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Proceedings of the National Baptist Educational Convention, held in the Pierrepont street Baptist church, Brooklyn, April 19-21, 1870. Published by the Brooklyn Baptist Social Union. Com- plimentary Edition.

THE Baptist Educational Commission was formed upon two distinct yet related conceptions. First, that the desires and efforts of a limited number of persons in the direction of the establishment, en- dowment, and working of our institutions of higher learning, were not met by a corresponding popular interest in education, — such an interest as was required to fill them with students, and to make them the blessings to our families, to our churches, and to society, which they were intended to be. Second, that the increase of our ministry, not in respect to numbers alone, but in respect to aggre- gate intellectual force and furnishing, was below the provisions made and attempted for such increase in our theological seminaries, and below the demands arising from the condition and increase of our churches, and the condition and tendencies of our civilization. It was hence an organization to promote both education and the increase of the ministry. It was a very simple organization. It was made up of a few gentlemen who united to sustain, at their own expense, an appeal for an advance in popular interest in higher edu- cation, and an appeal for a ministry replenished and augmented ac- cording to the necessities of the times in which we live. It was not an organization in support of particular institutions of learning, though the gentlemen who united in forming it had given, in the aggregate, to the support and endowment of such institutions, some hundreds of thousands of dollars within the last few years. It was not the exponent of any new theory of education; it had no new notions to advance in respect to the divine calling of the ministers of Christ, or their training for their work. It proposed; to stir the pop- ular mind and heart, to spread enlightenment in respect to the value and importance of higher education itself, stimulating the interest therein of parents and of pastors, and to awaken and sustain in our

churches a more prayerful arid earnest attention to the great question of their future ministry. If it should be successful ; if new thoughts and purposes in respect to education should so seize and hold our public mind generally, creating a new tendency and drift; if so the question of the ministry should rise to its true character as the first question of the instrumentalities by which the gospel is to be spread and its triumphs won, — then indeed would our institutions be filled, and be made in character and strength equal to every growing necessity, and then would the day of reward come for the cost of founding and maintaining them. It was, in a word, an attempt to promote educa- tion from the popular side, as an outgrowth of popular interests and demands, and to promote the increase of the ministry from the prayers of an enlightened and practical faith pervading the mass of the members of our churches.

It would be doing an injustice, however, to the Baptist denomina- tion to intimate, or allow it to be supposed, that we were singular in relation to the deficiencies which it was the design of this movement to correct. We do not speak of comparative neglects, which it would be as difficult as it is unnecessary to measure. It is sufficient to say that Christians of other communions, like ourselves, share in the char- acter and the tendencies of the age. The age is material. To get on, to be rich, to possess and enjoy luxuries, — these are the passions of every nation which has felt the impulse of the time, and in this country the passion is intensified in the proportion in which material opportunities are grander, and the incentives of hopeful competition more exciting. It is most natural that at such a time young men should hurry to business with superficial intellectual preparation. Scientific experts are, indeed, largely in request and largely com- pensated, and even oratory and literature, in their higher forms, reap large material rewards; but it is nevertheless true that that education is generally most in demand which ministers most to material accu- mulations, and that discipline and culture are for the many quite undervalued. It is equally natural that under such conditions the min- istry must suffer,, alike as to the number and the average intellectual character of those who propose to enter it. The young man who enters the ministry with spiritual aims must separate himself from the prevailing worldliness of the mass of Christian people, and from the prevailing hopes and aspirations of the young advancing to active life in his own time. The vigorous and enterprising, whom worldly prospects incite, will, in too many cases, stifle the still small voice which calls them to duties and rewards which are more purely spir- itual, and soothe themselves into contentment in their dereliction by

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the hope that they may be useful as Christian laymen. Inquiries in this and in other countries, in communions popular and in com- munions aristocratic, bring the common and unwelcome conviction > that the question of the future ministry of the Christian church, fun- damental and comprehensive as it is, is the one which at this time demands most the anxious attention of all who watch and wait for the coming of the kingdom of Christ.

To say these things is not to decry the age, nor to sigh for the return of the times that have been. It is to say, that among the characteristics of the age there may be those which tend to evil ; or, in other words, the man in the mass, like man in the individual, may take into his character the bad with the good. To deny that Rome contained within itself, and among its chief characteristics, elements which ministered largely to the progress of the world, would be simply false and absurd ; but Rome contained likewise within itself the elements of its own decadence and fall. France is a nearer and therefore a more impressive illustration of the same truth. It is the business of the wise, not to attempt the impossible task of resisting an age, but the practicable one of guiding well the true in its ten- dencies, and of correcting the false. This principle it is the duty and the interest of all Christians to apply to the fundamental questions of education and the ministry. In this spirit the Baptist Educational Commission was organized; not as a revolutionize]:, but as an inquirer concerning facts and tendencies, and a guide and helper in paths of practicable improvement. At the time of its formation it was the remark of one of the most philosophical of our thinkers and writers, that it was the providential offspring of the hour, and that the only wonder, about it was that there could be found thirty men of the requisite insight and faith to give it form and effectiveness. It was the remark likewise of one of the most distinguished of American scholars and diplomatists, that it was the model for a general move- ment in the United States, in the interest of higher education.

