prayers, the Catechism and Latin Gospels were read and committed. Those failing in any of these duties were punished, and those specially attentive to them were rewarded. Coming to the superior or higher studies, in the two years of Rhetoric and Poetry, the Latin was still the main study, Greek receiving attention half an hour a day during the first and an hour a day in the second year. In the higher course proper, two or three years were devoted to Philosophy, all text-books and lectures being in the Latin language.

Aristotle is the leading authority; Averroes the Arabian is carefully examined; but the true philosophy, it is taught, is only fully found in the Fathers of the Chlurch. The “Ratio Studiorum” directs: “The professor should make honorable mention of our holy Thomas; should delight to agree with him, and dissent only where necessary, and with great reluctance.” In the first year of this higher course, Aristotle’s Logic was required; in the second year, his Heaven an*Generation; and in the third, his Meteorology and The Soul. A special professor also lectured on Aristotle’s Ethics. Geometry and Physics were also special and later studies. After this course, those destined to the ministry are to take Sacred Literature.

The Latin Vulgate is made the standard, but the Hebrew and Greek originals are studied, the Septuagint, Chlaldee, and other versions, are referred to for confirmation; but Rabbinical comments, and the entire subject of Chronology, Biblical Geography, and Antiquities, find small place. In Scholastic or Dogmatic Theology, Thomas Aquinas is the text-book of chief authority. The third department of theological study, called Casuistry, expounds the sacraments and trains the ministers to their practice; it enforces the orders and duties of the clergy, and teaches the moral duties of the domestic and other relations to be maintained in the Church; and it discusses divided opinions and doubtful questions in doctrine and morals.

In the American colleges the order of studies is more nearly conformed to that of the system with which it has to vie. Three years are occupied by the Rudiments, or what, by way of explanation, is called the preparatory and junior course. The studies of the first year are Latin and Greek Grammar, Iistoiria Sacra, Viri Romae, Geography, English Grammar, History of the Bible, History of the United States; Davies’ Arithmetic, Penmanship, and English and Latin Composition. In the second year, the Greek, Latin and English Grammars are continued; in Latin Cicero and Phsedrus, Ovid and Nepos, are read, Grseca Minora is begun; Geography and Arithmetic are continued, also Modern History, Penmanship, and Book-keeping, and Greek and Latin Composition. In the third year, the Grammars and Composition are continued; in Latin Coesar, Ovid, Curtius, and Virgil; in Greek Xenophon, Anacreon, and Lucian, are read; and Mythology, Algebra atid English studies are added. Four years are devoted to the senior course or college proper. In the first year, called Humanities, the studies are, in Latin Sallust, Virgil, and Cicero; in Greek Xenophon and Theocritus; Latin Prosody, Ancient History, Geometry, and Algebra In the second year, called Poetry, Livy, Horace and Cicero in Latin, Ilerodotus, Homer and Thucydides in Greek, Trigonometry, Surveying, and Analytical Geometry, Ancient Geography and History, Precepts of Rhetoric and Poetry, together with writing Latin and Greek, are the main studies. In the third year, called Rhetoric, Cicero, Quinctilian, Juvenal, Persius and Tacitus in Latin; Demosthenes, 3~schylus and Sophocles in Greek; and in Mathematics, Analytical Geometry and Calculus; to which are added Rhetoric, Ancient History, and the 121

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-NATIOX\AL BAPTIST History of Grecian, Roman, and English Literature. In the fourth and final year, called Philosophy, Logic, Metaphysics and Ethics are taught in Latin lee.tures; to which the more recent catalogues add: “It has been deemed advisable to diversify the regular discussions in Latin by the introduction of English dissertations on the various topics of Philosophy.” Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and Astronomy, are also taught in lectures. The study of French is made a speeialty, as also Italian, German or Spanish, Music, Drawing, Dancing, and Fencing. The discipline of the college is secured by the constant watch-care of younger officers of the college. The sleeping-rooms are large halls, with beds arranged side by side with separating curtains, the beds being all single, and the whole under the eye of a prefect. The pupils rise at 5: 15 A. M., and go to early Mass, after which they study in a common room till 7: 30
o’clock, when they breakfast. At 8:15 A. M. the public exercises begin and continue to 11: 15 A. M. At 12 they dine. Recreation is allowed till 2: 30

P. M., when the exercises are continued till 5 o’clock. During the hours of meals a reader is employed. All pupils must attend the religious services; ” of whom,” says the discipline, “it is required that they assist with propriety at the public duties of religion with their companions.” Inasmuch as the eventful history of this order has turned upon the criticisms passed in their own Church favorable or unfavorable on their methods of instruction, no view of Jesuit Collegiate Education can be complete without a review of that history. This review should be restricted, however, entirely. to the criticisms passed by educators on their systems of instruction. The first college of the order, established in 1550 at Rome, and called the “Collegium Romanun,” and the second in Germany in 1552, and called the “Collegium Germanicuti,” were so rapidly followed by others that in a few years the education of thie higher classes in society was chiefly in their hands. The history of their order during the first century of its existence, published by themselves in 1640, uses this language: “A great number of Catholic associations and fraternities, to which the general nmovement of the human mind at ‘the period” (referring to the German Reformation) “gave rise, appeared and eclipsed one another without glory-like those meteors which shine for a time in the atmosphere, and leave not a trace behind’them. The Society of Jesus, however, rose above the horizon, like an awful comet which scattered terror among the nations. While it was scarcely yet established, it rendered important service to the Holy See during the sitting of the Council of Trent, and powerfully influenced the decrees of that assembly.

The ancient orders, especially the mendicant, conceived great envy against these new-comers, who set out with so much celebrity, and attracted all consideration and all favors. This emulation redoubled the activity of all such as were not Jesuits, and in particular of the Dominicans, who wielded in a more terrible manner than ever the sword of the Inquisition, entrusted to their hands. The Jesuits, however, outstripped all their rivals, acquired the unlimited favor of the Pontiffs, and an immniense power through the whole Catholic world. To them and to the Pope, missions were the same as colonies to political governments-a source of wealth and power.” If such is their own statement of the rivalry awakened by their schools, we should expect to find their methods criticised. If such were the ernds sought in their acquired superiority, it would not be surprising if, in the partisan strife, power should, from time to time, change hands, and the favor of pontiffs and princes be lost as well as gained. The causes of this success in their educational system is apparent. The prac tical commonsense of men in all ages is substantially the same. The same experience that made Dr. Wayland see so clearly the faults of the scholastic 122

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. system, had waked up Alcuinus in the tenth and Aquinas in the thirteenth centuries; and it was not surprising that the new spring given at the Reformation to revived letters in Germany and England should hint to the new Order of Jesus their new, or rather newly employed, system. It was not surprising, either, that their reform should be pushed to an extreme. and the pride of innovation should produce a reaction by carrying the innovators to excess. There was a call just at this era for Bacon’s Novum Organum; though this newly employed, rather than new method, only drew forth, as a trusty sword from its scabbard, the old weapon of Aristotle, on which the rust of the Middle Ages had gathered. There was a call, at his day, for Bacon’s comment on the Jesuit as compared with the Oxonian and the Cantabrigian system, in which he and the men of his time had been trained. The old Triviutm and Quadrivium (the three branches of the preparatory and four of the college course, constituting even now, in the old ecclesiastical institutions, the seven stairways in the ” gradus ad Parnassum”) were kept in m ind by the two time-honored mnemonic lines “Gram. loquitur; Dia. verba docet; Rhe. verba ministrat; Mus. canit; Ar. numerat; Ge. ponderat; As. colit astra.” The three former, Grammar, Dialectics or Logic, and Rhetoric, were, perhaps, as well taught as in modern times; but Music-comprehending all the liberal arts -Arithmetic and Geometry the Exact and Astronomy the Natural Sciences, were not only a mere apology for the progress proposed by Lord Bacon, but were also, il method, antagonistic to his new suggestion. Hence the emphatic commendation on any teacher ready for reform, found in Bacon’s oft-quoted but not fully weighed words: “As regards teaching, this is the sum of all direction: take example by the schools of the Jesuits; for better do not exist.” “When I look at the diligence and activity of the Jesuits, both in imparting knowledge and in moulding the heart, I bethink me of the exclamation of Agesilaus concernling Pliarnabazus:‘Since thou art so noble, I would thou wert on our side.’” As the spirit of Luther and the.Germans had awakened the Jesuits to new labors, so the Jesuits, thus commended by Bacon, roused the more conservative English; and during the Commonwealth, shortly after, Milton and Locke began those reforms in the educational systems of Great Britain which have shown their matured fruit in the Rugby School and the new colleges of Dissenters. It was, however, Luther, as the statement of the Jesuit historian shows, who had given this impetus; for before their order was formed, he had written his own suggestions for a reform in university education, saying: “How often do I lament my own case, that I read so few of the classic poets and historians when I was young-that there was no one to guide me to them; but in place of them, I was compelled to flounder in all manner of vain philosophic and scliolastic trash, true Serbonian bogs.” The opposition to the Jesuit instruction was early aroused. In 1550, only ten years after the establishment of their order, when the Jesuits asked permission of Henry II. to establish schools in France, and the Parliament was directed by him to act on the application, the crown lawyers opposed, the university remonstrated, and the Bishop of Paris wrote at length against the Order as possessed of a dangerous power. The Faculty, December 1st, 1554, says: “This new society appropriates particularly to itself the unusual title of the name of Jesus; it receives with great laxity and without any discrimination all kinds of persons, however criminal, lawless, and infamous they may be; it withdraws from the obedience and submission due to ordinaries; it unjustly deprives both temporal and spiritual lords of their rights; it brings disturbance into every form of government; and it occasions many subjects of complaint, lawsuits, contentions, jea 123

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NATIONAL BAPTIST lousies, and schisms among the people.” Kindred remonstrances came from other quarters, and the order was excluded from France till 1560. They were also excluded or expelled, between 1560 and 1580, from Antwerp and Vienna, Salamanca and Milan. Meeting in Elizabeth of England an earnest antagonist, they sought an asylum in the English Catholic college of Douai, in the north of France, where an English translation of the Scriptures was prepared, which anticipated by a few years the translation of James I. Repeated remonstrances came from the universities, though their voice was often powerless. In an appeal of the University of Paris, presented to the government June 17th, 1624, the Faculty say: “The order of Jesuits reckons, at present, above 10,580
members, so skilled in the science of government, that, even among the lay brethren, are those who could give lessons to the chancellors of Granada and Valladolid; that is to say, the King’s Council of State. The Jesuits have ruined the colleges of other universities in the kingdom; and all in order that they might have no one to contradict them in their corrupt doctrines, or oppose their design of domination over consciences and States.” In January, 1656, the first of Pascal’s “Provincial Letters”

appeared, the index of a widespread sentiment. In Austria, about 1660, the reigning Empress removed the Jesuits from the universities and schools, and appointed directors to superintend the Schools of Grammar, Humanities, and Rhetoric, and revise the lectures on Theology and Philosophy. In Spain, in 1667, they were forbidden to take charge of schools. Yet later, in 1724, the Universities of Paris, Louvain, and Aix, united in new and more earnest opposition to their system of instruction.

Monc’lare of Aix, writing at the time, exclaims: “In truth, it is a species of madness to boast of the usefulness of the Jesuits in education.

They have occupied this college for a hundred and forty years; and, cast your eyes on the deplorable state of literature in this country, where the very climate is favorable to genius. The Jesuits are not men of learning; they dread and persecute those who are. They have elsewhere more celebrated colleges. What do youth acquire in them, after wasting the most precious part of-their lives? Some frivolous accomplishments, a decided vanity, a superficial acquaintance with profane authors, especially the poets; some practices of exterior devotion, which are soon neglected; a profound ignorance of religion, and a deplorable want of those solid principles which form the Christian and the citizen.” “The Bible is unknown to their students; they wish to conceal it from the whole world, since their own condemnation is recorded in that Divine volume.” These strong utterances coming from representatives of the Catholic Church, though manifesting the excitement of conflicting interests, were yet brought out when important facts-two of which are deserving of notice-gave them special weight. The method of receiving Japanese and Chinese, as professed Christian converts, pursued by the Jesuit mnissionaries, had at this era been considered and disapproved at Rome. Without any intellectual apprehension of the truths of Christianity, these people were trained to a few forms of adoration of the crucifix and the virgin, while they retained not only the vices, but even the practices, of ancestral and even Buddhist devotion. A second fact, still referred to by the French Catholic opponents of the Jesuit system, is this: That in France, Voltaire, Diderot, Helvetius, Marmontel, St. Lambert, Lametrie, and others of the popular leaders of the French Revolution, who rushed into atheism in religion and anarchy in politics, were trained by Jesuit instructors; Voltaire showing to the last an affection for his old teacher, Father Poree, so strong that he dedicated to him his Merope. Expressions similar to that quoted above appeared from the pens of rival orders, in depreciation of the Jesuit schools. As early as 1650, the Bishop of Angelopolis wrote to Pope Innocent X.: “What 124

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. good can fathers derive from all the instruction given to children, if, in depriving them of their interesting society, they at length dismiss them with the disgrace of a superficial education.”

Subsequently to this, when mainly oil the ground of political intrigues the Jesuits began to lose the confidence of the sovereigns of Europe, their system of education was always cited as a charge against them. In 1728, the King of Sardinia closed their colleges, his successor, in 1731, com pleting the work of their expulsion. The attention of other sovereigns of Europe being called to their schools, it was found that about 1750 they had 669 colleges, 176 seminaries, while their minor schools in France alone numbered 700. Such authority, too, had they obtained that one of the rules of their order required that they should not accept any college unless it had ample buildings and an endowment sufficient to support fourteen teachers. The supply of teachers was secured by the pledge of their pupils that every one educated in their colleges should give as many years teaching in them as he had received tuition. In 1759 the Archbishop of Vienna, in a letter to the Pope, complained that both the matter and manner of the Jesuit instruction was objectionable. In the same year, by an edict dated 28th June, 1759, the King of Portugal declared that “the main object of the Jesuits in securing the direction offeducation in the kingdom was to keep the youth in ignorance so that they might retain them in a state of subjection and dependence.” In 1765, France, the country in which from the first their system had been critically scanned, and as injurious in its tendency, sternly opposed, where, after a century’s experience, such minds as Pascal, having thoroughly analyzed, had sternly rejected it, the government issued an edict of expulsion, which Spain soon followed. One of their opposers says: “The order can show no distinguished preacher, no great theologian nor humanist,” or man of true culture. “That in Spain so great barbarism rules, is to be ascribed to their educational system.” At about the same period the Abbe Gedouin wrote: “I wish that their public schools would render themselves more serviceable by departing from an old routine which restricts the education of youth within a sphere peculiarly narrow, and which produces very shallow students. For, at the end of ten years, which these young men have passed at college, what have they learned, and what do they know?” All these comments show that true progress did not belong to the Jesuit system. Meanwhile, chiefly on the charge of political intrigues, yet partly on educational grounds, the Jesuits had so lost power, that in 1768 all the Bourbon powers, France, Spain, Naples and Parma, united in a demand upon the See of Rome that the Order should be suppressed. A few months after, in 1769, Clement XIII.

died. Through the influence of those allied courts, his successor, Clement XIV., was brought to the Papal chair, on the written declaration previously given that a Pope, without any violation of canonical law, could suppress an ecclesiastical order. After long and trying hesitation, on the 21st July, 1773, Clement set his name to the bull suppressing the Order of Jesus. From political reasons mainly, Protestant Holland and England, and Russia, the defender of the Greek Church, became for a third of a century the home of the Jesuits. During this period the merits and defects of their system of instruction were still discussed, and with careful discrimination. The effort of Clement, while suppressing the order, to counteract any violent reaction against the Jesuits, is manifest in this language of his Bull: ” Further, we will that if any one of those who have heretofore professed the institutes of the company shall be desirous of dedicating themselves to the instruction of youth, care be taken that they have no part in the government or direction of the same; and the liberty of teaching be granted to such only whose labors promise a happy issue, and who shall show themselves averse to all spirit of dispute and untainted with 125

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NATIONAL BAPTIST any doctrines which may occasion or stir up frivolous and dangerous quarrels. In a word, the faculty of teaching youth shall neither be granted nor continued but to those who seem inclined to maintain peace in the schools and tranquillity in the world.” In the same spirit both Catholic and Protestant writers reviewed and passed judgment on their work as teachers. Chateaubriand, as an intelligent French scholar, thought their suppression on the whole injurious, because of the stimulus it gave their pupils; while as thorough masters of science he recognizes their superficialness as compared with the profounder but less pretentious orders of the Catholic Church. Hallam commends them because “they discarded the barbarous school-books then in use, and put the rudimentary study of language on a better footing.” It is sufficient here to recall that these reforms were inaugurated by educators in ages long before, and that the Jesuit order have always been but copyists of methods originating in the spirit of republican liberty and of comprehensive thought. Hahlin qualifies his statement by the observation that though “their schools were inferior to the UIniversities in their variety of studies,” they excelled in methods; an excellence, however, over the mediaeval, not over the modern systems of Europe. Macaulay very fully and impartially sets the defects over against the merits of their method. 2 German Catholic professor in the Gymnasia of Vienna, Austria, says, that “of 150,000
members,” of this order, “up to 1774, some fifteen or twenty,” or a little more than one out of ten thousand, “were good Latin scholars.” He adds: “In Philosophy, scarcely a single work can be named which has added any decided influence on the progress of thought. In historical labors, *
they have been greatly surpassed by the Benedictines of St. Maur.” The French Revolution, breaking like a deluge over France and reacting upon all Europe, swept away every vestige for a time of old systems and party controversies as to systems of education; but only for about ten years.

The reaction of monarchical as opposed to democratic ideas, which showed itself when Napoleon was proclaimed emperor, was not more positive than that which brought back ecclesiastical control over education; with, however, this modification. The spirit of energy and enterprise-in harmony with the entire atimuas of French character, which made an elected emperor succeed readily to a decayed line of hereditary sovereigns-showed itself in the educational as well as other features of the Empire. That same Napoleon, who as a boy of fifteen had the hardihood in 1784 to write to the sub-principal of the Military School at Paris, of which he had been a pupil less than one year, a letter proposing extensive reforms in the discipline,-reforms which, about 1805, twenty years later, hlie actually introduced into his new Military School, founded at Fontainebleau-that man of restless invention and indomitable execution, in 1800, began to invite back the Jesuits to France as able coadjutors. That same Pope, Pius VII., who, against the remonstrances of Louis XVIII., came to Paris in November, 1804, to crown Napoleon as Emperor, and who wrote, “What joy, what pleasure we experienced in our first interview with the Emperor, whose fame has sounded to the extretnities of the world, and whom God has chosen to restore the true religion “-Pius VII. was, ten years later, on the 7th August, 1814, led to sign a bull restoring and redstablishing( the Order of Jesus. The terms of the Papal decree, so far as their authority in education is concerned, are mainly these. After citing the reasons, growing in influence, which had led to this reestablishment, beginning with the Emperor Paul of Russia, in 1801, just before his death, it enacts:” We decide and grant power, that they may freely and lawfully apply themselves to the education of youth in the principles of the Catholic faith, to form them to good morals, and to undertake the direction of colleges and seminaries.” The result of this reestablishment on educational facilities granted to the order 126

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. has varied according to the position taken by different countries of Europe. Into Switzerland they have scarcely at any era or in any canton been admitted-so jealous is the political spirit of those mountain communities. On the other hland, Frederic, of Prussia, invited them to an asylum when expelled from Catholic France; and so fearless of any overshadowing influence is that great Protestant power, that a measure of freedom has ever been allowed them. Little Holland admitted them as powerless exiles, but banishedr them, when, about 1816, they had become a dangerous power. Russia, where their General found an asylum during the days of their suppression, expelled the order in 1820.

England, quite independent in her secure Protestantism, has tacitly left them undisturbed. Seeking an asylum in Lancashire, their College at Stoneyhurst, giving free tuition, grew into favor and became a centre of considerable influence. In Ireland, most of the colleges, as Maynooth, have been under their control. Turning now to the Catholic States, we find them admitted into Portugal in 1820, but exiled in 1834; while in Belgium their influence increased from 1830. In France their history has been as checkered as has that of the government. Encouraged at first by Napoleon, the Acts of 1804 and of 1810 put restraints on their schools. At the restoration of the Bourbons they were left unmolested; but in 1830, when with Charles X. the Bourbon dynasty ceased, they disappeared from view.

Reappearing again in 1836, nine years later, in 1845, under the attack of Tliers, who assailed the Order because of the amount of property and influence they wielded, they were obliged once more to seek obscurity. At the origin of the new Empire of Louis Napoleon, in 1852, and especially through the influence of the Empress, they have been brought more into favor. Austria, after the restoration of the Order, refused to permit them an entrance; but in 1820, on their expulsion from Russia, political reasons favored their admission, and they soon obtained schools in the Empire. In Spain, shortly after the reestablishment of the Order, and especially after the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, the Jesuits returned. In the revolution of 1820 they were expelled by the Cortez, but in 1825 were brought back by French bayonets, which restored Ferdinand to his throne; and the Military College at Segovia and other institutions were placed under their control. In 1837, their privilege as educators was again abolished. Tilese alternations were continued until the late revolution of 1868-9, during which they have been again expelled and their property confiscated. Down to this day the antagonism between the Jesuit and university systems of France and Germany continues, sometimes with intense bitterness. The special claim to superiority in the acquisition of Latin, as if this were the substance of all culture, still made prominent as in former days, is illustrated in an address of Peter Beck, the General of the order elected in 1853, made to the Minister of Public Instruction in Austria, in which the General urges:-” Since the Latin tongue is the language of the Church and of Christian traditions, and since in this tongue the scientific treasures of all ages and of all nations are preserved, and no other has so developed itself for the expression of faith and of science, the Society of Jesus has for this tongue a special love, and makes use of it for the purpose of giving instruction in its schools.” On the other hland, there is scarcely a city of Catholic Germany where the ablest professors, in almost every department, are not loud in their denunciation of the Jesuit system as superficial even in what it attempts, and utterly behind the spirit of the age in what it proposes. Frequently popular lectures are given by such professors, analyzing the Jesuit system, showing that it is utterly opposed to popular or general education, while it is defective and behind the age in its training of the few to whom it seeks to give a higher education. In France, the Protestant 127

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Guizot is mild and philosophic in his optosition. In. his memoirs of his own time, he devotes half an entire volume to the four years of his administration as Minister of Public Instruction under Louis Philippe. He gives a masterly analysis of the end and aim of public education, of the systems that preceded and followed the Revolution, and of his own which now prevails. He takes the view that the end and methods of instruction should be controlled by the State, to promote its object, which is the welfare of all; and this view he supports by reference to Washington’s Republican declaration, that “influence is not government.”

Educated men and government move in two spheres which should be in accord.

Before the Revolution the Church claimed the control of education; and the University of Paris, the Sorbonne, and minor institutions, were controlled by the Benedictines, the Oratorians, the Lazarists, and the Jesuits. The Revolution broke up this sway; and from 1789 to 1800, no less than three distinct systems in the short space of eleven years succeeded each other.

The first was that of Talleyrand, which made, as it was charged, an “academic Church” the arbitrary controller; merely transferring power from educated men with religion to educated men without religion. The second was that of Condorcet, the theoretic advocate of Equality; who would have all institutions of learning brought down to one common capacity, and would place all pupils, no matter what their mission in life, in the same classes. The third was that of Dannon, the champion of Liberty; the two watchwords of the Revolution being made by him quite antagonistic, since he would allow any one to teach what and how thly pleased, and all to learn what and where they chose. This chaos, intensified by the return of ecclesiastical sway, and by the partial and conflicting claims of the ecclesiastical orders, especially of the Jesuits, Guizot set himself for four years to bring into order and efficient harmnony. As to the Jesuit system, he thinks it can never harmonize with any State system; while it, moreover, is antagonistic to all other ecclesiastical efforts at general education. The only successful system that can be attained is that of the United States, where the Church and State unite and cooperate in public and higher education, into vwhichl the Jesuit system cannot’enter as a part. While such is the mild and philosophic statement of Guizot, the Protestant, no American can broach the subject of Jesuit instruction to a Parisian college professor, without opening the vent for a terrific explosion of indignant denunciation. Coming, now, to America, the country to which the great statesman and eminent Christian philosopher of France thus refers, we find that not only in the then French settlements of Louisiana and the Mississippi, but also in the Atlantic States, colleges, under the control of Jesuits, were early established. The college at Georgetown, D.C., was planted as early as 1792, under a Maryland charter, and just when the seat of the Federal Government, then in its incipiency, was fixed-a college wwhich was the first chartered by the National Congress in 1815, and which for thirty years held almost undisputed sway over education at that centre of domestic and foreign influence. Since that era, while among about two hundred and sixty colleges in the entire United States, thirty are Catholic, sixteen of that thirty, or more than half, are presided over by Jesuit instructors. The careful observation of many years leads to the following facts and conclusion regarding their system as a whole. Favored in this country of ours, as the enterprising of all European nations were, to begin without any frowning establishment to oppose, each on its philosophy derived from the past, has, as the great minds of Europe now recognize, shown by its fruits the nature of its foundation principles. As a large body of the thinking men, especially of educators, in Catholic countries of Europe have agreed with Protestants in their estimate arid expressed views of the 128

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Jesuit system, so now it is not Protestants but Catholics whose interest is con sidered to be at stake. This is manifested in such visitors to our country as Father Hyacinthe. It is Catholics who are loud in the criticisms now heard at Rome upon the Jesuit influence in America, which would make the whole Roman church, like their order, subject to the Pope as general, and not, as now, a republic with representative heads. These sentiments from over the Atlantic are heard from the lips of intelligent adherents of the Rcman church among foreign resi dents at the United States capital. As to its end, its aim, its method, and its results, the Jesuit system has not, as they so earnestly claim, been modified in any essential principle. The end proposed by the Jesuits in their collegiate instruction is the educa tion of a ruling class, not of the common people. It would remove out of the way or supplant the common school system, and restrict, if possible, higher education to the control of the Church, instead of the State; which latter, in our country, means the people, whose interests are at stake in educa tion. And this it would do for a twofold reason: first, that their order might thus gain the mighty power of a secret and exclusive band in creating for them selves an overshadowing educational system; and second, that through this means they may form a public opinion which shall enable them first to control government patronage, and thus to gain control over their own as well as other churches. To this end every feature of their college system is made to tend. No one ever taught more fully than Montesquieu, a courtier of Louis XIV. and XV., in his work of masterly comprehension, “The Spirit of Laws,” this fact, which all history shows-that all despotic and aristocratic governments take away education from the people, while the very life of a Republic is dependent on the universal instruction of the great body of freemen. No men ever stood more intelligently and firmly on a principle than did Brougham and Welling ton on this fact developed at the period when the Jesuit Order was reestablished -that the opposition to the reading of the Bible is at bottom an antagonism against the ability of the people to read at all.

Hence, the noblest men of the German and French, and even of the Italian and Spanish Catholic church statesmen, and heads of universities-in censuring the Jesuit system, condemned it because, as we have seen their minds coupled in that system two things, the exclusion of the study of the Scriptures, for which a round of ceremonies was substituted as religious instruction, and the exclusion of the reading, spelling, and grainmmar, of the vernacular, or the language of the people, and the substitution of Latin as the language of a class in its place. Hence, in a keenly logical controversial article of the “Orthodox Journal,” published at London in advocacy of the Jesuit restoration, in the number for April, 1814, a few months before their reestablishment by Pius VII., the following is the last point made in a consecutive chain of subtle reasoning, appealing alike to the English aristocratic and to the Roman ecclesiastical interests of the ruling classes in Great Britain: ” The promiscuous reading of the Bible is not calculated nor intended by God as the means of conveying religious instruction to the balk of mankind; for the bulk of mankind cannot read at all, and we do not find any Divine commandment as to their being obliged to study letters.” In keeping with this end, the rule over their own members is a military despotism. No one but the superior minds, the General and higher officers, are to have any opinion of their own; the mass of subordinates are as unthinking as a soldier in the ranks-to move at the beck of their leaders. Hence the great body of their teachers are without the inspiration, the animus, of independent thought which belongs to a genuine educator; they move machine-like about their work; few awaken any love for their studies in their pupils; and, with 9 129

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NATIONAL BAPTIST rare exceptions, the good will of their pupils which most of them secure, is rather as genial companions of their sports, amusing by their humor and winking at their neglect. Passing from the teachers to what is taught, every American instructor, accustomed to receive their pupils, finds that the Latin itself, the pride of their Order, is not taught in a way to make Latin scholars of their pupils. As a native-born teacher of the French language finds it hard to come down, even when he earnestly seeks to reach his pupil, to the utter ignorance of one commiencing the acquisition of what, to him, is vernacular; as his own knowledge, like the American’s of the English, has been attained by habit and not by rule, and it is a work of which he has never thought, to reduce everything in orthoepy, in orthography, in etymology, and in syntax, to rules, so it is with the teacher of Latin-himself generally a foreigner, whose English is less vernacular than his Latin. The idea of beginning with principles, and thoroughly analyzing the language, has never occurred to him. The American boy, coming, after two or three years in such a college, to a school after the American pattern, is found behind pupils of the first year in actual mastery of Latin; and the young mnan, led, because of the lack in other departments, to leave the Jesuit college and to seek the classroom of the Latin professor in an ordinary American college, finds to his grief, that, while he has committed to memory many fine passages of Cicero, Virgil, and other authors of less value, after all, than extracts from our best English authors to a man who is to address Americans-he has lost, while making this acquisition, all practical benefit from the study of Latin as one of the elements that make up his mother-tongue, and, indeed, as the storehouse of scientific and technical language in all the important professions and applica tions of learning. In fact, he learns the literal truth of the statement above quoted, made by the General of the Order to the Austrian Minister of Public Instruction, that the Order of Jesus give so many years to the thorough knowl edge of Latin, because “it alone embodies all true philosophy-neither Greeks, nor Germans, nor French,nor English, according to their estimate, having reached true philosophy, but only the Latin scholastics of the Middle Ages; while also the Latin-not the original Greek of the New Testament, nor any language into which it has been translated-the Latin, the favorite tongue of the Order of Jesus, is the language of “the traditions of the Church.” Turning, then, to the other studies of the Jesuit College, every feature is found to be designed to divert the mind from the fields of independent thought into those of the.imagination and poetry, or of historic description, revelling in the past. Hence, in composition, poetry is preferred to prose, as well as Latin to English. Historic and descriptive themes are chosen instead of philosophic and practical discussions. The style of elocution encouraged is the dramatic, not the oratorical; the enacting of a part by some hero of the past, and not the thoughtful, earnest address of a man of the present to his fellows. Hence, the select place for their exhibitions is the theatre-the place for histrionic perform ance-and not the rostrum where men are trained to reach and command the thought of the generation whose guides they are to be. Hence, in all the stu dies in the department of Rhetoric and Logic, it is not the method of the earnest inquirer for truth, seeking to know and to make known what is of vital import ance, but it is the tact and art of the dialectian to which the pupil is trained.

Hence, yet again, all the Natural Sciences are taught in merely illustrative lec tures, not in text-books with connected facts and principles; while all meta physical and ethical studies, political and economical science included, not only exclude all modern and republican ideas, but cover up the abstruse and subtle 130

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. reasoning of the scholastic Aquinas of the Middle Ages, the misguided interpre ter of Aristotle, in the veil of mediseval Latin. The results of such a training are now what they have been not only during all the three centuries since the Jesuits took the place of kindred instructors preceding them, but also what from its very nature such training always has produced, and must always still exhibit. Occasionally, a sincere spirit, like Des Cartes, will work through the crust with which the iron pressure of Scholasti cism has encased him, into the free fields of independent reason; or, like Luther, will bound out from the Serbonian bogs of medieval dialectics, and, led by a hand that is stronger than his own, will find his feet standing on a rock that is higher than his own reach. Others, utterly unfitted for practical life, will become passive servants of their educators, ready for anything in their employ. Many more now go out in our country, to stand in varied business pursuits and practical professions, alongside of the great host of young men trained to independent thought and self-reliant action, and they fall back into the shade, and are soon lost to view. Aware at last of these results, the policy of Jesuit instructors now is to employ practical men who are neither Jesuits nor even Catholics, for professional and even for higher college instruction, as in the applied mathematics, the natural sciences, elocution, and in their newly organized law and medical schools. In this rivalry, of course there is an open field in a land like ours. But the entire remodeling for practical power, which those newly added features exhibit, is an indication unmistakable of their own estimate of their own system so far as its application to any other than their own order is concerned. A final feature worthy of special pondering, is the Jesuit system of college discipline; that feature which makes the college a prison-like reform-school for the refractory, and which showers premiums, prizes, encomiums, and distinctions on favorites of the teacher, or on the sons of men whose influence in the public is important. The French and German Catholic writers who discussed the Jesuit system in its earlier days, spoke of this. The whole college was in that early day, like the Order itself, divided up into a little monarchy, with favorite pupils as “magistrates, proctors, censors, and decurions;” and the independent spirit of buoyant youth was hectored and finally crushed by irritating espionage and petty tyranny, while the sons of nobles were decked with honors to which they were not entitled, and paraded as champions, while their superiors of hu’mbier parentage were kept in the background. The commencements of their American colleges now require hours for the distribution of tinsel and blue ribbon. The paid reporters make up newspaper columns filled with the names of the receivers of medals, certificates, prizes, &c. He must have a parentage obscure indeed that has no notice; and the excess of flattery to parental vanity is a fit counterpart of the barren preparation for li/e which the decorated insignia-bearer carries from the college walls into the stern American society, which tests in the sons of our princes the value of a royal road to learning. There are many features of the Jesuit system which can never be copied by the American, or any other republican people. There are other and numerous features in which, from the days of Loyola following Luther, the Jesuit teachers have been but copyists. In three particulars their successors may serve to im press principles already recognized by American instructors: First-Our schools must be brought down to the capacities of beginners. The real power of foreign, and especially of Jesuit teachers in our country, is in asylums and schools for children. The grade and the discipline of our edulcational institutions must meet the demands of parental needs and anxieties in these respects. Our academies and schools for both sexes must precede the university, not only in time, but in importance in our educational enterprises. 131

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Second-The standard of classic attainment, the place given to the Greek and Latin languages, must never be lowered or restricted in our college curriculum. Much is to be added, doubtless, in the departments of varied science and art to the course of college study prescribed. Every experiment, however, in our colleges, confirms what the special claim of Jesuit instruction urges, that the elaborate languages of ancient civilization are still to be the foundation of all thorough culture. Third-The Baptist colleges of America, now about equal in number to the Catholic, must be worthy their high mission. With an end and aim entirely the opposite of that devoted to the training of a party for the interest of a sect, they should be catholic in spirit, comprehensive in culture, republican in tendency, and popular in their aims. Above all, discarding even the double suggestion of the old Cambridge motto: “Pro Christo et ecclesice,” that higher and inspired maxim, “Christ only,” is that by which we shall hope to conquer. Dr. CUTTING: Before we proceed to the order of the day, I would like to say in reference to the address to which we are to listen, that Dr. CURRY’S acceptance of the position was too late to admit of correspondence in respect to details, and not knowing, therefore, exactly the form in which to put his topic in the programme, I have so inserted it that a paper may be expected. Dr. CURRY
will not present a paper, but will address us orally on the theme assigned him. Dr. CURRY then spoke as follows: It is with unfeigned embarrassment that I venture to speak before such an assembly as this upon a subject so comprehensive in its sweep and so varied in its details. Some aspects of the subject are attended with exceeding delicacy, as no arbitrary rules can be laid ddwn in advance, adapted to every state of society and every condition of life. One of the chiefest embarrassments, meeting me at the threshold, is the difficulty of obtaining accurate information as to the state of education at the South. Since the close of the war, there has been so much uneasiness in the public mind-such a general sense of uncertainty or insecurity -such a necessity fo laying anew, and on a different basis, the foundation of our institutions, civil as well as educational, and for adapting customs, feelings, thoughts, actions, to the accomplished revolution, and also, for recovering property and securing estates from bankruptcy and families from want, that movements and efforts, in the direction of general education, have been irregular and without thorough and systematic plans. I fear, from some quiet assumptions, incidentally made in the discussion and papers, that serious misapprehension exists in reference to education at the South. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Applying this test, I may say, without arrogance, that in Law, in Medicine, in Theology, in Diplomacy, la [Applause.] Prior to the war, no general system: of Common Schools existed in all the States. Alabama had a system gradually perfecting and growing into completeness. Various towns and cities had free schools in more or less successful operations. Academies and colleges, for boys and girls, were abundant and of a high order. Every State, except Texas, Arkansas, and Florida, had what was called a 132

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. university, well equipped, well patronized, and tolerably endowed. Some oppo sition (in which I did not share) unquestionably existed to State systems, as interfering with parental control, as converting government into a sort of second hand providence, and making it a guardian of private interests, as moulding all the youth after a prescribed model, as interfering with the full development of human personality. The war suspended schools, academies, colleges, and universities, in large measure. Every possible energy of the people, involving the contribution of every dollar and every able-bodied man, brought home to the South the truth of the French epigram, La guerre est la guerre. War is war. The baptism of blood swept away property, lives, institutions, and when we emerged and regained consciousness, it was to discover the disjecta membra of an extinguished civiliza tion, floating hither and thither, without coherency or direction. Soon realizing and accepting in good faith the situation, our most sagacious men saw the indis pensableness of reconstruction as to our material and mental and moral interests. Schools have been opened, and poverty, indiscriminate and remorseless, drew a class of more thoroughly educated persons into the school-room, as teachers. Colleges were reorganized. Injudicious legislation and perverse exercise of authority have crippled, almost closed, the State institutions of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama; but in Virginia, Georgia, and Mississippi, the uni versities are on the full tide of successful prosperity. Virginia is becoming an educational centre, and over 2,000 young men are now at the various colleges in the State. In Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, Baptists have colleges for girls that compare favorably with any in the United States. In the same States are Baptist colleges for young men that have nearly regained their ante-bellum success. Of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Greenville, South Carolina, presided over by such scholars as Broadus. Boyce, Williams, Manly and Toy, our School of the Prophets, I need not speak, as two of the Professors are here to speak for themselves much more eloquently and effectively than I ever dare aspire to do. No enterprise commands more of the sympathy and confidence of our denomination, as the policy is well defined, instead of frittering away our strength in trying to have a theological school in every State, or a theological professor in every college, to have one complete institution, an honor to the Baptists, and furnishing the particular instruction which their polity demands. [Applause.] Of Richmond College, with which I am connected, I may say that at the close of the war, with the noble patriotism which characterized the people of Leyden, the trustees determined upon its complete reorganization, and they put into the field their indefatigable agent, Dr. POINDEXTER, who secured large subscriptions of money. The College went into operation upon the basis of the elective system and independent schools. We have over 160 students. Thirty of these are studying with a view to the ministry, being sustained by the Education Board, of which Dr. Burrows is the accomplished and successful President.

It is necessary to enlarge the buildings for the accommodation of our students. We need also an increased chemical and philosophical apparatus and a larger library. After the surrender, our buildings were occupied as barracks and hospital by a portion of the Union army. When the troops were withdrawn, some kind friends, careful of our interests, carried away a large number of books, which, amid the turmoil and excitement of these perverse times, they have forgotten to return. When I was a politician, I used occasionally to read in the newspapers, under the head of “Conscience Money,” that certain persons, moved thereto by compunctious visitings, had returned to the treasury, with compound interest, 133

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NATIONAL BAPTIST funds which legitimately belonged to “Uncle Sam.” I venture most respectfully to suggest these illustrious precedents as worthy of being followed in the case of Richmond College. My colleagues in this Convention will sustain me in the statement that more enthusiasm in the cause of education exists at the South than ever before. Our people impatiently await perfect security and tranquillity when they can be permitted to enter again the arena and contend for the prizes of life. I should be doing injustice to the South if I were to fail, in a meeting of educators and educated men, to pay a tribute to Peabody, the cosmopolitan philanthropist, who, by his munificent donation, gave an impulse and stimulus that imparted fresh life and energy throughout our entire limits.

[Applause.] Nearly all the Southern States are preparing to adopt common school systems. In this effort, it ought to be remembered, that we have obstacles hard to surmount, and difficulties that are not easy of removal.

In this awakened sense of the necessity of a high and universal education, both races are included. [Applause.] The colored people, as citizens and wards of the nation, need to be qualified for their exalted responsibilities. [Applause.] It remains to be determined whether ex tension of liberty was purchased at the expense of material comforts or de generacy in civilization. Many victories are fatal to conquerors. Duties are sometimes forgotten in privileges. Possession of sudden power engenders vanity and presumption. Few realize the magnitude of the duty and the perils in reference to the recently-enfranchised race. Great preventive agencies are needed to restrain them from superstition, deeper ignorance and barbarism, and to prevent them from becoming the tools of demagogues and the dupes of un scrupulous proselyting errorists and sectaries. I gladly hail all proper efforts to lift them up, and make them fit for the superior prerogatives they possess. [Applause.] Whatever may be our opinions of the past, no intelligent man or woman would ree6nslave a single one. [Applause.] After the close of the war, when men’s minds were fretted and irritated by defeat and disappointment, I signed a call for, and with pleasure participated in, a public meeting, to urge immediate and adequate measures for the education of the blacks; but education of itself is insufficient. It needs to be pervaded by Christianity, sanctified by religion, and accompanied, pari passu, by the most patient and persevering efforts for their moral elevation. Pressense told an assembly of French infidels, that what France needed was not so much liberty as a God. Civilization without Christianity contains in itself the seeds of decay and destruction. The elective franchise will not arrest tendencies to evil, cure moral depravity, or dispel the shadows of superstition. Upon the lowest view of the case, the great work of civilization cannot be elaborated among four millions of suddenly liberated slaves, without instructing them in the things that make up the highest ob jects of human life; “without giving them some taste for art, science, and the refining influences which follow in their train; without some knowledge of the destinies of their species, as learned from the workings of human societies in the past; without some notion of those moral capacities and responsibilities which elevate us above the imperfect instincts and grovelling appetites of the brutes that perish.” Christiait civilization expresses the needs of this race. When serfs were eman cipated, the Romish church undertook, in large degree, their education and en lightenment. Where now can be found the men or means to accomplish these desirable ends, if not in the Christian churches? While Christian churches have not now the monopoly of learning, or of the instruments of education, on them rests an acknowledged obligation, and they can appeal to instincts and motives that secular education cannot reach. Christianity is the leaven of hu 134:

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. manity, the great reformer and civilizer and elevator, and without it our civilization and boasted institutions are rottenness and corruption. [Applause.] In this connection, I may be permitted to say, that the Home Mission Society and local associations and individual churches cannot do too much for theological institutes for colored preachers. The adage, “Like priest, like people,” has no exception, but rather abundant verification in the history of the colored people. They need and will have preachers of their own race. Shall these preachers be trained and instructed, or ignorant and superstitious? If practicable, a degraded race should be delivered and elevated by their own class, as the patronage of the superior has a tendency to degrade character. The South owes it to herself, as a measure of selfpreservation, to educate the negroes. The North owes it as a matter of imperative obligation. Northern Baptists have a special duty here. When the war commenced, hundreds of thousands were members of Baptist churches.

The Baptist, or New Testament religion, seems to be the vernacular religion of a converted African. One of the first converts from Africa was the treasurer of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, and he unquestionably was a Baptist. Whatever may be said of the frailties of the Africans, in this respect they are disposed to adhere to the “apostolical succession.”

It is of special importance, as the race is now in a transition state, that the teachers should not be hungry politicians, but men of sound morals and strictest personal integrity. Some years ago, certain colleges, founded by Sir Robert Peel, in Ireland, were called, in derision, “godless colleges.” We are authorized to infer, from representations in public journals, that there are colleges in America which nearly deserve the same appellation. Professor Greene stated in his paper that there are some academies and colleges which are assuming a negative character in reference to religion. The assumption of negative indifference is, perhaps, too mild a statement, as prominent professors, after the manner of Professor Huxley, openly deny the authority and authenticity of the Scriptures, and hold Science to be their antipodes. Others, with presumptuous rationalism, regard belief in revelation or inspiration as an evidence of weakness. To learn any science by undermining Christianity, and rejecting the moral principle, founded on faith in Jesus, is worse than the course of the ancient Persians, who taught their children to ride, to shoot, and speak the truth. This leads me, by an easy transition, to the second branch of the subject The duty of Baptists growing out of the condition and prospects of education in the South. Historians ascribe merit to the Roinish Church for preserving, in a period of barbaric ignorance, law, art, and literature. Not the least of the moral forces she exerted upon society was the education she gave; for she was teacher and schoolmaster, as well as theologian. The educational function was recognized as belonging to the clergy, and instruction in schools was mainly administered by ecclesiastics. The “Church,” at that time, had a monopoly of the knowledge the age possessed in art, science, history, and philosophy. The cycle of the seven sciences, the Trivium and Quadrivium-Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Music, Arithmetic, Geometry and Astronomy-were the intellectual accomplishments of the times, and with these the clergy alone were conversant. Educational schemes, therefore, took the shape of conventual schools. There is a dark side to this picture. Power, the offspring of knowledge, placed the church in a dominant position among the semi-barbarian people, and many of the arrogant pretentio.ns and despotic functions of the clergy are to be traced to the influence gained in schools and colleges. Exclusive rights were claimed, and exemption from civil authority and secular tribunals was asserted and obtained. Soon the 135

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Church became allied with governments, and controlled them, and interferences with religion, literature, and science, were common and painful. Orthodoxy of the Vatican was identified with methods of philosophy. Dogmatic theology decided “infallibly” on physical science, and hence Galileo was imprisoned. The Romishl Church, true to its past history, seeks to control education in the United States and Europe.

