Theological college

“ It is not the voice of atheism we hear; it is the voice of the Church that we miss. But, as Bishop Gore claims, most of the theological colleges are in the hands of the traditionalists, and the tendency of these colleges is to turn out priests rather than teachers, formalists rather than evangelists. Such colleges as represent the evangelical movement are, thanks to their title deeds, largely in the hands of pious laymen not very well educated, who adhere rigidly to a school of thought which is associated in the modern mind with an extreme of narrowness. ”

“ The Grand Seminary is, strictly speaking, a college for instruction in theology, although it includes a year or two of that study of philosophy which is only introductory to the theological course. A thorough university course, in which all the instruction preparatory to theology should be finished, would give a more complete and thorough education to young ecclesiastics, fit them much better for their professional studies, and prepare them much more efficaciously for the high position which belongs, by all divine and human right, to the priesthood. ”

“ To meet this great want, a Theological Department was organized in connection with the college in 1872. Four young men constituted the first class, three of whom are now in the ministry. The number of pupils last year was twenty-seven; at present it is nineteen. The decrease is owing to the requirement of a higher standard in literary training. The colored people are naturally theologians and Bible students. Three distinct lines of study are pursued, all of which have special reference to practical, Christian work. ”

“ The small number of scholars well read in patristic theology who are found among the Presbyterian clergy will probably not risk their reputation for learning or put at hazard the success of their cause by any such rash statement. As a general rule, however, the Presbyterian clergy and theological students, though well-educated scholars in the college curriculum and certain special professional branches taught at the seminaries, have not turned their attention to ancient Christian history and literature. ”

“ The sense of this need gave rise to the creation of Theological Colleges, where a man who looked forward to Holy Orders might, after taking his ordinary degree at Oxford or Cambridge, apply himself to the studies more specially necessary for his chosen work, and—even more important still—might acquire the habits of methodical and self-disciplined life. ”

“ This institution had from its inception found peculiar favor with the church as well as with the people, and the buildings were speedily erected. Two men at first were enough to do the teaching, as at the beginning there were only seventeen pupils, several of these students earning their tuition by working upon the farm. But at the time to which this story points one hundred and seventy-two students and nine professors composed the faculty besides the president, and the school was known as Monastery Classical and Theological College. ”

“ The presidents and professors of leading universities are usually prominent in some evangelical sect, and this is probably owing to the fact that every seminary of higher knowledge is under the control of a branch of the Christian Church, whose influence is predominant in the faculty, and which regards the college as a filial institution, with traditions intertwined with its own. ”

“ The great argument for secluding young ecclesiastics in seminaries entirely separate from secular colleges is, that their morals, their piety, their vocation, are otherwise endangered. We reply to this by a suggestion intended to do away with the objection to a university life, and at the same time to show how its advantages may be secured. Let both systems be combined. Let there be a college exclusively intended for young ecclesiastics, in which they shall be kept under the discipline of the Little Seminary, at the university. ”

“ The Holy Council desires that a “preference be given to the children of poor parents,” though the rich are not to be excluded. The college, which is to be “a perpetual seminary for the service of God,” is entirely under the direction of the bishop, who is to be assisted by two canons chosen by himself. The students, on their entrance, are to wear the tonsure and ecclesiastical habit; to learn grammar, church music, the ecclesiastical computation, and the other liberal arts ”

“ The necessity for other colleges and seminaries will of itself create or continue them. The university will give them an example and model to follow, will furnish those not already amply provided for from the bosom of old and learned religious orders with professors, will give those who desire it a chance to complete their studies after leaving college by residing for a time within its walls, and will reign as a queen among lesser institutions, giving tone, character, and uniformity to the scientific and literary community of Catholic scholars throughout the country. ”

“ The university should be gradually formed as a sequence of the improved collegiate system, and should consist of the college proper, together with post-graduate courses of higher studies in all the branches of science. The necessity of religious instruction is unanswerably proved, and the especial fitness of clergymen for the work of education well defended and advocated. The necessity of having every college under the religious care of some one denomination is also satisfactorily shown. ”

“ Every important Christian denomination has come to have its distinctive college, and many an argument has been framed to prove that sectarian colleges are better than those which seek to promote the union of several religious bodies. It has not been thought sufficient that a college should be pervaded by an enlightened Christianity, nor even that it should be the stronghold of{570} a simple evangelical life and doctrine, nor that it should be orthodox as to the fundamental teachings of the Church ”

“ It is now ten years since it was determined that religion in our University should be regarded no longer as a part of College discipline, but as a natural and rational opportunity offering itself to the life of youth. It was a momentous transition, undertaken with the profoundest sense of its seriousness and significance. It was an act of faith,—of faith in religion and of faith in young men. The University announced the belief that religion, rationally presented, will always have for healthy-minded young men a commanding interest. ”

“ Many people suppose that the scholar's life is in antagonism to the interests of religion, as though a university were somehow a bad place for a man's soul. But religion comes not to destroy the intellectual life. It wants not an empty mind but a full one. The perils of this age come not from scholars, but from smatterers; not from those who know much, but from those who think they "know it all." When our forefathers desired to do something for the service of their God, one of the first things they regarded as their religious duty was, as you may read yonder on our gate, to found this college. ”