Public schools are to be subsidized to her never-forgotten end of propagandism. Jesuitism inveigles Baptist and Protestant youth into colleges, and hundreds of Romanists can directly trace their conversion to the weakness or “gullibility” of parents, who were seduced into sending their children to institutions whose merits are very disproportionate to the extravagant laudations of which they are the subjects. These plans and purposes are to be counteracted; and Baptists ought, par excellence, to be the advanced educators of this age. They owe it to Christ, to themselves, to posterity, to put forth enlarged efforts in behalf of education. The increasing proportion of educated mind demands a ministry of high culture.

It is sometimes objected that scholarly ministers are moving away from the unscholarly masses. The increased learning and refinement of the monastic orders, particularly of the Benedictines, in feudal times, estranged them from the lower classes, alienated them from the serfs, and thereby impaired their influence. Another danger may arise from the educated masses moving away from an unscholarly ministry; for the teacher must be superior to the taught. Religious bodies must throw such force and efficiency into education, as to arrest the evil tendencies of rationalism and the necessary secularity of education in State systems. The restless activity of the age, fostering false codes of morals, is to be turned into right channels. Romanism finds its only complete and inexpugnable antagonist in Baptist principles. Spiritual churches are the only safeguard against formalism, ritualism, and infidelity. What, therefore, is a general duty for all, is a specialty with Baptists. Their exclusive reliance for religious faith is on the Bible, and that is always in harmony with the discoveries and true deductions of Science and Philosophy; for the natural and supernatural are correlated and harmonious. Science, the knowledge of the laws and phenomena of matter and mind, runs along, necessarily, in parallel lines, with that which is the best of all sciences-the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus.

[Applause.] Unfettered by tradition, or ecclesiastical domination, or dogmas of human origin, they can insist on truth-truth in the centre and truth in the circumference-truth in its purity, truth in its totality; for truth must come from the Source of all truth, and niust harmonize and cohere, logically, necessarily, universally. [Applause.] My waning time admonishes me to close at this point. VOICES: “Go on.” ” Time stops to hear you.” Dr. CURRY: I do not like to trespass. The PRESIDENT: The sense of the Convention is decidedly in favor of your going on. Dr. CURRY: I am exceedingly obliged for the kind consideration of the Convention, in extending my time, as well as for the flattering attention given my imperfect remarks. To proceed: Our contributions to literature have not been altogether what we would desire. What has been accomplished for soul-liberty, the authority of the Scriptures, the independence and spirituality of the churches, etc., is the assurance of what can be done in departments less practical or theological. The colleges 136

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. can become centres of influence and power.

Professors are to teach beyond college walls, more widely, through their writings. The influence of profound culture and successful authorship on institutions and the denomination will be most beneficial. Thus, in exhibiting highest learning and purest piety in works, they will add to permanent knowledge, magnify their offices, and contribute to the vindication and dissemination of the truth. Collegiate education is a necessity. Some one has said, that every student of respectable talents and acquirements may be regarded as thie representative of at least one thousand souls to be moulded by his opinion and example. Educated young men are to spread a civilizing and ennobling influence, to radiate a power favorable to learning and piety. Brain power is the most productive of all power. Society feels the strengthening effect of cultivated mind as the forces of nature are now responding to the gentle influences of spring.

Intellect asserts its supremacy. Napoleonic ideas are more potent than battles. After Athens, by a deed of violence against truth and justice, had banished Aristides, she recalled him before the expiration of the time, and gave him her highest confidence and posts of honor.

Diffusiveness of education, much as it is to be desired, is no panacea for all the ills of life. Intelligent and philosophical observers discover this defect. Gen eral education has not brought that mental vigor and exemption from evil that was anticipated. It may be, as Wordsworth has suggested, that the attempt has been to enlighten society by a superficial tuition, out of all proportion to its being restrained by moral culture.

The tendency seems to be to call into action the physical strength of a people, to make learning the means of making money, instead of cultivating the moral and religious nature. The head, with utilitarianism and objectivity, finds culture, while the heart, with its emotions, affections, and purer aspirations, is neglected and dwarfed. We need something, therefore, in addition to and beyond general education of the masses. Something deeper, profounder, more thorough, more comprehensive, is necessary for the maintenance of truth and the triumph of our principles. There are grand problems of life and questions of highest Scriptural and religious importance, which must be solved by a superior discipline and a higher mental culture than the majority, or even a large minority, can attain unto. While intelligence should be widely diffused, we need educated men and women scholars, thinkers, seers, who are to explore hidden truths and interpret them to the general consciousness. I will not pause to accept or reject the well-known paradox of Mr. Bancroft, that “the natural association of men of letters is with the democracy,”

but I insist upon the indispensableness of educators, true lawgivers and prophets, who lift themselves above and direct the minds and thoughts of the many. The mountain-top first catches the beams of the morning.

Afterward and later, the valleys may rejoice in the sunlight. We need and must have an educated class-in one sense, inspired men, who will expound for the millions. We need princes and yet private people-ruling while not seeming to give a command-advisers and guardians of the people possessors, interpreters, and executors of public opinion. We want those whom Platp defines as “hunters of truth,” pioneers in the march of intellect, who conduce by developed mental energy to the education of our noblest powers. We want living, energizing, vitalizing men, for, as Hamilton says, “apart from practice, a living error is better than a sleeping truth.” We want pious scholars, who will write and speak, “not to the mass but for the mass.” Books are too often written to echo rather than form opinion. Our Baptist colleges must be looked to mainly for the supply of such needs. Collegiate education should be a paramount interest in our denominational activities, and I concur cordially in the 137

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NATIONAL BAPTIST recommendation of a National Commission for Education, which shall present to the denomination throughout the whole country what is needed in particular localities. [Applause.] I beg not to be understood as favoring the promotion of our denominational colleges, to the exclusion or at the expense of popular education. Far from it. The two are intimately allied. As auxiliary to educated men-the world-masters-there must be a solid substratum of popular intelligence. In the hero-worship, so common, not altogether wrong, we are liable to attribute too exclusive merit to these demi-gods. Grossly unphilosophical is it to think of the career of Shakspeare, or Newton, or Bunyan, or Carey, or Washington, as the sudden improvisation of their own unaided, original genius. They are not solitary obelisks of intellectual or moral worth. Their greatness was the growth of the greatness around and preceding them. They were the creations of the nation’s spirit, just as it is held, that each philosophy is but the scientific expression of the spirit of the time in which it is evolved. Transcendent excellence needs adaptations and surroundings, and is often but the crystallization of what has been in fusion for centuries.

Mr. President-pardon the breach of parliamentary propriety, if adopting a Southern custom, I say, brother President-I have done, and yet hesitate to sit down without giving utterance to what struggles for expression and responding to the generous Christian sentiments, which have fallen from Dr. HAGUE and Dr. CASWELL. [Applause.] I am not able to pronounce certain Shibboleths which prevail in this latitude. I never expect to be able to pronounce them, but I hope I am a Christian. I know I am a Baptist, with a catholic and tolerant spirit, rejoicing that so many, not of “this way,”

are preaching successfully the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. I yet believe that a true Christian Baptist is the highest type of Christian manhood. In the gigantic contests, which now begin to throw their shadows across our pathway, the Baptists are to act a conspicuous part in the defence of the truth as it is in Jesus, or as Dr. HOVEY said, pro Christo et ecclesice. With strength concentrated, the Baptists are a mighty power, the mightiest for good in America. We ought to act in harmony, in loving brotherhood. For convenience and to evoke the benevolent activities of our respective peoples, we should have some separate organizations; but there can be a noble Christian emulation, provoking to love and good works and a fraternal co6pera tion in every enterprise looking to the promotion of Christian education, the cir culation of the Bible, the dissemination of Baptist literature, and the preaching of the Gospel. A kite is sometimes sent across a rapid torrent, or yawning chasm, with a silken thread. By means of this delicate connection, still other and stronger cords of steel or iron soon span the stream, until the suspension bridge is con structed, capable of bearing a heavily-freighted railway train in motion. Dr.

CUTTING has sent his white-winged messenger across the bloody chasm of the last ten years, and now, like an enchantment, before our glad eyes, there springs a bridge, constructed of chains, whose links are not iron, but burnished love. [Applause.] Dr. CURRY having occupied the hour assigned to this paper, no discussion followed its reading. The Convention proceeded to the consideration of the second paper of the afternoon, which was read by its author, Rev. E.G. RoBINSON, D. D. 138

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. THE KIND AND EXTENT OF MINISTERIAL CULTURE

DEMANDED IN OUR TIME AND IN OUR CHURCHES. Some degree of culture has always been regarded as indispensable in one who is to be a minister of the Christian religion. The kind and amount of culture supposed to be requisite have varied with varying theories of the ministerial office; but the conviction has been rapidly gaining ground in our day among holders of all theories, that a much higher standard than has hitherto prevailed is imperatively demanded. Many causes are contributing to the growth of this conviction, but we can here enumerate such only as may bear directly on the purpose of this paper. 1. Foremost among these, is that found in the nature of the functions of the Christian minister. His functions are discernible in the reasons for his existence, and these rest not more on the authority of Christ’s appointment than Christ’s appointment rests on the ordinance of nature. Within the moral constitution of man there exists an inexorable demand for a class of persons whose special attention shall be devoted to the principles of which that constitution is composed. Given human society, and there must be lawyers; the physical organism of man, and there must be medical men; the moral nature of man, and there must-be religious teachers. Thus the distinctive functions of the Christian minister are those of a qualified and authoritative religious teacher. He is not the dispenser of a salvation that may be handled, but the expounder and enforcer of truth, and the communicator of a life that can be transmitted only through truth, thought, and conviction. As distinguished from the rest of the brotherhood, he is, in the strict sense of the word, their guide, and in no sense their priest. How far, as Protestants, and even as Baptists, we are still cumbered and cursed with the notion that the minister is the “ordained” dispenser of salvation, and the sole medium of saving men, we need not tarry here to inquire, but that many of the objections to an educated ministry have their taproot in this notion will be evident enough to any one who will take the trouble to dissect them. It is too often forgotten that the real efficiency of the minister, as a preacher, and his authority as a pastor, turn on his ability, moral and intellectual, to seize, unfold, enforce the authority of Christ’s word.

Now, it is self-evident, that to teach the religion of Christ in our day is a very different matter from the original proclamation of it, or from teaching it either to those who have never before heard it, or to those who, reared under its instruction, have known it only by what they have heard from the pulpit. The rudimentary work of the Sunday school, and supplementary work of the printing-press, have thrust the pulpit into that higher sphere of duty where it must bestir itself into unfolding and justifying and enforcing broader and profounder views of truth than has been its wont in former years, or its power and its vocation alike will be gone.‘Not till our churches have been rid of the narrow Papal notion that they have hired their minister to do their duties to the rest of the world; not until, as ministers, we rise to a higher appreciation of our functions as shepherds of flocks, every member of which should be trained to be a personal preacher of the Gospel, shall we take that position which as real churches of Christ we should occupy. It is a penny-wise and pound-foolish policy in a Christian pastor to be so intent on the “conversion of sinners” as to attempt, single-handed, the work of his whole church. The wiser and Scriptural plan will be possible only when our churches shall be furnished with guides whose gifts and acquirements, both from the Holy Ghost and from all divine knowledge, shall endue them with power from on high. 139

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NATIONAL BAPTIST 2. The need of a more liberal ministerial culture is also apparent from the relation of all departments of modern science to the Bible, end consequently to the pulpit; This relation is, at present, to no small extent one of antagonism. The claims of the Bible, as a book of supernatural origin, are disputed; many of its facts and doctrines are denied. The common understanding of portions of it has been shown to be erroneous. Exegesis, within a single generation, has become almost a new science. As a result, certain interpretations have been greatly modified.

Systematic theology has been jostled, and required re-adjustment. Natural theology has been compelled to re-examine the very foundations on which it rests. All those regions of natural science and historical criticism, from which in times past were drawn most of the arguments in natural theology, and many of the weapons of defence in apologetics, are now claimed by the assailants of the Bible as lying wholly within their lines. And to discerning eyes it must be apparent enough that the conflicts thus far between science and revelation have been only the light skirmishings which precede the sterner and decisive struggles that sooner or later must come.

Under these circumstances, one of three methods of procedure is possible for the occupant of the pulpit. He can lift his eyes to heaven in holy horror of all science, and denounce it as alike satanic in origin and in spirit, and blasphemous in its claims-a method which always smacks of hypocrisy, and is resorted to only as a cover of ignorance; or he may (as Lord Bacon proposed, and as Baden Powell actually did) carry his science in one hand and his religion in the other, believing, with all his reason, in the deductions of the one, and resolved to cajole his conscience with the promises of the other; or like a true-hearted and single-minded man, he may seek diligently and patiently to hear what both science and the Bible may say to him, and then, confident that if both be true, and properly understood, they cannot conflict, will seek, with an humble mind and unshaken trust in the omniscient Spirit, to lead into all truth those who have been committed to his guidance. No intelligent man, one would think, can doubt which of these three methods a truth-loving servant of Christ should adopt; and no man can adopt the right one without a breadth and accuracy of knowledge, and a practical skill in the use of it, which can be acquired only by long and patient study. Nor does it suffice here to say that Christianity is a divine life and a divine power which no science or adverse criticism can add to or detract from, and should therefore always be preached in sublime disregard of whatever may oppose it. But religion and science cannot be divorced, nor safely allowed long to remain at variance. Man is not like an ocean steamer, divided into compartments, which are separated by impervious bulkheads, so that though one, or even two, may be crushed in and filled, he yet may be floated into the haven of his hopes. There can be no bulkhead divisions between faith and reason; what floods the one must flood the other; both must float, or be swamped together. 3. Again, every intelligent observer of our time must have observed that Christianity, both theoretical and practical, has been and still is passing through a revolution as decisive and irresistible as any that has ever marked its history. Not only are the questions that were propounded at the Reformation-more than 300years ago-re-stated with an emphasis and a meaning never before attaching to them, but both Romanismn and Protestantism are agitated each with its own special questions, which shake them to their centres. Some of these are questions that touch the very core of the Protestant heart-questions that, daily becoming more urgent, cannot be answered in a word nor in a day, and, answered, cannot leave us precisely where we were when they were first pro 140

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. pounded. The modified type of piety in our day, as compared with that of no longer than fifty years ago; the growing license of religious people in respect of practices once regarded as immoral; the instability of the pastoral relation; the increasing faith in the necessity and divine origin of periodic excitements in the diffusion of the Gospel; the spreading scepticism in our popular literature all combine to remind us of our need of the largest intelligence and the purest and most exalted piety in the religious guides of cur times, the intelligence that comes only to disciplined and well-stored minds, and the piety whose informing spirit is unswerving loyalty to Christ. Rightly to understand the present, one must know the past. Fully to com prehend the doctrines of the Church, one must trace the process by which they were formulated.

Effectively to control existing elements, one must know something of their origin and of their working in other days. And to rise above the selfishness and secularism of the nominal Christianity of our day, one must intelligently and studiously school himself into conscious and intimate fellow ship with the once humbled but now exalted personal Christ. 4. The need of a carefully educated ministry is apparent from the connection subsisting between the pulpit and our national life. In all Christian countries, this relation is always more or less intimate and reciprocal. History tells plainly enough what the relation has been when made organic, and established by law. In our own country, this relation is an anomaly in history. A government whose organic law studiously avoids a recognition not only of a church, but even of a religion, is yet a government whose deepest roots sprung out of and to-day draw their richest sap from the religious convictions of the governed. A pulpit under such a government, untrammelled by its laws andy unbribed by its gifts, is a pulpit whose opportunities and responsibilities call for men of the amplest qualifications to fill them. In vain is it to plead the example of the apostles in behalf of the pastor’s nonrecognition of the great social, ethical, and political principles which lie at the centre of the national life, and determine the national character. Because the apostles, desiring only to be let alone by the Roman power, counselled sedulous avoidance of all needless collision with it, does it therefore follow that the apostle Paul, if to-day preaching the gospel in an American city, or writing a letter to American Christians, would not remind them of their duties and dangers as Christian citizens, and especially of the obligations that rest on them as an integral part of the national sovereignty? If Christianity be the parent of free institutions, she will not abandon her offspring to ignorance and death, but will counsel her ministers to nurture them into strength, and maturity, and usefulness. Nor does it avail to repeat the pious cant about politics and religion. To all right-minded men, a preacher of partisan politics is justly an object of loathing. Execrable in the pulpit is the tongue that lends itself to any service but that of God, truth, and of Christ’s religion. But on that truth and that religion, so entirely rests our national fabric, that a complete Gospel cannot be preached without touching the very foundations on which the national superstructure has been reared; and those foundations, be it remembered, are now being assailed by men whose avowed purpose is their overthrow.

Christianity gave us our free institutions; entrusted us with the right and the duty of selfgovernment; created a civil power, which, just to all and partial to none, should leave religion to the unobstructed pursuit of its specific ends; inspired and preserved all that is distinctly noble and refining in our civilization. And shall her ministers mince and mumble about their relations and duties to a State which herself has provided and alonie can perpetuate? But there are relations and duties 141

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NATIONAL BAPTIST which call for the clearness of vision and the breadth of view that come only with discipline of intellect and breadth of knowledge.

Such-are some of the general reasons for a thorough education of those who are to be the religious teachers of our country and times. It is but one or two considerations addressing themselves directly to Baptists in support of the same high standard for their ministers, which we can here notice. As a denomina tion, we need broad and accurate culture: 1. To vindicate our principles and position before the Christian world. The general impression among other sects, is, that fanaticism on the mode and subjects of baptism, and a large amount of ignorance and prejudice, are our distin guishing characteristics. We are classed as among the most ignorant of the sects; but the origin of Baptists, as one of the organized sects of Christendom, was in anything but ignorance, or prejudice, or fanaticism. The revival of learning led to the study of the Bible; the Reformation opened its pages to the laity, and immediately the distinctive principles of the Baptists were recognized and proclaimed. The Bible was substituted for the Church as an authority with God’s people, and Baptist churches began at once to be organized; for every principle and practice by which these churches have been distinguished from the rest of Christendom, the one unvarying authority has been the word of God; and whatever could not plead that authority, they have rejected in themselves and opposed in others. As respects the justness of our interpretations of Scripture, or of the earlier Church history, there happily now exists, among the highest authorities, but little diversity of opinion. The leading scholarship of the world is on our side. But between. us and the Scriptures and critical scholarship on the one side, and the existing portions of Christendom on the other, stand the formidable array of corrupted histories, multifarious traditions, and long-established usages.

From that array comes assault to us and defence to our opponents. Behind it dwell in complacent confidence, with the single exception of ourselves, the collected sects of Christendom. And what are we, in the face of such barriers and such hosts? The almost universal Cliurch against us, and we but a handful in comparison! Shall we say, “Our trust is in God alone,”

and yet dishonor him by presumptuously declining the weapons he proffers?

“Faith without works is dead.” In vain is it to say that the “weapons of our warfare are spiritual, and not carnal “-to talk of piety and selfdenial and zeal, as an answer to our gainsayers, and as the hope of our triumph. In all these respects, some of our staunchest opponents are more than our compeers. What, then, should be our course? Certainly not to trust God less, or ourselves more; not to lose heart in our work, or confidence in its ultimate success. But error is to be combatted with truth; and if error defend itself with learning, truth must be armed with the same weapon, sharpened by criticism. Simple piety is strong in its own strength, but the piety of a disciplined and well-furnished mind is stronger. The zeal of the narrow-minded circumcisers in the early Church was useful, but that of the large-minded and thoroughly educated Paul was immeasureably more so. The fishermen apostles did well, but Paul did better. The truth is, that knowledge is power in any age and everywhere, sanctified and unsanctified, in the pulpit or out of it, in an apostle or in a modern pastor; and, other things being equal, he who has the most of it will be the most efficient worker in the kingdom of Christ; and, among the sects, other things being equal, the one that has the most of it will take the lead of others. As Baptists, we repudiate the authority of councils and creeds; we spurn traditions; we challenge all usages unsanctioned by Divine authority; and we summon our fellow Christians of other sects to join us in the restoration of Christi 142

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. anity to its original simplicity and purity. Our only alternative is to vindicate our claims or hold our peace. But we cannot be quiet. The truth is with us, and we must proclaim it; and our only help is in Almighty God and soundi learning. Without a church or a priesthood, with no authoritative creed, no liturgy, no traditions venerable for age, with absolutely nothing but the Bibleand that covered over with the false glosses of centuries-if ever a people in the history of the world were summoned to the cultivation of all good learning, that people is the Baptists. 2. Again, as Baptists, we need an educated ministry to save our churches from fanaticism on the one hand, and their members from indifference and desertion on the other. The tendency of zeal without knowledge, in pastor and people alike, is always and inevitably to fanaticism; and fanaticism exposes to the manipulations of religious demagogues, who are as much more dangerous to the peace and purity of society than political, as religion is higher and subtler in its forces than politics. The indifference, and desertion to other sects, particularly to the Presbyterian and Episcopalian, of those of our laity, who, by natural descent, should have belonged to us, is one of the notable facts in our later history. Many influences have been at work as causes of this, not the least potent of which has been a too frequent repulsive power in the pulpit. The first safeguard is in that intelligent grounding in religious convictions which only a well-instructed pastor can give; and the second is in that control of the leading forces of society which disciplined intellect and exalted character in the Chris tian ministry always insure. By what method, then, shall we provide ourselves with the kind of ministers needed? Very diverse views are entertained among us.

Among these are: 1st. That the whole subject shall be remanded to the sovereignty of God. He will supply himself with just such ministers as he wishes, and the wants of his churches require: any intermeddling of ours can bring only confusion and disaster. And, in support of this view, we are reminded of that special divine call to the work, without which no one should presume to undertake it, an argument which, if it have any meaning, must assume that either this call can come to a man only when it is too late for a careful preparation to obey it, or that our educational institutions must, in assuming to give this preparation, in some way intermeddle with the divine prerogative. Indeed, the whole theory rests on a perversion of the doctrine of divine sovereignty, which is alike unscriptural and irrational-as absurd as if in supplying ourselves with places of worship we should say, “Away with the architect and the mason and the carpenter! When God wants a mneeting-house, he will convert some proprietor of a theatre, or a manufactory, and put it into his heart to consecrate it to the uses of public worship.” And yet there are some people among us who pretend to talk of God’s providing such ministers for his churches as he wants without any special educational coo6peration of his people; and I am sorry to say that certain blear-eyed critics have pretended to find an authority for this monstrous sentiment in some of the lesser writings of that eminent educator, the late Dr. Wayland-a sentiment, of which his life-long labors were alone, as he himself once privately said, a sufficient refutation. 2d. Another plan insisted on by some is that of a restricted special preparation -a plan that proposes to take men just as the Spirit of God finds them at the time of their calling to the ministry, and to carry them through only those studies and exercises which bear directly on their work as preachers of the Gospel. Of the advocates of this plan, some would send the candidate for ordination directly to a Christian pastor, from whom, as from a practical workman, he can learn the details of the calling lie is to follow-a plan almost universally pur 143

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NATIONAL BAPTIST sued three-quarters of a century since, and finally abandoned on account of its manifest and manifold inadequacies, and certainly a plan, which the modified and multiplied duties of pastors in our day, to say nothing of the ever-widening horizon of modern knowledge, would not be likely to make more efficient than when it was so thoroughly tried. Others, limiting the work of the theological school to dogmatic and practical homiletic instruction, would have the newlycalled preacher carried through to the pastorate by the shortest practicable route of a merely technical term and professional drill-a method that may suffice, on the church theory, that the Christian minister is a priest whose duties consist of a routine of observances determined by the rubrics, but not likely to give that breadth of view and richness of resources required in him who is to guide inquiring men in this restless age; while yet others, combining a select literary with a special theological course under the general title of literary and theological institutions, whose exclusive work shall be the training of ministers, would, by special stitching and patching, cover up the worst of a man’s intellectual nakedness, and so give to him, at least, an outer garment of literary and theological respectability. This was the plan adopted in the original foundation of some of our denominational institutions in this country, and by our English brethren in their institutions, and especially by Mr. Spurgeon in his theological college. In this country the institutions, built on such a basis, and for such a purpose, have in due time proved so unsatisfactory in their results as to necessitate their complete reconstruction. Were the grade of intelligence among the population to be reached by our ministers, the same as that encountered by the students from Mr. Spurgeon’s college, some degree of plausibility could be given to a defence of this kind of preparation. But, under the stimulating influences of our common schools, and the universal newspaper, the quickened intellect of our American churches will not away with men who cannot instruct them. The day of mere haranguing and of pious platitudes in the pulpit is, happily or unhappily, for this country, fast coming to a close. The argument from experience is an answer to all theory. Is there at present any deficiency in our ranks of the kind of ministers which this sort of culture produces? Do our American churches cry out for an increase of their number? 3d. A third method has had its advocates, and among Baptists has certainly had its fair trial; it is that which takes the young man through a regular college course, and bids him pick up such theological knowledge as he can from his study of moral science, from Bible classes, and from incidental readings.

College presidents have sometimes held Sunday evening Bible classes for tlhe benefit of those whose special preparation was to end with their college curriculum. And the advice to go directly from college to the pulpit has in the past most commonly been given to, and accepted by those whom natural endowments and favoring circumstances should have enabled to follow it with success, and yet, did it not involve a personal, and therefore too delicate an investigation, it would be instructive to compare the actual ministerial work for the last quarter of a century, of those who hav’e pursued this course, with the corresponding work of the same.number of less highly favored ministers, who have added to the college instruction the regular course of our thlleological seminaries.

And to any one who has asked, and attempted understandingly to reply to the question suggested, we will venture to say the answer has not been in favor of restricting the work of preparation to the college. The truth is, that not one man in fifty of any given number of mere college graduates is competent to guide religiously, and instruct even the most humble and uninformed of our churches; and, to the credit of the present generation of students be it said, the most competent are the least willing to pass directly 144

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. from the college to the pastorate. One of the best commentaries on the method we are noticing, is the desire, now so common and so eager on the part of young men who a few years since went direc.l.

to the pulpit from the college, to resort to the theological seminary, with a view, notwithstand ing the incumbrance of family and the disadvantage of years, to prepare for a work to which they have found themselves so painfully unequal. 4th. The fourth method of preparation, and the last to come into existence, is that which begins with the academy, proceeds through the four years of college, and concludes with three years in the theological seminary. This is the dis tinctively American method, the outgrowth of our institutions, and just as much a necessary and natural product of our national and religious life as are the political and various ecclesiastical governments under which we live.

The method has been subject to various criticisms from the most opposite quarters, and various attempts have been made to modify and improve it; and yet, in due course of time, the inevitable result of experience has been a quiet return to the established order; thus illustrating the very simple law, that the educational institutions of a nation are just as much a necessary growth as the national existence itself. The denominations in our land that have most promptly recog nized and conformed themselves to this law, have most clearly profited by their wisdom. The Congregationalists of New England, near the beginning of this century, thrust from their glebe-lands by the Unitarians, and crowded out of their hereditary houses of worship, seemed in a fair way to be exterminated.

They founded their theological seminary at Andover, and all well informed per sons now know the result. The Presbyterians, originally by no means among the most numerous or the most popular of our sects, planted Princeton Theologi cal Seminary; and to-day, in all that pertains to clear, solid, sanctified intellect, in all that constitutes commanding influence in the great cities of the Middle States, they are unquestionably the leading denomination; and it has been Princeton Theological Seminary, and its offshoots, together with the unswerving firmness with which they have insisted on theological culture in their ministers, that has given them their ascendancy. What thoughtful man that has looked in on the American Board of Foreign Missions in years past, has not felt that but for Andover and Princeton, a like body of men had not existed-a body that, for trained intellect, and Biblical knowledge, and mature piety, and exalted char acter, has not been excelled by any other in this country, or in the world? Extended and thorough theological education has been objected to as unsuited to our churches-as furnishing a class of ministers whose tastes and attainments are above the intelligence of our people; and this ol)jection is made in all sober ness of speech. We belong, it is said, to the middling classes, and these are more readily reached by an unlettered ministry than by men of high culture. Just as if there were any fixity of classes in our country; as if wealth and educa tion, the only passport requisite to our highest classes, were not within the reach of the lowest in the land; as if our middling classes of one daly were not our higher classes of the next. Just as if our Baptist churches were doomed to be nurseries for other sects, and the better class of our members should be reared to recruit churches more intelligent than our own. Just as if, moreover, it was broad and thorough culture which incapacitates a man for popular ministrations, and not that half-culture, and that one-eyed learning, which can see truth only * at certain angles, and present it only under stereotyped forms. The truth is, that ability to use one’s learning and intellectual strength with popular effect, is just as much the result of patient acquisition as are the learning and strength which are to be used. It too often is but a vulgar prejudice which keeps scholarly men from acquiring power with the people, and a still more vulgar 10 145

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NATIONAL BAPTIST prejudice which supposes the exercise of this power to be inconsistent with depth and solidity of thought. But superficiality is not yet identical with popularity; nor, thank heaven, have learning and scholarship become synonyms with dulness and commonplace. Nor do we here forget the reaction in behalf of a more limited and superficial preparation which of late years has shown itself among some of our Congregational brethren in New England. Two great arguments are pleaded by the advocates of the change; the first is, the rapid increase of the Baptists and Methodists with illiterate ministers in comparison with themselves, whose standard of qualifications has always been so high and unyielding; and the second is the want of persons to work in the highways and byways among the neglected poor; the first argument being founded on superficial observation, and a defective analysis of the elements of a real prosperity, and the other resting on the egregious error of supposing that ministers alone can preach the Gospel-that the clergy have a patent right of salvation. It is not half-fledged ministers that they need, but zealous, well-directed laymen. The objectors among ourselves to the extended training of our theological seminaries, let it be borne in mind, are not, and never have been, the men who have tested its value by experience. It so happens that many of the actual or affected leaders of thought among us have not been graduates of the theological seminaries.

Oftentimes they have been men who have known nothing of that stern trial of a man-fitness to decide what is requisite to the minister; the steady, unremitting drain upon his intellectual and moral resources of a responsible and protracted pastorate. It is one thing to preach an occasional sermon, into which are poured the reflections of months, and quite another to prepare two a week for a succession of years. It might not be amiss if gentlemen who have neither known the real advantages of the theological seminary, nor learned the lessons of a regular, and possibly successful, pastorate, to be a little more chary of their opinions upon the value of the one or the requirements of the other. But theological education among us as a denomination has not yet had a fair and full trial. The Newton Institution was always opposed by certain persons in New England. Many young men who resorted to it, unencouraged by per sons whose judgments they respected, engaged in their studies with little of that enthusiasism, which is always a first condition of success, and at an early period of their course dropped out of their classes, and too frequently dropped into obscurity; and yet, with all the opposition and coldness encountered, and burdens carried by that institution, it would be difficult to overestimate the ser vice it has rendered to our churches; and this, though it has served but a single generation, some of its earliest graduates being still in the fulness of their powers, and one of its first professors being yet among its officers. That our thelogical seminaries are capable of many improvements in their methods and results is unquesionable, but they are improvements which their actual managers can better appreciate and inaugurate than any mere theorists and casual outside observers. Many of the evils charged on them are attributa ble to the methods of criticism and thought, characteristic of the age rather than of the schools; and some of the most common and glaring of the defects of their alumni are chargeable, not to their theological training, but to the deficiencies of that preceding preparation which the theological seminary presupposes and requires. Among the commonest of these are their strange want of tact in the use of their mother tongue, their bad elocution, their illogical thought, and their unskilful and often vicious rhetoric; and as the theological seminary is the last institution from which they come forth to the public, it must take the credit of their deficiencies. People do not know, or will not remember, that the 146

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. drill of the recitation room, which gives mental discipline, is not within the province of the theological school; nor is it the design of the seminary to teach the elements of rhetoric, or to do any other work which legitimately belongs to other institutions. Division of labor is as requisite to master-workmanship in education as in mechanic arts. One of the commonest defects of students coming to the study of theology-college graduates, as well as others-is an inability to think and to analyze thought, and above all, to express with clearness and force, and often with correctness even, whatever thoughts they may chance to have. It is not uncommon for young men to be good linguists and mathematicians, well-read in metaphysics, and not unacquainted with physical science, and to do admirably well in the study of Hebrew and of the New Testament Greek, but who, the moment they come to the use of their faculties in the elaboration of thought, and are set to the production of essays and sermons, show an incapacity that is almost incredible. They have been taught, and by practice have become quick to learn, but have not been educated. Let the work of the academy and the college be improved, and that of the theological seminary will at once be amended. But the seminaries have had their sins, and they should be confessed. They have too often made recluses and theorists rather than practical men who know mankind-have produced exegetes and would-be scholars rather than effective preachers and skilful organizers of the churches-faults which may be remedied by planting the seminaries in the hearts of our cities where their students, plunged into society, shall be compelled to know its ways, and, drawn into active Christian service, shall be forced to learn the practical with the theoretic. These, with many other deficiencies, may in due time be remedied. And yet, with all their faults, what a work have our theological schools accomplished for our American churches. To these churches they have given a clergy, which, for all the elements of true power as religious guides, and for all that enters into deep, farreaching, and permanent influence in society, have no equals on the face of the earth. No competent observer can have compared the pulpits of Germany, France, and England, with that of America, and failed to recognize what our theological training has done for us. It is the boast of English churchmen that their universities make no provision for special theological education, and that, as a result, they have the Anglican type of clergymen, which they would not exchange for any other known among men.

Of those of its clergy who condescend to write their own sermons, the pulpit platitudes that, with rare and notable exceptions, have prevailed, from Tillotson to Goulbourn,’ are the best comment that can be made on their system. Take away from the Anglican church its patronage from the State, its liturgy, and its ritual, and you reduce its pulpit to a power of which, in comparison with that of America, it were a waste of words to speak. But here, it may be said, granting all that can justly be claimed for the American theological school, what provision, if any, shall be made for that large class -the largest as yet that enters our Baptist ministry-for whom the regular and extended course would be unwise or impracticable? First of all, let us stand ready to ordain-that is, publicly to recognize-any man, come whencesoever he may, and at whatever age, who finds a church which, after fair trial, recognizes his ability to guide and instruct it. This ability, acquired by whatever process it may have been, is his warrant of a divine commission which his brethren have no right to question. But, pray, let us have done with the practice of setting ordinary men, at twentyfive or thirty years of age, to the study of the elements of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, as an indispensable preparation for preaching the Gospel of Christ. A very consider 147

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NATIONAL BAPTIST able proportion of persons called to the ministry in mature years, we are satisfied, will prove to be more efficient laborers if allowed to begin their work at once, just as the spirit of God finds them when it calls them, than if put into the chafing and half-fitting harness of the theological schools. This is certainly true of those who pass from other professions to the ministry. And experience shows that even our purely self-made men, on whom neither academy, college, nor theological seminary has laid its hands, are always more spontaneous and unfettered and effective than those of the same class, who, going in middle age or mature years, after all their hahits are fixed, to the theological school, have gone so far as to learn their deficiencies, but not far enough to remedy them. There is, however, a class of men not too old to learn and to profit by their learning, nor yet young enough and sufficiently well educated or endowed to warrant the regular course. What of these? Doubtless some provision should be nlade for them, but the great question is, What shall this provision be? That it should not be identical with that made for men whose life, or a very considerable portion of it, has been devoted to study, would seem to be a very plain case. That professors cannot lecture profitably to both classes of minds at once, is simply a matter of commonsense. Neither the same subjects nor the same methods can be suited to men standing on levels so widely removed.

Instruction thus given can be, in the fullest sense, profitable to one class only, at a greater or less expense to the other. The attempt to instruct both by one and the same course of lectures, to any considerable extent, can secure to neither the highest advantages of which they are capable. Every superintendent of common schools knows full well that a school which is not graded can be profitable to no class of pupils. But whether our partial-course men should receive all their training at institutions specially designed for them, or whether with one year at an academy, or a year or two at college, and a year or two at the theological seminary, they shall pick up what they can at each, may’be an open question; but of one thing I am sure, that, if they are to be benefited in our regularly constituted theological seminaries, some special provision must be made for them, and the instruction must’be adjusted to both their capacities and their necessities. In conclusion, our first duty. is to set apart, without hesitation, to the work of the ministry every man who proves himself fitted to be useful in it, and thus divinely called to it, come to the work from whatever quarter and at whatever age he may, and by whatever process. But, on the other hand, every candidate for our ministry, whose age and circumstances admit, should be educated to the full measure of his ability to profit by education-the wants of every.

class, from the highest to the lowest, being intelligently provided for.

Every man whose age and endowments warrant, should be sent to the college for the best discipline it can give him,-the best men to the best colleges; and in college, should be restricted to the work of the college-preacliing in term-time being strictly prohibited, and whatever is aside from the immediate object in hand interdicted. And finally, our theological seminaries should be furnished with the men and the means requisite to the highest possible ministerial culture of which the age admits; the most thorough and accurate Biblical learning, the most searching historical criticism, a systematic theology, that shall be at once, in the fullest sense of the words, Biblical and scientific; the amplest recognition of the progress of science as related to Christianity; a painstaking drill in the practical work of preaching-in a word, the resources of all good learning and thorough training; and all younger candidates for our ministry should be expected to avail themselves of what is thus provided. This world is God’s world, its wealth, its learning, its science, and its arts, as well as its Bible; and if the church does 148

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. not lay hold on them all and wield them in the service of its Master, it will be recreant to its trust. The following resolution was presented by Rev. Dr. BOARDMAN, of Pennsylvania: “.Resolved, that this Convention enunciate its conviction, that the time has come when a chair of Christian Science or Natural Religion should be added to the chairs of our theological seminaries.” This resolution was referred to the Committee on Theological Education. The paper of Dr.

ROBINSON was referred to the same Committee. It was voted, that the reading of the paper prepared by Pr,-s. DODGE, of Madison University, which was assigned to the last hour of the session be postponed to the evening session. The motion referring the paper of Dr. RoBINSON to the Committee on Theological Education was re-considered, and it was voted, that it be made the order of discussion this evening, after the reading of the paper by Dr. DODGE. Dr. BOYCE: I should like to say something with reference to the subject on which Dr. ROBINSON has been addressing us this afternoon. I concur very fully with Dr. ROBINSON in the strong manner in which he has impressed on us the necessity of very thorough theological education. I am well satisfied, that it is very important that there should be as thorough theological education given as is possible. But I make a distinction, and I think I can bring out an idea, which in some way has not happened to strike Dr. ROBINSON’S mind. There have been four systems of theological education which he has mentioned; but, unfortunately for us, in our little obscure corner in South Carolina, he has not heard of all the systems which has been practised among us; has not heard of one which we have been successfully practising for about ten years, and which, I am convinced, will satisfy, or has satisfied every condition the public require relative to a theological education. I am a very strong believer in the workings of such institutions, but I believe, too, that Baptists can work these things for themselves. And, with reference to our ministerial education, what is the condition of the country now? We have got, at present, over seven thousand Baptist preachers in the United States. Now, are they a power? There is a very considerable degree of power, but, is there as much power as there ought to be in the ministry, and, if not, what is the reason? Undoubtedly one great reason has been, that there has not been that amount of collegiate and classical education, and mental training, which is necessary. But a still stronger reason has been, that among our Baptist preachers, with the exception of those who have had an opportunity of attending theological schools, there has been no training whatever in the study of the Scriptures. Now of these seven thousand men, we have had very few in our theological seminaries. If we take, for an average, that there may have been, during the last thirty years, twenty or thirty 149

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NATIONAL BAPTIST graduates a year, that would make nine hundred graduates, which constitute, probably, more than double the number of Baptist ministers now in the United States who have gone through a theological seminary. For all the remainder of them, no provision was made; and now the question is, Shall we make provision for them, and how can it be done?

Dr. ROBINSON’S essay presents to us several ways, and in one of them the idea is that a man is to be left entirely to Providence. Now, I fully agree with him in all he said as to the importance of collegiate and theological education. But, while it is true that we must depend to a very considerable degree upon these means of education, it is still true, as he was compelled to admit, in the conclusion of his essay, that there are multitudes of men, whom, without these means of training, God does call to the ministry, who are prepared for the ministry, who are accepted by the churches as men fitted to teach them, and to preach to them the word of God, who became efficient, and-even celebrated men, who go forth and. do a great deal of work in our denomination. And I venture to say, that to-day a very large proportion of our ministry, of the Baptist denomination, in our country, are of precisely that class of men. Dr.

ROBINSON: Do I not make a very distinct reservation for men of precisely that character? Dr. BOYCE: Yes, I understand that such a reservation was made. Now, for all these men, called to the ministry late in life, as many of them are, it will be impossible, almost, to provide a thorough collegiate and theological education. It is too late for many, and many have not the means whereby to get a thorough education.- But a great many man thus called to the ministry have to be educated, and they cannot be sent through a collegiate course, although young men; because we have not the means of doing it. If we had the means, I would be in favor of doing everything in that way possible. Now in reference to this class of men, with every obstacle standing in the way of their obtaining a thorough collegiate and theological education, what is to be done with them? If I understand Dr. ROBINSON right,i these men had better go into the ministry without any education at all. Dr. ROBINSON: You have misunderstood me. Dr.

BOYCE: So far from that, I think this was his position: there were certain men in the ministry, called into it at a late period of life; and, with reference to these men, it was better that 150

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. they should go into the ministry without going through any schools whatever. Dr. ROBINSON: That is one of the positions, but it is only in reference to a very small portion; I said that there should be provision made for partial courses of instruction. I made the most distinct provision for what is undoubtedly the largest portion of the ministry in our country. My paper most distinctly recognizes the fact, that for a very large portion there must be some partial education provided. Dr. BOYCE: I misunderstood you. The proposition is, that there are certain men who must have an education, and Dr. ROBINSON proposes, in reference to these, that, as to some, they should receive a partial education, and, as to others, they should receive no education at all. Now it is our experience (at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) to receive precisely such calls as he states he has received from men of twentyfive, thirty-five to forty-five years of age, appealing to us to know if there is any opportunity whatever for them to spend a year or two in the Seminary, and learn something as to the best manner in which to preach the gospel of Christ. Now the question I desire to present to the Convention is this: I do not believe in any partial course -I believe in thorough theological instruction-and I believe that theological instruction ought to be paramount. If a man is to receive, in preparing for the ministry, only one portion of instruction, he ought to receive theological instruction rather than collegiate instruction, because the theology which he is to learn is the very subject matter which he is to proclaim to men. It is better, therefore, for him to become thoroughly acquainted with theology, than it is for him to know any science, or have any instruction given him as to the interpretation of any classical book, or in any other direction or department of knowledge. In order to carry out that idea, the plan which has been pursued among us is about this: We do not separate at all our students, who might be called in some places partial students, from the others. We have divided our institution into eight schools, and in each one of these schools we give all the instruction that is pertinent to that school. In those schools in which there are only English studies taught, as a matter of course, we are capable of giving instruction to any who can read and think correctly in the English language. In other branches, as a matter of course, where Hebrew and Latin and Greek are taught, it is required that a man shall go through 151

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NATIONAL BAPTIST the studies appropriate to that course. Does any one know, without having thought over it, how much of the instruction in a theological seminary involves necessarily the study of Latin and Greek? In the average theological seminary in this country, there is no absolute necessity to learn Latin at all; and a man might go through a theological seminary and never open his Latin lexicon. In the department of Exegesis, there is a necessity for the use of Greek, and there alone is Greek used.

What students have to study of systematic theology is stated in the English text-bOok, or is received in English lectures from the professors, and there is no absolute need of those languages in any of the branches whatever, with the single exception of the exegesis of the Old Testament, and the exegesis of the New Testament. If that be the case, tell me why it is objectionable to put men in the same class together, to teach men in all these other branches. You may say that training is needed, and I admit all the value of all the training that is possible, or can be demanded. I would send forward every man through every study that is possible, and put him through the highest degree of training of which he is capable. But there is a class of men who have nothing but an ordinary English education, who, from various circumstances, never can avail themselves of the advantages of a higher course of study; and they are preaching to people who would scarcely appreciate it if they had. The vast majority of our ministers are not college-educated men; but is it claimed that therefore they are not qualified to teach men the word of God, and expound it from the pulpit? So far from that being true, how many of us have seen men, plain, honest, hard-working men, whose minds have never been trained by collegiate studies, but who were possessed of so high a degree of ability, and who had trained themselves so thoroughly, that their sermons were as sound and as effective as any that come from the pulpit. Give these men an opportunity, and they will learn all they need. I speak from an experience of ten years that I have been teaching systematic theology-to persons who have been through college and persons who have not been through college, to men of different qualities of mind-and I have found it not impossible in the English branches of that study to give instruction suited to the minds of all-to teach them the truth, and such a knowledge of the truth, that they could stand an examination, and a rigid examination upon it, and understood exactly the doctrine and the grounds upon which the doctrine is to 152

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. be supported. And I might say, in reference to that, we oftentimes had, or sometimes had, men who had never been through college, but were of the class of men to which I have already referred, and they have, in the branches of study I have spoken of, stood ahead of men who have graduated from college. A college course does not necessarily train a man, and many men leave there untrained. An untrained man may, in honorable competition, be ahead of the man who has been trained, because the reasoning powers and the capabilities of that one man are of a higher order than of most of the other men. The training is, of course, an advantage to him, and I wish to say, consistently with all I have said, that so far from intimating that a man should not be trained, or that he is at all advantaged by the lack of training, I urge that every man should have all the training he possibly can, and hence the method and course of studies we have pursued and carried on. I should be glad if my friend, Dr.

BROADUS, would say something in reference to the manner in which he teaches the Scriptures. He does it successfully-I venture to say that much. In consequence of this very fact that we use an English course in which all our students can study both in exegesis and in systematic theology, we are able to do more than we could in those branches, and to go further than we could otherwise go with those men who have had a thorough collegiate course, and who propose to take a thorough theological education. We divide our course of systematic theology into two parts-an English course and a Latin course. [The speaker then enumerated the text-books used in both, and the manner in which they were used.] Now the purposes of an institution, let me briefly state, are simply these: In the first place, we require no man who comes to us to bring us a college diploma; all we ask of him to bring us is a certificate from the church that may have called him to the work of the ministry, or an approval of his entering on a course of study with a view to the work of the ministry.

That is got at home, and that we require as a matter of course. Then a man comes there and takes whatever study he pleases A VOIcE: Is he examined at all? Dr. BOYCE: No, he is not examined at all; he takes whatever study he pleases. Of course he goes to the president and converses with him, and states to him what he has studied before, and talks about what study he shall pursue the first year, and what the next year, and, if he can only 153

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NATIONAL BAPTIST stay one year, or two years, which is the most important of the studies for him. IHe chooses what study he pleases. Now, after our classes have been settled for the session, there are no two recitations at the same hour, if there is any conflict. Then in allowing every man to pick out for himself what studies he pleases, or his friends to pick out for him, the advantages are these: There are some men whose capacities are greater than those of others, and who can take more studies than others.

There have been men who have undertaken to go through one course in two years. There are men, also, who wish to take only particular studies, because they cannot, they have not the means to stay there for another year. Well, they come and pick out these studies. If, after coming one year, they can come the next, they take some other studies; and if they come the next still, they take further studies; and if they come still the fourth year, they do the same thing; and we graduate, this year, a young man who came to us, four years ago, with very little knowledge of Greek, and very little knowledge of Latin, but who, seeing the value of theological education to him, after he came to us, was stirred up with the idea that he must have a thorough theological course. lHe came one year, and he spent all his forces on studying Latin and Greek, so as to bring him up to the mark, and, after spending four years with us, he is enabled this year to pass from our institution as a full graduate. I claim that the advantages of this system, therefore, are first, that it opens to all persons in our denomination theological instruction; second, it opens to them just such an amount of theological instruction as is suited to them; third, it opens up just such an amount of theological instruction as, in the providence of God, they are able to take, whether in reference to their time or their minds; and, in the fourth place, it enables us not only to give a thorough education to those who can go over an English course, in all the branches taught in connection with that English course; but it also enables us to go beyond that, and carry the very same students, when they have got through with the English course in all its departments, to a still higher course, proper to be pursued in connection with Greek exegesis and Iebrew exegesis. In the arrangement which we have thus made, we have acted on the principle that as the Baptist denomination must have a ministry composed of men of various grades of education and culture, we must make provision for all, from the highest to the lowest grade. Well, what about our success? At the first session we held, our Seminary had 154

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. twenty-six students, and the next thirty-six. This was ten years ago, and then the war broke out, and the next session we had but twenty-one students; and then we were stopped altogether in consequence of the conscription act. We reorganized in 1865 with seven students, and we have to-day sixty. The Convention took a recess until evening. EVENING SESSION. The Convention was called to order by the President, and prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Z. EDDY, of the Reformed Church, Brooklyn. Rev. Dr. DODGE, of N.Y., read a paper on THE MOST

ADVANCED MINISTERIAL CULTURE, AS ILLUSTRATED AND VINDICATED IN THE ACTUAL

WORK OF PREACHER AND PASTOR. Culture is the fruit of study. It is the growth of the soul. It is not learning alone, for that is only the veneering, beautiful, but on the surface, and very thin. It is more even than organized knowledge, for this may only float in the memory as a temporary possession. It is all human thinking, feeling, and action returning to the soul and settling down to its lowest strata and enlarging and enriching the original sources of its life. Thus, by a secret law of our nature, all conscious mental acts and knowledge become unconscious habit and power. Thus acquisitions pass into gifts, and attainments into graces. The constitutive elements of culture are genius and labor,-inspiration and work. Its supreme condition is the atmosphere which the soul breathes. Its real nourishment are the ideas which the mind appropriates, and the activities which the living person puts forth. The spiritual element must be the governing centre in ministerial culture. By the spiritual element we mean the sympathy of the soul with God and with man. Whenever the pastor or the preacher makes his centre in literature or in science, in philosophy or in art, he abandons the divinities of life for its humanities, and in that abandonment loses both. And whenever he renders a divided allegiance, he is doomed to a failure. The unity of his life is broken and its spiritual energies are wasted. Tastes and studies foreign to his calling impress themselves on the currents of his thoughts and feelings, and his pulpit ministrations become purely professional. The culture, then, we propose to vindicate is that which is organized and pervaded by this spiritual element. This informing regnant principle cannot be left out of the account, for it alone gives to the sermon its realistic and mediatorial character-realistic in that it deals with absolute verities, and mediatorial in that it brings God and the soul together. This centre allows of the widest circumference, for it is both fontal and exhaustless. Thus intensity of conviction and breadth of culture must blend together in the ministerial character. It would not answer to confine this culture to the schools and to leave it out of the pastor’s study. We should have to change the character of our theological seminaries, and make them exclusively seats of learning. And would the church tolerate such an intellectual aristocracy? VWould the ministry brook such a spir 155

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NATIONAL BAPTIST itual hierarchy? Would not the great currents of our present life sweep by these modernized convents, and leave them high and dry in the barrenness of their isolation? Would not the very learning of these hierophants, cut off from the sympathies and from the activities of their age, and narrowed by an intense conceit of personal superiority, utterly fail of satisfying the spiritual wants of their times? And, after all, is not learning indebted to life; and is not the degree of its indebtedness to be measured by the volume and force of that life? Sacred learning then, with partial exceptions, must never be the exclusive inheritance of the school, but the common possession of the pastor and preacher. But there is a half conviction that learning, in the nature of the case, smothers the fire of genius. There is a lurking suspicion that an advanced culture does require the sacrifice of life to art, of power to elegance, of the actual to the ideal, and of the practical to the theoretical. It is true that culture is unfriendly to crudeness of thought, and to roughness of expression. But it is the vitality of the thought-its penetrating, quickening, and farreaching character that gives it strength, and not these irritating and distracting accompaniments.

These are always, in their general and ultimate effects, sources of weakness. But spiritual culture feeds the internal fires and fans them into a purer and brighter flame. It tempers too all violence of manner, as it is the foe of all theatrical displays in the pulpit. It seeks for permanent impressions rather than transient sensations. Culture recognizes the worth, the necessities, and the rights of the individual genius, but it will not tolerate the affectation of originality, nor will it allow of eccentricities which overleap the universal laws of our common nature. For man is greater than the individual, and humanity is more authoritative than genius. It tends also to make a man practical, because it moderates conceit, and so makes cooperation possible; and, besides, the practical is one of the best means and methods of reaching the ideal. If, after all, the minister lacks the talent for organization or for administration, if hlie is wanting in personal magnetic power, the fault is not in his training but in his birth. For culture is not creative but affirmative-thie growth of the soul-its richest blossoms and bloom, and its fair. est flowers and fruit. The unconscious influence of a thoroughly educated clergyman claims our first attention. This silent force of personal character, so subtle and so penetrating, cannot be overlooked. It is the unconscious support of all our conscious activi ties. It is a living energy, entire and constant, while all deliberate exertions of power are fleeting and fractional. It is truer and purer than they all, since it is independent both of our knowing and of our willing. This reserved force is greater than any in all of its expenditures, since it is the hidden spring and source of them all. Now culture is the coefficient of capacity-multiplying it many times over. And the more advanced the culture is, the more symmetrical the character, because the more potent and diffusive is its influence. The mere presence of a man, both consecrated and cultivated, is a recognized power in every community. He is a spiritual authority, not alone because he preaches the Word of God, but because he voices the word of man; not merely that he reveals God to man, but also man to himself; not simply because he has been ordained by his brethren and has the sanction of his own denomination, but for the reason that he has been re-ordained by his fellows, and has the sanction of the community among whom he lives. This spiritual authority, silently asserted, and as silently accepted, rests on the fact that the educated minister represents in his own character the religious consciousness of humanity. Weaken his culture in any direction and to any degree, and you weaken just to that extent his authority as the teacher of the Christian religion. This unconscious influence is felt by all classes-the uneducated as truly as 156

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. the educated; for it does not depend on intellectual affinities, which are cold and weak, but on a community of life. The minister unites himself to his peo. ple not alone by the force of his thought, but also by the reach of his sympa thies. For ideas, simple and pure, rule only the world to which they belongthe world of speculation, or of science, or art; but for ideas to rule the actual world, they must be applied to the arts, incorporated in institutions, or incarnated in living souls. Ideas become moral forces in society only by this embodiment. It is the living person, then, whose ideas have become ideals, whose highest speculations are one with his convictions, toward whom all other souls of the community, by an unseen law, inevitably gravitate. And the magnetism of such a presence is felt by unlettered men, and felt all the more as they recognize in him the homage which culture pays to religion. He himself is the message of God to them. His character is their model, and his life their inspiration. By virtue of a superiority never assumed, but always acknowledged, his simple presence puts to silence and to shame the sneering ribaldry of unbelief. Thus a minister of the highest culture is never out of place in the quiet country village. In fact, if we could have such a religious guide in every such village throughout the land, our confidence in the destiny of American society would’be greatly strengthened. We may venture to suggest, that if our best educated young men could spend at least the first ten years of their public life in the country, it would in the long run be better for them and the churches. Yet it must be admitted that the very growth of our denomination has not hitherto allowed of any such probational period. It is a goal, however, to be kept in view; for, without frequent intervals c’

repose, the most advanced type of culture can never be reached. But thle silent influence of an educated ministry is felt in an especial manner by the educated classes; and, the higher the culture, the more potent is this influence. They recognize the place of a thoroughly trained and disciplined clergyman in the leadership of society. They make room for him in the republic of letters-they admit him into their scientific associations-they welcome him on terms of equality in all social gatherings, and in all public assemblies. His opinions will be listened to by men of science, for the reason that, while they are his superiors in the specialties of their favorite branches, hlie is their superior in his own chosen studies. Besides, he has this great advantage over most scientists, that he does not confine himiseli to any one line of investigation, but masters the methods and accepts the results of all scientific inquiry. This habit saves him from the narrowness and superficiality which are apt to characterize those who devote thlemselves to the mere details of any one branch of learning. It thus comes about that, on every subject where religion and science touch each other, his voice is as authorative as tiat of the foremost student of nature. His breadth of intellect and his cultivated tastes bring him into contact with men eminent in other professions and in general literature; and they recognize in the elevation of his character a witness to the truth and to the worth of the Christian faith. We could not well reach the formal work of the minister, except along the path we have chosen; for, in this case, profbessional character cannot be separated from personal, without the separation proving fatal to both. They act on and interpenetrate each other; for the sympathy of the pastor is the current of his own life, burdened with the joys and griefs of his people; and the sermon of the preacher is tile outflow of his own soul, colored by a sense of his high calling, and directed by the wants of his hearers. Without this union, the one.be(omes a sycophant in our homes, and the other an actor in our pulpits. It is the pastor’s work to deal with individuals and with faimiles. He is here 157

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NATIONAL BAPTIST nearer the human souls than anywhere else, and may make himself the point of supreme attraction. The higher his gifts and graces, the richer his treasures of mind and of heart, the more courtly and refined his manners, the more he can do for each one of his parishioners.

Here breadth and depth of soul are, above all things, desirable. They give an insight into character, and the instinct of an experience beyond his years. They enable their possessor to enter into other and different lives, and to make their case his own. He can be at home in every family, the confidant of the parents, and the idol of their children. Culture gives him the conversational art-the art of knowing when and how to listen, and when and how to talk. It makes the law of courtesy-the suppression of all interest in himself, and the expression of all interest in others-absolutely supreme in its own sphere. It secures a quiet dignity of carriage, an urbanity of manner and a propriety of speech, without in the least narrowing that generous Christian confidence which belongs to the pastoral relation. There will arise very many occasions in the labors of a pastor when his resources will be taxed to their full measure. In the revival he will meet with souls sadly entangled in the world, or bewildered in the darkness of their ignorance, or struggling into light, or deluded with a false hope, or sunk in a selfcomplacent indifference, or secluded, in their own tlhought, from the possibility of redemption. Each one of these several classes will need a somewhat different treatment. But how shall he rightly deal with all, and yet not overdeal with any? There will be individuals who must be left to God alone-when silence is better than speech. There will be others, close to the kingdom of God,‘who will need only a word and a prayer. In many cases there will be delusions to be dissipated, and objections, honest and dishonest, to be removed. All this will require not only a thorough knowledge of the way of life, and the power to illustrate and make plain that way, but also the habit of discrimination, and the judicial faculty, and, above all, the most delicate and careful handling of the soul itself. To act as the counsellor and teacher of men and women in matters so momentous, with a consciousness that a crisis in their destiny has come, is to engage in the most solemn work of life, and as difficult as it is solemn. Is it too much to affirm, that that pastor is best fitted for this work who has the widest culture, informed by a double sympathy with God and with man? But the season which will most severely try and test the pastor is the season of spiritual declension. There are times when “the powers of the world to come” seem to be more than balanced by the powers of this world, when the bonds of society are loosened, and when men and women grow faint and weary in their calling. He will then find himself alone, with only a few choice spirits of his church. The majority of his members will be at the concert or the club, at the ball or the public lecture. A few of them, with a selfishness as intense but more refined than that of their brethren, will be content with the quiet enjoyment of home-life. Here and there, a man on whom he had relied will fail him. Here and there, too, will be seen professors of religion drifting along with the worldly current, some to recover themselves, and others to pass over the falls and perish forever.

Doubtless, personal piety will save the pastor from this disastrous shipwreck; but will not an enlarged intelligence lessen his own dan gers, and greatly help him to rescue others from the engulfing waves of world liness? There can be but one answer to these questions. His studies, as well as his faith, forbid despondency and despair. He knows that there is an ebb and flow of religious thought and feeling, peculiar to American society; and he knows, too, that these fluctuations cannot change the fixed undercurrents of divine life. He loses the joy of immediate success, but not his confidence in divine ideals, or divine methods, or in those grand issues to which prophecy and 158

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Providence are both alike pledged. Thus, he is able to move among his people as a saving power, and, by look and work and deed, to inspire the faint-hearted and to hold them to their work, till the storm has passed away, and duty has become a pleasure. It is, too, the want of culture, as much as the want of piety, that leads the pastor to whine over injuries which hlie cannot escape, or to fret over evils which hlie must endure, or to indulge the childish expedient of scolding men into religion. There are also individual cases which make a special draft on the resources of the pastor. He has to help souls on their passage into eternity. They call for light, and their friends for comfort. It is a delicate task to deal with the dying without hastening their death, and often a still more delicate task to dispense real comfort without sacrificing the truth. He is summoned to the bedside of the sick, where the air is heavy with grief, and where the prayer must be a plea, an intercession, a mediation, and yet the words must be few and low, and fit for the ear of man and of God. Besides, to remove personal antagonisms, to heal grievances and restore lost friendships, will require the wisdom of an enlarged intelligence; and to direct the discipline of a church will often require not only a thorough knowledge of the principles involved, but of that higher governing principle, how to apply them so that they will secure and not defeat their own ends. It is safe to conclude, then, that no man can fully fill the pastoral office whose soul is not wide enough and deep enough to offer a harbor to all his people, to give to them a free and safe anchorage. The first formal duty of the preacher is that of public worship; and both the usages and the principles of our churches have made that duty a most difficult and responsible one. The preacher is always the leader of the service, and too often left to be the mere priest of his congregation, performing, solitary and alone, the work of intercession; and custom does not favor the use of any liturgy, nor does the spirit of our denomination allow of the written form of his own prayer. The practice, too, of one long morning prayer-thus leaving for the rest of the day the driblets of the religious consciousness-stands directly in his way. We have inherited this Puritanic formalism, without the Puritan spirit to quicken it into life, or the Puritan patience to relieve its tediousness. Surrounded, then, by these difficulties, and expected to embody the spirit of free worship, he has to represent his people and to carry them with him into the Holy of Holies; lie is to present them there in the completeness of their self-surrender and of their selfconsecration; he is to give expression not only to what is fontal and central in their consciousness, but prominence to what may appear on the surface, whether it be the experience of some great blessing, or the shock of some public calamity, or the impression of some marked individual joy or grief. Now, the preacher cannot offer the same prayer for his people, in public, which he would offer in his own study; for their ideal presence is not the same as their actual presence. The associations of the private sanctuary, precious though they are, differ from the grand memories and the grand hopes which cluster in and about the sanctuary of God. The realities of the two occasions are also dissimilar.

In the one case, he opens his own heart; in the other, he lays open the great heart of his people. When alone, face to face with God, there is a certain air of familiarity which would be both selfish and unseemly in the pulpit. In his private devotions, the laws of thought and expression will often give way, and the spirit will form a language of its own, where tears and soul-throbs, blending with half-uttered words, will carry into the heart of God more than the most faultless form of human speech. But when he changes his position, and enters into and voices the common religious consciousness, he must do so in a manner and with a diction that does no violence to the governing taste of the 159

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NATIONAL BAPTIST community. Besides, the preacher is to give to each part of public worship its distinctive character. The invocation must answer its end. The opening and the closing prayers of the morning service, and also of the evening, are each to preserve its proper and separate features. Each is to be complete in itself, and each is to blend with the reading of the Scriptures and the songo of praise, and all are to centre about the sermon, and to help produce one religious impression. And he is so to enter into the life of every Sabbath, and so to appreciate its special duties and its new issues, as to escape the offence of any intellectual formalism. Such is to be the work of the preacher in leading the worship of the sanctuary. Now, unless hlie has had a wide and liberal culture in the schools or out of them, he cannot fairly meet such a varied and trying responsibility. Men and women of cultivation may admire his genius or laugh at his wit, but they will not endure any violations of good breeding or any gross departures from good taste. But the minister’s great commission is to preach the Gospel. The preparation for this work is essentially the same for all ages; for humanity remains the same in its essential features, never outgrowing its sense of sin or its need of redemption. Still, it will vary with the varying aspect of human civilization; for each advancing epoch of society will have its own peculiar tendencies and activities, with their thousand eddies of depravity and superstition. Tlhe preacher must first of all satisfy the Christian consciousness of the nineteenth century. The Church of Christendom has passed through one period of its life-the period of religious dogma, as that is embodied in the ancient creeds and in the modern confessions. These are the memorials of past conflicts and victories, and beacons, too, whose light reaches beyond the present into the dim and perilous future. But the Church has now come to its great life-period when the contents of the old symbols pass from statements into souls, and voice themselves anew and afresh in all Christian living. It does not seek to formulate its faith, but to realize it in mind and heart, in word and deed. Accepting the theological system for all that it is worth, it turns withI the glow of a tresh interest to the study of the Scriptures. The records too of natural religion have been read more fully than ever before. The collective experience of the ancient world and also that of the modern-thie Old and New Testaments of Providence-have along a thousand channels, seen and unseen, within the last century, been pouring their treasures into the Christian consciousness. This consciousness, too, is not shallow except along its shore. If one will weigh anchor, the ocean currents will soon bear him to measureless depths. Besides, the Christian life of to-day is marked by freedom from fixed forms, by its many and broad aspects, by its artistic sense as well as its realistic cravings. In such an age the professional discourse does not touch the soul at all; and the idealistic sermon will be heard only as one hears the music of a sweet song. They are both dead, and the preacher must be alive, and alive on every side of his nature. His sermon must grow out of his own soul, and must be realistic in character, dealing with verities, and not with empty signs and symbols. In method, in style, aud in delivery, it must have the freshness of a new creation and the inspiration of a living form. In our day, at least, genius without culture will not accomplislh the desired results, for it will-never correct the extravag(ances and the excesses whichl spring from the very intensity of our present life. For the uncultivated genius is doomed to be an ultraist in thought and in action.

His ideas possess him instead of being his possession, so that he is too often the creature of impulse, without symmetry of mind or solidity of judgment. It is not genius, then, any more than it is ignorance, which can meet the demand of the modern pulpit. They call for the learning and the discipline of varied studies, acquired through many years. And 160

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. how can the minister guide the age, into which the life of God and the life of man has flowed as they never flowed before, without a contact with the Christ consciousness of the Scriptures and the human consciousness of history? But he cannot be an independent interpreter of the one, without a knowledge of the original languages of the Bible, nor of the other without a direct acquaintance with the literature in which the life of the foremost nations has crystallized itself. Without such a culture in the Christian ministry, it will have, but little part in guiding the destinies of human society, and that guidance will have to be left to be divided between the scientists and the men of letters. But when we come to consider the problems of the day-to classify them, to count them, and to estimate their range and the difficulty of their solution, we cannot fail to be impressed with the various habits of thought which must be called into exercise, and with the various forms of learning which must be laid under contribution. The minister finds himself at once in the midst of controversies which divide the several branches of the Christian church. There is a necessity, first of all, that he should be able to distinguish the verbal differences from the real ones, and to reconcile these last with the grand essential, spiritual unity which holds together all believing souls in the kingdom of God. He must be able to justify the existence of his own denomination as a living witness, without whose testi mony the cause of truth would be imperilled. He must thoroughly appreciate its spirit and genius, and clearly apprehend its position among the great organized forces of Christendom. He must master the elements of power-whether they be doctrinal or educational, providential or churchly-which have given to other religious communities such an honorable record and such a wide success. He must study their confessions, and appropriate whatever truth his own church may not have duly emphasized. He must examine their errors, not merely to refute them, but to explain their origin and their history, and their present hold, not only on the comnmon life, but on many of the foremost minds of Christendom. The controversial argument must have a broad Christian and scientific basis, else it will be worse than useless.

The mere polemic always does injustice to the cause which hlie defends; for his advocacy is weakened by his imperfect knowledge of both the position and the resources of his adversary. Besides, the work of destroying the theological system, which in its very assumption of completeness proclaims its own insufficiency, is the easiest task possible, and the most unsatisfactory when completed. But to unfold the one divine method, in its process of creation and redemption, so that the finite side of all mysteries shall hliarmonize, and the infinite side become the supreme attraction of our souls-to unfold such a method is the fruit of the highest genius and the widest culture. The first is the gift of God, but a gift which in some measure belongs to all souls, since they all have the stamp or the dash of individuality. The second is an attainment-but an attainment within the reach of hundreds who are preparing for the Christian ministry. But the path to the philosophical point of view is narrow and difficult, and to be reached only by those who continue their studies long after they have left the schools. It is in this spirit that the minister is to treat of those churchly movements which arise outside of his own communion. Thus, to illustrate our meaning: he is called on to resist the spread of ritualistic tendencies. Now, ritualism can certainly be made an object of ridicule; for, while it is a beautiful sight to see young children mimic real life with their playthings, yet grown people cannot bring out the dolls of childhood without exciting doubts as to their sanity. Still, the contemptuous laugh does not stop the contagion. It demands a graver treatment, and a more thorough examination and exposure. Now, no minister 11 161

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NATIONAL BAPTIST can do this who is not able to explain the nature of Christian symbolism, so that in the discussion the radical difference shall appear between the symbol which expresses a great life movement of God to man and of man to God, and the form which expresses only an ideal conception; and, again, between the symbol which rests on a transcendent historical fact and the form which rests on a transient fancy. He is thus to show on scientific grounds the difference between a real worship in symbols and a mock worship in forms. Such a discussion would reveal at one and the same time the charm of ritualism, and the fatal spell of its incantations. This single instance, out of many which migiht be taken, vindicate the truth of our general thesis. It belongs to the minister to discuss from his.pulpit the more delicate subjects of a domestic and social character. His law-book and his text-book treat of them, and he can neither ignore their guidance nor the wants of the community; for Christian homes are the heavens of earth, and without them society must return to heathenism. It is then for him to show the sacredness of the lifeunion between husband and wife, the moral invalidity of divorce not warranted by God himself. He ought to go further there, and to proclaim the principles on which a life-long engagement should be formed, and to point out the sad consequences of rash and thoughtless espousals. It is his privilege to preach on the duties of parents to children, and of children to parents, and the obligations of both to the servants of the household. It is his duty not to describe vice and any heathen practices which have grown up in society-a description which is in all cases immoral in its tendencies-but to portray their terrible consequences to the bodies and to the souls of men-a portraiture which is always moral and healthful.

Such subjects, in the hands of half-cultivated men, are apt to be handled in an offensive manner, and their treatment is sure to be crude, and, if not, sensational. There are many other subjects which belong to the same category, such as reforms demanded of society, and the many amusements about which good people are divided. Now silence on all these questions is better than a blunder, even though the blunder be that of inadequate thought or of bad taste. There are, also, problems of government which need to be solved, and problems, too, whose solutions are seriously doubted. The position of woman in a free government is still not absolutely settled.. This question has most certainly a profoundly religious bearing on the interests of society. It cannot be answered by a mere appeal to the common sentiment, for this seems to be giving way both in the church and out of it; and the authority of the Scriptures needs to be supported by an appeal to the facts of Providence-the conclusions of social science. The preacher must determine who are the units in a free State, the individuals or the families, and who reps esent these families; and whether the political rights of the representative are to be determined by the fact of humanity or the fact of capacity. And what will he say of the duties of the citizens, of the right of revolution, of the comity of nations, and, what is just now of more moment, of the relation of the government to education and to religion? Such subjects cannot be disposed of by wholesale dogmatism and loose declamation. We can only give a passing allusion to the questions which science has raised, and to the doubts which modern criticism has widely thrown out and disseminated. Many of these are sent out touching the origin, the nature and destiny of man, or the genuineness and the authenticity of’the sacred Scriptures. To avoid here false issues, and to meet the true ones, requires the amplest learning and the broadest culture. The application of science to the various pursuits of life, and the conse 162

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. quent discoveries and inventions, have created the present great industrial age. But great as the age is, in that it favors freedom and peace, and in that it advances the material interests of Christendom, it yet engenders the gravest dangers. And these dangers are matters of interest to the pulpit as well as to the press, and must be considered by the minister as well as by the statesman. A new and wide range of themes will be opened. He will find a place in his discussions for such subjects as the following: The morals of commerce and trade-the use and abuse of wealth-the relations of the employer to the employed and their respective rights and duties-the fatal effects of extravagance and luxury on the individual and national life. Now there is no room for the objection that such subjects are foreign to the ministerial calling, for that calling is as wide as the range of moral agency, and that agency is commensurate with the sphere of free personal life. Nor can we allow all the ethical preaching to be done by our unorthodox friends, for we should then admit that they had a broader basis for practical morals than the common faith of Christendom. And it would be too humiliating to confess the incompetency of the ministry adequately to handle such subjects. And yet a broad comprehension of the laws of social science would be as much needed as a clear apprehension of the principles of Christian ethics. But many of these questions run up into the sphere of speculative thought, and reappear as the life-questions of humanity. And it is here that the final Waterloo-issue has to be taken between faith and doubt. Here the preacher is met by the dogmatism of unbelief in postulates like the following: Reason is the dictator and not the defender of revelation-virtue is based on utility and not on the nature of God-necessity and not freedom is the law of all thinking, feeling, and action-development and not creation is the primal fact of the universe. It is true the church is the living witness to its supernatural origin, character, and destiny, and so can easily dispose of these speculative dogmas. But there remain the connected problems: What is the relation of the miraculous to the natural, and what is the relation of prophecy to prevision? What is the relation of freedom to virtue, and of reason to faith? What is the relation of evolution to the creative act and process? These last problems lead us to the final mystery of thought-the nature of God. What is that nature? This is the one problem that solves all others. Do the two attributes, absoluteness and relativeness, make up that nature? Are we in this way to account for creation, without the prelude of awful solitude, and without losing in the timeless process the absolute freedom of a personal God? Do we thus in knowing God in relation, know him really, though very imperfectly, as he is in himself? Does this transcendence ceaselessly pass into immanence, and does the immanence of God forever rest in his transcendence, and do both blend together to form the unity of an infinite personal life?

Possibly we state the mystery-we do not solve it. We have only a word in conclusion. We do not forget the apostolic declaration: “There is a diversity of gifts.” Souls are made after different types, and must therefore follow the idea and the law of their own natures. It is not then given to us all to succeed equally well in all directions, but it is given to succeed according to the measure of our spiritual capabilities and in the line of our dominant-tastes and studies. The discussion suspended by the afternoon adjournment was resumed. Dr. BROADUS: I am anxious to say some things on this subject of theological education, which, although a very interesting 163

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NATIONAL BAPTIST and practical subject, is not one likely to kindle the imagination, or stir the feelings. I heartily concur in the old-fashioned Baptist theory as to the ministry. I do not believe in landing the Baptist denomination. I think that our practice about ministerial education has not been remarkably good, but that our theory of ministerial education is thoroughly correct. That, as I understand it, has always been, that every man should preach who feels inclined to preach, and whom the churches are willing to hear. That theory suits the whole country, is selfadjusting, and forbids you or me from undertaking to decide who shall or who shall not preach for a people, it may be, very different from ourselves. That theory leaves the churches in every part of this wide and wonderfully diversified country of ours, to decide for themselves, and does not at all interfere with the efforts which have been long made, and which I trust will continue to be made, to elevate the general standard of mninisterial education. The Baptist theory of ministerial education I believe in, and I hope we shall never succeed in Presbyterianizing the Baptist ministry.

With profound respect for the Presbyterian ministry, and heartily endorsing what was said in the able and striking paper of Dr. ROBINSON, read this afternoon, in reference to this subject, I beg you to remember this, that the two denominations of this country which have taken hold upon the masses have been the Baptists and the Methodists, who do not attempt to restrict their ministry to those who have been through a certain course of ministerial education. If these denominations had pursued such a course as our Presbyterian brethren, they would not have accomplished what they have, in informing, moulding, and wielding the masses of the country There are none of us, I think, who are not heartily in favor of the most advanced ministerial education and culture, in all cases where it can be reached; but some of us are afraid of exclusiveness.

We say, educate everybody that can be educated. Educate every man so far as he has the opportunity and ability to acquire education. Educate men before they begin to preach, and after they begin, and let them seek education as long as they continue to preach, and be sure to stop preaching when they stop educating themselves. Do not discourage any attempt to labor. Do not say to the man who has not received a certificate of college graduation, that he shall not preach. There are men preaching the Gospel in this 164

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. country who cannot read, and God is blessing their words to the conversion of souls. I would not dare to stop them from preach ing, as long as they feel moved by the spirit of God to preach, and the people in some obscure, out-of-the-way corner are satis fied with their preaching. Now, the point I wish to make about ministerial education in our theological studies, and which I insist upon, is, that all who are engaged in such studies ought to study the Scriptures in the English version. I insist upon it, that the men who are best acquainted with Hebrew and Greek, ought to be engaged in the constant study of the English Scriptures. Dr. Chalmers thought so, and he used to urge upon his students the study of the English version, and, in order to show them how much a man can do with it, he told them about a certain Andrew Fuller, who, he said, had written some remarkable notes, full of knowledge of the Scriptures, which he had got out of the English version. In this country, there are few men who know Hebrew and Greek so well that they can see three feet ahead of their noses, through that dim and misty medium; very few who can read the original Scriptures so well that they can compass in their minds a whole book of the original, or even a whole chapter. We know, all of us, that when ministers begin their study of the Scriptures, the thing they most need of all things to be taught, is to take broad views of the connection of the Scriptures. We know that many of the faults to which our young men are liable, inl studying the Scriptures, come from considering detached portions at a time, and from not taking broad, comprehensive views. Now such views they do not get from the Hebrew and Greek. With rare exceptions, if they do get hold of the connection of a whole book, or a whole argument, they get it out of the English Bible, as sure as you are born. [Laughter.] I insist upon it, that we ought to have a Bible-class, for instruction in the English version, for men who are also studying Hebrew and Greek, and I will point out to you one great advantage which some experience on my part has suggested, going to show that they would acquire a better knowledge of exegesis, and more readily take broad views of the Scriptures, than if they used the original, alone.

I suppose there has not been in this country a more remarkable teacher of the original Scriptures than Addison Alexander. Many of you, no doubt, have been reading his memoir, lately published, and have been interested in the description of his wonder 165

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NATIONAL BAPTIST ful character. Alexander gave very little attention, himself, to the instruction of his class in Hlebrew, but devoted his lectures, for the most part, to exegesis. If I have been correctly informed, there are very few of our theological schools of any denomination, in which much effort has been made to teach the Greek language, or even to teach the peculiarities of the New Testament Greek. I must say, with profound respect for the young gentlemen of the present generation, or the past generation, who have come from the colleges, that, when they enter the theological schools, to take it for granted that they are well acquainted with Greek, is a violent supposition. [Laughter.] The theological professor says, “I have no time to teach them Greek; if they do not know it, it is their misfortune, and I cantot help it.” If you throw together in this study of the English version, both sorts of students-some who are studying the original Scriptures, and some who are not, and if only such as have a talent for acquiring-the languages, or have a strong desire to master the original Scriptures, or are determined to gain the honors of the highest course, go up into your highest classes of Hebrew and Greek; these picked men can go farther than you can possibly carry the whole body of your students. This is my experience. I do not see how it would be possible for me to carry the general body of students along through the original Scriptures, as I can carry a few picked young men. There are a great many who have no talent for this kind of study, nor would they ever know much about the original Scriptures from such study.

There are a great many who have been through a course of study of Hebrew and Greek at theological seminaries, who never make use of it. I remember, that when I was a young student, a Presbyterian minister offered to sell me his Hiebrew Bible; and I suppose there are many ministers, who, hbving been through a course of Hebrew and Greek, might just as well sell their Hebrew Bibles, if they would but acknowledge the honest truth. Now I have seen the most highly educated young men I ever knew in my life, sitting side by side with plain men who did not know what Latin was, and all studying the English Scriptures together. I held an examination a week or two ago on the English New Testament, and the two best papers out of twenty were written, one by a graduate of college, a young man of splendid attainments and genius, and the other by a young man who knew nothing of any language but his own; but he had brains in his 166

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. head and a heart in his bosom, and he loved his work and God’s word. The point I want to make is this, that your young men who study the Greek and the Hebrew ought to study the Scriptures in English also. I know that there are great advantages to be derived from the study of the original Scriptures, and I would press the importance of such study strongly upon your attention, if there were time to go thoroughly into the matter. I do not say that it is necessary to adopt any method of organization or arrangement. If the point I make is correct, that it is desirable for men who study the original Scriptures also to study the English Scriptures-why not arrange in the same institution for the men who study the original Scriptures, and the other branches of the theological course; and, also, for the men who study only the English Scriptures, and all the other branches, but omit the Hebrew and Greek to work together? If you want the system of independent schools, such as we have in our Seminary, it is perfectly easy to arrange for them. If you prefer a curriculum, do not make a separate partial course, but have some arrangement by which your students can work together. Mr. President and brethren, let us take great pains not to make divisions in our ministry.

One of the sorest and saddest evils we have to contend with in our efforts to build up ministerial education is the fostering of a spirit of ministerial aristocracy. I mourn over anything that looks like the encouragement of such a feeling. Why, if a line were to be drawn here in this body, this assemblage of leaders in education, between those you call educated men and those who were not so-called, some of the grandest men you have here to-night would be ranked among the uneducated. Let us not do anything to make distinctions in our theological seminaries. Let all your young men work together in the same institution, not putting some upon a lower platform. Human nature will not stand that. If you think that preachers have not a great deal of human nature, go to a Baptist convention and see. [Laughter.] Do nothing that will conflict with the self-respect of your young men preparing for the ministry. Put them in the same class. They can work in the same class in everything, except in the study of the Hebrew and the Greek and in Latin theology. Let them work in the same class; and your young man who has been through college, when sitting side by side with some good plain fellow, will find out that he will be beaten, 167

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NATIONAL BAPTIST if lie does not work.; and your plain man, who has not had the advantages of a college education, will feel encouraged when he sees that work will tell, that brains will tell, and that there is no stigma put upon him, and he has a fair chance to do himself justice. But he will also see the benefit of having a knowledge of the original Scriptures. J have seen many a young man entering upon the study of the Scriptures, and finding out before the end of the session that he needed to know them in the original, and he would go hard to work during the vacation. before the next session, with private help, to try and get some knowledge of Greek, that he might work with the class. I have known men who, ignorant of Greek when they came, went away better scholars than some who came from a respectable college. Let there be no antagonism among us about this matter, and let every man work out his own ideas. There is no real difference in our theory; let there be no disputing as to practice.

God be thanked, it is after all a free country, and we can do as we please. On one point, I do respectfully differ from my honored friend (Dr.

RoBINSON), who read the paper this afternoon. I sympathize with him in respect to his feeling a little sore at the criticisms which have been indulged in in regard to theological institutions. I have sometimes felt a little sore at the criticisms of outside men upon what I may have done. I think upon the whole, that although the men who criticise sometimes do not understand the matter they are talking about, yet we cannot afford to do without the criticisms of outsiders. They irritate us sometimes, but they will help us often. We are apt to work in the ruts which our own working has made, and they may help us to get out of them. Dr. HOVEY: I feel g’reat reluctance in speaking, after what has been already said, and yet, I have a desire to say a few words in respect to the subject under consideration, and especially because I have had some little experience in trying to do the work necessary for the class of men (although not for a very large number of the class) to which special reference has been made, both in the paper read this afternoon, and in the remarks to which we have listened with so much interest this evening. It is possible, I have no doubt, to use the English Scriptures with great profit in a course of theological study. There are multitudes who have some acquaintance with Greek interpretation and with the Hebrew Scriptures, who, after leaving the seminary, 168

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. use the English version more than they do the Greek and the Hebrew. A man may be a splendid scholar himself, may know all about the details of the Hebrew language, may be able to write it, and may even accumulate learning to such an extent as to confound the humbler intellects of his pupils, anid yet not work in just the way that will incite them to work, and make them see their paths clear as they go forward in the study of the original Scriptures. But, with the best teaching, I have no sort of fear that we shall have too many ministers carrying on through life the study of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.

Indeed, there will be a great proportion of the time given to the English Scriptures in a course of theological study. Those who have studied in the seminary at Newton (for I know better about them than I do about others) are quite enough inclined, notwithstanding the excellent teaching they have had previously, to look up their texts in the English Scriptures.

There is a good deal of truth, I admit, in what the brother from South Carolina (Dr. BROADUS), has said to us, but I do not think that there is much peril in the direction he has indicated. Now, as to the matter of putting men of different culture together in the same class, I cannot think it altogether impracticable, notwithstanding the remarks of our essayist (Dr. ROBINSON). There are, indeed, many non-graduates who will undertake the course, and yet fall out by the way, because they have not intellectual vigor enough to go on; but if they have such intellectual power and such natural capacity as will be likely to qualify them for the ministry, they will generally go on in the study of theology, church history, church polity, the practical duties of a minister, and the writing of sermons with a class which is made up, for the most part, of graduates from colleges. And in case they do, what was said by my brother last upon the floor (Dr. BROADUS) is true, that they will acquire sympathy and oneness of view with those men who have had previous advantages not enjoyed by themselves, and will understand far more perfectly the character and the spirit of men who have been graduated from college, than they otherwise would do. My fear is, that men who have not had these privileges of study will misapprehend the feelings of those that have, fancying that we look down upon them. But this we are far from doing.

There are many of them to whom we look up as men of truly marvellous power, whom God has called to the work of the ministry. 169

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NATIONAL BAPTIST We look upon them with the utmost respect, and it is but just to say, that most of these men are inclined to regard education as important, as giving power to a minister of the Gospel. Yet there is danger that some of this class will not understand the true feelings of their brethren in regard to them iHaving tried a combination of the two classes of students, I have found some who, with no college training at all, were perfectly able to receive almost everything I could give them in the the way of explanation and instruction. Indeed it has never been difficult for men of good sense to lay up and understand any theological truth that needs to be communicated. It has not been possible, of course, to make use of all the arguments from the Hebrew or Greek which could be used with those who had learned those languages, but they could be led along in the study of the truths of the Bible, so as to understand them well-so well, that some of them, when called upon in the class, have prepared essays quite equal to those of graduates. And yet, if a class was composed in large measure of young men, not graduates, or even if one-third of them were not graduates, I confess it might be found very difficult to keep up the standard of scholarship. The teacher must address himself to the best men of his class. If I am to teach theology, I must present the matter in the best form, and with the best arguments at my command, and must meet errors in the same way. Truth cannot be presented in too clear and profound a manner. But it would be utterly impossible for any of us who teach to do this, if a large proportion of the class were of the kind mentioned, unless indeed they were persons of extraordinary native ability. Otherwise I am inclined tot believe that the suggestion made by Dr. ROBINSON would hold true, that the class could not be carried along well; that the teacher would find himself hampered in his work. But if a large majority of the class are graduates from college, then the difficulty mentioned is not likely to be met; the young men who are not graduates will learn a great deal from their associates in regard to a fit expression of thought, and almost unconsciously, through the influence of those who have had superior advantages, will be encouraged, finding themselves able to grapple with the same truths which their brothers are able to grapple with. It seems to me, therefore, that I shall be compelled to dissent in a measure from the able paper presented this afternoon. One other thought, in relation to a single statement in the 170

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. paper, and I will relieve your patience. As these things may be referred to hereafter, I wish to express my opinion in regard to the matter. The statement to which I refer was, that every man should be ordained who is desired by a church as its pastor. Perhaps there was some little qualification in the statement, for I do not recollect the language exactly. But it seems to me that there should be great caution used in ordaining men as pastors over our churches. There is danger, many times, in yielding to the wish of a church in that regard. Of course, I recognize the right of a church, after due trial, to make any man it pleases its pastor; but, if a council is called in, it is the privilege and the duty of the council to recommend no man for ordination who in its judgment is not likely to do the work of the ministry intelligently and well. I have known churches in New England (not to go further) upon whose pressing dedesire pastors have been ordained over them, but these churches were often-unwilling to keep their pastors more than a year. Dr. ROBINSON: My paper seems, unfortunately, to have been misunderstood-very naturally so, considering that the point referred to was condensed into a few sentences near the close, and rapidly read. It was stated, as the belief of the writer of the paper, that duty would require us to ordain many men without any special preparation subsequent to their call to the ministry.