“ But the college men are not blind to what the church has accomplished. In this phase of the subject they are peculiarly catholic. But it is taught now in practically all the departments of philosophy in the great universities that a new revelation is quickening this age, and that it is not only the right but the duty of the colleges to stand, if they can, as interpreters of the acceptable year of the Lord. ”

“ The reputation of the institution for a high grade of scholarship and thoroughness of culture was inferior to that of no other college in the land. Young preachers, often numbering more than forty in a single session, sat under his special lectures in theology, and were moulded by his example and his teaching. With the authority of a prophet, with the gentleness of a father, he preached to the students, week after week, the word of life, and saw many of them accept with glad heart the yoke and burden of Christ. ”

“ The Christian Churches have been not only pioneers of education, but their followers recognize as never before the power and efficiency of the Christian College to further the Kingdom of God on earth. ”

“ The work of this college was to be the preparation of young men for the Christian ministry, that they might go into all the world and preach the Gospel. One truth he bade them bear in mind: that this training was to be given without sectarian theology; that his brethren themselves represented a revolution among believers, having cast aside the dogmas of modern teachers, and taken, as the one infallible guide of their faith and practice, the Bible simply; so making it their sole work to bring all modern believers together into one church, and that one church the church of the apostles. ”

“ He has greater power, but it may be a power for sin and selfishness, as truly as for God and righteousness. Let Christian education work upon him as it does in the schools of this Association, he is still more polished, he has a spiritual life. Not when in school, but when the school is left, is the Church most necessary. The influence of the college cannot be about a man in his home, the influence of the Church can. The help of a teacher is transient, the help of a pastor and the associations of a church are permanent. ”

“ About 1850 there arose a great zeal for founding colleges. In several states the Disciples had become strong enough, or felt sure that they soon would be strong enough, to support a college. Schools were needed to train ministers, to provide an educated laity, to hold the loyalty of the young people of their own families and win others, and to make their fair contribution to the culture of new communities in which there was little provision for tax-supported education. ”

“ The second great want, in our opinion, is the provision for ecclesiastical students of the advantages for education which can only be completely furnished by a university, and which cannot, therefore, be fully enjoyed at separate ecclesiastical seminaries. The Little Seminary is only a superior kind of grammar-school, even though it gives instruction in the ancient languages and some other branches to the same extent with a college. ”

“ The history of American colleges affords probably no instance of a happier, or more remarkable, union of true science with that personal holiness and zeal for God, by which hearts are won for Christ. Full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, he did the work of an evangelist for more than forty years—not in the college only, but all over the town. ”

“ The secularization of the College is no violation of its motto, "Christo et Ecclesiæ." For, as I interpret those sacred ideas, the cause of Christ and the Church is advanced by whatever liberalizes and enriches and enlarges the mind. All study, scientifically pursued, is at bottom a study of theology; for all scientific study is the study of Law; and "of Law nothing less can be acknowledged than that her seat is in the bosom of God."
But something more than secularization of the course of study is required to satisfy the idea of a university. What is a university? ”

“ No one can afford to be indifferent to the power and influence for good of the Christian college. These are immeasurable. The Christian Church and all the friends of human progress and welfare must, more and more, emphasize the lesson that, if we educate in our colleges the leading minds of the nation, we will be able so to control the prevailing habits and modes of thought throughout the country as to secure the permanency and glory of Christian liberty and religious institutions. ”

“ It may be thought strange that fathers belonging to other churches and others not religious were ever found sending their sons to a college which was thus permeated with religious life as taught and practiced by Methodists. ”

“ So, too, among multitudes of similar efforts abroad, we have during centuries the fettering of professors at English and Scotch universities by test oaths, subscriptions to articles, and catechisms without number. In our own country we have had in a vast multitude of denominational colleges, as the first qualification for a professorship, not ability in the subject to be taught, but fidelity to the particular shibboleth of the denomination controlling the college or university. ”

“ In the early nineteenth century the interest of students in religion increased, and religious organizations in a number of colleges were founded. Practically all of these later gave way to the Young Men's Christian Association, which has now over 50,000 members organized in almost all the colleges of the country save the Roman Catholic. ”

“ The Irish bishops, and the English bishops also, are beginning energetic and wise measures for the improvement of higher education for Catholic young men. At present, there seems no immediate prospect of similar measures being undertaken in this country; but, as a practical substitute, we venture to suggest to Catholic Unions and other societies that courses of lectures would partly supply that lack, which is felt by so many, of the more regular and systematic instruction which they did not receive at college. ”

“ Moreover, churches must furnish zealous men and woman, whom education may prepare to do the Lord’s work. It is not enough to rely upon the possibility of conversion while the students are in college. The Church has an earlier and a broader opportunity. It forms the homes and the influences that form the children. A vast proportion of the pastors and missionaries of the North have gone to college as Christians, instead of becoming Christians when there. They have come from Christian homes. They were sent by Christian parents whose love for God and man was planted and trained in Christ’s Church. ”