The object of the paper, it will be remembered, was to advocate a high standard of ministerial culture; and, lest it should be misunderstood as insisting upon that standard for all candidates to the ministry, it was expressly stated that a considerable, not a large proportion, of men entering our ministry, were called at mature age. We all remember that our revered friend, Dr. Comstock, resigned a brilliant career as a public man, and commenced at once to preach the Gospel. Our distinguished brother who addressed us this afternoon (Dr. CURRY) was educated for the bar, abandoned his brilliant prospects, and gave himself to the work of the ministry. Shall we stop and ask such men whether they are willing to be taught theology six months, or a year, or two or three years, prior to their ordination? When Dr. Richard Fuller avowed his purpose to preach, did a council say to him: You must first study theology?” In all such men we recognize at once their divine call, and, without hesitation, ordain them, and with all heartiness say: “God speed you in the work.” There is another class of men who have received no other edu 171

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NATIONAL BAPTIST cation than that of the common school-men with great hearts, strong commonsense, rich experience in life, and intimate acquaintance with God’s word, but with little or no literary cultures They have, according to the phrase of our fathers, many of whom thus entered the ministry, “exercised their gifts,” and proved their fitness for the work. If some church calls such a man to be its pastor who is competent to instruct them, though unequal to a city church and congregation, shall we say to him, You must go and be taught systematic theology for a year or two before we can ordain you? Or, if another man, after a long business experience, feels himself called to preach, as Patrick hIenry felt himself inspired for statesmanship, and has been already trained in the school of God’s providence, and instructed in his Gospel, and has shown his ability to edify the flock that calls him to be its pastor, shall we require that he go through a course of tleology before he be ordained? No! Let us ordain him at once, and every other man that proves his ability to do the work to which he is to be set apart, come to it as he may from a coalcart, a forecastle, or a counting-house. I stand ready to help ordain any man whom God has prepared for the ministry, and called to it, no matter whence he comes, nor by what process he has been prepared; but I cannot believe that every such man should be first sent to a theological school, whatever may be its course of study or method of instruction. Nor do I believe that for the majority of such men, fixed as they are in all their hbbits of mind, of thought and expression, the training of any kind of school can be of any real value. It can only put them in straitjackets, that embarrass every movement-it is to make them aware of their defects without removing them. My observation and experience do not warrant the experiment. But there is another class of men who in mature life have strong convictions that they ought to preach, but about whom I always hesitate. They are men in whom the convictions are sometimes deep-seated and long-continued, but they are men who have almost always failed in whatever they have undertaken. Not a great while ago a man, not a thousand miles from this place, came to me and said: “I think I ought to preach, and would like to prepare for the ministry.” “IHave you spoken with your pastor of it?”

“No.” “Ilas aiiy one spoken to you of it?” “No.” ” How old are you?”

“Between thirty-seven and thirty-eight.” “ilave you been active in religious meetings?” “Not specially so.” “What makes you think you ought to preach?” “Be 172

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. cause I have not succeeded in business.” To all such men I give an unqualified “No! -exercise your gifts at anything and anywhere, rather than in the Christian ministry.” A man that can succeed in no business calling certainly cannot in the ministerial; and a man, who, at thirty-seven, has not by his gifts attracted the attention of his brethren as called to preach, cannot be made a preacher by theological education. So much for that class of persons about whom there has been so much misunderstanding here. But about this whole class of uneducated men, let me say a single word-that to my mind it is not so much an increase of these which we need, as it is a great multiplication of lay preachers-of active, intelligent, wide-awake laymen, who shall be ever ready to speak of Christ and his Gospel as they have opportunity, but in no way desirous of being regarded as belonging to the clergy. To all such men I bid Godspeed with all my heart. It was also stated in the paper that a considerable proportion of men at present entering our ministry (taking the country at large, by far the larger proportion) cannot profitably go through the full course of study marked out. They have undoubted talents, but they come to the work too late-at ages varying from twenty-three or twenty-four to thirty, and upward-and their early education has been too much neglected to think of the regular courses of the college and the theological seminary. It is idle, it is the absurdity of absurdities, to begin with drilling such men in the elements of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, while overlooking that elementary training which such studies should presuppose. I said it was an open question what provision should be made for these men, whether that of special institutions, or of some other plan. My experience of this class of men is that you must teach them the elements of knowledge somewhere. They need to know something of grammar, and something of rhetoric; and, when you take into account the skill in financiering which some of them will need with the salaries they are likely to receive, a little knowledge of arithmetic would not come amiss [laughter], and the rudiments of many other kinds of knowledge would not be without their value. I stated that it might possibly be best to send persons of this class for a year to an academy, a year or two to college, and then a year or two to some theological seminary. One of the standing conditions for admission to our seminary, published in our 173

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NATIONAL BAPTIST eatalogue, is, that any man competent to pursue his studies with college graduates can enter. We ask no other questions as to literary qualifications than, “‘Are you able to go on with your class?”

The institution is open to all who can profit by its instruction. The question which I had in mind, in the paper, was distinctly this (and how any one could misunderstand it I am utterly at a loss to know): “What shall be done with the large class of men who need the elementary instruction just referred to, and which theological education presupposes?” Shall they be sent to the academy and college for it? Shall the theological seminary be so far modified as to provide it, or shall it be entirely omitted? Shall I say to men of this class, and to college graduates who desire and need only instruction in Hebrew, in the higher Greek interpretation and in systematic theology: “You must come in and sit down in the same class, and take together what is given you?” My brother BROADUS tells us that at Greenville all the students stand on an equality as brethren, with no distinctions whatever. Now, I take it that instruction, to be instruction, must always be adapted to the minds receiving it; and that to talk of equality in this matter is simple nonsense. You must grade men-not according to character, not according to piety, but according to literary and scientific attainments. Suppose these college presidents-of whom there are so many present-should say to the boys in the academy and to those of the several classes in college: “You are all brethren-all on an equality-come in to my recitations in Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, all of’ you, and I will instruct you together.” Now, this, I take it, would be just as good sense as to put men of all grades together in our theological seminaries. The truth is that intelligent teaching requires grading of pupils; it is done in common schools, in colleges, and it is a matter of commonsense that it be done in the theological school. If, however, a seminary can be so conducted-as our Greenville friends tell us theirs is-that persons of all grades of attainment shall be equally instructed by one and the same lecture to-day, and reinstructed in separate classes to-morrow-shall be a coach and four to-day, and to-morrow each department magically transformed into two gigs, with a single driver-so be it; but, I am free to say that I have but very little faith in its practical working. As to the sufficiency of the English language in the study of theology, it is doubtless true that many a student who knows no 174

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. other tongue than English, may, as Dr. BROADUS
says, profit largely, even in the interpretation of the Bible. And, in truth, it seems to me that in all departments of theological study no sensible man would use any other than his native tongue when that will do just as well. As Ralph Waldo Emerson says: “Because my father was obliged to swim the Charles River to get to Boston, I don’t know why I should decline going over the bridge.” It may be true, also, as my brother says, that even Greek scholars, if they would take in the connection of an epistle, must read it through and through in an English translation; but I will venture to say that if you take the Epistle to the Hebrews, or that to the Galatians, and try to get the sense of it, you will fail of all those finer shades of meaning, to borrow his phrase, “as sure as you are born” [laughter], unless you read it through and through in the original Greek. It is not within the range of possibility, be the translation what it may, fully to understand it otherwise. But we must not overlook the real question involved in this discussion, which is, not whether all students of theology shall be college graduates, and well acquainted with Latin and Greek, but whether, as before stated, all shall be prepared to go on profitably together. It seems to me that men who can pursue the same studies should by all means pursue them together. Our seminary at Rochester-every lecture-room in it is open to every man-fose.attainments are such that he can work with his fellowstudents to advantage. We do not even require that our full graduates should be able to read a Latin text-book in theology. As for that matter, we use no text-books but the Bible. I have never yet taught theology by a Latin text-book, and never expect to. I had supposed this generation to be too far along for that.

But I do say to students, that, in the wide range of the history of doctrines, if they would understand any single doctrine, they must examine a great many authors. On certain doctrines I set them to translating passages, not from Turretine alone, but from Quenstedt and Aquinas, and Lombard and Augustine, and a great many others. At this day, however, theology, to my notion, is not to be learned by “pawing out the sense “

(to borrow a phrase from my friend, Dr. KENDRICK) of a single author in Latin-but by throwing open the whole wide range of knowledge, and by helping the students into possession of every fact and truth which they can grasp and use. Young men now come to our theological seminaries from the . 175

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NATIONAL BAPTIST colleges, sometimes with fine culture and not deficient in genuine piety, but full of “protoplasm,” and “spontaneous generation,”

and what not-challenging at the very outset the traditionary arguments for the existence of God; asking how we know that there has been any “creation” of the world or of man; full of questions that spring up along the whole track of natural science. These questions must be met in the theological lecture-room. No man can teach theology understandingly to classes containing such men-I cannot, for a single day-without bringing it into contact with natural science at points without number. Now, I do not wish to discuss these questions in the presence of men who have never been perplexed by them; who are to minister to congregations to whom they would never occur; and who need to be taught a thousand other things with which college graduates are already familiar. To require graduates and other advanced men to wait while these familiar things are explained, or while the essays or sermons which I have set these deficient men to write are corrected, is, to say the least, unjust. To my mind it is not only unjust-it is a species of wickedness to take young men that can be useful in multitudes of localities, and perplex their minds with questions and difficulties which they are not competent to comprehend, and the answers to which they cannot understand. But, for graduates and other well-read men, the difficulties must be examined and the questions discussed. For the truth is that the graduates of this day tun a gauntlet of errors that is full of perils, and they come to the study of theology with suspicions and doubts that must be dealt with and laid, if our pulpits are to proclaim a pure Gospel, and to proclaim it intelligently and with power.

This, I know, is a grave question. It is one that should be looked fully in the face. For that reason I wrote what I did in the paper-I have spoken as I have. I have neither written nor spoken at random. Let me say that I do not look with distrust upon a brother who has not received a collegiate nor any other kind of education. Not a word goes from my lips, there is not a thought in my mind, there is not an emotion in my heart that would favor such an idea. I do not care where a man was educated, nor how. I remember that some one told me, years ago, that he got his theology among the stumps of Kentucky. But it matters not where, nor when, nor how, so that a man has it. I stretch out my hand in cordial fellowship to any man who feels that he has a 176.

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Christian work to do, and shows that he can do it.

It is idle to talk of supplying all our wide field with carefully-trained men; but it is equally idle to think that, in the present progress of knowledge, we can save ourselves as a denomination from a backward movement by a multiplication of illiterate ministers, or by keeping all our ministers at the same level of attainment, or by any other method than that of giving, to every man who will improve it, an opportunity for the largest acquisitiqn of knowledge and intellectual power of which he is capable. Dr. BOYCE: I have been very much gratified with the re marks made by Rev. Dr. HovEY, of Newton, and especially with the remarks made by Dr.

ROBINSON, because I find that we agree in a great many points upon which I had supposed we differed, after hearing his essay this afternoon. But there are still some points of difference between us, in which I cannot follow the Doctor, although I bow with reverence to his age and learning.

I recognize all the importance of teaching the things to which the Doctor has referred. I am glad that we did not, in any sense, cut them out of our course by the steps which we took. We have in our institution, as I understand it, a course of theology in which instruction is given in English-that is, systematic theology. I do not understand how systematic theology goes to the discussion of polemic theology. Systematic theology is the simple presentation of the truth of God as a system accompanied by the arguments which support it. But alongside of it we have also a school of polemic theology, in which we carry on the discussion of the points to which my brother has just referred. Into that school I do not expect every man who studies systematic theology in English, to enter, although a great many who pursue systematic theology in English do study polemic theology.

My brother seems to have misunderstood the object with which we pursue the study of Latin theology. I thiink I can state, without danger of contradiction, that there is scarcely any argument that ever has been, or can be presented in support of any doctrine, the germ of which is not to be found in Latin works on theology. I do not see that we are quite so far behind the age in making use of a Latin text-book (Turretine), which, although one hundred and fifty years old, yet during those one hundred and fifty years has maintained its supremacy as a text-book of theology that has never been surpassed or equalled. 177

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NATIONAL BAPTIST But there is another advantage which we have in view. I feel that it is very important for Baptists especially to learn and make use of the Latin in the line of theology. What quantities of books there are that are closed to us in the past, if we do not make use of Latin, not only books of the Reformation which have never been translated, but, passing beyond that period, books in the times of the Fathers, many of which have been translated, but many of which are still in the original, and have never been translated-as for instance, Augustine’s work, De Civitate Dei. It is upon that very field of the Fathers, the historical portion of the first four centuries, that we have got to meet the Catholics of this country. There is the foundation of our argument against them. I do not disregard the questions arising from Infidelity and Rationalism; but, while we have made provision for all these questions, I do contend that the great enemy we have to meet in this country is Catholicism,-Catholicisrn not only in its original form as connected with the Romish church, but in all its branches and ramifications. Hiow are we to meet these things? Are Baptists to be told, as I know they are sometimes told, that all church history is against us upon the mode of baptism? Are we to depend upon what we find at second-hand, and not go to the original and be able to say anything for ourselves upon that subject?

I feel it my duty to present to my students, as I do, every single extract upon the mode of baptism to be found in the Fathers for the first four centuries, and I have collated extracts for that purpose, and placed them within the reach of my students. How are they to learn these things, if they do not know Latin and Latin theology? With due deference to my brother, and the new lights which are found in the advancing progress of the study of theology in the direction he has intimated, a study of Latin theology is neces sary to the advanced student, for it forms the basis of all knowl edge upon this subject. That very denomination to which he has referred (I mean the Presbyterian) have made use, and are still making use of Turre tine in their denominational institutions. I studied it when I was at Princeton, under Dr. Charles iodge, and have continued to use it to this day, and it is used in all the seminaries of the Presby terian denomination. Dr. Hodge is recognized as the great theo logian of this century. It is said that once, when Dr. Chalmers was toasted as being the great theologian of the world, he turned round and said: “No man can lay claim to that title, as long as Charles ilodge of America lives.” 178

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. That the principles which are contained in Turretine are possible to the comprehension of persons generally, although so erudite perhaps upon one hand, and musty upon the other, we have the testimony of the younger HIodge, who in his Outlines of Theology, which are also the result of the study of Turretine, and his father’s lectures, states expressly in the introduction that he had gone over the subjects contained in that book in lectures to his congregation, and had found their interest excited in them, even the most abstruse subjects. I happened to meet, on my way to this Convention, a gentleman who had been a member of the church of the younger Hiodge, when he was pastor at Fredericksburgh, Virginia. He told me that the lectures which were delivered by him, and which were of the character I have referred to, had been deeply interesting, and he believed that he had never heard or known so much of theology in his life, and he felt when he finished the course that he knew as much, if-not more, than the preachers,-and yet the books from which this knowledge is to be gained are to be regarded as musty, and thrown aside as beyond Dr. ROBINSON’S teaching, which he never has taught, and which he never will teach. I am glad at least to be a learner in this direction, and as long as I know the value of this knowledge, and unless I receive much greater light than I have yet received, I shall so continue to teach, as long as I have a class. Dr. ROBINSON: I do not say that I do not teach Turretine, but I do not teach theology from a Latin text-book.

Dr. BOYCE: It is very difficult to teach theology from Turretine, without teaching it from a Latin text-book, inasmuch as it has never been translated. I do not expect my students to recite the Latin words, but they recite to me the contents. I never did believe, and never shall believe in that ability to speak Latin, which I have heard of as being exercised in some portions of our country. I do not pretend to do anything like teaching in a Latin text-book in any other sense than that the student commits the argument in English, and analyzes it. Mr. President, I feel very deeply about this matter of theological education, for it is a work to which I have devoted all my past life, and I know nothing which will divert me from it in the future, and it is for that reason I have trespassed upon the patience of the Convention in trying to explain the system we have been pursuing. I have seen its practical working, and its importance 179

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NATIONAL BAPTIST cannot be lessened by mere ridicule and by the mere declaration that it cannot work well. Therefore it is that I have felt very anxious when this matter came up before the Convention, that there should be an understanding of the precise course we are pursuing. Some persons have imagined that we are trying to lower education; but, so far from that, we are trying on the other hand to elevate it. Some persons have supposed that we are attempting a partial course in connection with our institution. So far from that, we are urging upon our students to take as long a course as they can possibly take. I must say that I do not agree with my brother from Newton (Dr. IOVEY), in the remark bhe made as to the disadvantage of having more than one-third of the class not thorough college graduates, because I have seen very different results from what he has anticipated. I very readily admit, that in the mere instruction of those who take only my English course, it is impossible to go over all the line of argument which he has suggested, but I would ask him and the members of this Convention to consider, whether that disadvantage is not fully met by the higher course of theology taken in connection with Latin text-books, and in connection with polemic theology, where we are able to go over the whole argument in every direction and in all its ramifications. Dr. EATON: I regard this question of ministerial education in point of interest as a culminating one, in respect to the objects for which we have assembled here. There can be no sound education in the land unless our ministers are thoroughly educated. It is important, therefore, that we should have a substantial agreement upon this subject, and it seems now that we have made some advance. We are agreed, as I understand, upon two points. One is, that we must carry ministerial culture to the very highest point which is possible, and we are also agreed as to providing for a certain class of ministers who cannot receive such culture. But my respected brother (Dr. ROBINSON) speaks of a third class-a class of men whom we should discourage from coming to our theological seminaries, and should at once give them a commission for lay preaching.

As to what manner of men within the circle of the-Baptist denomination these are, I am not very well informed. Are they to be clothed with ministerial functions, not only to preach, but to baptize and administer the Lord’s Supper? I doubt whether you will find many of that class who would expect 180

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. an ordination for preaching, without being clothed with these other functions. Now, Mr. President, it seems to me the main point is, what are we to do with a class of men in whose hearts a desire for preaching and saving souls is like fire, and who feel the absolute necessity for some further preparation than they have already had? Shall we repel them from our theological seminaries, where theology is taught, and say to them, “You cannot come here-you cannot avail yourselves of the treasures which we deal out to another class -if you want to preach, go to preaching “? What I want to say is, that I believe the churches have special duties in regard to that class of men-that they should provide for them such instruction as will meet their case. I have had some experience upon this very point, and I want to give a brief description of our work in regard to it. We have had what we call two courses at Hamilton for many years-a shorter course and a full course. The first beginning of our course was literary and theological, four years in extent. During that regime we sent forth such men as Wade, Kincaid, Jacob Knapp-men of that class, most efficient men, who have been instrumental, in the hands of God, in saving thousands of souls. Then we extended that course. I do not know whether my brother meant to depreciate literary and theological education as connected; but we did institute a course extending over eight years. For the fruits of this new full course, I only need ask you to look over this congregation. Here are old men-gray-haired veterans, who have been the victors on many well-fought battlefields of God, and who have gathered their trophies of immortal souls. Hiere are others, of middle age, that our institution, for that period, sent forth to the churches throughout the land-able ministers of the New Testament. Then the time came when we admitted others than those studying for the ministry; and then the time came when we had a university charter brought to us. That was a disturbing element that disintegrated the institution which was united before, and since then we have had two institutions at Hamilton, a university and a theological seminary, where students could receive all the culture they could find at any other institution, and a full theological course. Let me say, in reference to the class of shorter course men, that a great many of them have been men of wonderful power in the work of saving souls; but we find some difficulty in taking them 181

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NATIONAL BAPTIST along as a body with those who take the full course. What we have done now, therefore, is, I think, the very thing that our theological seminaries ought to do. We have encouraged a certain class of men-men advanced in life-men with familiesmen of twentyeight, twenty-nine, or thirty years of age, to come and take a special course. We have encouraged them to come and take that course independently of the other course, unless they were fully prepared for it. They have come in considerable numbers, with their wives and children, and have thrown themselves with amazing energy into their studies. They have come with a living impulse in their souls, and a desire for education burning like fire in their bosoms, and have taken hold of their studies with an earnestness and a pertinacious desire for success that is absolutely surprising. I supposed we would have had difficulty with this class of men; but some of these men, notwithstanding all their embarrassment, have received every time for the last six weeks (they stumbled at first) as high a mark as any of the class who have gone over the whole course. We expect a great deal from that class of men. I say they are welcome, and we mean to take care of them. We do not mean to interfere with our full course; but we mean to give them the full benefit of the best kind of instruction that we can give them in the English language, in the English Scriptures, and in English theology,.just as the brethren told us they do in the South. We do not mean that it shall create any embarrassment whatever to our regular course; but we mean to provide for this class of men I have spoken of, and we believe that out of this class we shall send to the churches men of power, of faith, and full of the Holy Ghost. Dr.

BULKLEY: I want to ask a question upon another point altogether, but do not want to engage in any discussion in regard to it. I understood Dr.

ROBINSON (if I misunderstood him I shall be glad to be corrected) to refer to the origin of the Baptists in connection with the Reformation, and to refer to it without any reference to the fact that there were Baptist churches previous to that time. Of course he believes, as I do, that there was a Baptist church in Jerusalem, another in Corinth, and another at Ephesus. I think Dr. ROBINSON did not guard that point as he should. Dr.

ROBINSON: I have heard of that question before. I suppose that men who have looked at Protestant Christianity in 182

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. its various organizations, admit, without much discussion, that the organizations now existing began at the Reformation.

I suppose that our Baptist churches, as a part of Protestant Christendom, then begun to be. I do not consider that question is open for discussion.

The papers of Dr. ROBINSON and Dr. DODGE were referred to the Committee on Qulestions of Theological Education. The Convention then adjourned till to-morrow. THIRD DAY’S PROCEEDINGS. MORNING SESSION. The Convention met, and was opened with prayer by Rev. Mr. FRErXMAN, of Connecticut. Rev. Dr.

CEAMPLIN, of Maine, offered the following resolution: Rssolved, That as a Convention of Baptist educators, who rely upon the Bible for our faith, and regard it as the basis of our common civilization, we deem it all-important that its truths should be linked with the earliest associations of our children, and take this opportunity to utter our solemn protest against the attempt now making to exclude it from our common schools.” This resolution was referred to the Committee on Denominational Work in Education. Rev. Dr. NORTHRUP, of Illinois, addressed the Convention on the next topic in order: THE DUTY OF EDUCATORS

TO LEAD THE CAUSE OF EDUCATION. Owing to circumstances-with which most of those present are acquainted-I supposed it would be impossible for me to be present on this occasion, and I had fully given up the thought of coming, until a few days before I left home. I say this to explain the fact that my discussion does not assume the form which I would otherwise have given to it. The topic assigned to me is, “The duty of Educators to lead the cause of Education.” A thorough discussion of this topic would require us to consider three general questions: I. What is the work which educators should do? II. Why should they do this work? III. How shou!d they do it? I. The first question to be considered is, What is the work required of educators in leading the cause of education? The cause of education is very comprehlensive. It includes, as I conceive, two general departments, the one embracing whatever pertains immediately to the power and efficiency of our various insti tutions of learning, academies, colleges, theological seminaries, schools of law and medicine; the other, the work of awakening among the people a deeper and wider interest in education, and guiding wisely the interest thus awakened. It is to this latter work that I suppose the topic assigned to me refers; the’ duty of educators, by individual effort and by organized effort, to make the power of their position, culture, and experience, effective in influencing the public mind upon the subject of education; developing a more living and profound convic 183

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NATIONAL BAPTIST tion of its importance, and giving a right direction to the efforts made for its advancement. I pass now to consider II. Why educators should do this work. I answer, in general, because they are better qualified to do it than any other class in the land. 1. They have a more thorough understanding of the general cause of education than any other class; they have truer conceptions of its nature and importance, of its relations to all the permanent institutions of society, the family, the State, and the Church; they recognize more clearly the proper results to be aimed at, and the best methods of accomplishing those results; they have a deeper and a truer insight into the nature of the tendencies of the day, as particularly affecting the cause of education. Some of these tendencies are wise, healthful, in every way to be encouraged; but as to others, there is ground for the gravest doubt. There is not one educator here who has not been seriously troubled by the increasing popular tendency of to-day to subordinate the interests of high and thorough culture to the demands of a false utility, which has already caused a large number of young men to turn aside from that course of study through which alone the most important ends of education can be reached. This tendency, springing, as it does, from the intensely practical spirit of our people, from our extraordinary material development, and our universal eagerness for immediate results in every sphere of labor, has already been the source of great injury to the interests of education, and we have, as yet, seen but the beginning of the end, unless right means shall be brought to bear with power upon the public mind. And there is no body of men so well qualified as the educators themselves to judge and to speak in relation to this matter. They are the most competent judges of the changes in the course of education required by the new circumstances of our time; of the tendencies which are healthful, and those which are pernicious in their influence. It is not to be supposed that perfection has been reached in the methods of education: improvements are possible; modifications of existing methods are demanded; but the nature of these changes, in what directions they should be made, the extent to which they should be carried-of these and other related questions, educators are the most competent judges; and thus, possessing the most thorough understanding of all the interests involved, they are the most competent to guide public sentiment aright. 2. A second reason why educators ought to lead in this work, is, that they can present the claims of education most effectively before the common mind. There are three elements essential to the most effective public presentation of any subject-viz. simplicity, freshness, and enthusiasm; and certainly, in the advocacy of the cause of education, no class of men would combine those elements in so high a degree as educators. Their power to unfold this subject with simplicity springs directly from the thoroughness of their acquaintance with it. It may be laid down as an axiom, that the simplicity, and hence the effectiveness, with which any one unfolds a topic, is as the fulness of his knowledge and the depth of his thinking upon that topic. I am aware that a different impression prevails, to some extent. Some years ago, while riding in the cars, I chanced to occupy a seat next to two young lawyers, who were engaged in discussing the question of success in their profession. The conclusion they came to was, that profundity is a damage to a lawyer, especially in addressing a jury. And so it is often said, such and such speakers are superficial; but they are deep enough for the common mind.

Now, I can but regard this as an utter mistake. Profundity never damaged any man, whether at the bar, or on the platform, or in the pulpit. It never damaged Demosthenes, or Cicero, or Burke, or Webster; it never damaged the Apostle Paul, 184

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. or Chrysostom, or Luther, or Howe, or Chalmers, or Edwards. These men. were not afraid of being too profound for the popular mind, and they swayed the popular mind as only mighlty thoughts luminously expressed can sway it. And these men illustrate the general law. Other things being equal, the greater the amount of thoroughly digested and systematized knowledge which one may have of a given subject, and the more profound his thinking upon that subject, the more clearly and convincingly will he present it before an audience. Men eminent in the department of physical science have put forward the idea that there is one ultimate physical law, of which all particular laws are modifications. If this were so, he who should have an understanding of that one ultimate law, would possess a key which would enable him to unlock all the secrets of nature.

The historian who takes into his mind the grand thought that the supreme purpose of God, in relation to our world, was the incarnation and atoning work of Christ, and the establishment and universal sway of his kingdom, has a principle that will guide him, like a line of light, through the centuries, and enable him to bind up into harmony and unity the varied and apparently discordant facts which make up the annals of our race. I remember to have read, some years since, a little work called “The Earth and the Stars,” in which the thought was advanced, that there is one comprehensive truth, of which all particular truths are only different phases or aspects. Were this the fact, the man who should grasp that comprehensive truth would be virtually master of the whole realm of knowledge. I have used these illustrations to bring out the thought, that, the more profound our understanding of the principles which underlie and explain the subject which we have in hand, the greater the simplicity and power with which we can unfold the subject before the common mind. The simplicity demanded by an intelligent audience is not the simplicity of a Sabbath school primer, but that which springs from the grasp of underlying ideas and principles. Hence educators, by virtue of their thorough understanding of the cause of education, are able to present its claims with that simplicity which is essential to the most distinct and permanent popular impression. What I have said in regard to simplicity, is equally true of the second element of the most effective public addressI mean freshness. No man can unfold a subject with the greatest freshness unless he has a thorough knowledge of itunless he grasps its deepest principles.

Why is it that there is such an unwillingness in our churches and among those who attend our dencminational meetings, to hear discussions which are confined exclusively to the cause of education? That there is an unwillingness of this kind is known to all. What is the explanation of it?

It is my deliberate conviction that one of the chief causes of this unwillingness is the fact, that the men who have represented the cause of education on these public occasions, have had, in general, a superficial knowledge of their subject, and hence were wanting in a profound and living interest in it. They were appointed to this work on account of their ability to obtain money, not because of their ability to discuss, in a fresh and living way, important educational questions. Hence the routine, commonplace remarks, bondage to stereotyped conceptions and modes of statement-elements absolutely fatal to power over an audience.

Superficiality, whether of knowledge or of thought, always tends to monotony, sameness of conception and expression. Who are the men who can speak upon the physical sciences, upon history, upon metaphysical philosophy and theology, most’ effectively? Are they not those who have gone down beneath the surface, who have grasped the deepest principles of the various subjects in their respective departments of study? Such men never become the slaves of routine; their thoughts and words are never 185

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NATIONAL BAPTIST wanting in life and power. Fulness of know]edge, comprehension of ideas and principles, is the source of the freshness and variety in conception and statement, which will invest even old and familiar truths with the interest and fascination of a new discovery. It is, then, men of broad views and large experience, men of recognized standing as educators, who are able to set forth te nature and the claims of education in the most fresh, varied, and effective manner. What has been said of these two elements of the most effective public address, simplicity and freshness, applies substantially to the third, enthusiasm.

Other things being the same, the depth of one’s enthusiasm in the advocacy of a given cause will be as his knowledge of that cause and his conception of its grandeur and importance. Universally, it is some grand end, clearly apprehended, and vividly and powerfully impressed upon the mind, which explains the existence and indicates the genuineness of enthusiasm. Now, there is no body of men who are so full of the subject of education, and who are so profoundly impressed with its paramount importance, as those who are doing the work of instruction in our higher institutions of learning. What Howard was in devotion to the interests of humanity; what Gough is in the cause of temperance, and Agassiz in the department of physical science; what Niebuhr was in the sphere of secular history, and Neander in that of Church history, educators ought to be; and not a few of them are, in the advocacy of the cause which they represent, enthusiasts in the best sense of the term-men swayed by that living interest, that creative enthusiasm, which is one of the chief elements of power in impressing an audience, and in moulding public opinion. We give credit to those who speak upon topics in their own sphere of work. Those who have made a given department of labor a subject of life-long thought and study, should be trusted, and are trusted in the representations which they make in relation to that department. Hence, educators of large experience and of recognized standing have the confidence of the people when they stand up before them to set forth the nature and claims of education, and are sure to carry with them the great majority of those whom they address. For these reasons, then, educators ought to lead the cause of education, because they have the most thorough understanding of that cause, because they are able to make the most effective public presentation of it, and because they have the confidence of those whom they wish to influence.

III. But the most important practical question remains to be considered: How are educators to do the work here indicated; how are they to bring the claims of education before the people in the most effective way? In answer to this question, I would present the following points: 1. One of the most important means to be used in accomplishing this result is the press.

Great as has been the power of the press in reaching the public mind, and in moulding public opinion upon educational questions, its power might be vastly increased by the individual and organized efforts of educators. If they would use this agency as they might use and ought to use it, they would aid directly and powerfully in moulding aright the feelings and sentiments of the people in relation to the living educational questions of the day. And here I would suggest the great need of an organ to be devoted exclusively to the promotion of the interests of the general cause which we represent. 2. Another important means is, the public advocacy of the claims of education by the educators themselves. In the faculties of our colleges and theological seminaries, there are not a few who can do most effective service in influencing public opinion upon educational questions, and to do this service should be regarded not as something aside from their legitimate work, but as a part of it. Is it said that this service would be unfavorable to thoroughness of scholarship, 186

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. and to the highest success in the lecture-room? I admit that the public presentation of the cause of education may be allowed to occupy so much time as to lead to the evils here indicated; but I believe that a certain limited amount of this kind of service would be not only not unfavorable, but conducive to the highest degree of life and power in the work of instruction. And besides, we ought, as educators, to take into account all the various interests of the cause which we are appointed, in the providence of God, to represent, and to act in a way to promote all these various interests in the highest degree, and beyond a doubt there is no way in which we can so powerfully aid in the furtherance of this end, as by setting forth before our churches and denominational meetings the true nature and end of education, and its paramount claims upon the attention of all. In this way as in no other, could we deepen the interest of the people in our institutions of learning, correct the wrong educational tendencies of the day, and thus largely increase the number of those who would enter our colleges and theological seminaries. We should not, then, as I conceive, confine ourselves wholly to the duties of the lecture-room, but should take into view the certain and large results of the public service here indicated, and make the power of our culture and of science effective in enlightening the people, in developing a more profound and rational conviction of the importance of the higher forms of education, and in guiding aright the efforts to which that conviction may-lead. 3. A third measure, which I believe to be of great importance, is the appointment of a certain number of men who shall devote themselves wholly to the work of influencing the public mind in relation to education; I mean an agency like the Baptist Educational Commission of New York, of which Dr. CUTTING is Secretary. If four or five men of broad views, of large experience as educators, should be appointed, not to beg for money, not to urge the claims of particular institutions, but to labor for the advancement of the general cause, to enlighten the people and stimulate them to wise and united action, I am persuaded they would give a new and powerful impulse to our whole educational work as a denomination.

Let these men address our churches, associations, and State conventions; let them also visit the preparatory schools and academies in the State or States comprehended in their district, and set before the students the worth of high culture, and I believe it to be hardly an exaggeration to say, that the number of those - ho would enter our higher institutions would be increased fifty per cent. in five years. Every year the purpose to obtain a thorough education is abandoned by hundreds of young men who would never waver in their course, if they could be brought under the influence of such words of wisdom and inspiration as they would hear from the men whom I would have appointed to this service. I remember to have heard frequent expressions of surprise that Dr. Sears resigned the Presidency of Brown University to become Agent of the Peabody Fund. But such expressions could have proceeded only from those who had no j ast conception of the grandeur of the service to which Dr. Sears was called, of the comprehensiveness of its reach, of its profound connection with the intellectual and moral interests of the great States of the South. It is hardly possible to overestimate the importance of putting into the hands of wise and experienced men the work of informing the public mind with these sentiments and convictions, without which it is impossible for our educational institutions to reach a state of -high and permanent prosperity. There is not, I venture to say, a single one of our older institutions of learning, which has not suffered incalculable damage from the representations of uneducated and incompetent men, employed at one time or another to present its claims before the people. Hence the importance of an educational commission. Would that we had a half-score of such men as 187

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Dr. Cutting and Dr. Sears, engaged directly and exclusively in promoting, through the agency of the press and of public addresses, the general interests of the cause of education. 4. The fourth agency I would suggest is educational conventions-say an annual convention for each State, a biennial convention for each district, embracing several States, and a triennial convention for all the States. In my judgment, such conventions, especially those of a more general character, are indispensable to our highest success. They would tend to develop the feeling that we are all one people, North, South, East, West-all engaged in the same cause; they would make us better acquainted with the state of education in all parts of the country; they would aid in raising the standard of scholarship. especially in the preparatory schools, by bringing the teachers in those schools into contact with the most experienced and ablest educators; they would aid, also, in securing that unity of effort in the cause of education which is secured in other denominations by their ecclesiastical system, and which has been one of the chief causes of the growth and prosperity of their institutions of learning; they would enable us, by organized effort, to oppose more successfully the unhealthy tendencies to which reference has been made, and to decide more wisely important educational questions imperatively demanding our attention. I most earnestly hope that such action will be taken by this Convention as will lead to the calling of a similar one at no distant day; and, also, that there will be an expression, endorsing the idea of educational conventions for separate States and districts. 5.

There is but one other agency wlhich I shall suggest, and that is a national educational organization. I stated my views somewhat fully upon this subject yesterday. Wlhat we greatly need is an organization through which may be expressed the matured convictions of our wisest and ablest educators; their judgment as to the best methods of educational work, and the best means for promoting the growth and highest prosperity of our institutions. The views put forth by such a body of men would be practically decisive; they would almost immediately settle some important practical questions, which otherwise will not be settled in a quarter of a century. I am deeply impressed with the importance of such a national organization in furthering the interests of education in the West. The position has been advanced in the Convention that our brethren must be held responsible for the establishment of our denominational institutions in their respective States. I cannot believe that this view will commend itself to the deliberate judgment of those before me; to my mind nothing is plainer than that for us to act in accordance with this view would be neither just nor wise. The true policy for our denomination is that pursued by the Congregationalists, who have already expended more than three-quarters of a million of dollars, through their Society for the promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West. Dr. A. L.

Stone, of San Francisco, has just returned from the East with nearly $20,000 to begin the foundation of a theological seminary in California.

The policy here indicated can be carried out most successfully only through a national educational organization, composed of men of broad views, of catholic spirit and of practical wisdom, whose judgment would be practically decisive of the questions submitted for their considerations.

Rev. Dr. TAYLOR, of New York, by leave offered the following resolution: Resolved, That a special committee be appointed, of which Pres. M. B.

ANDERSON shall be chairman, to report this evening upon the question of State Support to Sectarian Schools of this country. 188

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. The Chair appointed the following gentlemen as the committee: Pres. ANDERSON, of N. Y. Rev. Dr. TAYLOR, of N.Y. Rev. Dr.

CRANE, of Texas. Rev. J. L. M. CURRY, LL. D., of Va. Rev. Dr. HAGUE, of Ill. Dr. CRANE: Mr. President, I have not risen to address you or this Convention, because I have elaborated anything to utter, and I have only formed the opinion that I ought to utter a few things during the progress of the address to which you have just listened. I have been watching intently for an opportunity to say something, not because I thought that I ought to say anything, or that anything that I could say would have any greatweight with this body. But, coming as I do from the most distant State of this Union, two thousand miles away from my bome, with no axes to grind, and no grievances to tell, I felt that, for Buncombe’s sake, at least, I ought to say something; for, if I did not in this-debate say anything, it might be attributed to the fact that I lacked interest in this great work. But the people who live between the Sabine and the Rio Grande shall be informed through me at any rate of the great and glorious work in which this Convention has been employed. My brother who addressed you just now propounded three very good thoughts, on each one of which I could have preached a very good sermon; for, though I profess to be an educator, I am yet, I hope, more of a preacher. I believe that theological education and ministerial improvement is the grand paramount duty of the Baptist denomination; that there is no higher call, no higher demand on the denomination than that; and while I would not say aught against a single solitary suggestion that has been made here, yet the grand question of general education is one which I suppose is within the scope of the subject which hAs been presented this morning. And I’want to say a little on that last thought of my brother. He asks “how,” and I will answer in part. He says we must make use of the press, and so I think.’ Where is there an agency which wields a more powerful influence, speaking, as it does, everywhere, and to all classes of our people, from the Aroostook to the Rio Grande? But iny friend omitted to say that we ought to use a press which we very seldom do use, a press of great power and influence, and that is the political press. There are very few of our ministers and educators in the land who use the political press; but in our State we do propose to use the political press for the purpose of 189

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NATIONAL BAPTIST promoting the cause of education. I promised the editor of the chief journal of the State of Texas, published in its capital, to report for his paper the proceedings in this Convention; and why? Because the Legislature of Texas meets this very week, and will remain in session until after we get home, and, if I have any purpose here, and I only hope, through the Providence of God, I may accomplish it, it is that through this Convention of Baptist educators of the United States, that Legislature maybe in some manner influenced on the cause of education. I say we must use the political press, and if we had used the political press as well as the servants of Rome do, there would be a different state of things in New York, where it is charged they now have control of all the public educational interests. We dread the same thing in Texas, for the Romanists are trying to take possession of our educational interests.

But I trust we shall have some moral support, and receive some moral influence through this-Convention, which, operating upon our Legislature, may enable us to inaugurate such a system of education, primary, common school education, and general education, as we shall have cause to be proud of. Texas, with the grandest domain devoted to education, with the liberal provision of its Constitution, applying all the proceeds of its immense public lands to be devoted to that purpose, with a larger property devoted to education than any other State, cannot lag behind the grand cause of popular education. We must, then, call to our aid the services of the political press, with all its power and influence. There is one more thing, and that is, our duty to appeal to legislators and legislatures.

Humble as I am, I intend to do what I did in 1866. I went to the city of Austin in 1866, while the Legislature was in session. The Legislature was not then reconstructed, and nothing else was reconstructed about that time, but that is not a matter for discussion here. Anyhow I went there, and, by a unanimous vote of the Legislature of Texas-I did not deserve the compliment that was bestowed upon me, which never was bestowed before but upon the illustrious hero of San Jacinto-I was invited to address them upon the subject of Education. Pardon me for saying, that Legislature was a very respectable one [applause and laughter]. There have been some legislatures I would not bestow that compliment upon. Well, I addressed it, as requested. We had a bill prepared, and there were some assurances from Washington that it might pass; but they growled at it in Washington, and it did not pass. Now, 190

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. this Convention, in some shape, must put words in my mouth to use when I go back to the legislators of Texas-no matter what class, whether white, black, or colored men-to induce them to adopt a plan of education for the whole people: for the white man and the black man.

Now, that is my platform [applause]. I have been reconstructed thus far, and entirely reconstructed [applause]. I do not know that I am for the general vote, but I am for the general education from the bottom to the top, and from the top to the bottom, all through, I am for education. That is what I want Texas to do. Why, when the brother was holding up the map here, the other day, and pointing out the various States, I could not but think that Texas could gobble up half a dozen of the largest, or a dozen of the other little States, and Texas would hardly know that there was any fly on the ox’s horns [laughter]. While I have been listening here to the various speeches I have heard, I have wondered if the brethren had forgotten the great Southwest. Why, on the other side of the Mississippi River there is an empire of itself for Baptist operations-the trans-Mississippi department, as we used to call it in Confederate days; and we felt mighty secure over there, and knew scarcely anything about the war, except, occasionally, a little pompous proclamation from Gen.

Magruder, which kept us secure indeed. But these are old things, past and gone, and I do not like talking about old sores. However, I come here with a stiff upper lip, and from Texas we do not ask you for a dollar. But we do want you to help us with your organization, your influence, your experience and counsel, to spur up our people to the establishment of a good system of education for men and women. And it is only just to say, here, that our women in Texas are better educated than our men. We want you to know us, and what we are. Why, since I have been here, men look at me and seem to think I cannot get along without a bowie-knife or a pistol.

Why, there is no safer State in the Union to travel through than the State of Texas is to-day. In the year 1868 I started upon an old white horse of mine to ride a few hundred miles in the State of Texas. I mounted my horse with about $2.50 in my pocket, leaving all my money at home with my wife, and-it was not much I left her. I rode four hundred miles; I went over the Dead Man’s Prairie, and all over the country there, collecting a few bills, and all I collected probably did not amount to over eight dollars.

I was gone a month, was well taken care of, and moved in the best society, and got home with $3.79 in my 191

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NATIONAL BAPTIST pocket. Now, if that can be done anywhere else on this green earth, I should like to know it [laughter]. My point is that we should use the political press, and use it with discretion, as we can with power and effect. Some half dozen of our political editors came to me when I left, and said: “Dr. Crane, will you furnish us some articles?” and I promised them two or three, and I shall tell them what we have been doing here. Now one other point, that my brother who spoke here this morning did not allude to. I think he ought to have said a word about educators taking the stump. I believe in profundity and depth, but I have heard of wells being so deep that you could not get any water out of them, and I know of men so deep that they cannot talk. Oh, yes! they can get up and preach abstractions from some learned text, and that is about all the good they can do, so far as the people who come to hear them are concerned. That is what I call a well so deep that you cannot get any water out of it. I do not believe and cannot be made to believe, that there is any man who has wit and learning enough to enchain the attention of his boys in the school-room, but who can enchain the attention of the masses from the stump. At all events, humble as are my abilities, when I get back to Texas, I am going to take the stump for the cause of education-general education for white and black, and men and women. I have every confidence that the Legislature will do what is right, and I shall have no hesitation in going to them, and the leading men in Texas, and telling them what I think ought to be done for education, and what should be put in a bill to be enacted. I intend to do it, and I feel confident that we can get what we want, by asking for it. There is much I might say on the necessity of taking the stump, but I should be wearing out your attention. Let us, when we go home, brothermembers of this convention, all of us take up the cry: “Educate, educate, educate.” It is the great question of the times. It is the great question with the Southern people. It was never looked on before, as it is now looked upon. Select minds were educated, but not the people at large. I heard a few years ago, at a little meeting in Mississippi, an address from a young lawyer, advocating the doctrine that it was the duty of the State to educate select minds, and he looked upon it as exclusively the duty of the State to select a class, out of whom should be taken the lawyers and other professional men, and that as to the masses of the people, the hoiipolloi, the State was under no obligation in reference to education. I was too much of a Democrat to swallow that. I believe 192

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. it is the duty of the State to educate the people, and I believe it is the duty of the State to establish also higher institutions of learning where the teachers, the heads of the system should be educated; for I do not believe that any common school system can exist long without them. Unless there is a head to it, a university or academy system, I do not believe one common school can exist. Dr. GREGORY: The question that is before us now, that has been so clearly indicated by the address of my friend, Dr. NORTHRUP, is one that interests me more than any otherthat I find on the programme. It is the one, the subject itself, that attracted me from the midst of duties that I scarcely knew how to break away from, to undertake the toil, and incur the expense, of meeting with you here. I shall best explain, perhaps, my interest in it by saying, that for more than a quarter of a century, from the primary school I first taught in this State of New York until the present time, my life has been, almost without exception, spent in the work of general education, and I have felt that I had scarcely a place here at all, or a right to speak since I came here, as the discussions were almost exclusively devoted to the cause of theological education, and of theology connected alone with the Baptist denomination. Though of the Baptist denomination, I am not here as a Baptist. I do not happen to be connected with any Baptist institution, but with one of those institutions of which so many men are afraid-a State institution, and with one that might perhaps lead to a distrust of the statements I am about to make, or the arguments or hints I may venture to give. For, as an institution of learning, it acknowledges, in its fundamental conception, and in its organization, some things that I fear some of you will not count harmless. I feel that I ought to say so much, because, although it debars me, as I know at the outset, from the confidence with which statements and arguments might be received from me otherwise, yet, after all, it will, with all reflecting minds among you, give me this vantage-groundthat you will feel that I have an outside standpoint; and, although my views may not be so broad and so just as those of you who occupy a more central standpoint, yet, everybody is interested to know how his house looks from the outside to strangers or the passers-by, how his hobby looks to the man who is not riding it, or how his schemes or theories appear to men who hold opposite schemes or theories. I believe, with Dr. NORTH 18 193

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NATIONAL BAPTIST RUP, with the general topic under which his address was enumerated, that it is the duty of educators to lead in education. And as we are in an age that preeminently may be called the age of education, contradistinguishing it from all preceding ages in this respect more than by any other feature; and as we are in a country making large demands for education, and I believe soon, if not already, to offer larger facilities for education than any other, while we are thus situated, in regard to this great question with which we are connected, we ought, as has been stated in the general topic of his address, to be leaders in education.

Now, I may offend some-I hope not; I speak not for the sake of giving offence; I speak for the sake of the truth-in saying, that I do not believe we are leading in the work of education. We ought to to do it, but we are not doing it. The educational institutions of this country are proverbially-that is, the institutions of higher education-conservative; so conservative (shall I offend?) that they have been dragged at the tail of progress-have been compelled literally to take step after step in advance only when public sentiment has been so imperative on them -the demand among the class to be educated has been so imperative, that they did not dare any longer to omit the step that they have taken. The educational institutions of this country have changed within the thirty years that I have been a teacher, but they have yet much to change. I have one more preliminary remark to make; and my peroration will be longer than my exordium a good deal in regard to this matter of reformation of the higher education. For a number of years I worked in behalf of common school education-for a number of years I worked, as most of you know, at the head of the common school system of one of the States, and I did what my friend from Texas required-I took the stump not a county in the State, scarcely a town of any importance, in which I did not address the people.

The State gave me the use of its halls, and I held district meetings, and members of the Legisla ture helped me to make speeches, and professors of colleges and we canvassed the State very earnestly on this common school system; but I became more and more fixed in the conclusion, that the higher labor is essential to the lower labor-that col leges, logically, as they do chronologically, precede the common schools; that they are essential, as the head is to the body, for the maintenance of the common schools, and that no common school system in this country can be maintained, even up to its present level, without higher institutions of learning, to send down to it 194

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. competent teachers, and to send down the text-books for its instruction. Men frequently say, “I vote for the common schools, they are the people’s colleges “; so I vote for the common schools, but also for colleges to make teachers, to elevate the common schools. And, whoever will labor as long as I have labored for the elevation and improvement of common schools, will say he finds he can make very little progress, unless by bringing to the aid of the system a higher education; so that, in advancing higher education, not with me an arbitrary system, we are simply cultivating the head for the sake of the feet,-for the sake of the body. Now, in this higher education, are we the leaders that we ought to be? I know that there is a class of questions that come, thrust upon you, from the counting-rooms, from the manufactories, from the shops, from the people-demands on you to make your education profitable, to show that it can make money, to show that it is valuable to the arts of life; and I know that these demands are now scouted by you, as the demand of an untutored child to wield the club of Hercules, to be permitted to have all learning at his wish and whims, and without the necessary study for it. And I know that there is another style of criticism that comes to you mainly through a class of papers and periodicals in the country, in the shape of bitter sarcasm and taunts even, denying the value of the education that you give, and calling upon you to come out from the old fogy studies, as they delight to call them; and you, very justly, with a spirit of indignation, turn away from these things, and say that these are the criticisms of illiberal, of ignorant, or of designing men, who would really strike down all education. But there is no doubt that behind these two classes of demands-those that come from the practical people of the country, and from these self-constituted censors and reformers in education, and claimants to be inventors of a new education-I know that there is behind all that a good deal that you are disposed to scout, but I tell you that it is not wise, and, what is more, that it is not safe; and, what is more, it cannot be done a great while longer,-to ignore the popular want that expresses itself through these men, and alone gives any weight and force to the complaints they make against us, and against the higher institutions of learning. They might write until their pens were worn out and their ink was gone, they might talk until they were gray, and the popular demand coming up from these so-called advocates of the people might exhaust itself with the death of the men who 195

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NATIONAL BAPTIST utter it, if there were not in the great mass of the people, the thinking men among them, a real, deep-felt want. It has happened to me to ask a great many educated men, and some since I have been in this city: “Are you satisfied with the education that you got at college? “-not merely the men who have departed from educational spheres and educational work, and have grown bitter and sore against education, but Christian ministers themselves, and one not very long ago said to me: “I feel enraged every time I think of what was done for me at college, and what was not done for me.” You do not find that there is one man in fifty of those who have been educated in our American colleges, who does not feel that justice was not done him, that he was compelled to do some things that it was useless for him to do, and that he was forbidden some things that he did need to do. Now, there are a series of questions that press themselves upon the educators of the day, plain, direct, and easily understood, and especially the question that has already been before you-the question of the endowment of schools, and of getting money for education. There is another class of questions, and I say in regard to these, when we have settled them we go very far to settle the others, connected with this question of the education of the ministry-a question in which I feel no less interest than any one else, though I never had a theological education, but was trained for another purpose, and do not know much about theology, I am sorry to say, except the very little knowledge I learned from practical work in the cause of Christ. To make it clear, I have jotted down some of the questions, it seems to me the country is putting to us, and which, if we are willing to be the leaders in education, we are expected, and which we must and ought, every one of us, to meet fairly and squarely, and express his opinion upon. They are very hastily prepared, and may not be the best utterance of these questions: To what extent do the real wants of the age and of our country demand the diffusion of what is called the higher or liberal education; and to what extent is the higher education feasible, taking into account the minds to receive it, and our means to give it? What is the higher education, and are our notions of it just, and abreast with the actual advance of society, and of science? I have purposely left these questions vague and general. Are our own schools of the higher education organized and instructed so as best to secure the real education of these students; and is the success of our colleges such as to leave no change in them to be desired, as to the manner in which they 196

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. educate, and the character of those who come out educated-or said to be educated? Take the thousand graduates that go out every year from our American colleges, is the result on the practical life of these men, and the advantages that they show arising from higher culture, on the whole, such as to justify us in saying that no ohange is needed, no change is wanted, and no change is feasible? Is the mode of teaching in the higher education wise, economical, and practical? Now, every gentleman here knows that there is no wider difference between the schools of the Old World and our schools than on this very point-our higher education being based on common school education. Are our fundamental aims in the higher education just and attainable? Is the so much vaunted discipline an end or one of the mean steps, a final result or a simple condition for the final result? I may remark that is a great point-which is the greater demand upon us to-day, to get money for our education, or education for our money? When you can go to the business men of this country, and show them that you are prepared to give an education such as they acknowledge to be valuable, and the benefits of which they can see, the money will not be wanting. There are plenty of men who feel the necessity of it, and who will give a few thousands to help you along, and then tell you that they pity but do not sympathize with you. I have had men give me checks for $1,000, and then turn around and say, “I will help your institution because I think you are in earnest, and want to do what good you can, but I do not believe in it; I think you spoil about as many young men as you help there.” There is another point, and it underlies this, and that is the question of classical education [The speaker was here interrupted by a demand for the order of the day.] The printing of the minutes of the Convention was referred to the Committee of Arrangements, with full power. Gen. T. J. MORGAN, of New York, presented the following resolution: Resolved, That, to carry out the purpose of this Convention, we recommend the calling of special educational meetings in each State, and the setting apart a portion of time at the meeting of each Association and State Convention, for the consideration of the general topics of education, and the special necessities of the various localities. The Committee on Questions of Denominational Work in Education presented through Dr. BROOKS, the Chairman, a REPORT ON DENOMINATIONAL

WORK. The Committee on Questions of Denominational Work in Education respectfully report: We have occasion to remember, with devout gratitude to God, the great change which has taken place among American Baptists, during the last half 197

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NATIONAL BAPTIST century, in matters of education, and the success which has attended their efforts to establish and maintain schools of learning.

We have several theological seminaries-some of which are fairly endowed, although all of them could profitably use a larger income-provided with teachers, some of whom we would not exchange for those of any other seminary in the world. We have a large number of colleges, which are doing a great work, very few of which, to say the least, could be spared -from the fields which they occupy. All of them need larger funds, and some are in pressing want. But not one which is now sustained as a real college fails to exert a great and valuable influence. We have a few academies, most of which are without adequate endowments, but some of which, as educational centres, are worthy of generous support, and command the respect of all who know them. Societies are sustained in every part of the country, for aiding young men called of God to the ministry in preparing for their work, and every year a large number of such brethren are helped, who could not otherwise pursue a course of liberal study. The work now demanding our attention pertains to all these kinds of effort. The number is increasing, and, we trust, will continue to increase, of young men summoned to the ministry of the Gospel, and doubtless they will hereafter, as always in the past, be mainly from among the poor. The amount of assistance needed by each will be likely to become greater, rather than less; and there will, therefore, be a constantly increasing demand for generous contributions to our education societies. An increase of endowment is needed in each of our theological seminaries, with, perhaps, a single exception, and must be secured before the largest efficiency of these seminaries is attained. There is no less demand for increase of funds in our colleges. Not one of them is so amply endowed, that its friends may reasonably be content with its present facilities for educating young men. The richest of them all would rejoice beyond measure to have at its command means for adding other teachers to its faculty, and enlarging its library, and increasing the value of the education which it offers. Outside of New England and the Middle States, the needs arc more vital. An increase of income is, almost without exception, essential to the adequate support of professors, and to the bare fulfilment of the promises which are made to students. In these Western and Southern colleges, a great number of young men are gathered who have become disciples of Christ, since they commenced their studies, and many more who, under the influence of Christian teachers, may yet begin the Christian life. As rapidly as possible, these colleges ought to be lifted above the condition of poverty, so that the students who resort to them may have the best opportunity for education that the country affords. The sooner they are endowed, and the larger their endowments, the more will they do, not only in educating the young, but in building up our denomination, and so in strengthening the kingdom of Christ among men. We cannot afford to let them languish, while colleges sustained by other bodies of Christians present greater attractions to our young men. Another great demand is, that academies be established, several in each of our larger States, and one in every State in which there is not one already.

We believe it would be a wise investment, if hundreds of thousands of dollars were appropriated to such institutions during the next few years: wise, because good academies would furnish well-qualified candidates for our colleges, and greatly increase the number of youths brought under the influence of Baptist teachers. 198

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Our own young men and young women will go to schools which offer the largest advantages; and if we wish to retain them in our denominational ranks, we must provide for them the instruction which, unless we provide it, they will find elsewhere. There is, then, a great work to be done. It cannot all be done at once, although we believe there is ability and the disposition among our people to do much in a little time. If the men who are interested in the prosperity of our churches, and to whom God has given the power to contribute largely to such enterprises, could know where to begin and in what order to proceed-if they could be sure that their gifts of money would really help to endow needed institutions, and would contribute to the glory of God through the increased vigor of our churches and the wider influence of our distinguishing views of Christian truth, we are sure they would gladly cooperate in sustaining these institutions. If any one man, or any body of men, endowed with superior wisdom, could say with infallible certainty that this college first demands special help, or that theological school ought at once to have an addition to its endowment, or that an academy is needed here or there, and we could all recognize the wisdom of the utterance, of course, the thing announced as first demanded would be first secured. But a voice so authoritative and infallible we cannot hear. Can we have any near approach to it? Can we constitute a Board of Councillors, whose advice may be received, not indeed as infallible, but as likely to be just and wise? To some of your committee, this seems possible. The suggestion contained in the paper of Dr. Moss, which has been referred to us, that an organization similar to the Baptist Educational Commission, but covering our whole country, and constituting a board of advice in reference to the number and location of academies to be founded or assisted, and to the colleges and theological seminaries to be helped to a larger endowment, seems to some of us not only wise, but absolutely demanded; and all of us, believing that the discussion of this question is desirable, and willing to leave the decision of it to the Convention, agree to submit herewith, to your consideration, a plan of such organization. We have mentioned, however, only ore of its objects. It ought to exert a great influence throughout the country in awakening and directing interest in the general subject; presenting facts, the knowledge of which will prepare the way for wiser and more effective action; discussing questions concerning courses of study; giving the directors and friends of each institution an acquaintance with the condition and excellences of all the rest; forming a bond of union among our educators in all parts of the country; constituting a bureau of education in which every Baptist institution of learning will know that it has a friend, and from which will go out to our churches and our men generous views of duty and privilege concerning the higher education of our people. With these remarks, we submit a constitution for the proposed organization: CONSTITUTION. Art. 1. This Association shall be called TIEE AMERICAN

BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. Art. 2. This Commission shall have for its object the promotion of the educational interests of the Baptist denomination;-specially, by the collection and diffusion of information; by the consideration of matters of common concern relating to the character and work of our institutions of learning; by seeking to increase the number and intelligence of our ministry; and by the advancement of education in the great body of our people. Art. 3. The members of this Commission shall be: First, Two representatives i99

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NATIONAL BAPTIST from the Faculty and two from the Board of Trustees of each Theological Seminary. Second, Two representatives from the Faculty and two from the Board of Trustees of each College. Third, One representative from the Faculty and one from the Board of Trustees of each school of lower grade than a College. Fourth, Two representatives from the Board of each Education Society;-it being understood that the several institutions and societies represented shall be mainly, if not entirely, under Baptist control. tFifth, Persons may also become members of this Commission by the annual payment of fifty dollars to its funds. Art. 4.

The officers of this Commission shall be a President, VicePresident, Recording Secretary, and Treasurer; and a Board of nine Councillors. Art.

5. The Board of Councillors, of whom five shall constitute a quorum, shall appoint a Corresponding Secretary, with such assistants and other agencies as may be necessary to carry out the second article of this Constitution., This Board shall have power to fill vacancies occasioned by the death, resignation or removal of its own members. Art. 6. The central office of this Commission shall be in the city of New York. There shall be also two Committees of Correspondence, of five members each, to be located in the cities of Richmond and Chicago respectively, to be chosen by this Commission and governed by the same general principles prescribed for the Board of Councillors. Art. 7. This Commission shall meet once in three years, at such time and place as shall be determined by the Board of Councillors, when a report of its doings shall be presented and its officers elected. The Board may call such other meetings of the Commission, for special purposes, as may in their judgment be required.

Art. 8. This Commission disavows any intention to interfere with existing schools and education societies, but desires to cooperate with and aid all those which ask its counsel and assistance. Art. 9. This Constitution may be altered or amended, except as to its main object, at any regular triennial meeting of the Commission, by a vote of twothirds of the members present. All of which is respectfully submitted BY THE COMMITTEE. The report was accepted, and a motion was made for the adoption of the First Article of the proposed Constitution. Dr. SAMSON: I second the motion. The whole progress of this Convention indicates that we are in a transition state. I think if we look over the whole proceedings of our meeting, we shall find we have taken some steps in progress. We differ a great deal, it is true; but all the indications of this meeting show that we are in a transition state. I have derived great benefit from the suggestions of Dr.

ANDERSON, with whom I was associated in college, and from Dr. CURRY, with whom I took such sweet counsel in days gone by, and not a brother has spoken from whom I did not derive some ideas. Perhaps we make a little too much of our Baptist idea of unlimited independency; 200

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. perhaps it would be better if we were a little more yielding in reference to our opinions. I think we can get a better organized system than we have, and I do think we have got here something that looks in that direction. We have energy, and we have enough self-reliance; but we want a thorough, well-digested, homogeneous system, and I think this Society will give it. I assume that it will have the will to do it, and I hope we shall have it. Dr. JETER, of Virginia: I desire to explain my position in reference to this matter. I am here as the representative of the trustees of Richmond College, and of the trustees of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and, in my representative capacity, I do not see how I can vote in favor of that Constitution. I have no instructions on the subject. It was not anticipated by those who sent me here that any such question would arise to be decided. I will only say that, individually, the plan seems to me to be a wise one, and meets my entire approval; but, in my capacity as the representative of the trustees of Richmond College, and the trustees of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, i am not prepared to vote for the adoption of that Constitution. I shall not vote against it, but I wish my position to be understood. Dr. POINDEXTER: I feel called upon to make about the same statement as was made by Dr. JETER. I am not here on my individual responsibility, but as the representative of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and I am sure they did not anticipate my being called upon to act on a question of this character. I do not know what they would desire, and I cannot, therefore as their representative, act on the subject either one way or the other, except that my position will compel me to vote against the Constitution-not because I am opposed to it, but because, as a representative, I cannot do what those who sent me here have not requested me to do. Dr. FISH: It does appear to me-though I should sit at the feet of such men as Dr. JETER and Dr. POINDEXTER-that there is one point which we should more clearly understand; and I should be much obliged to Dr. JETER if he would give us the exact position in which he stands, in reference to his constituent body. I should like to ask him what they did ask him to do, and what they did not ask him to do.

According to his theory, 201 $I

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NATIONAL BAPTIST that he was not told what to do, I should like to know if he was authorized to do anything. It seems to me that is fair reasoning. I alm here from the New Jersey Baptist Education Society; but has that body told me what to do? or has any gentleman here been instructed? I think not; and, if we are to stand only o0 instructions, how can we vote on any question? Logically, one must hold his peace until he gets instructions from those who sent him here. In the votes which have been given here on important questions, has my venerable brother been acting under instructions? If so, may I ask him to produce them? The fact is, this thing has grown up out of a very small affair, as most of us know. Our friend, Dr. CUTTING, here, some two or three years ago, took it into his heart and pondered over it, and it was a burden to his soul that so little was done in the way of preparing material for this magnificent machinery which we have already set in operation in promotion of the cause of education. He said: “We have a magnificent machinery, at a large cost, but we do not find the material to put through that machinery in the way of students;” and he gave some statistics, at Poughkeepsie, which electrified the denomination. And, before the adjournment of that assembly (the New York Baptist Convention), it resolved upon the appointment of a committee to consider this thing, and that committee, consisting of half a dozen men, Dr. CUTTING being the leading man, saw fit to organize what they call an Educational Commission. They gave a man the privilege of belonging to this Educational Commission if he would give $100, and it so happened that I had the $100 to give. I gave it with the’promise or obligation that I should withdraw if I did not give it for three years, and so it was arranged in reference to all who belonged to it. We made up the number to thirty, and they make up this Educational Commission. What has been done, has been done by them. The subject had been talked over, and various suggestions considered as to the best means of promoting the cause, and one day a few of the Commission meeting in the Home Mission room, in the city of New York, Dr. CUTTING said: ” Why not have a great, national meeting of Baptist educators?” Well, the thing was talked over and duly considered, and our brethren elsewhere were consulted, and finally there grew out of it this thing-and here we are. Of course there could be no definitive plan set forth upon which instructions could be given; but here we are, hardly knowing how we came, or in what work we were to be enlisted. For one, I mean to act in the fear of God and with trust in my brethren. 202

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Prof. STEVENS: I am glad I am here this morning. I feel young again. I was in favor of the Constitution, and moved the adoption of the First Article, and shall vote for it; but it binds us to do nothing, much less does it bind the Ohio Baptist Education Society, as whose Corresponding Secretary I am representing it here. It binds no man to do anything-I speak, now, of the constituency-and it would be perfectly right for me to do what I see fit in this Convention. At the breakfast-table, this morning, a gentleman, well known in Brooklyn, doing business here, said to me: “What is to be the use of all this?” and I said to him that it was very uncertain, that I had no warning before I started as to what was to be done, and that I did not yet know. But I met on the sidewalk a member of the Committee of Arrangements, and he has put the whole thing into my head in a few words. And I had a thing or two before, and, therefore, I was ready for it, and I am ready for it now, and I do not think any gentleman on this floor can do any harm if he takes it upon himself to vote for this Constitution. Dr. JETER: I received no specific instructions from the trustees as to what I should do here; but there was nothing in the circular, calling for the Convention, that led to the supposition that there would be a permanent organization. I do not know but the trustees would have heartily approved of such an organization as a permanent body. Individually, I am delighted with the plan proposed by the committee, and I am prepared to support it with all my heart; but, standing here as the representative of these bodies, I cannot commit them to it. I could only act as an individual in the case. flow can I commit these bodies of trustees to an enterprise when they have not instructed me? They know nothing about the matter, and I should act entirely independent of their views. At the same time, I have no doubt they would respect my judgment, and would consider favorably asto whether they should cooperate with the commission. I repeat, the report has, so far as I understand it, my entire confidence and approbation, and I am perfectly willing, as an individual, to vote for and sustain it; but, as a representative of bodies who know nothing of it, and contemplated no such arrangement, I am not prepared to sustain it. Dr. CUTTING: Let me ask Dr.

JETER if it would meet the difficulty if this proposed organization was simply provisional, so that it would be at the option of every college and of every theological seminary to accept it or not? 203

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Dr. JETER: Certainly; that would remove all my objections at once. Dr. CALDWELL: I suppose, by the terms of this constitution, that this body is to be composed of delegates from, and representatives of, the corporations of the chartered institutions, and, if any of them decline to send delegates, there is an end of it, so far as they are concerned; and, if a majority of them should decline, I do not know but that would be the end of it, so far as the Commission is concerned. We are forming, if anything, only a provisional organization, and, I take it, we are not authorized to commit the colleges and theological seminaries to send delegates. If you organize this thing on paper, you must wait until these corporations meet and elect their delegates. Then you must offer them this constitution, and, if it suits them to take it, very well. After all, it seems to me that the vote of the Convention will be merely a recommendation in regard to the formation of such a society. It does not, and cannot form it. I am here, yet I do not know whom I represent. I asked the corporation of Brown University to elect delegates to this Convention, and there were some of the gentlemen who do not claim to be Baptists. At first there was a little hesitation and interrogation about it; but I assured them that I thought it was a pretty innocent affair, and that, at any rate, we were not going to commit Brown University to anything to the detriment of the University, and, therefore, they saw fit to elect myself and Dr. STOCKBRIDGE as delegates. But now I am here, I do not feel, for one, that I am here to represent Brown University particularly, or to bind it by our action to anything. I regard myself as here rather as an individual representing pretty much myself, and that, I take it, is pretty much the case with the rest of us. And if we proceed to the formation of a society, not a man voting for it is constrained to be a member of it, or, in fact, can be; and, though it is a very singular thing, we are here trying to form a constitution for a society which is to be made hereafter, and which may accept it or reject it. Therefore, it seems to me, there is no restraint upon a man’s voting here as his own views may lead him, without regard to any representative character. I cannot bind Brown University to be a party to this new society. Dr. FISH: The plan can be so modified as that the organization shall be made up of those who choose to send representatives to it, and those who accept our arrangement, and, when that is 204

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EDUCATIONAL CON VENTION. done, no difficulty of this sort exists.

Otherwise, I think, as Dr. CALDWELL has intimated, that the whole thing will fail to come into existence. Before I sit down I will call the attention of Dr. JETER to the circular which he received, in which it is stated, that among the subjects to be considered here, is the method by which education may be made a specialty and a permanent organized interest in our denominational activities, and, therefore, I think this proposition is germane to our call. And let me say, before I sit down, and I speak with great diffidence in the presence of such men as Dr. JETER-let me express the hope, before I sit down, that our Southern brethren will find some way that will obviate any difficulty in the way of a harmonious vote on this subject. I should deplore very much if Dr. JETER should go home and have to tell his people that he could not vote with us here, and if there be any way out of the difficulty-and I think there can be one found-let us adopt it, so that we can come together and our vote be unanimous; for I believe, before God, that we are doing a work the magnitude of which it is impossible for man to begin to calculate. Dr.

POINDEXTER: I wish to say that not only was there nothing in the circular indicating that there would be an attempt to form such a society, but on the contrary there is a specific enumeration of topics to be discussed that have been disposed of, and topics not disposed of, if they may be so described, and not the slightest allusion as to the propriety of forming such an organization as is now proposed. Under such circumstances, it cannot be contended that the bodies which have sent us here contemplated such action on our part, and if we do act as their representatives, without having been sent here by them with any such views, we are not in good faith the representatives of those who sent us here. We are here as representatives, or the brother who called this meeting together has made an untrue statement since we have been together. He called upon the different delegations to hand in the names of the members belonging to that delegation, and made specifically the statement that we are a representative body. We are a representative body. I came here as a representative, and I know whom I represent. I represent the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, as I am informed by a letter from the chairman of the faculty; but I do not believe that that body sent me here or sent its professors here to act as its representatives in the formation of such a society as this, and hence I cannot 205

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NATIONAL BAPTIST act as its representative in the formation of such a society. And further, I wish to say this, that if I heard correctly (my hearing is indistinct, and if I am wrong I can be corrected), in the introduction before the constitution, there was an observation something like this: “It will be observed that the effect will be to constitute this the first meeting of the society.” I think there was some such remark there. Now I will tell you what I am prepared to do. The brother says he wants harmony. I want it too. I came here for harmony. I have come here for cooperation. I came here because I believe the Baptists North and South, the Baptists East and West, the Baptists throughout the world, owe the cause of our Lord Jesus Christ an allegiance that is paramount to all earthly allegiance, and because I believe the interests of that cause demand a union of Baptists, and because I believe the propositions which we as Baptists claim to maintain before the world Wave to do with the salvation of man. I stand here for that reason to give every Baptist my hand, and to give him my heart with my hand in earnest cooperation.

[Applause.] I will tell you what I am willing to do and what I mean to do.

I can do just exactly what my brother over the way says. I can either as an individual form this Society, and go into it with all my heart as an individual, or I can, as a representative of the body which I represent, adopt this report as simply a provisional measure to be recommended to them. Either of these things I can do, and I will do either of them with all my heart and soul. [Applause.] Dr. BURROWS: This question, it seems to me, assumes this shape: We are not here, either of us, with any instructions as to what we shall do, and, in regard to the organization of this Com mission, I am asked if I approve of that constitution for the organization of a commission for the whole country, and I can most heartily and conscientiously say, Yes, I do approve of it, and I approve of it on the platform which has been here presented. If the brethren with whom I am associated do not go into it hereafter, it is not my fault; I shall not approve of it any the less. I approve of the idea of organizing this Commission, and I approve of these articles of a constitution, and I will say the same when I go home, and I shall not feel called upon to say any thing more than that. Whatever future wants may be developed, I cannot foresee, but I think the past has fully developed the need of such an organization as this. Dr. JETER: I do not understand this to be a provisional 206

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. organization as represented by gentlemen here, and I hope it will be stated distinctly what the purpose is. Dr. FISH: We can expressly declare it to be a provisional arrangement if there is any doubt about it. Dr. JETER: With that understanding I approve of it. Perhaps I am rather too strict a constructionist any way, but I will yield a little in that respect. I propose to waive my strict construction notions, and go for the arrangement with all my heart and soul. Dr. BROADUS: To me it seems very important that we should not have any difference of opinion about the details of a subject upon which it is evident we can heartily agree. I think if it is understood that the design is to modify the third article of the Constitution so as to provide that the bodies designated shall have a right to send such representatives hereafter, that it will remove the difficulty, and then it will be understood that this whole arrangement for the present is provisional, and will only be considered permanent whenever delegates shall hereafter be sent to form such a thing.

Dr. CUTTING: This is the only question on which I have cared to speak in this meeting. I have had my exceeding great reward in the presence here of my brethren, and in the papers and discussions to which I have listened. I have had some experience in the last few years in attempting to reach the heart of the Baptist denomination, on the subject of education. I went into this work, originally, on the conviction that there was no such popular interest in education in the Baptist denominationI will say the same in reference to other denominations-no such popular interest in the Baptist denomination in respect to the higher forms of education, as fairly answered to the special and individual interest which led to the building up of our institutions of learning, and sustained the labors of our educators. I saw our institutions growing, our educators doing faithful work; but our institutions were not filled with our sons and daughters. I saw our churches increasing at one time, two or three years ago, at the rate of about one per day, while, at the same time, our ministers were increasing, through our highest forms of education, at the rate of only about one per week. I saw this-taking not at all into account the fact that ministers grow old and die; and it 207

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NATIONAL BAPTIST seemed to me that the time had come when the hearts of our people should be reached when the practical conviction should be established in their minds, that the duty to stimulate the education of our sons and daughters, and to provide an adequate ministry, was instant, paramount, and imperative. I believed that if our people could so be reached, there would be an immediate and effective reform, and that a reform could be effected in no other way. I believed that our theological seminaries would continue to suffer from lack of endowments, that our universities would continue to suffer from lack of endowments, and that our academies would continue to suffer from lack of endowments. Of these last-of academies I mean-how many I can recall to-day, wrecked on buildings! They had buildings only, and though they might have flourished for a day, they were unable to endure the first breath of adversity; and when it came, they had perished -monuments of the folly of attempting to do the business of education without capital. It seemed to me that the only way to remove these evils, to build up and strengthen these institutions, was to move the great mass of our people on the subject of education. I took occasion to utter these convictions, and what did I find? I found a wave rising beneath me, which was itself bearing me on. I had only to utter my voice, and instantly, as in the State Convention in Poughkeepsie in 1867, there was a response. I take no credit to myself that this assemblage which I now address-the most illustrious in the annals of the Baptist denominlation-is here to-day in deliberation. God has been moving the hearts of his people, putting them in preparation for what we behold. It required only that the facts of our condition should be brought to their’ minds to make the providential movement manifest. Why, the responses to the call for this Convention were so emphatic, so instantaneous, so irresistible, as to find their fitting comparison in the echoes which, bounding from mountain to mountain in the valley of Lake George, when a single gun is fired upon the sleeping waters, fill the heavens in a moment with rattling artillery. What we want, therefore, and all we want, is something to organize this awakened interest, something which shall stimulate and which shall sustain this movement. We need that it be stimulated and sustained. Even New England, with all her advance in education, has, as nearly as I can ascertain, no more than about one hundred and fifty students from Baptist families, in the undergraduate course of all her colleges and universities. New York, with her eight hundred Baptist 208

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. churches, and her Baptist population of three or four hundred thousand, has, of such students, only about a hundred and twentyfive. And such is the story over the length and breadth of the land.

We need, then, this movement. We need it for the sake of our churches; we need it for the sake of the cause of Christ, and for the sake of our proper influence in the civilization and growth of our country. Without it, we make over the spheres of intellectual and religious power to those not of our faith, and content ourselves that the polity of our New Testament churches shall occupy a subordinate place in our social and spiritual forces. Now, the question has come whether we are willing to organize this awakened interest in educational work? And in order that there may be a proper recognition of what has already been done, let me say that in the Baptist Educational Commission I have myself been but the representative of the gentlemen composing it-of my honored friend, the President of this Convention, of Mr. COLGATE, and Mr. GELLATLY, and Mr.

ROBERTS, whom I happen to see-before me, and of others whom I do not see, of like spirit and aim, who have sent me forth on my errand at their expense, foreseeing, with almost prophetic eye, the directions in which lie our hopes. I have represented them, and I have gone to the churches on the errand on which they have sent me forth, always welcomed. Everywhere the responses which I have found were all which I could ask, and I believe that if I were multiplied tenfold-if you had a dozen, or twenty, or thirty men, with tenfold the power which I possess, so sent forth, I and they would find work and reward. Then would our institutions be crowded and built up and strengthened. And the question is whether we will work in this direction as God may give us the man, or the men, and the means? If we do it, we must have some organization of this kind. I have a good deal of confidence in the old Virginia doctrine of strict construction, to which my venerable friend from Virginia (the Rev. Dr. JETER) has referred.

I believe that movements of this kind ought to proceed from the people, and I believe that those who represent these movements should be responsible to the people, and be held to that responsibility. What I have been doing has been grounded on that very idea: that the people should not simply be moved, but be movers in education. And there are several reasons why we should press forward this work now. We have entered on a new career in the world’s civilization. We have entered on a new country-henceforth as 14 209

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N’ATIONAL BAPTIST heretofore, but more henceforth than heretofore, to be governed by ideas; and it must be pressed home on the members of our churches, and on the ministry of our churches, that we of this generation are to determine, under God, what place our children shall occupy, and what sphere our churches shall fill in the generation which is next to be.

If the Baptist people of these United States are to do their part in the coming civilization, if the theory of evangelical faith and apostolic order in Christian churches, which we hold, is to have its proper place in the world of ideas and moral forces, then the cause of education among us must be put ahead in all its forms; and, to be so put ahead, we must unite the North, the South, the East, and the West in behalf of that cause, as common, distinctive, and paramount, to the glory of the Divine Master whom we serve. Dr. RAMBAUT: I represent, I suppose, the furthest point West of any representative in this body. A VOICE: California is represented. Dr.

RAMBAUT: Well, I came from a corner on the Missouri river. I have taken a very great interest in this meeting, and present myself here as a representative of William Jewell College, situated in a corner of Missouri, in the neighborhood of Kansas city, three hundred miles from the Mississippi river. I have felt a delicacy, however, in speaking concerning the educational interest in which I am engaged, because the duties which I have been discharging toward the college have not been so much denominational as in connection with the general educational movements of the State. I took some interest this morning in the address of our brother from Illinois (Dr. NORTIIRUP), and especially in his representation of the necessity of having men who understood systems of education to be the leading agents in behalf of education, particularly when I reflected upon the great and increasing interest which has been shown in Missouri on the subject of education during the two years in which I have been looking at it. I went into the State when it was the expectation of the State to raise $60,000 for the endowment of a great college, and I have been eighteen months engaged in that State, and have raised now an endowment of $1 50,000, and expect to increase it to $250,000 before many years are over. The reason for it has been, probably, that I have been addressing the people on education, and influencing their minds, and elevating their 210

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. ideas on the subject of the education needed. As a consequence, the men who wrote to me in Kentucky, to induce me to enter Missouri and occupy this field, offering, if I would so, that they would give me the large sum of $500 toward endowment, when I entered the field have given me, instead of $500, $1,000 checks, because their minds were directed to the necessity of a higher education. Now, representing this body, I have been influenced by the remarks of my brother CUTTING, to suppose that I represent something, for I stand here to represent a college in the State of Missouri that has an endowment, and has one hundred and twenty-seven students, one hundred and twenty of whom are of Baptist views, and fifty of whom are preparing for the ministry of the Gospel. With regard to the future operations of this proposed society, I see there are to be two classes of representatives. One class is to represent those colleges that desire a representation here, and will be delegated by them for that purpose; and the other is to be of those who come of their own will, and without the action of a college. Now, if the trustees of the institution I represent do not choose to be represented in this body, I will come as an independent man. [Applause.] Dr. EATON: I have been deeply interested in the remarks which have been made on this subject; but it has struck me that the discussion has been carried on a little out of order. Now, we shall make a wise beginning, by following a logical order in whatever we go to work at, because a logical order is a natural order. If I understood the report, it consisted of two parts: one in reference to the work which was to be done in the cause of education by the Baptist denomination; and the other part, the mode in which this could be most effectually done. Now, I voted against laying the first part of the report on the table, because I thought the discussion of it was first in order, so that we should understand and be united as to what was needed, what was to be done, and what was to be recommended by this assembly; and then we would be prepared to consider the ways and means-if I may so characterize it-the method, by which it could be most effectually done. Now, we are talking about an organization, a National Commission, and I am in favor of that or of any effectual, practical mode of accomplishing the great work before us, which I do hold to be a most grave desideratum, and we ought to go about it. Now, in regard to the perview-if I may so speak-of this organization; what is to be its scope, what is to be its specific 211

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NATIONAL BAPTIST work, and is it putting up work that is not now engrossed by local and State organizations? Now, the organization of this general society requires a great deal of wisdom. If it should have in view a modification of existing organizations; if it proposes to institute a reform that would set aside existing organizations, local organizations; if it is to subvert, and subject, and set aside, or abrogate, any existing organizations, then I will have nothing to do with it. If it rises above this-if I may so speak-and looks down upon them with genial and cordial wishes for their prosperity, and does a work which they cannot do, then I am for it. And I am very much rejoiced to find there was no such idea intended in the report; for it took away some objections I had lying back to the whole thing, and they were just of that kind. I do not believe it is in the power of this Convention to operate over existing organizations that have been working efficiently for fifty years or more; and if this was the intention, I would have nothing to do with it; it would be utterly futile. But now, if we can agree that there is a great and overshadowing work to be done in the cause of education, by the Baptists, that cannot be reached but by such an organization, it has my whole heart, and I go for it. I have only a few more remarks to make. When I look over this assemblage, when I consider this Convention, I am amazed. It is one of the most remarkable phenomena that ever occurred in the history of the Baptist denomination; and I care not who was the instrument-and it required a great deal of work to bring you together-you ought to say, God has done it. Dr. CUTTING: We do say it. Dr. EATON: Here we have the representatives of the talent, of the learning, of the culture, of the piety of the great Baptist denomination, and I do feel that the wisdom here combined, the discretion and the sagacity, in’ regard to practical matters, should be crystallized into something permanent, to act as an inspiration constantly upon our hearts, and guide the denomination in regard to our educational interests. Dr. BOYCE: I would like, inasmuch as some of my colleagues have been talking in reference to their position in this matter, to explain the views I entertain in regard to this proposed organization. I very seldom differ with my revered brethren (Dr. JETER and Dr. POINDEXTER), but I am very much impelled to differ with them on the present occasion, in voting for a Commission, or 212

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. the adoption of the proposed constitution, as it is presented here, and with the understanding we have in all our Baptist matters. I do not understand the idea of representation in the proceedings of Baptists as amounting to anything at all. As, for example, we we have what we call advisory bodies, in which our action binds nothing; we simply advise, and any church or anybody can decline the action or withdraw from the meeting at any time they please. Nobody else is bound by any action that we take. I myself have very frequently, on questions of denominational action, been called upon to act for those persons I was representing, in the way I understand representation, and sometimes it has been a very indiscreet action on my part. For instance, a call would be made at a meeting of our brethren to make a contribution, which was to be collected from the church when I got home again, and I have sometimes stepped forward and subscribed for my brethren without any authority at all, and often had to pay it when I went back home. [Laughter.] And we here are acting on this same principle. I am ready, as a representative of the faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to adopt this constitution, and, when I go back, if my colleagues in the faculty reject it, they are at liberty to do so; they are not bound at all by my action in any sense. I think I came to this meeting in some degree free to act upon my individual thought. It is true that my brothers (Dr. JETER and Dr.

POINDEXTER) are here as the representatives of the trustees of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, but there has been no meeting of the trustees since this Convention was called together, and the authority under which they act is that of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees by whom they were appointed. Now in my position in connection with that seminary, I am not only professor and agent and trustee, but Chairman of that very Executive Committee, and to a certain degree a sort of factotum for the whole concern, and I grant my brethren a full dispensation. [Laughter and applause.] The report was laid on the table.

A. B. CAPWELL, Esq., Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, reported as follows: The Committee of Arrangements, to which was referred the subject of printing the proceedings of this Convention, respectfully report: That the Brooklyn Baptist Social Union, under whose auspices this Convention is convened, has generously offered to provide for a complete stenographic report of all the proceedings and transactions of the Convention, and also for printing and publishing a limited number of copies of such proceedings for the use of the members. 213

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NATIONAL BAPTIST That the number of copies may be increased at comparatively small expense, should it be desired by the delegates present, for more general circulation in the various sections of our country. The Committee recommend for adoption the following resolution: Resolved, That this Convention accept with grateful appreciation the offer of the Brooklyn Baptist Social Union, and that the publication of the proceedings and transactions be referred to the officers of this Convention, in connection with Dr. CUTTING and the Committee of Arrangements of the Social Union, with power. Resolved, That the delegates present be requested to notify the officers what number of copies they desire and will be responsible for, before the adjournment. The resolutions were adopted. Dr. BROADUS offered the following resolution, which was referred to the Committee on Theological education. Resolved, That in the judgment of this Convention, it is greatly to be desired that our instit’utions of learning, and especially our theological seminaries, should make their diplomas rest on the basis of elaborate and strict examination, so as to furnish unquestionable proof of superior attainments. The morning session closed at 12.30. AFTERNOON SESSION The Convention met at 2.30 P. M., and prayer was offered by Dr. BAcKUS, of New York. Dr. RAYMOND, to whom was assigned the reading of a paper at the opening of the session, not being present, the Convention proceeded to the next order of business, viz.: a discussion to be opened by Dr. BRIGHT, of New York, on ENDOWMENTS FOR OUR LITERARY AND THEOLOGICAL INSTI TUTIONS. I hope I shall have your sympathy, standing up in the presence of so much that is learned and venerable and illustrious, and having to struggle against the natural diffidence of an editor. The question of Endowment is the subject assigned to me-the endowment of our literary and theological institutions. I suppose that endowment is just as necessary to an institution, as capital is to business. I do not propose, therefore, to waste the time of this body in undertaking to demonstrate anything so self-evident as that a literary institution must hav endowment. A merchant might better undertake to conduct business in New York without capital, than for a university, or an academy, or a theological institution to undertake to make its way without endowment. But there is a threefold aspect to the question which it may be very well to consider. The first is, as to the amount needed by such institutions-the academy, the college, and the theological seminary; the second, as to the number of such institutions which American Baptists may have to endow; and the third, as to the means whereby the needed endowment shall be obtained. Now, as to the amount of endowment needed by an institution: An academywhether it be connected with a college or whether it stand entirely independent 214

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. of any other institution-needs, I suppose, in permanent funds and in fixed property, $100,000; at least, that amount is required for a living, effective institution. Its grounds, its buildings, the beginning of its library and the beginning of its apparatus, must cost, on an average, $50,000, and then $50,000 more should be invested, that the income from it shall yield $3,000 a year for the support of the principal or head of this institution. I say $3,000, for I hold that no man is competent to be the principal of an academy where young men are to be trained for college and influenced to go to college-no man is competent to do that who is not himself competent to be the president of a college.

His work is not merely to train these young men in the preparatory steps; it is so to train them that they shall be fired with a purpose of pursuing their studies, and going onward until they go through a complete collegiate course. A man who is at the head of an academy and leaves his best young men in doubt as to whether they had better have a complete education or not, is unfit for the position. Then, such a man as I have described ought to have a salary, free from the fluctuations and difficulties that often come to impede the progress of an institution. He ought to be able to stand up for the right and do the right, without reference to the question where his bread and butter are to come from.

And, if any one questions that this is the right estimate of the head of an academy, I beg him to recollect the history of the illustrious man that stood for so many years at the head of Rugby School, in England. But it may be said that an academy will often receive gifts from local sources, in the way of lands, etc. Very well; let the value be applied to make up the $100,000. All I say is, that it needs $50,000 worth of buildings, and land, and library, and apparatus. A college stands on a different footing.

I think it should be the policy of the denomination to increase and multiply, if possible, the number of its educated men, and therefore to make the expense of tuition in the college as low as possible. My impression is that fifty dollars should be the maximum charge in our colleges, and it would be far better if it were reduced to thirty dollars.

I would make the passage from the academy to the college as easy in its pecuniary aspect as possible; for there is many a young man in the preparatory course to whom thirty dollars a year, more or less, is the pivot on which.turns the decision whether he shall have a collegiate education or not. Therefore, I say that no denomination that expects to have an educated laity, as well as an educated ministry, can afford to place its college tuition at a higher amount than thirty or forty dollars a year. But take the average, if you please, at forty dollars, and allow to every institution 200 students-an average of 200-(would to God that our colleges had each these two hundred undergraduates!) then we have an income from tuition of $8,000 a year. But the college needs grounds, buildings, the beginning of a scientific collection, and library and apparatus, which, I believe, after the best inquiry I have been able to make from different persons, cannot be fixed at a less cost than an average of $250,000. A college, such as the times demand and such as the Baptists deserve-for I hold that we deserve the bestsuch a college ought to have a fixed property of $250,000. I further believe that the average number of professors in our colleges should not be less than ten. Some say it should be more than ten, some say they might probably get on, somehow, with eight; but I put the average at ten. The average salary that should be paid to these men is $3,000 a year; and if there is a Baptist that will stand up, in view of the present currency and the prices of everything that is eaten and worn, and ask a professional man, educated, trained, and competent to educate young men in the higher courses, to do it for less than $3,000 a year, he is a man that every other Baptist has need to be ashamed of. For ten professors, $30,000 would be required, and $5,000 more may be allowed for the in 215

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NATIONAL BAPTIST cidental expenses of a college, including occasional lectures. It will thus cost, to run the college, $35,000 a year. Deduct from that sum $8,000 for tuition, and there will be required an invested endowment of $450,000, at six per cent. interest, to provide the needed income. We come, then, to this conclusion: The college needs, in fixed property, at least $250,000; and it needs an endowment of at least $450,000. To put a college in running order, therefore, and to keep it running with respectability, will require $700,000. A theological seminary has no income from tuition; but, after diligent inquiry, I have no doubt that the average cost of the fixed property of a seminary, including grounds, buildings, library, etc., should be at least $200,000. Sometimes it may cost more, and sometimes less; but that will be found to be about the average cost. Then, it needs an endowment that will produce an income sufficient to support at least four professors. Some say five is the indispensable number-in some cases, perhaps, six would be needed-but, giving the average at four, and allowing a reasonable sum for incidental expenses, which are inevitable, and you will find that a theological seminary cannot be maintained with a less endowment than $300,000, over and above the $200,000 for its fixed capital. Giving the academy $100,000, the college $700,000, and the theological seminary $500,000, we have, in round numbers, the sum of $1,300,000 for one institution of each of these grades. One of each will cost that sum; but I suppose there should be at least three academies to one college. You have then to add $200,000 to the $1,300,000. Thus, it will cost to maintain one college, three academies, and one theological seminary, the round sum of $1,500,000. How it is to be fixed at less than that I do not know-that is, to have such an academy and such a college and such a theological seminary as that a Baptist would not have occasion to hang down his head when it was referred to as belonging to his denomination. But, according to the statistics which were read here to-day by my friend, Dr. Moss, and which, I suppose, must be true, we -Baptists have actually begun, and have in one stage of progress or other, twenty-six colleges and fourteen theological seminaries; and if we go on and increase the number according to the rate that we have done, as seems to be inevitable, then we shall have, when we are done, at least thirty-five colleges and twenty theological seminaries, calling for one hundred academies-enough, according to our present scale of buildings begun, to cost the denomination $50,000,000 to complete. FIFTY MILLIONS!

or, an average of $5,000,000 a year, for the next ten years, to complete the work the American Baptists have begun! Now, as I do not come here from an insane asylum, I do not propose to demonstrate, at this day, that the raising of such a sum for such an object is impracticable. It is the wildest thing this side of the moon-the building up colleges and theological seminaries on the scale upon which we have undertaken them.

What, then, may we hope to accomplish? What is there in this work that we may hope to do? Let me ask you again to look at things as they are. The rule is: a Baptist college in every State. But how, in the name of commonsense, did any one ever find out the exact boundaries within which a Baptist college should be located? How did any person come to the conclusion that within such and such limits there must be a college to which Baptist young men should come, in order to keep them from running away into other States? But we act on this notion: a college and a theological seminary for every State. We are laying the foundation for an expenditure of $50,000,000, when there is just as much reason for our expecting to get it as there is of building a railroad to the moon at the expense of the Baptists of the United States. Another result of this policy is, that our young men are sent to these Baptist 216

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. colleges because the colleges need their patronage. We stand up in this Convention and say that the Baptists want none but the best educated men, and yet we ask young men to go to institutions that are poorly endowed and illappointed,just because it is called a Baptist college. Away with this notion that the Baptist young man is bound to go to any other college than that where lihe can get the best education. It is asking too much of any young man that he shall spend four or five years of the best years of his working-life in a college where he cannot obtain the education he desires and which he needs. Then, what can we do? I do not know what we can do; but I will ask you what you think of this: Setting aside what may be done by such men as the Vassars, suppose we had, at present, seven universities or colleges-using the word university as synonymous with college-with twenty-one academiesthree to each college-and five theological seminaries, which will, together, cost $10,000,000 to put them in effective working order. VWe will suppose that $5,000,000 have been already expended on this class of institutions; $5,000,000 then remain to be raised, in ten years, to complete the endowment of seven colleges, twenty-one academies, and five theological seminaries. Can we do this? Can we raise this sum in ten years- $.500,000
a year? If we can, there would be at the end of ten years institutions of which we might be proud, and we could then think of more, for the South and the West will each of them need a Vassar. The seven colleges, or some of them, may grow into universities; but, whether they do or not, I will venture to say that this number of colleges, with twenty-one academies and five theological seminaries, will make such a demand on the liberality of our denomination that no Colgate, no Trevor, need get out of the habit of putting his hand into his pocket for literary purposes. They will make demands every year that will amount, not to tens and hundreds, but to thousands. The next question respects the means whereby any such thing as this can be done. How can we as a denomination raise $500,000 a year, for the next ten years, to complete the work of endowing seven colleges, twenty-one academies, and five theological institutions? There are certain conditions on which it would have to be accomplished, if at all. The $500,000 a year would very nearly equal all that we now contribute for missionary operations and for several other benevolent purposes. It would just about double, for ten years, the annual beneficence of the Baptist denomination. Can it be done? I think the first condition, indispensable to any hope of success, would be a simple but effective organization, whose business it should be to stimulate and to shape this great work.

There would be immense economy in the power thus combined. It would concentrate this power with the wisdom of the best counsel upon the work at whatever point the collective aid of the denomination could be best exerted. But it is not enough to have organization. There must be a practical demonstration that we are prepared to engage in this work on commonsense principles. It must be seen by the men to whom we must look for the money to effect our object, that the object we have in view is practicable. Is it to be supposed that when they see we have already undertaken to do what will cost the denomination fifty millions of dollars, we shall induce shrewd, far-seeing business men to put their fifty thousands and hundred thousands of dollars into institutions that have no firmer foundations to rest upon than the influences of the present hour? It cannot be done. We have got to make it understood that we are going to do what we can do, and what, when done, will remain for generations to come. But it is not sufficient to have an organization, it is not sufficiest in relation 217

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NATIONAL BAPTIST to this to convince business men who have the means that we have given up our pilgrimage to Utopia, and that we are going to do in a practical, business manner what we are able to do, and do it well and do it forever. Then, after we have done all that, and provided for the seven colleges, twenty-one academies, and five theological seminaries, for the objects that come after there must be such a diffusion through the body of the people of the spirit of giving as will release a few wealthy and intelligent men here from the burden of giving so liberally to make up the deficiencies in our popular objects of benevolence. There seems to be an impression that here, in New York, we have certain rich men, whose coffers are so deep and so wide and so well filled that there is no bottom to them (and the draft is so enormous on them that it would seem to be literally true), and that people have but to come here to obtain everything they want to make up the deficiencies of the whole country. Now I claim to know the Baptists of New York, of the city and the State, as well as any other man in fact, I claim to know the Baptists of this country as well as any other manand I can tell you that if there is a class of men in this world that are beset, pursued, and hunted down, if there are any such men on the face of the earth, they are the men who have means in our Atlantic cities; and I tell you I have thought a great many times that the man who has money a good deal of itand continues to reside in the City of New York, is actually a hero. But we have.men here that can give, and love to give, and are able to give, and these are the men who will have to raise these five millions of dollars to complete these institutions. But they never will give it, and you will not get it, so long as they are overburdened with appeals in behalf of missions and various other objects, which the masses can just as well appreciate as these few. The masses of the people will never complete these institutions; they do not appreciate this work as they should, and will never give their money for this purpose. We must depend on men of large means, of large intellects, and large hearts, but we never shall get these colleges and academies and theological seminaries completed, if their means are to be bestowed on what the masses might just as well give to as not, and which it will do them great good to give to.

Now if we could come to the conclusion that, instead of multiplying colleges by the dozen, and have them worth scarcely anything at that, and if, instead of multiplying theological seminaries so as to have the young men at home kept at home-if we could give up all that, and just come to the conclusion to have one wellendowed, thoroughly effective college or university, instead of a dozen miserable ones, and if we could multiply that one by seven, or one theological seminary by five, and then have academies enough for seven colleges, then we could inspire the people with confidence that we are attempting what we are able to do, and achieve something of which, as a denomination, we Baptists would have a right to be proud. As things are now, we have a position far from enviable. We have very fine academies, under Pedobaptist control, to which we send our young men to be trained, and then, after they have been trained, to grow up with the idea that the best colleges in the world are the colleges from which their teachers were graduated. We may expect that our young men will go to those institutions. It is perfectly natural. Send your young men to the Pedobaptist academies, and they will find their way into Pedobaptist colleges, and by the time they get through, if they enter a seminary, it will be a Pedobaptist seminary. I hope at least this Convention will be in favor of giving up what there is no hope of doing, and will attempt, at any rate, to do what can be done, and do it effectively, and that the result will be to place the institutions we need on a footing of stability and power. 218

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. The PRESIDENT: The order of business provides for the reading of a paper by Dr. RAYMOND; but, since the recess, a compromise has been suggested in reference to the question which was discussed by the Convention this morning, which, it is hoped, will secure the unanimous approval of the Convention, and upon which it is suggested a vote had better be taken now while the house is full. After which the regular order of business can be resumed. Dr. CUTTING: I was impressed with the conviction, on listening this morning to the discussion of the report on denominational work in education, that the proposed constitution was not likely to be received with entire unanimity; at any rate, that it could be adopted only after a discussion quite protracted, and such a one as would be sure to interfere with other parts of the order of proceedings. It seemed to me, therefore, desirable that there should be a compromise, if one could be found which would be likely to command general assent, and I consulted several gentlemen in reference to such a compromise, who came to the same conclusion with myself. I propose to read resolutions having that object in view; and, if I may be allowed a remark, personal to myself, I will say, and with great reluctance, that the delicacy which I should otherwise feel in offering these resolutions, is removed by the fact, that I have been compelled to submit to the Executive Committee of the Baptist Educational Commission the question whether they ought not to relieve me by substituting some one in my place as secretary-some one who can depend on his head for at least one week at a time. That Committee know, and many of my brethren here know, how deeply my heart is enlisted in this question, and that there is nothing which God has given me strength to do, which I am not willing to do in this cause; but, in view of the condition of my health, to which I have referred, my frequent, persistent illnesses, I have been compelled to submit this question of my retirement. This removes the delicacy which I might otherwise feel in reference to myself in offering these resolutions. But, brethren, I do not believe that any cause depends on individuals-individuals do not amount to much in this world, and there is in this assembly to-day a brother who has three qualifications for this work where I have one. My mind and my heart have been on him (he does not know it) ever since I have had fears that I might myself be laid aside. I offer, as a substitute for the constitution that was proposed this morning, the following: 219

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Resolved, That the Baptist Educational Commission is requested to prefix the word American to its name, and to remove from its constitution the clauses which localize it; that it be requested to perform the functions of a National Commission, by collecting and diffusing information, by calling and arranging local meetings of character similar to this, and, as far as may be practicable, to subserve the ends provided for in the report now under consideration; that it be requested, after the lapse of a proper time, to call another general meeting, and to provide in the call for a permanent organization.

Resolved, That the Commission be requested to accept from this Convention the names of four persons, to be added to its Executive Committee, and to call for funds for its enlarged operation from American Baptists generally. ?esolved, That this Convention proceed to appoint advisory committees to cooperate with the Executive Committee, to have their centres at Boston, Chicago, and Richmond. Dr. BURROWS: So far as I am concerned, the statement of brother BOYCE has removed all my objections to voting for the constitution as it is presented. Dr. JETER: I rise to say, that, so far as I am individually concerned, I am prepared to vote for the report and constitution, as proposed this morning. [Applause.] Unless there are other reasons for compromise, there need be no compromise, so far as I am concerned. Dr. CURRY: I have not heard a word about this compromise, until now but, apart from the discussion this morning, it appears to me that it would be wise if we entrusted what may be regarded as the preliminary stages of this work to this Commission, in New York, which has come up so suddenly as a power, and has achieved so great a work. And the suggestion of these resolutions enlarges, extends their field to do what they have done so well as to the Empire State, over the broad area of the nation, and, at the same time, provides for such cooperation with them as shall secure harmony; and also for another Convention like this, which, coming together at their call, shall,provide for a permanent organization, that shall transmit its power to those that shall come after us. I think that, under all the circumstances, we may as well commit to this Commission, for a time longer, what they have done so well. I think it is a great power for usefulness and unity in a department of which we recognize the need. Dr. FISH: It seems to me there is another question to look to beyond the report of Dr. CUTTING. I had this thing broached to me before the Convention came together, and at first blush it looked favorable; but my objection lies further back than anything which has been mentioned here. We are here ready and 220

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EDUCATIONAL CO.VENTION. in a condition to do something. What we shall be hereafter, or whether such a body will ever come together again, or what shape the question may take, we cannot foresee. Although it has been well said that no man is necessary in this world, yet, sometimes, the labor and assistance of one man can do a great deal; and I say that all the burden of what this Commission has done that is spoken of as so useful and praiseworthy, has fallen upon one man -Dr. CUTTING. You may ask what organization there is, and we can only answer, thirty men pledged themselves to contribute one hundred dollars each for five years. But we have not got the thirty; we have but twenty-seven. These men may continue their aid for five years, and undoubtedly they will, and we then may go along in that way; but, beyond that, there is nothing certain about it at all. If Dr. CUTTING should be dismissed entirely, or laid aside, it might become a very serious question whether those now contributing to the matter would feel themselves bound to do it hereafter, or, at any rate, would do it so heartily. My fears lie in this direction. It does seem to me that this idea of an organization ought to be put into a more permanent shape, than it is left in the resolutions now before the Convention. You propose to impose upon these twentyeight men duties which they may, perhaps, never accept. They have no fund for their purposes, and none was ever created; and no man is salaried, except Dr. CUTTING, who has a part of salary, for he has never received the whole of it. Is it the fruit of wisdom, then, to leave the matter there? It is too valuable a thing to be left in this uncertain condition. Therefore, I hope, for myselfthough I may differ from the best judgment on the floor-that this thing will be crystallized into a more permanent shape before we dispose of it; that we will resolve to begin the work now, and at the proper time the proposed Society can come together, and take up and carry forward this grand purpose and movement which have been originated here to-day. I trust that we shall form here the American Baptist Education Commission. Dr. BRIGHIT: I must protest against the representations just made of the Commission. It is a complete organization, and it is the most effective educational organization we ever had. It has its constitution and its secretary it means to do all that it has proposed to do, and it has done more for the cause of education than any other single organization that we have ever had in the same time. 221

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Dr. FISH: I am far from disparaging the work of this Commission, and I believe I did say this morning, I thanked God I had the privilege of belonging to it, and of paying $100 a year for belonging to it, and I say that now. I said too, substantially, this morning, that we were doing a great, and noble, and farleading thing, the consequences of which no man can imagine, and it is for that very reason I would perpetuate a thing which is so noble, and not leave it so far ephemeral as it is now. What is proposed in the constitution submitted this morning, is simply to enlarge and perpetuate, and give permanency to a thing which is so ephemeral. One man has worked it all, and as regards funds, we have not a hundred dollars in the world. I do not believe we are solvent, if we come to facts. I know we have no funds, and I doubt even whether the secretary has had his salary paid in full. Would to God that he was a whole man, as regards his health. I must reiterate the fact, that Dr.

CUTTING is the life and soul of this movement. Dr. MOSS: I cannot speak, of course, for the committee who presented this report this morning, but I can speak for myself. So far as I am concerned, I would go for the paper that has been read by Dr. CUTTING, and I am very frank to say that it seems to me to meet all the ends we wish to secure here at this time. If I understand it, this Educational Commission has, according to the terms of its own organization, two years yet to live at all events, and it is proposed by its enlargement and by the establishment of centres of correspondence, to give to that body all the national character that would be secured by any organization we might establish here. And there is a tentative character about the scheme now proposed, which it seems to me will be of value. During the few months that are to come, this matter will be discussed in the press and among our people, and in various ways we shall come better to understand what is the desire of the body of our denomination throughout the country in this direction. And, if this Educational Commission as at present constituted, and as at present worked, could get together and accomplish the work that has been accomplished already, then with its enlargement, with the addition of these committees of correspondence in various centres, and with the results of this convention, with these additional facilities, it could get together another convention by-andby, that should be able to give expression to the popular will on this subject, and to organize that will with greater effect. It 222

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. seems to me, therefore, that we shall secure all we need to secure at the present time by the adoption of this substitute.

Dr. NORTHRUP: As a member of the committee who submitted this report, I wish to say I prefer the substitute proposed by Dr. CUTTING. He spoke to me after the meeting this morning about it, and it struck me favorably then, and I think it is the wisest thing we can do here. My judgment is, that there are men on this floor who are not prepared for a permanent organization now, and that our wisdom looks in the direction of the substitute moved by Dr. CUTTING. The resolutions of Dr. CUTTING were accepted by the Convention as a substitute for the plan of organization recommended in the report of the Committee on Denominational Work, and the report thus amended was then adopted. The second paper of the day was read by Dr. RAYMOND, President of Vassar College: THE DEMAND OF THE AGE FOR A LIBERAL EDUCATION FOR WOMFN, AND HOW IT SHOULD BE MET. In this discussion, I use the term liberal in a distinctive sense-as opposed, on the one hand, to special or professional; and, on the other, to popular or elementary.

Special education is training for one’s business-in life. It is the province of the schools of divinity, law, medicine, farming, engineering, etc. Antecedent to this comes general education, of which there are two grades, elementary and liberal. The first is popular and compendious, imparting the mere results of scientific investigation to those who have either no opportunity or no taste for more. It-is the appropriate work of schools, in the ordinary sense of that term, from the primary up to the high school and academy. Its aim is to make all classes of the community intelligent, and to prepare the citizens respectively for their special training, and their several duties as members of the social whole. The other (liberal) is scientific in its instructions and comparatively severe, going to principles, accompanied with demonstrations, and training the learner in the methods by which results are obtained. It seeks a further and still higher end in the more complete and symmetrical development, discipline, and refinement of the man himself, with reference to which it is often called the highest culture. As its aims are definite, so are its conditions fixed-prominent among which are (1.) a prescribed course of study, framed by experience and scientific educators, and made obligatory on the learner; and (2.) a preliminary course of discipline, by mathematical and grammatical drill, to prepare the student for thorough work in science, literature, and philosophy. This is the kind of education for which colleges and universities have been established and are sustained, and by the operation of which an educated class (in the special sense) is created. Without such a class and the culture that produces it, not only literature, philosophy, and all intellectual professions must languish, but popular education truly could not be maintained, and the further advancement of science would soon become an impossibility. Of the high estimate placed by the foremost nations of the earth on this kind of education, the colleges and universities of Christendom stand as impressive monuments. Millions of money are laid in their foundations, and other millions 223 0

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NATIONAL BAPTIST have gone to their equipment. The most enlightened governments have fostered them with the most sedulous care; in their chairs of instruction and boards of management some of the best intellects of every age have found their chosen employment; the church has cherished, and prayed for, and leaned upon them; and the quick instincts of popular intelligence in all civilized communities have recognized their indispensable necessity to the true and permanent welfare of the whole people. To the depth and earnestness of the conviction, such an assemblage as this bears striking testimony. Now, in all this generous provision for liberal education, properly so called, it is a noticeable fact, that woman has not been regarded as having any direct interest. Established by Christianity on the plane of spiritual equality with man; recognized, both in creation and redemption, as his needed and not inferior complement in the quality of the human type; cherished by man himself, not merely as the partner of his labors and his love, but as his companion, counsellor, and friend, she has yet never been considered a fit subject for the highest culture; and its schools have been and are shut against her to this day.

On the European continent the question has hardly been broached. In England, Cambridge and Oxford have, with a sort of bovine sagacity, gone just far enough to convict themselves of inconsistency, by admitting young women to the entrance-examinations, where the girls have, for several years past, proved themselves quite equally prepared, if not better than the boys, for that further intellectual advancement which is still denied them. In New England, when, a few years since, two ladies of acknowledged respectability and cultivation knocked at the gates of the venerable mother of American colleges, modestly asking admittance to its privileges, they received the polite, but firm, and no doubt wise and necessary, response: “We have no such custom;” and no uncertain echo of the same sentiment comes from all the older and most authoritative colleges and universities of the land. Here and there, in our free and forward West-at Oberlin, at Antioch, and elsewhere-the barriers have been taken down, and the experiment essayed of a mixed education-an education for both sexes on a common curriculum-or, rather, for both sexes on a masculine curriculum.

Again, at Mt. Holyoke, Elmira, Rutgers, Ingham, etc., efforts have been made with no lack of faith and zeal, or of elevated purpose, but with utterly inadequate endowments, and with no cordial encouragement from either church or State, to organize and develop a scheme of education which should be distinctively feminine, as well as truly and thoroughly liberal. But, with whatever just claims to praise for nobleness of aim and intelligence of direction, these exceptions have been comparatively so few, and the fruits so inconsiderable, as only to make more palpable the broad fact, that, for the liberal education of women, Christian States and churches have thus far felt under no obligation to provide. Ought they to feel such an obligation? I regard this as the question of the day, in regard to woman’s education. The general subject is attracting considerable attention, both at home and abroad. A vague impression prevails that the age is calling for a step in advance, but in what particular direction is not so clearly apprehended. There are those, no doubt, whose general interest in the elevation and enlargement of woman’s influence would express itself in pecuniary and other contributions to the cause of her education, if they saw clearly at what point they could make such contributions effective. The fact is, probably, that no extraordinary provision is required at any other point than the one of which we speak.

In all the schools of elementary education, both public and private, girls are admitted on an equal footing with boys, and may compete with them for the highest honors in all the academies and high-schools of the States; and, in the female seminaries and 224

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. academies, courses are projected with special reference to the wants of the sex, which, for the purposes of a popular education, leave little to be desired, and whose chief fault is, that they too easily pass for liberal courses, and are popularly represented as such, while disregarding the essential conditions of the higher culture.

As this is an assertion which will probably be questioned, I wish to make myself distinctly understood. No one is more disposed than myself to think and speak respectfully of the better class of ladies’ seminaries and female academies. They are doing good work of its kind, and of incalculable service to the country. What they have accomplished, too, has been accomplished with little of public or private aid, and they deserve praise, sympathy, and encouragement. They cannot be spared, and they ought to be strengthened. But they do not supply the desideratum of which we speak. Their courses are not liberal courses, and, in the nature of the case, could not be. The fruit, in great part, of mere individual enterprise, with either none or very inadequate endowments, and dependent on popular patronage for support, they have not been in a condition to prescribe courses of study especially to require the long term, and the thorough disciplinary preparation, which to the higher culture are a conditio sine qua non. This is not the place for a minute analysis of the seminary courses; but no college educator can examine them without missing that amount of preliminary mathematical and grammatical drill, without which he knows that the college work of junior and senior years (all of which is nominally attempted) cannot be done, and without perceiving, in some cases, such a predominance of the (so called) feminine accomnplishments, as must be fatal to the stern exigencies of the higher culture. Absolutely dependent, as these unendowed schools must be, on the public favor for support, it is impossible that they should express, in their ideal of education, anything above the average of the public intelligence; and that has never been found sufficient, when unassisted by endowments, to sustain a course of liberal education, even for men. The question then recurs: Ought provision to be made for the liberal education of women? It is a grave question, and it resolves itself into many. Has she strength of brain to receive it? Has she sufficient moral earnestness and persistent energy of will to carry her through the difficulties of a liberal curriculum? Will thorough scientific and literary training do for her what it does for a man? Will it give clearness, breadth, force, precision, and fertility to her mind? Will it add to the dignity, weight, refinement, and elevation of her character? Is there not danger of impairing the delicacy and grace, so essential to our ideals of womanhood, and of disqualifying her physical system for the high and sacred offices which God has assigned her in the domestic and social economy? Is there any public demand for such an education? Are there young women in the land, who, full of all womanly instincts of modesty and grace, are still fired with aspirations for a true and generous culture, and willing to pay its price; and who can be spared so long from their place in the home circle, and their share of the home duties? And, finally, have God and the coming age any work for women to do-in the family or in society, in the church or in the school, in science and letters, or in any of the intellectual professions and arts-which calls for such a training? These are questions on which no wise man will dogmatize. They are asked on every side, and must be seriously considered. Time alone can fully determine them. But there must be light enough for present duty; and, I think, it needs only a little steady reflection to bring all moderate and thoughtful men to a substantial oneness of opinion. But, first, let me premise that the provision of means for liberally educating 15 225 4

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NATIONAL BAPTIST women does not imply that all women are to be liberally educated. It is not so with men. The whole idea and scope of this kind of education suppose its restriction to a comparative few. A concurrence of inward and outward conditions shows, in each individual case, on whom the privilege and the responsibility fall. There must be capacity, and desire, and the requisite bodily health; and to these must be added those favoring dispositions of Providence, which, to the eye of a rational faith, are indications of the divine approval, and the guarantee of a divine blessing. Circumstances are infinitely diversified-no more so, and no less, with girls than with boys-and every case must be judged by itself.

There are but few families from which all the boys go, or could go, to college; but there are very many which some way manage to send one or more; and the aggregate is sufficient to supply a grand necessity for civilization and for mankind. Is there any greater difficulty in the case of girls? I premise, secondly, that a liberal education for woman is not, in all its details, precisely the same thing with a liberal education for man. There are ineradicable differences between the sexes-constitutional differences, and differences of functions-which must be taken into account in determining the conditions of a proper culture for each. What specific modifications of the curriculum this would require, is a question of detail to be wrought out by practical educators in the field of actual experience. So much, however, is certain. There should be no such changes as would violate the essential principles of the higher culture. The intellectual and moral nature of woman is, generically, the same with that of man; and, if she is to be allowed the benefits of a liberal training, she will have to get them on substantially the same conditions with others. There must be the same generous scope in the general plan, the same judicious selection and balance of particular studies, the same authoritative control and direction of the tyro’s course; there must be, in its early stages, the same preparatory discipline and intoning of the faculties, their habituation to patient and vigorous work, their equipment by a thorough grammatical and mathematical drill, with the instruments and habits of thought, which they will need in the later years wlien they come into actual contact with the sciences, the literatures, and the philosophies; there must be no swift skimming over the surface of many branches of knowledge at once, but a habit of concentration upon a few, and of diligent search for the root-principles of all; the classroom work must be something more than recitation; it must become discussion, and the learner must rise to the dignity of an inquirer, an investigator, a thinker; and, finally, for all this, there must be time-time for deliberation, for digestion, for assimilation, and for the actual growth of the mind into the dimensions and the strength of intellectual manhood.

All this there must be in common with a liberal education for the other sex. This secured, the feminine element need not, and should not, be neglected. Some would say there should be more of language and literature than of science. The intellect of woman has certainly some special aptitudes for classical culture; and it may be that, in an age when the wonderful growth of physical science, and the absorbing demand of material interests are more and mnore engrossing the thoughts and energies of educated men, it is to devolve on cultivated women in some way to supply the loss, and to aid in preserving and transmitting to the civilization of the future an element of refining culture which it can so ill spare. But the sciences, too-physiology, chemistry, physics, the various branches of natural history have all of them a womanly side, and may be taught throughout, with reference to practical applications, in woman’s acknowl edged domain. Provisions for aesthetic culture should have a recognized and prominent, though not a dominating, place in the scheme; and music and 226

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. drawing should be taught, not merely as pretty -accomplishments, but as intellectual arts-ennobling and purifying the taste, instead of debasing and enfeebling it, as is too often the effect of these fashionable acquirements. And, finally, the living tongues of modern Europe-particularly the French and German-with their literatures so rich in science and philQsophy, as well as in masterpieces of poetic genius, open a wide field, peculiarly appropriate for the occupancy of women, and worthy of a far more exact and scientific cultivation than they have yet received in the colleges for men. At the same time, the domestic arrangements of the woman’s college should be such as to throw around its students the sheltering seclusion, the matronly supervision, the home tranquillities and comfort, so suited-so almost necessary-to the sex; and the provisions for health, for social culture, for moral and religious training, should all have a special adaptation to womanly circumstances and womanly wants. These are not merely the suggestions of theory. I have seen them tested, very imperfectly it is true, and on a limited scale, but with such results, as place it beyond question in my own mind, that it is entirely feasible, under the lead of experience, and a little plain commonsense, to frame a scheme of education which shall have all peculiar qualities of womanliness, while lacking none of the breadth, intellectual elevation, and scientific thoroughness, which alone can entitle education to be called liberal. Still, the main question recurs. Granting the theoretical feasibility of a womanly liberal education, is it a practical desideratum? Has she capacity to receive it? And when she has obtained it, are there any uses to which she can put it, that will repay the expenditure of money, time, and labor, which it must cost? 1. And first, with regard to the question of capacity. On this point there is a widespread scepticism, both among men and women themselves-the natural fruit of former experience, or, perhaps, rather inexperience-which expresses itself somewhat thus: “God has made woman of such delicate and fragile material, that she cannot endure the strain of real study. There is such a preponderance of sensibility over strength in her organization, that you cannot throw upon her the responsibility of investigation and discussion, of demonstration in science, of philosophical analysis in language and literature, without necessarily overtaxing and breaking her down. This is true, not only of her body, but of her mind as well, which is merely receptive, constitutionally frail, forever and by divine decree light and superficial, as befits a mere creature of beauty and delight.

You cannot make a schlolar of her. You reach the God-appointed limits of her capacity, and, striving to pass them, you do not educate, but destroy her. You have planted your oak in a Sevres vase, and you lose both the tree of your vain hope and the precious vessel, which was your real possession.” I need not spend time here in combatting a prejudice which so entirely mistakes, not merely the nature of woman, but the nature of true study. The value of health cannot, of course, be overestimated; and the immense importance of the physical functions assigned to woman in the social organization of humanity forbids any trifling with the subject in this connection. Nor can it be denied that there has been a sad waste of health in connection with education and intellectual pursuits-not more, however, among women than among men, nor for any different reasons. The truth is, as we are all beginning slowly to learn, study, rightly prosecuted-prosecuted with system, order, deliberation, on a plan judiciously arranged to favor natural development, and to stimulate a wellbalanced activity of all the mental powers, attended, too, with due observance of the laws of bodily sanity-is one of the healthiest of employments. It is no 227

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NATIONAL BAPTIST more excusable (if as much so). for a scholar to be pale and sickly, or to die prematurely, than for any other man or woman. I will not dwell on the inconsistency of condemning a liberal education for women on this ground, while practically justifying the modes in which the majority of our young women actually spend their time between the ages of sixteen and twenty, too often enfeebling and debasing to body, mind, and soul alike. Nor need I insist upon the vices of that alternative system of education which is too generally the only one open to those who have higher aims. Does it tax the brain less severely to sweep round the circle of the sciences in three or four years than to compass it with equable and regulated speed in seven or eight? Is it more healthful to have six or eight studies in hand at onceaccording to a very prevalent custom with ambitious girls, eager for knowledge, and not taught to discriminate between the name of study and the realitystudies, too, for none of which the mind has been properly prepared-than to be strictly limited to two or three, after being previously trained for an intelligent analysis and apprehension of them? On which plan, think you, will the expenditure of nervous energy be more rapid-that in which the work is carefully systematized by competent advisers, with a view to economy of labor and mutual support in its various parts, and: laid out for the student, or that in which the responsibility of choosing her own studies is, in large measure, thrown upon the uninstructed tyro herself, or committed to unprofessional advisers whose confidence and pertinacity are usually in direct proportion to their unfitness to judge? If it is true that in many such cases the acquisition of a very small amount of superficial and evanescent knowledge has been purchased by deplorable sacrifices of health and a disqualification for the practical exigencies of womanly life-to what extent is the mischief due to the feverish excitement, the unwise haste and over-exertion, the mental confusion and perplexity inhe. rent in so vicious a method, and to a bitter sense, at last, of the utter inadequacy of the result? The prolongation of the course, the more advantageous distribution of the work which that prolongation makes possible, the orderly and deliberate prosecution of it, the inspiring assurance given to the fair learner that the wisdom of the ages is at last to be made available in the conduct of her education too, and, above all, the unspeakable delight of acquisitions truly and surely made, and of a conscious constant growth and invigoration of her spiritual being-these, instead of-augmenting the evil, as is foolishly feared, are its true and only cure. In many respects the student-life is more natural to women than to men, and so far it is more likely to be successful. Its pursuits are indoor and sedentary; they require delicacy of perception, a habit of minute accuracy, patience of details, quick and clear insight, and the love of sesthetic finish-all eminently womanly traits-as often as they do breadth and virile vigor. Surely, a woman may be as scholarly in her tastes as a man; her readings in literature or her researches in science may be as extensive; her modes of investigation or criticism may be as philosophical, her observations as accurate, and her record of them as exact and reliable; though, in all these respects, her work will be sure to take on qualities that will mark it as feminine-qualities, be it observed, that are by no means on that account deficiencies-excellences it may be, in which the woman will surpass the man as much as in others she is surpassed by him. In short, woman cannot do man’s work in learning or in science as well as a man could do it; but woman’s work she can do better-more easily, more hap pily, and with better results. After all, woman’s capacity, bodily and mental, for the higher culture, is a question of fact, to be decided only by a fair trial. Facts enough exist to war 228

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. rant the trial-to afford a reasonable presumption of success. Hardly a field of scientific inquiry can be named, of historical research, of speculative philosophy, of linguistic acquisition and criticism, or of literary production, which has not been illustrated by the successes of at least one female cultivator-enough to demonstrate, with all the rigor of a true induction, that, whatever incapacity there may be, is not inherent in the sex, and abundantly warranting an experiment which shall fairly test how far the accidents to which it is due are separable by a change of outward conditions. This objection sometimes presents itself in a different form: the fear of impairing feminine grace, delicacy, and refinement, by the processes of a liberal education. “From a generation of strong-minded women,” prays the objector, “good Lord, deliver us.” And let all the people say, Amen. But, do we really believe that the only alternative is a generation of weak-minded women? To hear some people talk, one might imagine that there was something in earnest and continued study to roughen the manners and make the nature coarse. The notion contradicts the accepted truisms of experience. “Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.” Is the ideal of personal character to be lowered or made less complete by the multiplication of ideas, by the unfolding and informing of the faculties with truth, by a more extensive knowledge of the beautiful works of genius, or the more-exquisite displays of the Divine Thought in nature and history? Does not science, rightly studied, teach humility and modesty? Do not literature and history, by enlarging our knowledge of man, widen the range of our sympathies, and refine by exercising our social affections? Or, is there any shadow of reason for anticipating an inversion of these tendencies in the case of women, who are confessedly predisposed in corresponding directions and peculiarly sensitive to such impressions? “Strong-mindedness,” in the bad sense of that term, so far from being a fruit of womanly liberal culture, is a direct outgrowth of the state of things which denies it. It is a coming to the front of a class of superficially trained, essentially vulgar women-women, in whom self-assertion and combativeness are in constitutional excess, and knowledge and self-discipline proportionally deficient * -to claim for their sex privileges, the want of which far superior women may feel to the full as keenly, though they suffer in dignified and uncomplaining silence.

Take down the bars of a rude and mistaken conventionalism; remove all occasion of just complaint; throw open the fountains of learning on equal terms to all comers, moved thereto by the same divine thirst; and you have done much to cure the evil. The vixen and the virago will disappear, their occupation being gone, while the true women come forward to occupy a field to which you have first made them welcome, and to occupy it, be assured, in such ways as will vindicate the genuineness of their aspirations and the wisdom of your tardy approval. The world has yet to see the glory of a perfect womanhood, fed on a generous diet of thoroughly digested knowledge, developed by a various, wise, and sym * I must not be understood as applying this description to all who have been thrown into prominence in the agitation of “the woman question.” Some among these I know to be noble women, worthy of all respect; and my personal acquaintance with those whose names are most before the public is too limited to warrant any attempt at general characterization. To their own Master they stand or fall. What I have said has no personal reference; it points to a class whose existence will not be questioned, and whose unwomanly self-assertions have given currency and a new significance in the language to the epithet referred to, while they have done much to bring the cause of woman’s true elevation into disrepute. 229

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NATIONAL BAPTIST metrical regimen, uniting womanly strength with beauty, and womanly beauty with strength, and applying its enlarged and disciplined powers with that conscientious earnestness and devotion so characteristic of woman’s nature-to what? Not to any eccentric, sensational displays in public or in private life of questionable utility and more than questionable taste; not to a rude engagement with men in the conflicts of the streets, the hustings, the platform; not to any unseemly assumption of offices or manners which belong appropriately to the other sex, and from which none will shrink with truer disdain than the truly educated woman-but to just those sweet and sacred, those dignified and beneficent offices which God has assigned her in the great economy of life. True strength of mind, I presume, none of us would object to in our own wives and daughters, if only it be womanly in the modes and temper of its manifestation. Nor would it diminish aught of the pride and satisfaction with which we are wont to contemplate the fairer part of creation, might we see some portion of that delicate taste, that subtle and charming invention, that power of brilliant or graceful performance, which are now so lavishly expended in fabricating petty personal decorations or in shedding a fitful lustre over the inanities of a butterfly life, turned to pursuits in science or letters-pursuits which would dignify while adorning, invigorate as well as refine, and diffuse upon the loving and beloved ones around them a purer and nobler delight.

Our homes and social circles are not (thank God) without individual instances of the kind, despite all disadvantages. God grant to the nation a generation of such women, and to us the wisdom requisite to rear it! So much for the capacity of women to receive a liberal education, and to be benefited by it. Let us proceed to the only remaining inquiry in this branch of the subject: What are the outer demands for such an education?

Here again we are forced to meet the topic most frequently in the form of an objection: “Give a woman a liberal education, and what can she do with it? The fields for its employment are closed against her, and her precious acquirements, the purchase of so much time and money and toil, must, after all, rust in her, unused.” There is one of these acquisitions which cannot rest unused-and that is the enlargement and ennoblement of herself-the chief end indeed of liberal culture, whether for man or woman; its reaction upon the faculties which it has formed by informing, and enriched by taxing, and upon the entire spiritual nature, to exalt, to quicken, and refine. This is an abiding and a vital possession. Itcan never be taken away, nor can it ever cease to act and be fruitful. By as much as she has felt the true effect of her studies, she must forever after be-not more like a man, but more of “a woman, and more what a woman ought to be, whereever she moves or whatever she may be called to do. In the family circle, in the church, and in all the relations of society, she will fill a larger space and be felt as a greater power. She will have a wider information, will think more correctly, decide more wisely, converse more understandingly, and in every way make larger contributions to the intelligence and the improvement of the community to which she belongs.

She will be a fit companion for a wiser and nobler man, than she otherwise would have been. If he be a professional man, she will feel an enlightened sympathy in his intellectual pursuits, and may often have it in her power to render him valuable counsel and effective aid; and if she becomes a mother, she will draw on larger resources for the instruction and training of her children. Are these things of small account? And would it not be a national blessing-is it not a vast desideratum-aclass of such cultivated women sprinkled about among our circle of young communities, if it were only to serve as models and reminders of what a woman may be in these fundamental relations of life? 230

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. But let us advance a step further, and bravely face the question, which seems bent on facing us: Has not woman opening before her a still wider scope of responsibility? Is she not called to prepare herself for some other functionsnobler, we know, there cannot be-than the ordinary domestic and social relations? If one holds, with a certain popular lecturer of our day, that the chief end of woman is to be married-that every individual woman was created to be the adjunct and complement of some individual man, missing whom she misses her destiny, and must of necessity fail of a “consummate life “-if her supreme obli gation be to think, first, midst, and last, of wifehood and maternity-to hope for it, to plan for it, to educate herself for it, and then to wait for it-with her lamp trimmed and her vessel filled, waiting-in a sense very different from the Scripture sense-waiting and watching until the bridegroom come: to one, I say, who regards this as the whole meaning of woman in the world, the argument for her higher culture, though not entirely destroyed, must certainly lose much of its weight. But the doctrine is no longer respectable. It is equally unphilosophical, unscriptural, and vulgar. “Marriage is honorable in all “-in man and woman both-but it is absolutely necessary for neither. It is one of many human relations, beneficent and sacred when rightly formed, into which an individual of either sex may or may not be called to enter; and with whatever comparative importance we may and must invest it-God forbid that I should breathe a syllable that could lesson in any mind the sense of its exalted sanctity-though we place it first among earthly and temporal relations, it is still but earthly, temporal, contingent, and therefore unessential to the completeness of human personality, or to the fulfilment of the supreme end of an immortal existence. Thousands without it have risen as near to perfection as it is permitted mortals to attain, and left behind them unsurpassed records of noble living. That, under certain circumstances, it is good not to marry, and that this is as true for a woman as for a man, is as orthodox as St. Paul. (See 1 Cor., 7: 25-40.) Statistics in our own time and country place it beyond a peradventure, that multitudes of women must either remain unmarried or violate the law of monogamy; for there are more women than men in existence-at least this is true of large and populous portions of the earth’s surface.* Does this indicate a providential blunder, think you, or a providential purpose?

Thousands of the girls now under training in our schools and seminaries are destined to live and die unmar ried. God pity such, if the great business of woman is to wait for “the coming man!” The suggestion is an insult alike to woman and to God. The apostle found better employment for the unmarried women, even in his day. “The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord.” The heavenly Father has work for his daughters as well as for his sons; and, though He may and often does, deny them families of their own, he gives to each a place in the universal family, and withholds from none the privilege of useful and honorable toil. It is then a right of woman’s-one of her true, unquestionable rights-to inquire in what capacity she can best honor God and serve her generation. We do well to instruct our daughters so. Let us teach them to banish the idea as obsolete and unworthy, that, by virtue of their sex, they are born to be playthings and pets, the ornamental fringe of society, and mere appendages to men; let us exhort them, as we do our sons, to find their work, and do it, and by the same token we shall bind ourselves to furnish them every needed means of preparation for independent activity. * And if it be replied, that this inequality is balanced by a preponderance of men over women in other districts, that providential distribution of the sexes is just as stubborn a fact and presents an equally insurmountable practical obstacle to universal matrimony. 231

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NATIONAL BAPTIST The signs of the times which presage an enlargement of the sphere of woman’s activity are numerous and clear. On every side, fields are opening for the employment of woman’s hands, and of woman’s intellect as well. Of the three so-called learned professions, to which it is a popular notion that the college curriculum sustains an exclusive relation, a notion never more than partially true, and becoming less true daily-one at least, the medical, will no doubt ere long admit properly educated women to share its responsibilities, recognizing certain specific departments perhaps as peculiarly their own. The question no longer is, whether there are to be women-physicians, but, only, what sort of training shall they bring to the task? The idea of woman’s teaching-at least, anything above. a “dame’s school” for babies, was not always so familiar to the public mind as it is to-day. When Mrs. Willard, the venerable pioneer of improved education for woman-who has passed from us almost since this Convention commenced its session, as full of honors as of days-while appealing for aid to the Legislature of this State in 1820, urged her plea on the ground that woman was constitutionally “apt to teach,” and might, with suitable training for herself, become qualified to replace men to some extent in the system of popular instruction, there were few to whom her views did not appear chimerical. Even Clinton, who took a warm interest in her enterprise, did not venture to recommend it by any such an. ticipation; and, when the suggestion was thrown out by some one on the floor of the Legislature, coarse men laughed at the idea of entrusting to women the training of the s8ons of the State, as something excessively comical. Just a half century has passed since then, and what is its record? To what extent have not women already “replaced men,” and confessedly with no loss, throughout the elementary schools of the State?

But is it not high time to inquire, now that, to so great an extent, women have become the instructors of the people, not merely in primary and grammar schools, but in academies and seminaries also-is it not time to inquire into the character of the preliminary training, the amount and style of the culture which our female teachers bring to the work? Is it not worth while, too, to ask whether it is not possible to utilize still further for the benefit of the State, and in still higher walks of the profession, a talent which has so richly repaid the investments made heretofore in its cultivation? I do not hesitate to avow the belief that the education of the nation is to-day emasculate and weak, compared with what it might easily be made by simply raising the qualifications of its female instructors; and this from no want of zeal or native capacity in them, but solely from their want of opportunities for obtaining breadth, fulness, and thoroughness of culture. “Teachers’ Institutes” do next to nothing to supply this lack. “Normal Schools” cannot fully remedy the evil, unless you expand your Normal Schools into colleges. Nothing will reach it but adding to the valuable agencies already at work for the training of teachers the means of liberal culture for the highest grade.

That, I firmly believe, would reach it; and, by elevating the character of the women-instructors alone, might raise the standard of the national intelligence a hundred per cent. in a generation. But woman’s mission as teacher is not confined to the school. The press has always been open to her, and the recent growth of female authorship, both as to quantity and quality, is one of the wonders of the century. What is needed but advantages for more adequate preparation, to augment a hundredfold the value of her contributions, through this channel, to the intelligence and virtue, the wealth and the happiness of mankind? There is still another field of intellectual exertion-perhaps the most rapidly 232

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. widening and amazingly productive of all occupied by the cultivated intellect of the age-which seems to me also waiting for feminale laborers. I refer to the field of scientific investigation, in which, also, women have a specific, suitable, and important part to perform. I have already avowed the opinion that the average woman cannot be fitted by any amount of training to do a man’s work, or to do what she does, in all respects, as well as a man; but, on the other hand, there is work in every department of science which women can learn to do, and some which they can do better than men-with greater facility, despatch, pre cision, and thoroughness. In the economies of science, just as in those of the household and the church, there is a division according to sex; and then will the great interests involved in each be best conserved and best promoted, when the industries of both sexes are most perfectly united, and the law of their natural relationship most strictly obeyed. The analogy holds too, I suspect, in this particular, that in neither is the womanly office, as a general rule, inde pendent of the man’s; and that, whenever the two sexes work together, the former is naturally subsidiary and auxiliary to the latter. Everywhere and always, Eve is Adam’s willing, deft, and beautiful “help-meet.” There is, of course, no impossibility in a woman’s originating and carrying to successful results a comprehensive and intricate series of scientific experiments, or com bining, by bold and original generalization, a mass of recorded observations; she may, in special circumstances, initiate and organize advance movements in scientific discovery, and defend, in the fields of controversy, the points she has taken. As a rule, however, women are not constitutionally well fitted for such work; and, at the best, the honors of leadership do not sit gracefully upon t)hem. But, as associates and aids, they are admirable; and they will always excel in those parts of the common labor which especially require delicate manipulation, precision of method, patience of details or delays, minute analysis, conscientious exactitude of statement, or esthetical elegance of arrangement and exhibition. In many of the processes of the laboratory, in the arrangement and care of great collections, in the keeping of minute and voluminous records, in difficult and delicate computations, and in like work, of which there is so much to be done in Chemistry, Astronomy, and the whole range of Natural History, and on the manner of doing which so much is often depending, one thoroughly trained woman is often worth any number of young men, who, with rare and womanly exceptions, cannot do such work well if they try, and would not want to if they could. If I were a great master in science-an Agassiz, e. g.-conducting continental schemes of inquiry, and building up a world-embracing Museum of Natural History, it would be among my first demands: “Give me a staff of properly educated women to do the womanly work.” I have said nothing of the bar, the bench, or the pulpit, and nothing of the arena of public political discussion and conflict, into which admittance for woman is so c]amorously demanded by some, because I am more than doubtful whether, as these are at present organized, woman has any vocation to either, and because I believe, for a long time to come, highly and truly educated women may find more congenial and less questionable fields for the employment of their powers. Had we not abundant evidence that God knows best how to carry forward his own beneficent designs for our race, it might seem an immense pity that these particular aspects of the “woman question” should be thrust so pertinaciously to the front, alarming conservative men, and provoking the impatient to cling more firmly to the opposite prejudices. But this is no strange thing. Extremists always precede and herald a true reform. They rouse the public attention, and stir a thousand soberer minds to reflection and action. We need neither share their fever nor lose the benefits of their agitation. We 233

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NATIONAL BAPTIST may follow in the wake of the storm, and gather whatever of fruit it may have shaken from the tree of truth. Thus much seems clear.

The new age will h]lave more work for woman than the old has had. God is preparing to lay upon her new and larger responsibilities, and would have her properly prepared to bear them. The whole world is astir with a sense of the coming change. From the Zenana chambers of Asia to the Sorosis clubs and Women’s Conventions of free America, in the halls of representative legislation on both sides of the Atlantic, through all the currents of living literature, and in the columns of every newspaper, the evidences abound. Women feel it; the foolish women babble and flutter; the wise ponder these things in their hearts, and I think their dominant desire is, that the sex may be made ready for whatever God is preparing for them. This, then, is the present significance of the whole-it is a providential demand for a broader, truer, and completer female education.

What particular forms the new activity of woman may take, it is perhaps idle to speculate, and certainly not at all necessary now to determine.

Increase and improve her culture-give her a better knowledge of herself and of the divine order in nature and providence-give her the mastery of her own faculties, and fill her with ideas of the true, the beautiful, and the good-and questions of detail will settle themselves. No one need fear that she will be made any the less woman by the process-though woman, we will hope (just as we hope for man), may be made a noble thing and more potent for the universal good. She will not need to handle the ballot, or mount the hustings, or mingle in the debates of Congress, in order to make her influence felt in moulding and purifying politics and ennobling the national character and life. She will not need to take orders in the church or prefix a “Rev.” to her name, in order to make her testimony heard for Christ, at home and in foreign lands. Without invading any law of social propriety or doing violence to one of the sacred instincts of her nature, she will find a thousand womanly ways to serve, not her family alone, but her Saviour and her generation. The fulness of an enlightened intellect and a sanctified heart will find or make a thousand fitting channels through which to reach and benefit the objects of her sympathy-through which to swell the tides of blessed influence which bear the knowledge and the joy of salvation to the ends of the earth. Let him that hath ears to hear, hear the voice of God summoning woman to come up higher,” and calling upon us to prepare steps for her ascent. In conclusion, let me say a word on the remaining topic of our theme: How is this great demand of the age to be met? What is to be done to make liberal education for woman a practical and operative reality? And here there would seem to be abundant causes for despondency. Every thing is to be done, and no one appears to feel fully the importance of doing it. But there is no room for despondency in the work of God. If this is not his work, let it come to nought. If it be, he will provide, and have his instruments ready as fast as he needs to use them. Reassured by this thought, we lift our eyes again, and, on a second view, are surprised to find how near to completeness the preparation is already advanced. The fact is, much of the machinery of liberal education for woman is already ill existence waiting for employment, and little is needed but the correction of some errors in the mode of using it, some additions and modifications, and then the inspiration of an enlightened public sentiment, to make it immediately effective. In the first place, the toundation is laid in a broad system of elementary education, in public and private schools, to which the sexes are already admitted on terms of absolute and perfect equality. 234

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Next, the academy, in its proper character, as the school of collegiate preparation, has always stood open for girls as well as boys, and has proffered them on equal terms the same opportunities for that preliminary drill in language and mathematics which is the only gradus ad Parnassum. Of these opportunities girls have seldomr availed themselves. No wonder that they have declined the weary ascent which for them led nowhere, or only to a stern “No ADMITTANCE HERE FOR GIRLS ” on the closed portal of the Temple of Knowledge. No wonder that, by the side of the pre-collegiate course of the academy, has grown up the (so called) “Ladies’ Course,” where “diluted science” and “philosophy made easy” are served up alike to those who have no capacity or desire for more, and to that precious few who would sell all they possess for the privilege of a true education, and long for it only that they may the better serve men and glorify God. In the female seminaries and academies the ladies’ course stands alone, and, by the assiduous nursing of private enterprise and interest, under the favor and patronage of the public, it has attained a completeness of development and a weight of influence which compels respect, while it suggests some serious inquiries as to whether the character of that influence is in all respects fortunate. Here is the first point at which a rectified public sentiment may render important service to the cause of higher female education-by holding the ladies’

courses (I use the name for want of a better) in all our academies, female and mixed, to their true character and their proper function. That function is popular or elementary education-full and generous it may be, and should be, though there is always danger of erring on the side of over-fulness and a “vaulting ambition,” which will be sure to meet its pre-destined fate. The demand is already making for a recognition of these as courses of liberal education; legislators are besieged for authority to confer on those who have completed them “appropriate academic degrees,”

and men of wisdom and authority look with favor on these applications, under the impression that courses which they would spurn with contempt from a college for boys are probably good enough for girls. In the name of woman and of sound education both, I protest against the abuse. Let the mischief go no farther. Let the plain truth be told, and let all rejoice to be held to it. Let the “ladies’ course” and the corresponding popular course for young men in our academies be both sustained, and, as has been suggested in these meetings, let them be made broad and generous, as becomes a community which wants a varied intelligence among men of all classes and in all the walks of business life. But let the directors of these courses never forget that in them they are dealing with comparatively undisciplined minds, and not, by assuming to do more than is possible, fail of the accomplishment of their legitimate work. Let the idea of conferring academic degrees at the close of these compendious courses be sternly frowned upon, at least by all college men. Academic degrees have quite as much as they can do to hold their own in public respect, without over-filling the land with caricatures of them. It is nothing but a name, to be sure; but we have heard from high authority on this floor that names are things: misapplied names confuse the public’thought, and are a perpetual embarrassment to the progress of truth. Academic degrees are the outward sign of an inward grace, meaningless and worse than worthless where the thing signified is wanting.

They are a public recognition, under the stamp of competent authority, of a liberal culture; and shall the senators and judges of the republic of letters join in debasing the currency of the realm? When a woman is liberally educated, give her a degree-not as a favor, but as a right. If women mus+ be denied the thing, they will prefer, if they are sensible (and the best of them are), to go without the name. 235

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Side by side with these popular courses for both sexes, let the academies reinforce their provisions for collegiate preparation in behalf of the girls; and let the female seminaries be persuaded, if possible, to make and advertise such provision for all who desire to fit themselves for college. Then let the truth be told, frankly and fairly and always, alike to students and their friends. Let conscientious and honorable teachers set plainly before each the alternative: “If you want merely a popular course, brief in duration, compendious in form, necessarily superficial as tried by any high intellectual standard, though invaluable for many purposes and sufficient for all the ordinary exigencies of life, here is the broad and comparatively easy path, it may be all you ought to attempt. If so, accept thankfully and improve faithfully its advantages, and you will have no need to blush for the result. But do you aspire to become an educated woman in a higher and completer sense? Would you be’of the guild’ of the intellectual and scholarly? Can you content yourself with nothing short of a round and finished culture? There is no alternative; you must take the other, longer, and steeper way, and you must gird yourself for the difficulties inseparable from the ascent. Prepare yourself for college, and take a college course.” Finally, what shall be done with the girls who get prepared for college? “Send them to Vassar,” I suppose you expect me to say. And the answer might do very well “for the present necessity.” But it is a broad question, this, of the most suitable provision for the collegiate education of women, and would need a separate paper for its full discussion. It would seem a very simple solution of the difficulty, that the existing colleges should throw open their doors to the admission of young women properly pre. pared, letting them pursue their education in the same classes with the young men, without additional expense for buildings, apparatus, or instructors. So far as our older colleges are concerned, however, I suppose this is out of the question. Apart from theoretical objections, and some pretty stubborn prejudices (if you please so to regard them), the innovation would involve such sweeping changes in the domestic arrangements, and what may be called the police of those institutions, as no prudent counsellor would advise them lightly to risk.

They were built for young men alone, and all their material provisions and the habits of centuries have shaped themselvs accordingly; and it would be easier to establish new institutions than to revolutionize them in conformity to the demands of this new element. In the new organizations of the younger States, this difficulty would not be encountered; and it seems very desirable that the experiment of the mixed education, in colleges as in academies, should there be thoroughly tried. I see no theoretical reason why, under suitable conditions, it should not be entirely successful, and yield some educational results, growing out of the mutual influence of the sexes, of especial interest and value. But let it be clearly understood what suitable conditions are. In the experiments which have thus far been made at the West, about the only thing done has been to admit young women to the ordinary college coursea course designed exclusively for the other sexwithout adequate provision for adapting it at the requisite points to the special wants of women, and for supplying the ample means of esthetic and social culture, so indispensable to an ideal education for the sex. This is not what woman wants, and she will not take it. The consequence is what we might expect; the number of young ladies in the college classes has gradually diminished, until now Oberlin too has its “ladies’ course,” neither worse nor better, probably, than the ladies’

courses of the better class of seminaries. This is “keeping the word’of promise to the ear and breaking it to the hope.” The college that professes to do the work of a college for women, whether separately or in connection with the other sex, stands engaged to establish and 236

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. maintain (1.) a course of truly liberal education, and (2.) a plan adapted to the circumstances and peculiar needs of women; and it should be held by public sentiment to both parts of the obligation.

This will be found to involve the necessity of chairs of instruction not called for in the ordinary colleges for men only, together with a peculiar personal, social, and domestic regimen, adapted to the care and comfort of young women away from their parents’ home. And this brings us to the one universal desideratum for attaining any earthly good money-endowments-special endowrments foe the liberal education of women. I do not see but that Providence has everything else in readiness, or so nearly so that every dollar which a Christian heart may be moved to contribute to this particular object may at once be made effective.

Finally, you will ask me: “How about Vassar? Does she comply with the conditions prescribed?” Come and see. If I understand the feelings of her trustees, they intend to try the experiment fairly and fully, exactly in the spirit of the words of her lamented founder-” to do for young women what the existing colleges are doing for young men.” The full realization of such an idea is, of course, a matter of time and growth. We have made a beginning, and do not feel discouraged at our progress thus far-but we need help. What! is not Vassar independently rich? Rich? Yes and no.

Independently rich? Ever and only no. We do not ask for money. We are not in need of it. But there are some things which we do need of you, and of the great Christian public, and which I earnestly ask for Vassar. 1. Take the idea of liberal education for women into your minds and hearts. If it be God’s truth I have declared, as God’s truth welcome, and ponder, and love it. Then you will love Vassar, for it is her one central, informing, and inspiring aim. 2. Those who believe with us may cooperate with us in various ways. The most effective way is by sending us the fight kind of students. To do this implies, in many cases, the inculcation on the mind of the young lady or her parents a true conception of what she and they desire, and the inexorable conditions for its attainment. In other cases, it may involve the necessity of obtaining the requisite amount of funds to defray the expenses of board and tuition. 3. If there are any who, in addition to sympathy and good will, would like to aid this cause by pecuniary contributions, or by inducing others to contribute, there is a channel in which their benevolence may freely flow, and always do untold good. It is in providing means for young women of talent and promise to defray, in part or in whole, the expenses of their college course. After the other large demands made on the munificent generosity of Mr. Vassar, in providing for the various wants of his school, there was but a comparatively small amount left for this particular object, viz.: a fund of $50,000. He regretted that it was not many times as large-but he gave it freely, and with the strong hope that others, to whom God has given the double blessing of earthly wealth and a generous nature, would, after hlie had ceased from his labors, add to its amount and its benefits. Can a nobler object solicit your sympathy, Christian men of wealth? Besides this, gifts to the library, and to the collections in art and science, can never come amiss, or fail to be turned to good account by the youthful devotees of learning, who for all time to come, we trust, will throng the halls of Vassar. 4. Finally, brethren, pray for us. We feel especially the need of more warm, personal sympathy fromn the Christian church. And to what portion of the church can we look with more propriety than to American Baptists? It is true indeed, that Mr. Vassar forbade our ever putting a denominational impress upon the institution which he founded-and we mean to be loyal to his wishes in this 237

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NATIONAL BAPTIST respect. Yet it is an historical fact, that Vassar College is an outgrowth, not only of Christian, but, in some special sense, of Baptist principles. It was these which had moulded him from infancy, and made him what he was; and to them he clung with tenacity to the end of his life. In the choice of his trustees, and in all his views in regard to the management of the institution, he showed the influence in his mind and character of the tenets dear to us as a thinking people. In the very tenacity with which he clung to the determination of separating every shadow of sectarianism from the institution, he showed himself a true Christian and an enlightened Baptist. We then, as Baptists, have a right to feel a special pride in whatever is praiseworthy in the conception of the college, or in the execution of it-a right to feel a special interest in its welfare, a special obligation to promote it. Let me lay it on your hearts, and ask you to remember it as in some sense your own. And let me, in conclusion, add, that as God has given us as a people this honorable prominence in the great cause of LIBERAL EDUCATION FOR

WOMEN, it behooves us to vindicate the distinction He has conferred by maintaining the precedence, and acquitting ourselves fully of the responsibility. The paper was referred to a committee specially appointed.

This committee was: Pres. H. CLARK, of Texas. Rev. Dr. BULKLEY, of Illinois. Rev. J. H. GILBERT, of Connecticut. On motion of Dr. CUTTING, it was Voted, That pastors of Baptist churches who have attended these meetings, not as delegates but as friends of education and members of Boards and Faculties of Baptist institutions of learning (not delegates who have so attended), be requested to present their names, with their official designations, distinctly written, to the Secretaries, for record in the proceedings. The Committee on Enrollment made their report, which was accepted. Voted, That the nomination of persons to fill vacancies. in accordance with the resolutions on enlargement of the New York Educational Commission, be referred to a committee consist. ing of the chairmen of the four committees. Voted, That Dr. JITER, of Virginila, Dr. HovEY, of Massachusetts, and Dr. NORTHRUP, of Illinois, be requested to consult with members from their respective sections and bring forward names for the Advisory Committees, called for in the resolutions for enlarging the operations of the Baptist Educational Commission. On motion of Rev. Dr.

FisH, Voted, That the thanks of this Convention are given to the Erie Railway for its liberal reduction of fares to persons attending this Convention, announced before our assembling, and to other lines, by rail and by steam, which have since followed this good example. The Convention adjourned at the appointed hour. EVENING SESSION. The Convention met at 7: 45. Prayer was offered by Prof. J. H. GILMORE, of Rochester University.

Rev. Dr. HAGUE, chairman of the Committee on Academies, presented the report of that committee, and it was accepted and the recommendations therein contained were adopted. REPORT ON ACADEMIES. The Committee to whom was referred the paper read by Professor GREENE, beg leave to report: That they regard the subject of which this paper ably treats-that is, “The 238

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. Academy, its proper place, its aim, and the means of its efficiency”-as one of privary importance, in relation to the chief end sought by this Convention, namely, the uplifting of our whole denominational community to a higher plane of thought and action in the pursuit of their educational work. The intellectual, moral, and religious progress of the millions comprised within our denominational bounds, is the critical problem of the time for us, here, to-day. A religious community, a great denomination, failing in the diffusion of mental culture throughout its whole area, must soon cease to keep step with the march of civilization, fall to the rear, and sink, at last, into a condition of inefficiency, inferiority, and utter disintegration. Hence, the leading aim of a body of denominational educators, such as is gatlhered here, must be the development of that true economy of institutions, from which must proceed the enduring forces that shape the forces of society and rule the course of history. In harmony with this view, the paper before us sets forth the college as the real exponent, in this country, of a liberal education; and thence, as the head source of that teaching-power which the needs of all communities call for. While the office of the college is recognized as the producer of teachers, the office of the academy is considered particularly as the necessary source of supply to the classes of the college. Thus the influence of the academy upon the masses of the people, in calling forth and educating the talent of the country, is clearly traced; The Committee unite not only in the cordial approval of these views, but also in commending anew to the consideration of the Convention the necessity of fresh efforts to arouse the members and friends of the denomination everywhere to a union of their forces in establishing, at least, one first-class academy in each State, keeping distinctly before the minds of all concerned the realization of this threefold aim: 1. A preparatory school for college; 2. A school of thorough instruction for four or five hundred young ladies; 3. A normal school for common school teaching, and for business purposes. Such an academy should be located in a community wherein there is a prev.ailing influence in sympathy with our denomination, and favorable to economy. The discipline of the academy should be in the hands of a well-selected Faculty, with its chief executive officer at the head both of the male and female departments. For the establishment of such an academy, an endowment of fifty or one hundred thousand dollars should be regarded as a necessity. In this line of direction, a good example has been set, of late, by our brethren in New Hampshire and New Jersey. In the former State, the institute at New London has been partially endowed, and is now working efficiently. In the latter State, an academy at Hightstown has recently gone into successful operation; and, as there is already commenced a good academy at Bridgeton, in the southern section of the State, while the northern section is calling for another, it may be fairly said, we think, that New Jersey is the banner-State in this line of achievement. At the same time, the institute at Suffield, Connecticut, older than any of those just mentioned, is full of youthful spirit, efficient, and progressive-thankful to God for the spiritual fruitage of the past, and hopeful of its future. These facts are vocal with appeal, because so significant of God’s will touching the aim set before us, and the means of its realization. All of which is respectfully submitted. WM.

HAGUE, Chairman. 239

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NATIONAL BAPTIST The report of the committee on Theological Education was presented by Rev. GALUSHA ANDERSON, D.D., of Massachusetts: * REPORT ON

THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. The Committee on Theological Education, to which was referred the paper ot Dr. RoBINsoN on “the kind and extent of ministerial culture demanded by our times,” and that of Dr. DODGE on “the vindication of advanced culture in the pastor and preacher,” together with the resolution of Dr. BOARDMAx and that of Dr. BROADUS, report, That they have given such consideration as was possible to the matters referred to them. The unquestionable ability of the two papers, and the many valuable suggestions which they make, have undoubtedly impressed the members of this Convention, as they also will impress those who shall have the privilege of reading them hereafter. With some of the statements and positions some members of the Convention will perhaps disagree; but the general views taken are universally acceptable. The papers indicate, and the discussions in the Convention confirm the fact, that we are all agreed in the importance of education to all our ministers; that that education should be carried, in the case of each person, as far as possible; that the ministry cannot be confined only to such as have received such an education; and that we should afford to those who cannot obtain the highest education such training and information as may be possible, and as will fit them in some degree for their work. Our educators may not concur as to the best methods of accomplishing these ends, but all agree that they must be secured. It is, therefore, wise that the Convention should not commit itself to any particular plan, to meet the require. ments of this class. This subject may be left for mature consideration. Every year will furnish the experience which will determine this question. Your Committee, therefore, offer for the action of this Convention, upon the subjects of these papers, only such resolutions as, it is hoped, will be universally acceptable. Your Committee are not prepared to report in favor of the adoption of the resolution of Dr. BOARDMAN. While they believe that more attention should be raid to the study of the relations of science and religion, in our seminaries and colleges, especially in the latter, your Committee doubt whether the time has yet come for the establishment of separate Chairs for this object. Until we can greatly increase the number of professors, it would be giving to it a greater proportion of labor than is due to it in comparison with other subjects. This subject comes appropriately, too, under that of Apologetics, and there is manifest propriety in not separating it from the other topics of that branch. Upon the resolution of Dr. BROADUS, your Committee report favorably. It is very important that our colleges and seminaries should not graduate students as a matter of course. Rigid examinations, oral and written, in which a higher standard shall be required, ought universally to prevail. In accordance with these views, the Committee report for the action of this Convention, the following resolutions: Resolved, That we recognize iV the courses of study in our colleges and theo logical seminaries our most efficient means of preparation for the minister of the Gospel, and that it is the duty of all that are called to preach to aim to secure the highest culture that these colleges and seminaries afford. Resolved, That it is the duty of all our ministers and churches to urge upon those entering the ministry the importance of acquiring such preparation and culture.

Resolved, That, while thus maintaining the desirableness of the higher cul 240

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. ture, we recognize that, in the providence of God, many are called to the ministry who have not the power of attaining it.

Resolved, That we gratefully recognize the provisions already made in our seminaries for such persons, and that we urge all such to avail themselves of them to the fullest extent possible. Resolved, That it is greatly to be desired that our institutions of learning, and especially our theological seminaries, should make their diplomas rest on the basis of elaborate and strict examinations, so as to furnish unquestionable proof of superior attainments. Dr. HAGUE: I move its adoption, and in doing so beg leave to make a single remark on the phraseology of the report in connection with the proposition touching a separate chair in our theological seminaries, for natural science in connection with the religion of the Bible. The report says that it should come within the province of Apologetics. I think it would be better to say that it comes within the province of systematic theology. I do not believe in the necessity of such a chair, nor do I believe thatthe time will ever come when any man will be qualified to occupy the chair of systematic theology in our theological seminaries unless he is acquainted with science, so as to be able to shape his propositions in harmony with both God’s books, Nature and Revelation.

What is the use of a system or set of propositions that you call systematic theology, unless they be so framed as to cover that whole ground which the naturalists are seeking to occupy? If any man doubts whether that desideratum is really met, I would ask his scrutiny to the corps of workers in the theological seminary at Chicago. If they find here a professor of theology incompetent to meet the needs of any young man, who comes (as Dr. ROBINSON says) shaken through and through with the doctrines of naturalism, I will be the first man to move to fill his place with some one better fitted to meet the exigencies of the times. I believe we have there, in that department, a man qualified to fill the place-not only qualified, but wide awake to learn the last proposition or the freshest advancement of thought in Europe or America. No man is qualified for such a chair, any more than a physician is qualified to come into your family and treat disease, unless he be wide awake and know the last advance of thought in Paris,Vienna, or London. I hope I shall never see the time come ‘when you will have professors of systematic theology, not having this adaptation to meet the wants of their times. 16 241

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Prof. ANDERSON: I wish to make a single remark in reference to a statement of Dr. IAGUE. The committee distinctly recognized the fact that there must be a division of labor in theological instruction. I think this principle is being recognized more and more. I know this fact exists now in connection with many of our seminaries that both the Greek and the Hebrew are taught by a single professor. We are compelled to put such burdens upon a single man, because we do not have teachers enough for our institutions of learning. But the time is coming, when we shall separate these departments of instruction, and give to each man his appropriate burden. So the committee recognized the fact that, sometime in the future, that which is called systematic theology, the great burden of which is now laid upon a single’man, will be separated into its different and appropriate departments, and that these departments will be each given to professors, who shall be able to teach them more thoroughly than is possible with a single professor. That is the explanation of the language of the report, which looks to the future, when perhaps it will be necessary to introduce into our institutions of learning such a chair, or at least a chair corresponding to that suggested in the resolution. The report was agreed to, and the resolutions were passed. Dr. ROBINSON: I have a resolution which I wish to read. I do not expect that it will’be adopted immediately. It suggests, however, a subject that will require in due time proper consideration: -Resolved, That the present practice of conferring the degree of Doctor of Divinity by our American colleges is an inconsistency in our educational system which ought to be discontinued, and that the degree, if conferred at all, should proceed from our theological seminaries, and be given only after a careful examination by a properly constituted board of examiners. Dr.

SAMSON: I second the resolution with all my heart [applause], because our colleges are beginning to suffer in consequence of the conferring of that title as a degree, because it is beginning to be understood to express in no sense the man’s real standing, and because our college boards of trustees are oftentimes greatly perplexed by some member of the board who wants his pastor doctorated. There is an inconsistency in the degree being conferred by boards composed of men who are not already acquainted with the’ facts. If the degree is to mean anything, let it be conferred upon 242

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I EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. men who have been approved by a properly constituted board of examiners. I know this is not the time to say what I would like to say upon this subject, and I do not wish to trespass upon your patience. Dr. EATON: I wish to make the inquiry whether this Convention has jurisdiction over this sort of thing. I perfectly sympathize with my brother in regard to this very important matter. I bave been behind the scenes. I do not believe, however, that any theological institution in the land, not even the Rochester Seminary, has the power to confer the degree of D.D. Dr. HOVEY: I was intending to second this resolution. I think the Convention can do no harm by expressing its opinion upon the subject. I thinkl there is one theological seminary that has the legal right to confer this degree. Prof. STEVENS: I do not think that the heads of the theological seminaries have the exclusive right over this question. I am willing they should have it. I wish to state a fact, as a member of the faculty of Denison University, at Granville, Ohio. In the room of the President the other day, he read me a letter from a gentleman, recommending one of our pastors for this degree. I do not know whether that pastor has ever been at college. The trustees of Granville College, after conferring the degree of D.D. on quite a number, from year to year, some two or three years ago referred it to the faculty to recommend to them persons for receiving it, and they do not intend to confer it unless it is so recommended. Hence this letter to the president of which I have spoken. Several inducements were mentioned in it, and the writer then says: “I should be glad to have the degree come from Granville, but otherwise I shall apply to Chicago.” [Laughter.] Dr.

CUTTING: This is a very entertaining question. I wish that semi-lunar fardels were abolished altogether, as they are so utterly insignificant and of no value to anybody; but I do not think that we can consume the few precious moments we have left to-night in discussing the question. Dr.

ROBINSON: I wish simply to say that I was well aware of the interest this subject would create, but I did not dream that anybody would make the objection that Dr. EATON has made. 243

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NATIONAL BAPTIST Pres. ANDERSON: If our brethren of the theological seminaries want this patronage, let them have it. Dr. BROADUS: I beg to say that I was about to second the resolution, and that the conferring of this degree ought to be given over to theological seminaries, after a strict examination by them. I am sure that nobody would object to that.

Dr. CURRY: I do not wish to object to the resolution or anything, that proceeds from the distinguished member. But, if that resolution is pressed to a vote, I shall be compelled to ask for a division of the question, because while I can vote very cheerfully for the first part of the resolution, I am not prepared to say that any college, either literary or theological, ought to confer the degree of D.D. I shall be saying so, if I vote for the whole of the resolution. The resolution was laid on the table. Dr. CALDWELL, of R. I., from the Committee on that subject, made the following REPORT ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. The Committee appointed to consider the subject of University Education asks leave to report: The place and the province of the University or College in our system of education have been fixed by traditions and usage which have grown out of American life, and are already defined with tolerable distinctness. Its function and methods are determined by the’end it serves, and its relations to the special courses for which it is a preparatory agency.

That it is susceptible of improvement, and that changes will come, are only a thing of course. The curriculum of study, in the proportion and range of its subjects, the teaching by recitation and examination, the distribution into classes, the conferring of degrees for merit, however it may be with those for honor, may be modified, as new conditions arise, and with the natural progress of education, and yet without altering the essential features which differentiate the American from the English, German, and French systems. The only change which can properly be proposed by this Convention is in carrying forward this established and tried system to a higher grade, and to whatever enlargement that may allow or require. The change may be at either end. It must begin at the bottom. It must take students at a higher degree of preparation, gradually transferring the lower studies of the present course to the period of preparation. This will allow addition to the amount and enlargement to the range of studies included in the quadrennial course, and especially such increase of scientific, without diminution of literary, studies, as seems to be demanded at the present time. But it will also require what, on every ground of educational economy and efficiency, is demanded, namely, that colleges be so completely manned, that every department shall have its own chair, and that every teacher shall have his own department, and no more. It is an evil incident to the stage of meagre endowment, that every instructor may be called to make up the lack of service in other departments, and is liable to have uncongenial 244

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. and incongruous work attached to that for which he is specially and ought to be only responsible. The ideal university suggested by the paper presented by President ANDERSON, is one in which instruction will be so distributed that every branch of human knowledge will have its professor, and no man will be obliged to undertake what lies beyond his own appointed sphere. It will follow that, as studies are eliminated from the beginning, higher ones can be added to the present end of the college curriculum. But beyond this, it is now proposed, if not to add a post-graduate course to the present system, for which perhaps we are not prepared, at least to provide for residence at the colleges, and also the theological schools, for purposes of private study, of a select number of qualified students, who, receiving the income of sufficiently endowed foundations for the purpose, shall carry forward general, and even professional studies, to a point advanced far beyond the present college or professional courses. Dr. HOVEY has presented a paper devoted to the explanation and enforcement of this proposition, and we have no question that it will be wise for this Convention to make recommendations looking tothe accomplishment of this end, not only in the foundation of fellowships, but in the proper provision, on the part of boards and faculties of the institutions, for the residence, direction, and assistance, if not instruction, of such advanced students. The papers referred to this Committee are, all of them, careful and intelligent expositions of the subjects assigned, deserve publication, and, in their general principles and conclusions, the endorsement of the Convention. In their spirit they all not only look toward high ideals in education, and a constant progress toward the most elevated standards. but they are also in sympathy with the most liberal culture and the fearless extension of human knowledge to its utmost limits. They encourage the offering of no obstruction on the part of faith to the broadest and most searching scientific inquiry. They contemplate no contraction of the range of study from fear of peril to revealed truth or spiritual life. And in these respects your Committee believe that it becomes the Convention to speak with no uncertain or faltering voice. As a Christian Convention we are moving in the interests of Christianity and education alike, as we give all our educational agencies and processes a direction and an impulse toward the amplest knowledge and the highest culture. As a Baptist Convention, we are only faithful to our principles and loyal to our calls and opportunities, and, indeed, mindful of our interests, as we pledge our people to the service of all good learn - ing and liberal education and the progress of human knowledge and culture. The Committee submit the following resolutions to the Convention. S. L. CALDWELL, For tke Committee. 1. Resolved, That this Convention, recognizing liberal education as one of the leading interests of Christian civilization, of the church of Christ everywhere, and not less of the denomination of Baptists, with which we are connected and to which we are loyally attached, regards with great interest, and anticipates with confidence such elevation in the standards, and such improvement in the processes of academic education, as will bring our colleges abreast with the best institutions of our time; and considers it a duty laid upon us, according to our capacity and opportunity, to do our part in providing the teachers and advanced investigators in every department of science, and the promoters of all good learning. 2. Resolved, That this Convention is prepared to recommend to-the friends of liberal education, among our people, the foundation of fellowships in connection 245

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NATIONAL BAPTIST with our colleges and theological schools, to be conferred on our young men as the reward of eminent scholarship, and to furnish a better supply of highly qualified teachers and scholars in the higher departments of knowledge and education. 3. Resolved, That the ideal university-such as belongs not only to the present century, but which is to be abreast of time as it comes, and to meet the needs of our denomination and of American society in the near or remote future must not only be grounded on the beliefs and methods of Protestant Christianity as against those of the Jesuits, who lead in the education of the Roman Catholic Church, but also in its apparatus of books, of works of art, of scientific research and illustration, of gymnastic exercise, its foundations for professorships, beneficiary scholarships and lectureships, in the distribution of teachers not merely with reference to the number of students but to the departments of knowledge to be taught, in its buildings, grounds, and general facilities and surroundings, must be laid out and furnished on a scale far more ample than now exists; and that, even if it requires a reduction in the number of our colleges in proportion to the numbers of our people, and a relatively more abundant expenditure for education, our aim should be toward this in every college which has been or which is to be established under our auspices. 4.

Resolved, That this Convention regards the foundation of professorships, or the endowment of existing chairs, as, in general, the first object to be sought in raising funds for the use of our colleges. Pres. ANDERSON: I beg leave simply to endorse the views of the last resolution. Many persons who are moved to do something in connection with institutions of learning, are anxious to expend their money in something which can be seen. The great evil of many of our institutions of learning is that so much money has been laid out in the material appliances of education. I beg leave to reiterate what I said the other night, that our system of education is a system depending mainly upon men. It is men that we want-endowments, an increase of salaries of those who are now at work, and an increase of the number of men to work. I speak it without exception, and know what I say to be true, all our men are overworked and underpaid. There is no class of men, in the world or in the church, at this day, who require so much of intellectual power, attainments and expense in their education, who are so miserably paid and so prodigiously overworked as those who are engaged in education in all its departments, from the lowest to the highest. We can never become a civilized people in the highest sense of the word, until we are willing to pay for the brain labor that is engaged in the work of education. [Applause.] Dr. EATON: I am altogether gratified with the report It seems to me to combine in proper measure the conservative and 246

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. the progressive elements which must enter into all true progress. In regard to the remarks made by my respected brother, the President of Rochester University, they are of vital importance. I wish here to say, that his view of the subject, it seems to me, has not come out with due prominence and effect in the papers and remarks before the Convention. We have seemed to take it for granted that we are deplorably deficient in our educational work-that we have a parcel of poor, sickly, and dying institutions. It is not so. [Applause.] We have work going on in our institutions of the most precious value. We have among our educators some of the very best in the land, who are bending all their intellectual and moral energy to the communication of the right kind of instruction and the culture which is needed-and they are doing a great work of that kind.

They are the vital forces on which we must depend for any real progress in our educational work. It seems to me that this Convention ought to recognize, and not only thank men, but thank God, for what is doing in our colleges and our universities, for upon them we must depend for the higher education and culture. Have the Baptists been entirely idle in this work of education? In the last ten years they have raised in the Northern States more than half a million of dollars (I do not know but it is a million), and have endowed colleges, professorships, and some fellowships.

We ought to recognize what is doing, and thank God and take courage. But we have new views opening upon us of vast grandeur. I am glad that these views are looming up and taking possession of our souls. Prof. STEVENS: Allow me a moment, not to make an objection to the report, yet to say something that does not exactly har-‘ monize with it. We have more than twenty colleges in Ohio. It is our belief-the belief, I mean, of the faculty of the College at Granville (it need not be yours unless you like)-that we are giving as thorough instruction as any of the colleges in that State. I would not venture to compare it with that of the colleges in New York. I am willing to concede that we are not equal to the colleges of the older States. In Ohio, our denomination embraces onetenth, if not more, of the population. We are more numerous than any one branch of the Presbyterian Church-perhaps one-half as numerous as the united Presbyterians and the Congregationalists. The Western College Society has aided three colleges in Ohio under the control of these denominations, and an institution besides for the African Methodists, making four in all. 247

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NATIONAL BAPTIST The drift of the thought here is plain. I do not wish to arrest it-by no means. So far from it, let the current go ahead with locomotive force. It is not at all strange that such men as we have here, and such teachers as we have in the large cities, should have a zeal and desire to do great things; but is there not danger that in our zeal and enterprise we shall step so far forward as to let our young men fall into the hands of others? I do think that we are in a little danger just there.

The report and resolutions were adopted. Dr. HAGUE, from the Select Committee appointed for that purpose, nominated the following persons to be additional members of the Executive Committee of the Educational Commission: Rev. C. P. SHELDON, D.D., ALBERT B. CAPWELL, Esq., Hon. GEORGE

H. ANDREWS, Rev. A. J. F. BEHRENDS. The following Advisory Committees were nominated by the special committees, respectively: For Boston and the East. Rev. A. HOvEY, D.D., Rev. S. L. CALDWELL, D.D., Rev. S. R. MASON, D.D., GARDNER COLBY, Esq., Rev. CHARLES HIBBARD. For Richmond and th7e South. Rev. J. L. M. CURRY, LL.D., Rev. J. L. BURROWS, D.D., Prof. H. H.

HARRIS, Rev. W. M. WINGATE, D.D., Rev. GEORGE W. SAMSON, D.D. For Chicago and the West. Rev. G. W. NORTHRUP, D.D., Rev. W. W. EVERTS, D.D., Rev. E.

J. GOODSPEED, D.D., Rev. J. BULKLEY, D.D., Rev. KENDALL BROOKS, D.D. These nominations were unanimously confirmed. Rev. Dr. BOARDAN, of Pa., offered the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted: Resolved, That the thanks of this Convention be and hereby are most heartily tendered: I.

To the gentlemen associated in the Baptist Educational Commission, and particularly to their accomplished and indefatigable Secretary, the Reverend SEWALL S. CUTTING, D.D., for the foresight and generous enthusiasm in which they conceived and have rendered possible the convocation of this large and influential body of Christian scholars and friends of advanced education. II. To the Brooklyn Baptist Social Union, for their courteous generosity in providing for us a place of gathering, in according to us the hospitalities of their homes and those of their friends, and in securing the accurate reporting and publishing of the proceedings of this Convention. III. To the President and other officers of this Convention, for their efficient services. 248 6

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. President ANDERSON, from the special committee to whom the subject was referred, made the following REPORT ON STATE GRANTS

TO SECTARIAN SCHOOLS. It is commonly conceded, among civilized nations, that the laws of selfpreservation demand that every State shall train its citizens in the elementary learning requisite to prepare them for the intelligent discharge of their social and political duties. An educational system, supported by taxation, ought, in justice, to be a common one, free to all the children of the State, and excluding none. Absolute religious liberty being guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, as well as by those of the several States of our Union, no government, national, State, or municipal, can rightfully or constitutionally raise or appropriate money for church edifices, ecclesiastical endowments, or schools designed for special training in those elementary religious beliefs peculiar to different bodies of believers in the Christian or other forms of religion; therefore, Resolved, That, for the safety of the State as such, the common school is a necessity and ought to be maintained; and that it is unconstitutional and morally wrong for the State to appropriate public money for any ecclesiastical purpose whatsoever. Resolved, That all legislation tending on the one hand to deprive our children of the commIon school, and on the other to support institutions designed to propagate special forms of denominational belief, is subversive alike of the wellbeing of the State and of those rights of the individual conscience which arise out of our strictly personal obligations to Almighty God. Resolved, That in these resolutions we are simply reaffirming those fundamental principles of religious freedom which Baptist churches have always sacredly cherished, and what they first, among the religious organizations of Christendom, adopted as articles of faith. Dr. BULKLEY: The resolutions offered by Dr. ANDERSON and the report presented by him are certainly worthy of all praise. The only question that arises in my mind is, as to the bearing of these resolutions upon the question of the Bible in the common schools. I do not find, as I followed the reading of them, that point touched upon. I therefore rise to ask if that point was clearly met, and if I overlooked it. Dr. ANDERSON: That subject was not referred to the corn mittee in any way. The report and resolutions were adopted. The following report was presented by President CLARX, of Texas, from the Select Committee, to which was referred the paper read by President RAYMOND, on THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN. The special Committee, to whom was referred the paper prepared by Dr. RAYMOND, of Vassar College, on “The demand of the age for the higher education of women, and how it should be answered,” respectfully report: That w e r egre t that th e lateness of the hour forbade that deliberation and discussion which the subject and the ability with which it was presented really 249

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NATIONAL BAPTIST demand; and that the same circumstance renders impossible an extended report from this Committee. Commending, therefore, with all the emphasis in our power this able paper to the consideration of the Convention, we recommend the adoption of the following resolutions: Resolved, That this Convention recognizes, in its fullest extent, the importance of the subject of this essay. Resolved, That we anticipate the time when the higher education of women will receive the attention of our ablest minds, and will claim for its realization the moral influence and the material aid of the Baptist denomination. All of which is respectfully submitted. IH. CLARK, Chairman. The report and resolutions were adopted.

Rev. J. F. ELDER, of N.Y., offered the following resolution, which was agreed to: Resolved, That the adequate endowment of our various literary and theological institutions calls for large and constantly increasing contributions from the Baptists of this country-; and this Convention would urge, upon our wealthy men especially, the paramount importance of this object, as one to which a large portion of their means should be devoted. The Minutes of the Convention were read and approved. Dr. BROOKS: Allow me to say that the reading of the rrinutes gives me information that the resolution offered by Rev. Dr. CHAMPLIN, in regard to the use of the Bible in the public schools, was referred to a Committee which was at the time in session, and we have known nothing of it until now. That is the reason why the resolution did not receive the attention of the Committee.

Ordered, That this explanation be recorded. The Committee on Enrollment made their final report. (See Addenda.) Dr. CUTTING: We are now within a moment of the hour appointed for bringing to a close the labors of this Convention. I move, therefore, that we unite in singing the Doxology, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,” to be followed by a prayer of thanksgiving, and that then this Convention do adjourn, sine die. The doxology was accordingly sung, after which prayer was offered by Rev. R.

JzPrraEY, D.D. The Convention then adjourned. WILLIAM KELLY, President.

JOHN C. STOCKBRIDGE, EDWARD C. MITCHELL, Secretaries. WILLIAM CAREY

CRANE,) 250

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. ADD E NDA. The Committee on Enrollment reported over one hundred appointed delegates in attendance, from nineteen States and the District of Columbia. (See pages 3, 4.) At a late hour an attempt was made to obtain for record the names of Pastors of Baptist Churches, attending not as delegates but as friends of education, and the names of members of boards and faculties of Baptist institutions of learning, so attending. (See page 238.) The attempt was successful to a very limited extent only. The following were the names which came to the possession of the Committee: Rev. C. W. ANABLE, D.D., Cambridge, Mass. Rev. A. WEBSTER, D.D., Boston, Mass. Prof. ALBERT HARKNESS, LL.D., Brown University, R. I.

Rev. J. H. BROMLEY, Conn. Rev. ALMOND BARRELLE, Meriden, Conn, Rev. 0. W.

GATES, Norwalk, Conn. Hon. WM. H. FULLER, Suffield, Conn. Rev. JAMES

FRENCH, Rochester, N.Y. Rev. A. PINNEY, Brooklyn, N.Y. Rev. H. C.

LONGeYEAR, Saugerties, N.Y. Prof. A. J. SAGE, University of Rochester, N.Y. Prof. N. L. ANDREWS, Madison University, N.Y. Prof. E. JUDSON, Madison University, N.Y. Prof. A. S. BICKMORE, Madison University, N.Y.

Rev. C. N. PATTENGILL, Palmyra, N.Y. Rev. C. P. SHELPDON, D.D., Troy, N.Y.

JOHN B. KETCHUM, Esq., N.Y. Rev. W. B. SMITH, Hunter’s Point, N.Y. Rev. D.

MOORE, D.D., Brooklyn, N.Y. Rev. L. P. JUDSON, Stillwater, N.Y. Rev. J. W.

DANIELS, Potsdam, N.Y. Rev. SILAS ILSLEY, Brooklyn, N.Y. SMITH SHELDON, Esq., New York. Rev. ALBERT COIT, Rochester, N.Y. Rev. A. C. OSBORN, D.

D., Brooklyn, N.Y. Rev. E. J. FOOTE, Pennfield, N.Y. Rev. H. R. TRAVER, Fort Edward, N.Y. Prof. GEORGE N. BIGELOW, Brooklyn, N.Y. Rev. JOHN F.

BIGELOW, D.D., Brooklyn, N.Y. Hon. P. P. RUNYON, New Brunswick, N.J. Rev.

D. C. HUGHES, Newark, N.J. D. M. WILSON, Esq., ” ” Rev. D. T. PHILLIPS, Philadelphia, Pa. Rev. THOS. A. GILL, ” Rev. RICHARD B. COOK, ” Rev. T. A.

REID, Greenville, S. C. Rev. W. NELSON COTE, Paris, France. Rev. R. M.

HENRY, Belfast, Ireland. The public interest in the Convention was manifested by assemblages which filled the church to its utmost capacity.

251

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NATIONAL BAPTIST AMERICAN BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. It will be seen, by reference to p. 220 of the Proceedings of the Convention, that the following resolutions were passed by that body: Resolved, That the Baptist Educational Commission be requested to prefix the word ” American” to its name, and to remove from its Constitution the clauses which localize it; that it be requested to perform the functions of a national Commission by diffusing information, by calling and arranging local meetings of character similar to this, and, as far as may be practicable, to subserve the ends provided for in the report now under consideration; that it be requested, after the lapse of a proper time, to call another general meeting, and to provide in the call for a permanent organization.

Resolved, That the Commission be requested to accept from this Convention the names of four persons, to be added to its Executive Committee, and to call for funds for its enlarged functions from American Baptists generally. Resolved, That this Convention proceed to appoint advisory committees to cooperate with the Executive Committee in New York-these advisory committees to have their centres at Boston, Chicago, and Richmond. At a subsequent meeting of the Baptist Educational Commission, called according to the terms of its Constitution, resolutions were passed making the requisite constitutional changes, and providing therein for carrying this action of the Convention into effect. The gentlemen named by the Convention were added to the Executive Committee, and the Secretary was instructed to enter into cooperation with the several advisory committees. The Constitution as amended, and the officers of the Commission, are as follows: CONSTITUTION OF THE AMERICAN BAPTIST

EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. ARTICLE I.-This Association shall be called the AMERICAN BAPTIST EDIUCATIONAL COMMiSSiON, and its object shall be the promotion, within the field of its operations, of Education and the Increase of the Ministry in the Baptist denomination. ART. II.-The attitude of this Commission, in respect to all institutions of learning connected with the Baptist denomination, is declared to be friendly. ART.

III.L-The members of this Commission shall consist of persons paying one hundred dollars per year to the funds thereof. ART. IV.-The officers of this Commission shall consist of a President, two VicePresidents, a Treasurer, a Secretary, and an Executive Committee of eleven, of which the Treasurer shall be one. These officers shall be chosen by ballot, unless the ballot shall be dispensed with by vote. Excepting the Secretary, who is chosen for five years from the first day of January, 1868, these officers shall be chosen at the annual meetings of the Commission, and shall hold their offices until their successors are appointed. The Secretary shall not be a member of the Commission, nor a member of the Executive Committee; but hlie shall be entitled to take part, without voting, in all deliberations of both. The Executive Committee may fill vacancies occurring in their own number, or in the offices of the Commission. The Secretary being present, five members shall constitute a quorum of the Executive Committee for the transaction of business. ART.

V.-The duties of officers shall be the usual ones pertaining to their several positions. Particularly, it shall be the duty of the Executive Committee, in connection with the Secretary, 252

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. to devise and give effect to the ways and means of promoting the object of the Commission, and the Secretary shall be their executive officer. They shall hold meetings at his call, or at the call of the Chairman thereof, and shall make annual report to the Commission, at a time and place of meeting determined by themselves. They may call special meetings of the Com* mission and may make arrangements for public meetings. ART. VI.-The Treasurer shall collect subscriptions for the Secretary’s Fund, and shall pay out moneys, derived from whatever source, on drafts from the Secretary, which drafts shall certify the order of the Executive Committee. Any funds beyond those required for Secretary’s salary, and other necessary expenses, shall be used strictly for promoting the object of this Commission. ART. VII.-This Constitution may be altered or amended, except as to its object, by a vote of twothirds of the members present at a meeting called for that purpose. This Commission being provisional only, it may, at any such meeting, and by such vote, be merged in a permanent organization for similar ends, more popular in character, or more widely representing the Baptist denomination. Unless taking such form previously, this Commission will terminate its work December 31, 1872. OFFICERS OF THE AMERICAN BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL

COMMISSION. Hon. WILLIAM KELLY, President. Messrs. JOHN B. TREVOR and JOHN

M. BRUCE, Jr., VicePresidents. Mr. W. A. GELLATLY, Treasurer. Rev. S. S.

CUTTING, D.D., Secretary. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Mr. SAMUEL COLGATE, Mr.

JACOB F. WYCKOFF, Rev. HENRY C. FISH, D.D., Rev. J. F. ELDER, Mr. W. A.

GELLATLY, Mr. S. T. HILLMAN,, Rev. WAYLAND HOYT, Mr. A. P. CAPWELL, Rev.

C. P. SHELDON, D.D., Hon. GEORGE H. ANDREWS, Rev. A. J. F. BEHRENDS.

ADVISORY COMMITTEES: Boston and the East. Rev. ALBERT HOVEY, D.D., Rev. S.

L. CALDWELL, D.D., Rev. S. R. MASON, D.D., Mr. GARDNER COLBY, Rev. CHARLES

HIBBARD. Richmond and the South. Rev. J. L. M. CURRY, LL.D., Rev. J. L.

BURROWS, D.D., Rev. GEORGE W. SAMSON, D.D., Prof. H. H. HARRIS, Rev. M. W.

WINGATE, D.D. Chicago and the West. Rev. G. W. NORTHRUP, D.D., Rev. W. W.

EVERTS, D.D., Rev. E. J. GOODSPEED, D.D., Rev. J. BULKLEY, D.D., Rev.

KENDALL BROOKS, D.D. 253

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NATIONAL BAPTIST It is proper to subjoin the following statements concerning the organization of which the American Baptist Educational Commission is the enlargement: The Baptist Educational Commission was formed November 20 and 26, 1867, and commenced its operations January 1, 1868. Its object was twofold:-” To promote Education and the Increase of the Ministry in the Baptist denomination;” to create and foster in our churches and congregations such general interest in the higher forms of education as should lead to the wider and more effective use by our people of the institutions of learning which we have established, and to stimulate and sustain, by prayer to the Lord of the harvest, and by all proper endeavors, such replenishment of our ministry as is required by the magnitude of our numbers, and the greatness of the Christian work which God has committed to our hands. The immediate occasion of the organization was the remarkable interest in these objects which was awakened in the New York Baptist State Convention, held at Poughkeepsie in October, 1867, when a committee was appointed to whom the effecting of such an organization was referred. The Commission was composed of a few gentlemen who paid its expenses, influenced only by their regard for the objects which it sought to accomplish. The immediate sphere of its operations was the States of New York and New Jersey, but it was neither intended nor possible to restrict its inquiries, its labors, or its influence within prescribed boundaries. It proceeded to its work by collecting facts, by appeals through the press, and by the addresses and correspondence of its Secretary. Friendly to all our institutions of learning, it has been the special advocate of no one of them in particular. It has labored to promote the prosperity and usefulness of all, by raising the cause of education to a higher and governing interest. It has been encouraged from the first by the approval and cooperation of educators and friends of education, by the press of the denomination, by the pastors of our churches, and by the action of Associations and State Conventions,-and has witnessed as one of its advanced results the great national meeting whose doings are recorded in the preceding pages. THE BROOKLYN BAPTIST SOCIAL

UNION. It would be improper to close this volume without a tribute to the association of Baptist laymen under whose auspices the Convention was held. The Brooklyn Baptist Social Union is an association of such laymen, meeting mostly for purposes of acquaintanceship, and for the consideration of practical topics of importance to Brooklyn Baptists, and to the denomination generally. It opens its sessions with such business, regular or special, as may come before it, following this with a collation, and this with addresses from members or invited guests, on questions of interest relating to its ends. To this Social Union the Secretary of the Baptist Educational Commission (himself for many years a Brooklyn Baptist) turned, when a place and liberal patronage were the conditions on which a National Educational Convention might be held. The Union responded most promptly and liberally to his requests. They secured the use of the Pierrepont Street Baptist Church for its 254

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EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION. sessions; in their own houses and in the houses of their friends they provided a generous hospitality for the delegates; they furnished the necessary funds for reporting, and for publishing a complimentary edition of the Proceedings for the members of the Convention, and then generously placed their types at the disposal of the Educational Commission for the multiplication of copies for distribution.

Besides contributions of money, personal services were required which were promptly and effectively rendered by the Committees created for the purpose, and, in a word, nothing was left undone by the Union to render as agreeable, as effective, and as useful as possible, this unprecedented gathering of the intellectual power and culture of the denomination. At the final adjournment of the Convention, the Social Union met in the lecture-room of the church to receive personally the members of the Convention. Here a bountiful collation was provided, ALBERT P. CAPWELL, Esq., presiding. The divine blessing was invoked by the Rev. Dr. HAGUE, and the collation was followed by remarks in the happiest strain by the Rev. Drs. CALDWELL, CURRY, BOARDMAN, and CRANE. The Examiner and Chronicle says: “The signal success with which the programme of the meetings had been carried out, the unbroken harmony and good feeling that had pervaded the sessions, the inspiration of great purposes, and the conviction that the heart of the denomination, as the heart of one man, is fully set on their accomplishment, were enough to make this closing scene one of unalloyed enjoyment.” The fellowing are the Officers of the Brooklyn Baptist Social Union for the year 187S0: President-A. P. CAPWELL.

Fice-Presidents-JOHN F. DAvIS, DE WITT C. TAYLOR. Secretary-JAMES D. REID.

Treasurer-JOHN V. HARRIOTT. Executive Board: WILLIAM RICHARDSON H. E.

WHEELER, GEORGE ALLIN, CHARLES PRATT, The following were the Committees to whom the arrangements for the Educational Convention were referred o ee of the Executive Board: WILLIAM RICHARDSON, JAMES D. REID. Committee on Finance CHURcHILL H. CUTTING, JOHN F. DAVIS, W. W. ARMFIELD, GEORGE T.

HOPE, F. D. MASON WILLIAM M. ADAMS. Committee on Hospitalities: M. H.

DORMAN, W. I. POOLEY, T. M. BANTA, J. E O. SOUTHWORTH, W. W. BRooKE, RICHA RD MAJOR, W. W. ARMFIELD, J. V. HARRIOTT, WILLIAM RICHARDSON, W. T.

MOR.O.RoD, A. C. BiAxE. 255 D. C. GREEN, CIIARLEs L. COLBY, ED. D. WHITE, A. B. CAPWELL, JoiaN V. HARRIOTT, H. E. WHimimLimia. 0. T. BIEDIELMAN, Limwis B. RICICD, E. D. KA16BFLEISOH, HORACE WATER$,

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I N D E X. PAGE DELEGATES IN

ATTENDANCE……………………………………. 3

ORGANIZATION……………………………………………….. 5

ORDER OF PROCEEDINGS………………………………………. 8 PROF.

GREENE’S PAPER ON ACADEMIES…………………………..10 DR.

BOSWORTH’S PAPER ON EDUCATION SOCIETIES………………… 41 PRESIDENT

LOOMIS’S PAPER ON THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH IN RESPECT TO

SCIENCE…………………………………………………. 51

PRESIDENT HOVEY’S PAPER ON FELLOWSHIPS…………………….. 56

APPOINTMENT OF COMMITTEES………………………………….. 71

PRESIDENT ANDERSON’S PAPER ON THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CENTURY…. 72 DR.

OLMSTEAD’S PAPER ON EDUCATION AND THE PRESS…………….. 89 DR. Moss’s PAPER ON THE ORGANIZATION OF OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK… 92 DR. SAMSON’S PAPER

ON JESUIT COLLEGIATE INSTRUCTION………….. 111 DR. CURRY’S ADDRESS ON

EDUCATION IN THE SOUTHERN STATES…….. 132 -PRESIDENT ROBINSON’S PAPER

ON THE MINISTERIAL CULTURE REQUIRED IN OUR

TIME……………………………………………. 139 PRESIDENT

DODGE’S PAPER ON MINISTERIAL CULTURE IN THE MINISTER’S

WORK………………………………………………… 155

PRESIDENT NORTHRUP’S ADDRESS ON THE DUTY OF EDUCATORS TO LEAD THE CAUSE OF

EDUCATION………………………………….. 183 REPORT ON

DENOMINATIONAL WORK IN EDUCATION………………… 197 DR. BRIGHT’S

ADDRESS ON ENDOWMENTS………………………… 214 RESOLUTIONS

ENLARGING THE BAPTIST EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION…….. 220 PRESIDENT

RAYMOND’S PAPER ON.THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN… 223 REPORT ON

EDUCATION IN ACADEMIES…………………………… 238 REPORT ON

THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION…………………………….. 240 REPORT ON

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION……………………………… 244 REPORT ON

STATE SUPPORT OF SECTARIAN SCHOOLS………………… 249

ADDENDA…………………………………………………… 251

CORRIGENDA. By an accident much regretted, there is an omission on the 132d page, of the adjournment which followed Dr. SAMSON’S paper, and of the opening with prayer by the Rev. Dr. CRANE, of the Afternoon Session which preceded Dr. CURRY’S Address. The title of that address is likewise omitted-” THE CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF EDUCATION IN THE SOUTHERN STATES

AS AFTECTING BOTH RACES, AND THE DUTIES OF THE BAPTISTS AS THENCE

ARISING.” On page 47, fourth line from bottom, for “‘allowance” read “deliverance.” Other typographical errors, it is believed, will generally suggest their own correction.

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NEW EDUCATIONAL WORKS. COMPORT’S GERMAN COURSE. A German Course, adapted to use in Colleges, Acad emies and High Schools. By GEORGE F. COMFORT, A.M., Professor of Modern Languages and.Esthetics in Alleghany College, Pa. I2mo, Half Leather, $2 oo00. Also, by the same author, a TEACHER’S

COMPANION. In preparing this German Course, it has been the aim of the author to incorporate the most advanced views and principles of linguistic instruction, as held by the best writers upon philology, and the best practical educators in Europe and America. Especial preference has been given to those features of approved works for the study of modern languages which, in Europe more especially, have stood the test of practical use. A few other features have also been introduced which have been adopted with eminent success by the most able professors of modern language in their personal instruction, but which have not heretofore found their way into text-books. MARCH’S PARSER AND ANALYZER. A Parser and Analyzer for Beginners, with Diagrams and Suggestive Pictures. By FRANCIS

A. MARCH, Professor of the English Lan guage and Comparative Philology in Lafayette College, Author of “Method of Philological Study of the English Language,” “Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language,” &c. x6mo, Flexible Cloth, 40 cents. This book is made so as to tax memory as little as possible, perception and judgment as much -s possible. The briefest definitions and rules are given; the rest is problems which the pupil is o solve, and so work out the meaning and application of the definitions and rules. -APRON’S SCHOOL LYRICS. A Collection of Sacred Hymns for Devotional Exercises in Schools. By S. M. CAPRON, A.M., Principal of Hartford (Conn.) High School. i64 pages, Flexible Cloth, 40 cents. The simple object of the compiler of this little book has been to prepare a convenient, compact, -od select manual of hymns for use in the school-room and the family circle. The evident want .f such a book, and repeated and unavailing search for one, first suggested the idea of preparing ~ Great labor and care have beerr bestowed upon it, particularly in the choice and arrangement ,f the hymns. Out of several thousand examined carefully, about two hundred and sixty have ,een selected on account of their special fitness for devotional exercises in schools. -AVEN’S RHETORIC. A Text-book, designed for Use in Schools and Colleges, and for Private Study. By E. O. HAVEN, D.D., LL.D., President of the Northwestern University. 382 pages, I2mo, Cloth, $I 50. This work may be said to have grown, rather than to have been written for the purpose of ,akine a book.

Having used in the classroom, in academy, and college, many of the text-books n Rhetoric, ancient and modern, foreign and American, and having instructed some classes withut using a text-book, I have been most satisfied with the result when the method herein presented as been pursued. This book is therefore the result of actual experiment.-Extractfromn Preface. JALTON’S PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE. A Treatise on Physiology and Hy giene, for Schools, Families, and Colleges.

By J. C. DALTON, M.D., Professor of Physiology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. With Illustrations. 398 pages, Cloth or Half Leather, $I 50. The most important, and, at the same time, the most interesting facts of Physiology, may be -ught with success in a perfectly simple manner, provided they be given in the proper order, and ice eir natural relation to each other. It has been the aim of the present work to accomnplish this object. OOMIS’S ELEMENTS OF’ ASTRONOMY: Designed for Academies and High Schools. By ELIAS LOOMIS, LL.D., Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy in Yale College, and Author of a “Course of Mathematics.” 254 pages, I2mo, Sheep, $I 50. The plan of the present volume is essentially the same as that of any treatise on Astronomy, ith the omission of most of the mathematical portions. That which I have retained requires ,ly a knowledge of a few of the most elementary principles of Algebra, Geometry, and Plane rigonometry. If, however, a student is unable to understand the very simple mathematical por3ns of this volume, the descriptive part will generally be intelligible without them, and the por~ns which it would be found necessary to omit would not, in the aggregate, exceed twenty pages. -eat care has been taken to render every statement clear and precise.-Extractfrom Preface. OOMIS’S GEOMETRY

AND TRIGONOMETRY: Consisting of the Author’s “Elements of Geometry and Conic Sections,” and the first two Books of his “Plane Trigo nometry,”

bound in one volume. Prepared for use in High Schools and Academies. 286
pages, I2mo, Sheep, $i 50. This work was arranged as above designated, in compliance with a request that the publishers juld add to the Geometry of this series the author’s treatises on Logarithms and Plane Trigo.metry. It is not intended, however, that this book shall displace from the series the author’sFlements of Geometry and Conic Sections,” as heretofore published. HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE, NEW YORK.

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TO EDUCATORS. We pubish: ANTI{ON’S CLASSICAL SERIES. The most complete Classical Series published in Americ, LOOMIS’S MATHEMATICAL SERIES. The favorite in Aeriecan Colleges and Academiez CURTIUS AND SMITH’S GREEK AND

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The American Educational Series OF SCHOOL & COLLEGE TEXT-BOOKS. The most Popular, the best Graded, and the most widely Circulated Series of School-Books published. Kerl’s system is commended over others for the following reasons: It teaches more that is of practical utility. It contains a simpler, sounder, and more comprehensive article on the analysis of sentences. It contains a much better article on capital letters. It contains a much better article on punctuation. It contains a much better article on versification. It contains a better article on rhetorical figures. It exhibits a wider circuit of the various constructions of the English language. It surpasses in the number, pithiness variety, and interesting character o its exercises. It is drawn more directly from English and American literature. Its p r in ciple s a re better illus trated by examples. The matter is better classified and arranged. The typography is superior. SANDERS’ UNION READERS. NEW and unsurpassed in the matter and va riety of instructive pieces and illustrations; well graded, full and complete, with Charts, Primer, and Spellers. 1. They are strictly progressive. 2. They conform in Orthography and Pro nunciation to Webster. 3. They exhibit clearly the several Sounds of the Letters, present the Rules for Spelling, Articulation, Emphasis, Inflection, Modula tion, etc. 4. They begin by teaching children to read, with words real. though little, such as at, on, it, no, and the like, forming them into simple sentences. 5. They select the more difficult words of each Reading Lesson, and arrange them as an exercise in Spelling and Definition. 6. They give an account of all the various Persons, Places, and Things that seem to need explanation in the Reading Lessons.

7. They employ every mode of unfolding the Signification of Words, Comparing, Contrasting, Analyzing, and fixing their meaning and application in the mind. 8. They seek to attract and instruct early childhood by Easy Reading Lessons, and by the use of appropriate Pictorial Illustrations. 9. In style they are Pure, High-Toned, and Refining. 10. In binding. typography, and general beauty, they are unequaled. ROBINSON’S

MATHEMATICS. This complete and popular series of Mathemnatical Text-Books is graded to the wants of Primary, Intermediate, Grammar, Normal and High Schools, Academies and Colleges.’ They are pronounced superior to all others. In conforming to the legal standard, and to the law of usage in the use of table forms a nd applicatis. In philosophical and scientific arrangement. In conciseness of rules, brevity and accuracy of definitions.

In numbers and variety of practical examples. In full, logical, and c o mprehensive analysis. In new, original, and improved methods of operations. In adaptation to the various grades of scholarship in all our Schools. In vnity of plan, and in clearness and perspicuity of style. In scientific accuracy, combined with practical utility. In typography, binding, and general beauty. KERL’S ENGLISH GRAMMARS. This series is rapidly acquiring extensive circulation, being already introduced and adopted in the most noted Grammar Schools in the country. GRAY’S BOTANICAL

SERIES. “Dr. Gray stands confessedly at the head of the science of Botany in the United States, and among the highest in all countries.”-Dr.

Lindley, of London. “Prof. Gray is well known as the most eminent theoretical and practical botanist in our country; and his opportunities for acquiring an extensive and accurate knowledge of the plants of North America, have been such as no other person has enjoyed.”-Prof. John Torrey, M.D., L.D. “I have no hesitation in saying that among all authors who have written on this subject, I esteem Prof. Gray, beyond all comparison, first.” Henry Ward Beecher. “Not only is Dr. Gray acknowledged to stand at the head of Botanical Science in this country, but his works have been appreciated and noted abroad, for the thoroughness and admirable method, the precision, and the singular clearness of language which distinguish them.”-Prof. A. Guyot, LL.I)., of Princeton College. “Few men have equaled him (Gray) in scientific res e arc h, o r excelled him in scientific deduction.”-Sir William Hooker, Royal Botanist of England. IERL’S EGISE GRWobster’s School Dictionaries. KERL’S ENGLISH

GRAMMARS New Editions of the Primary, Common This series is rapidly acquiring extensive School, High School, Academic. and Countingcirculation, being already introduced and House Dictionaries have been issued, containad(pted in the most noted Grammar Schools ing important additions and improvements, in the country. and copiously illustrated. SPENCERIAN COPE_ BOOKS. Wells’ Science, Hitchcock’s Works, Willson’s HTistories, Townsend’s Analyses, Randall’s Reading and Elocution. Bryant’s and Stratton’s Book-Keeping. SEND FOR OUR NEW

ILLUSTRATED DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. The Publishers cordially invite Teachers and others interested in the cause of Education to correspond with them freely, and, if they find it convenient, to visit their Offices and Publishig Rooms. IVIS01’, BLAZEMAN, TAYLOR & CO., Publishers, 138 and 140 Grand St., New York.

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BENJ’N OPTICIAN, MANUFACTURER AND IMPORTER OF Ha the atieal, Egilneeri g AND SURVEYING INSTRUMENTS, CD.llege ~(ch(01 APPARATUS, 518 BROADWAY, NEW

YORK. PIKE’S SON,

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Motto, “Excelsior”- Objects, “Progress and Improvement.” 9-‘ - ~ %- ~ !!

,…..=C~~OR.. \LI~R,TuRE E The Largest, Best and Cheapest Illustrate R
ural & Family eekly. By D. D. T. MOORE, New York City, and Rochester, N.

Y. A CHANGE AND I3IPROVEMENT! THis FAMIOUS WEEKLY was for twenty years published in Annual Volumes, but its enlargement (last year) from Eight to Sixteen Large Double Quarto Pages, constrains us to make a change which will be an improvement, by issuing Two Volumes a Year instead of One!! The Semi-Annual Volumes will commence with July and January. This change is made for the convenience of the thousands who preserve the RURAL for reference, and in the belief that it will add to its general Acceptability and Usefulness throughout the Country. No pains or expense will be spared to augment the value of a Journal which has lollng ranked as THE BEST

WEEKLY IN AMERICA! The RURAL NEW-YORKER is well known as the Leading and Most Complete Illustrated Rural, Literary and Family Newspaper, combined, in the World, and we trust the change now announced will increase its popularity, in both Town and country, all over the Continent. The Rural is the Largest Illustrated Paper Sixteen Double-Quarto Pages of Five Columns each! The Paper for Yourself, your Family, and your Friends! BOTIT PRESS

AND PEOPLE PRAISE IT! For example, an exchange says: “THE RURAL is the most Elegqantly Printed, Ably Edited, Widely Circulated and Heartily Welcomed Paper, as a Whole, which now finds its way among the People.” The RURAL, NEW-YORKER is invaluable to all Farmers, Horticulturists, &c. As a Literary and Family Paper it is superior; while its epitome of the News, and Reports of the Markets, Crops. etc., are full and reliable. Every reader of this book who wants a first-class paper should take the RURAL, which is National in Character and Objects, and has a Continental Circulation. Remember it is not a Monthly, but the Largest, Best, and Cheapest Illustrated Weekly published; and, though double its former size, and greatly improved, its price remains unchanged. RATES PER VOLUME AND

YEAR. Volume XXIII., commencing January 7th, 1871, will be published in uniform style with the present, each number containing Sixteen Double Quarto Pages of Five Columns-Finely Illustrated and Neatly Printed oii Book Paper. A Title-Page and Index given at the close of the Volume.

Terms. Only $1.50 per Volume of 26 numbers (July to January), or $3 per year of 52 numbers. Ten copies, $1.25 each per Volume. or $2.50 per year.

with a free copy (or premium) to club agent. Remittances by Draft, P.O.

Mloney Order, or Registered Letter, may be madt at the risk of the Publisher, Now is the Time to Subscribe and Form Clubs. Specimen Numbers, Show Bills. etc., sent free to all disposed to act in betalf of THiE

RURAL. Addre,s D. D. T. MOORE, 41 Park Row, N.Y.

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Building in process of Erection by the On the N. W. Corner of BROADWAY &

PARK PLACE. On the N. W. Corner of BROADWAY & PARK PLACE. THE S EC U RITY

(Fire and Inland Marine) l suir ee Topany WITH A CASH CAPITAL of -

$1,000,000, Offers its Policies at the Lowest adequate Rates. A. F.

HASTINGS, President. W. B. BUCKLIOUT, ~icePresident NATHAN HARPER, Secretary. WALKER & EUSTAPHIEVE, General Agents, Inland Marine Department, Buffalo, N. Y. W. H. CUNNINGHAM, Superintendent, Western Branch, Chicago, Ills. AGENCIES of the above Company exist in all of the principal Cities, Towns, and Villages in the United States.

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CURIT Life Insurance and Annuity COMPANY, Nos. 31 & 33 PINE STREtE]T, N E

Y }o:K. ‘ - - - - - - - $2,500,000 ….E  1,500,000 ROBERT L. CASE, PRESIDENT. THIEO. R. WETMORE, VICE-PRESIDENT. ISAAC IH. ALLEN, SECRETARY.

THE SECURITY LIFE Offers advantages unsurpassed in its terms of NON-FORFEITURE EXPRESSED IN ALL ITS POLICIES, ABSOLUTE REMOVAL OF ALL

RESTRICTIONS ON TRAVEL, DOING AWAY WITH EXTRA RATES AND PERMITS THEREON, HAVING NO CONTESTED CLAIMS, and ASKING NO UNNECESSARY QUESTIONS. Premiums may be paid ALL CASH or PART CREDIT. LATEST OFFICIAL RETURNS OF OVER

SEVENTY LIFE INSURANCE COMPANIES NOW DOING BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES, RANKS THE SECURITY LIFE AS SECOND IN POINT OF INCREASE OF BUSINESS FOR

1869 OVER THAT OF 186S. PROGRESS OF THE SECURITY LIFE INSURANCE AND

ANNUITY COMPANY. No. of Policies is-Amount insured Total Gross New Policies. sued each year. Gross Receipts. by New Policies. Assets. Year 1862,… 211 $23,423 $489,000 $122,857 ” 1863,… 888 80,538 1,939,550

160,092 ” 1864,… ],403 149,411 2,819,743 249,831 1865,. 2,134 323,827

4,841,280 425,027 ” 1866,… 3,325 603,651 7,526,509 753,398 ” 1867,…

4,094 880,000 9,070,805 1,286,390 ” 1868,.. 4,3886 1,055,242 11,561,389

1,854,570 ” 1869,… 6,358 1,408,525 17,062,590 2,377,652 Though this Company has demonstrated the value of Life Insurance by distributing among the widows and orphans of 240 Mernbers the surn of nearly $650,000, Its losses, in proportion to the number of the insured and the amount of insurance, have been remarkably few and light. To every person seeking mutual insurance, this fact is very important. THE COST OF THE INSURANCE

DEPENDS UPON THE VITALITY OF THE CO IPANY IN WH-ICHI YOU INSURE, and the best proof of inherent vitality is the lov ratio of claims in the past.

Ratio of losses on new business of 1869, not one dollar on a policy.

ASSETS, INCOME,

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W. I. POOLEY, WHOLESALE 11oo sel er and Stationer, HARPER’S

BUILDING-FRANKLIN SQUARE, N”YO:LEI. Offers, in addition to his own list, a finely assorted stock of all American publications. His unsurpassed facilities for exchange with other publishers enable him to extend to wholesale buyers great inducements to make all their purchases at one place. The stock embraces every variety of School and College Text Books, Cheap and Standard Literature, Bibles and Prayer Books, Music Books, Dictionaries, Juvenile and Toy Books, Law and Medicine, New Publications, Photograph Albums, &c., &c. STATIONERY & BLANK BOOKS, WVriting Papers and Envelopes. DAY BOOES, JOURNALS, LEDGERS, RECORDS, lReoeipt and Cash Books, OF ALL SIZES AND STYLES OF BINDING, Pass Books, Diaries, Composition Books, . Copying Books, Memorandumrs, Writing Books, Notes and Drafts, Scrap Books, Drawing Books, Bills Payable and Receivable. Anything in our line, to be procured in the American or Foreign markets, furnished at short notice, and at manufacturers’ or importers’ prices. Orders received through the mail will have the prompt and careful attention of xperienced clerks.

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EMPIRE i~e I22sU 139 BROADVWATY NW YO]MR. G. HILTON SBOR IBNER, President.

SIDNEY W. CROFUT, Secretary. GEO. W. SMITH, VTice-President. EVERETT

CLAPP, Supt. of Agencies. Pr~i~neclpaZ1 Veaue 2 This Company is Purely Mutual. All Policies incontestible for usual causes. No restrictions upon travel or residence. No increase of annual payments on any class of policies. Policies absolutely nonforfeitable. Each policy-holder has a vote in the elections. No accumulation of interest on Loans or Deferred Premi ums, and no increase of annual payment on any class of policies.

Dividends on the Progres,ive Plan, and also upon the Guarantee Interest Plan. Organized April 3, 1869. Over 5,500 policies have been issued.

Assets over $500,000. so

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EDUC ATIONAL TEXT BOOKS PUB3LISII ED BY GOULD & LINCOLN, 59 Washintgton Street, Boston. PRINCIPLES OF ZOOLOGY. Touching the Structure, Development, Distribution, and Nat ural Arrang,ement of Races of Animals, living and extinct, with numerous illustrations. For the use of Schools and Colleges. CoMPARATIVE PHYTSIOLOGY. By Louis Agassiz and Augustus A.

Gould. Revised edition………………………………..$1 50 LOOMIS’

ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY. Adapted to Schools and Colleges. With numerous illustrations. By J. R. Loomis, President of Lewisburg University. Pa.

12mo, cloth, $1 25 It is surpassed by no better work before the American public.”-AL. B. Anderson, President Rochester University. PALEY’S NATURAL

THEOLOGY. Illustrated by40 plates. with selections from the Notes of Dr.

Paxton, and Additional Notes, Original and Selected, with a Vocabularyv of Scientific Terms. Edited by John Ware, M.D. Improved edition, with elegant illustrations. 12mo, cloth,
embossed……………………………………………………$1 75

HAVEN’S MENTAL PHILOSOPHY; Including the Intellect, the Sensibilities, and the Will. By Joseph Haven. Royal 12mo, cloth, embossed……………………………….$2 00 It is believed this work will he found pre-miniently distinguished for the completeness with which it presents the whole subject. HAVEN’S MORAL PHILOSOPHY; Including Theoretical and Practical Ethics. By Joseph Haven, D.D. Royal 1lmo. cloth, embossed……………………………………$1 5 It is eminently scientific in method, and thorough in discussion, and its views on unsettled questions in morals are discriminating and sound. HOPKINS’

LECTURES ON MORAL SCIENCE. Delivered before the Lowell Institute, Bos ton, by Mark Hopkins, D.D.. President of Williams College. Royal 12mo, cloth……$1 50 WAYLAND’S MORAL SCIENCE (New). 12mo cloth…………………………….$1 75 The last literary labor performed by Dr. Wayland, previous to his death, was the complete and thorough revision of the above popular work. WAYLAND’S MORAL SCIENCE

ABRIDGED, and adapted to the use of Schools and Acade mies, by the author.

Cloth………………………………………………$ 75 WAYLAND’S

ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By’Francis Wayland, D.D. 12mo, cloth………………………………………………………………..

$1 50 WAYLAND’.’ POLITICAL ECONOMY ABRIDGED, and adapted to the use of Schools and Academies, by the author. Half morocco…………………………………… 70 All the above works by Dr. Wayland are used as text-books in most of the Colleges and High Schools throughout the Union, and are highly approved. GUYOT’S EARTH AND

MAN. Lectures on Comparative Physical Geography, in its relation to the History of Mankind. By Arnold Guyot. With illustrations. 12mo, cloth…..

$1 75 HALL’S ALPHABET OF GEOLOGY; or. Lessons in Geology and Mineralogy, with sugg,es tions on the relations of Rocks to Soils. By S. R. Hall, LL.D., author of” Geography for Children,” “The Instructor’s Mannal,” etc.

With illustrations. 16mo,. cloth……..$ 90 This work has been written at the solicitation of many earniest friends of popular education. It is not designed to give a thoroughly scientific arraingement or description of Geology, Mineralogy, etc., but such an amount of information as may be acquired by the young while prosecuting other studies, and by those of any age who have not time or opportunity for a more extended research. ROGET’S

THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES, so classified and arranged as to facilitate the expression of ideas, and assist in literary composition.

New and improved edition. By Peter Mark Roget, late Secretary of the Royal Society, London, etc. Revised and edited, with a list of Foreign Words defined in English, and other additions, by Barnas Sears, D.D., President of Brown University. A new American edition, with additions and improvements. 12mo, cloth…………………………………… $2 00

The American edition, besides various corrections, contains important additions, not in the English edition, of” Words and Phrases,” and also an Alphabetical List of “Foreign Words and Phrases “-Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, &c., which most frequently occur in works of general literature, defined in English; making it in all respects morefull and perfect than the author’s edition! EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. With an Introduction on the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul.

Adapted as a Text-book for use in Seminaries, Colleges, and Schools of Learning. By E. Dodge, D.D., President of Madison University, Hamilton.

12mo,
cloth…………………………………………………………….

$1 50 PEABODY’S CHiRISTIANITY THE RELIGION OF NATURE. Lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute in 1863, by A. P. Peabody, D.D., LL.D., Preacher to the University, and Plummet Professor of Christian Morals, Harvard College. Royal 12mo, cloth…….. $1 50 A masterly production, distinguished for its acuteness and earnestness, its force of logic and fairness of statement, written in a style of singular accuracy and beauty.

GUYOT’S MURAL MAPS. A series of elegant Colored Maps, projected on alarge scale for the Recitation Room, consisting of a Map of the World, North and South America, Geographical Elements, &c., exhibiting the Physical Phenomena of the Globe. By Professor Arnold Guyot, viz: GUYOT’S MAP OF THE

WORLD……………………………………. mounted, $12 00 GUYOT’S

MAP OF NORTH AMERICA……………………………….mounted, 11 00

GUYOT’S MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA………………………………..

mounted, 11 00 GUYOT’S GEOGRAPHICAL

ELEMENTS…………………………..mounted, 11 00 These elegant and entirely original Mural Maps are projected on a large scale, so that when suspended in the Recitation Room they may be seen from any point, and the delineations without difficulty traced distinctly with the eye. They are beautifully printed in colors, and neatly mounted for use. RITTER’S

GEOGRAPHICAL STUDIES. Translated from the German of Carl Ritter, by Rev.

W. L. Gage. With a Sketch of the Author’s Life, and a portrait. 12mo, cloth…….. $1 50 This volume contains the grand generalizations of Ritter’s lifework, the Erdknnde, in eigh teen volumes; his Lectures on the Relations of Geography and History, Physical Geography. &c. Specimen copies will be sent by mail, post-paid. on receipt qf price annexed; or to Teachers, who desire to examine with purpose of introduction, if approved, FoR RALF PRICE.

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.\\ ili’,,/ O “ANY,I INRAN(3I O]IPAN{ O~ NEW -Y O’ X0 1 RIOAD y~~

Corner of Fulton Street, Issues all the new forms of Policies, and presents as favor able terms as any Company in the United States. Thirty days’ grace, after the first year, allowed on each payment, and the Policy held good during that time. Policy-holders share in the annual profits of the Company, and have a voice in the election and management of the Company. No Policy or Medical Fee charged. All Policies Nonforfeitable on the principle of the Massachusetts Non-forfeiture Law. EDWARD A. JONES, President. J. O. HALSEY, Vice-Pr-esident. J. A. MORTIMORE, Secretary. Dr.

JAS. PORTER, Supt. of Agencies. AGENTS WANTED. Annuities granted on the surrender of Policies that have paid five or more years in cash. t Call or send for Circular. I

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STANDARD EDUCATIONAL WORKS, PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER & COMPANY, 654

BROADWAY, NEW YORK. GIUYoTT’s GEOGRAPIICAL TExT-Boo1Ks. “Incomparably superior to anything published.”-AGASSIZ. OVE ONE: M[ILLION COPIES SOLD.

Used in nearly 6,000 Schools in New England, in over 9,000 Schools in Ohio and Michigan, in many of the Schools of New York City, and largely throughout the United States in Public and Private Schools, Academies and Colleges. It is the true system. It is the most successful system. It is the only system which fully arouses the intelligence of pupils and awakens interest and enthusiasm in the study. The series comprises the following books-: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF

GEOGRAPHY…………………………. $1.00 ELEMENTARY GEOGRAPHY (First Lesson Book)………………………………. 75 INTERMEDIATE

GEOGRAPHY (a Study of Form and Location)…………………. 1.60 COMMON

SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY (Descriptive Physical and Political Geography)… 2.25

The above Books will be sent for examination at one-half retail prices, AND FOR INTRODUCTION ON VERY LIBERAL TERMS. NOTE.-Future editions of Guyot’s Geographies will be issued with the following improve. ments, which will in no way interfere with the use of old editions in the same classes, as the text remains the same, with verbal corrections only excepted. In the Elementary, the Maps will be printed from new plates, with new color blocks-ocean waters blue. The intermediate will be increased in size, to admit the new maps. which have been engraved in the highest style of the art, and will be inserted in place of those now in use; the lettering on these maps is clear and distinct, and while all the physical characteristics are preserved, the maps are perfectly legible, and are colored in a superior manner from entirely new color blocks. A Supplement of 16 pages is added to this book, containing valuable matter on Mathematical Geography, Governments and Religions, and Map-Drawing.

PROF. GUYOT’S WALL-MAPS FOR SCHOOLS. Large Series.-Wholesale list price,.

per set, $71.00. Intermediate Series.-Wholesale list price, perset, $38.50. Common School Series.-Price, $25.00. Primary Series.-Price, $18.00. Classical Series.-Wholesale list price, per set, $45.00. FELTER’S

POPULAR SCHOOL ARITHMETICS. FIRST LESSONS. (Illustrated.) INTERMEDIATE

ARITHMETIC. PRIMARY ARITHMETIC. (Illustrated.) GRAMMAR-SCHOOL ARlTHMETIC.

INTELLECTUAL ARITHMETIC. PRACTICAL ARITHMETIC. Although these books possess features which distinguish them from the many Arithmetics now before the public, they illustrate no untried theory, but are the results of a long practical experience in the classroom. The unparalleled rapidity with which they are being introduced into our best schools proves that they meet wants that have been unsuppiied, and possess merits which at once commend them to popular favor. PROF. COOLEY’S WORKS ON NATURAL

SCIENCE. A TEXT-BOOK OF CHEMISTRY. A TEXT-BOOK OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

PROF. COO LEY’S NATURAL PHILOSOPHY has been received with unanimous appro val. It is remarkable for the concise, pointed, and systematic manner in which the modern views are presented to the pupil. COOLEY’S CHEMISTRY, subsequently published, has the same points of excellence in style, and is particularly liked, on account of the brevity of the course, which becomes such from the exclusion of all extraneous matter usually found in Text Books of the Science. These Books are valuable, and should be known and used in all of our Academies and High Schools. PROF. SANBORN TENNEY’S

WORKS. NATURAL HISTORY OF ANIMALS FOR THE YOUNG. A MANUAL OF ZOOLOGY.

NATURAL HISTORY TABLETS. PROF. SHELDON’S WORKS ON OBJECT-TEACHINC. MANUAL

OF ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. FIRST READING-BOOK. LESSONS ON OBJECTS. PHONIC

READING-CHIARTS. DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUES antd Mammoth Circulars of Testimonialsforwarded free of postage to any address. Most favorable terms to School-Boards or Teachers desirous ofintroducing the above Text-Books.

Address, CHARLES SCRIBNER & Co.,, Publishers, 654 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. -0 0

G.

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MR. LENT, who for the past six years was with SHELDON & CO., begs to announce to his friends and the BOOK-BUYING PUBLIC, that he has formed a partnership under the style of DE WITT C., LENT & CO,, For the purpose of carrying on a B oksell=rig Bu siess, And will be happy to see them and receive orders. They will keep on hand a full Stock of the PU]BLIC2ATIONS

OEF TIlEJ DAY, BESIDES THE Works of Popular Standard Authors, Children’s Books, etc. Bringing with them an Experience of Twenty-seven Years in the “Trade” in this City, they are prepared to transact a FIRST-CLASS business INTELLIGENTLY. BIBLES AND HYMN-BOOKS In the various editions and styles of binding. ORDERS from PUBLIC or PRIVATE LIBRARIES, SUNDAY-SCHOOLS, or CLERGYMIEN will receive LIBERAL DISCOUNT. They will guarantee to all customers promptness and despatch in all business engagements. Soliciting your patronage, we remain, yours faithfully, DE WITT C. LENT & CO., PUBLISHERS AND BOOKSELLERS, 451 Broome St., (A few doors west of Broadway), NEW YORX. FOR ALL BAPTIST CHURCHES. BAPTIST SONGS FOR TEE

SANCTUARY. HYMNS AND TUNES FOR CONGREGATIONAL WORSHIP. By REv. CHAS. S.

ROBINSON. And Edited for the BAPTIST DENOMINATION by REV. T. S. GRIFFITHS.

This work is the most popular of modern Chuich Music Books, having already attained, in its various editions, a sale of COPIES, while the demand is rapidly increasing. For circulars and specimen copies (at reduced rates to pastors and choristers for examination) address the publishers, A. S.

BARNES & CO., 111 & 113 William Street, NEW YORK. 125,000 1

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WAT IRS’ With Iron Frame, Overstrung Bass, and Agraffe Bridge; Melodeons and Cabinet Organs, The best manufactured, warranted for six years.

HOIRACE WAT:EIS, Will dispose of ONE HUNDRED PIANOS, MELODEONS, and ORGANS
of six first-class makers, including Chickering & Sons, AT EXTREMELY LOW

PRICES, FOR CASH, DURING THIS MONTH, or will take from $4 to $20 monthly until paid. Illustrated Catalogues mailed. HORACE WATERS, WAREROOMS, 481

BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY. TSTIONIAL. The Waters’ Pianos are known as among the very best.-N-. Y. Evangelist. We can speak of the merits of the Waters’ Pianos from personal knowledge as being of the very best quality.-

Chrstian lntelligencer. The Waters’ Pianos are built of the best and most thoroughly seasoned material.-Advocate and Joumnal. Our friends will find at Mr. Waters’ store the very best assortment of Pianos, Melodeons, and Organs to be found in the United States.- Graham’s Magazine. Horace Waters, 481 Broadway, is famed for the excellence of his Pianos and Organs.-Evening Post. The Waters Piano ranks with the best manufactured in America.-Tlte Independent, 2. Y. MUSICAL DoINGs.-Since Mr. Waters gave up publishing sheet music, he has devoted all his capital and attention to the manufacture and sale of Pianos and Melodeons. He has just issued a Catalogue of his new instruments, giving a new scale of prices, which shows a marked reduction from former rates, and his Pianos have recently been awarded the First Premium at several Fairs. Many people of the present day, who are attracted, if not confused with the flaming advertisements of rival piano houses, probably overlook a modest manufacturer like Mr. Waters; but we happen to know that his instruments earned him a good reputation long before Expositions and ” honors”

connected therewith were ever thought of; indeed we have one of Mr.

Waters’ Piano Fortes now in our residence (where it has stood for years), of which any manufacturer in the world might well be proud. We have always been delighted with it as a sweet-toned and powerful instrument, and there is no doubt of its durability; more than this, some of the best amateur players in the city, as well as several celebrated pianists, have performed on the said Piano, and all pronounce it a superior and first-class instrument. Stronger endorsements we could not give.-Home Journal. NEW SCALE PIANOS, A GREAT Or3PR. 481 Bzroadw y, New York,

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