This Commission at the outset was local in character. Though contemplating a possible enlargement, it restricted the sphere of its operations to the states of New York and New Jersey. It proved, however, to have struck a chord wlrch vibrated more widely. It started at once a new order of discussions in the press of the denomi- nation, and the information which it gathered up and published from every quarter, primarily for effects within its own sphere^ produced similar effects in remoter states. This result was not singular,, nor was it unanticipated. The facts elicited and questions discussed were of common interest, and became the more an inspiration and a force by

the magnitude of the area over which the community of interest existed. It has been among the chief misfortunes of the cause of education among the Baptists of the United States, that their enter- prises and labors in this cause have been to so large an extent of local birth and design, and so little known beyond the limits of their origin and operations. Unlike our missionary enterprises, the cause of education has lacked the momentum imparted by the massed interests of diverse and separated communities. The facts respecting the condition of local institutions might be very well known within the range of the circulation of local newspapers, but only vaguely I beyond. The facts respecting the condition of education as a popular ►"interest had nowhere found more than a most inadequate expression ■of amy sort. To gather up the facts, to analyze them, to organize 'them, to set them forth in public addresses and by the press, though attempted under disadvantages, and accomplished only to a limited extent, was certain to be welcomed as the harbinger of a new era in the educational work of the denomination.

Such was the order of events which preceded and gave birth to the National Baptist Educational Convention. It was not called until the . signs of a common interest in education had become clearly manifested, i nor until the .disposition to give that interest an adequate expression • had been ascertained. It had been the labor of the Educational Com- , mission to bring all forms of higher education into a comprehensive unity, — to create and stimulate the conviction that the cause of

■ education for the denomination is not simply the cause of institu- tions, however important and indispensable these are, but the

■ cause. -of popular interest and actual work in education; that it is i not . the cause of ministerial education alone, but that of the educa- tion .of the laity as truly and as imperatively; that it is not the

■ cause of the highest education alone, such as is dispensed in theolo^i- i cal seminaries, universities, and colleges, and therefore of the education

■ of a number forever limited, but, the cause of secondary education . as well, — the education dispensed in academies,— and bringing, there- fore, the first forms of higher education to the great mass forever'

increasing; .that it is not the education of one of the sexes, but the education of each and of both by the highest practicable pro- cesses; and finally that in spirit, and method, and aim, it is the cause of Christian education, of that education which is the off- spring of Christian faith, and enfolded in the divine plans of the i world's redemption. In the call, the Convention was designated as - " a meeting of educators and friends of education, . . gathering into itself the widest practicable representation from, theological semina-

ries, universities, academies, and education societies, and having for its object the consideration of questions of common interest, rela- ting to the character and work of our institutions of learning, the increase and increased intelligence of our ministry, and the advance- ment of education in the great body of our people."

The call for the Convention was hailed with a universal welcome. The press of the denomination uttered one voice of encouragement. North, and South, and East, and West sent the heralds of coming delegations. It was nine years after Sumpter, and five after Appo- matox, but the strains in which Milton sung the world's peace,, required little accommodation in terms, and none whatever in senti- ment, to express the harmony in respect to this meeting and its objects, of the lately contending sections.

No war, or battle's sound, Was heard the world around ;

The idle spear and shield were high uphung ; The hooked chariot stood Unstained with hostile blood ;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng ; And kings sate still with awful eye, As if they knew their sovereign Lord was by.

The Convention assembled in the Pierrepont street Baptist church, Brooklyn, on the 19th of April, 1870. It was not a mass meeting, but a meeting of appointed delegates, representing boards and fac- ulties, and called together therefore many of the chief educators and most distinguished pastors and laymen of the denomination. Dr. Wayland had died " without the sight," and Dr. Sears, though deeply interested in the purposes of the Convention, was unable to be pres- ent. Dr. Caswell and Prof. Stevens, whose labors as educators span almost the whole period since the rise of our missionary work gave a new impetus to the cause of education in the denomination, were members of the Convention, and Drs. Conant and Babcock, whose participation in the work of education, as teachers or other- wise, has been coeval with theirs, were deeply interested spectators of the proceedings. Of the generation of teachers next to these in seniority, Dr. Eaton came, wearing the laurels of the contest which made him immortal, and Dr. Kendrick, the great Greek, who adds to the wide and critical knowledge which renders him worthy of this title, a breadth of knowledge of philosophies and literatures seldom found in special scholars. Not to continue personal references, for which we have not space, there were present as delegates from all our theological seminaries, — Newton, Eochester, Hamilton, Crozer, Chi-

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hailed, leaving little to regret, and much to remember with gratu- lation. As an exhibition of intellectual culture and power, it was without an equal in the annals of the denomination, and perhaps in these respects has seldom been surpassed by any similar assemblage. The proceedings of this Convention are published in the hand- some volume whose title is placed at the head of this article. Before noticing its contents more particularly, it is proper to put upon record the history of the volume itself. When it was in contemplation to hold this convention, it was deemed necessary to make provision not only for a place of meeting, and for the offering of hospitality to the members, but for the reporting and publishing of the proceed- ings. All this was cheerfully undertaken by the Brooklyn Baptist Social Union, — an association of Baptist laymen in that city, for purposes of Christian acquaintanceship, and for the consideration of questions of practical interest, whether local or general, pertaining to evangelical and denominational work. This association meets monthly, and after the transaction of its necessary business, sits down to a collation, which is followed by addresses, by members or invited guests, on topics which may serve to stimulate and direct the Christian activity of its members. It was a fitting body to under- take the care of such a Convention, and it so fulfilled its task as to win and merit universal congratulations. The proceedings were pre- pared for the press under the supervision of the Rev. Lucius E. Smith, D. D., who performed his somewhat difficult task judiciously and well. It was the design to make the report absolutely verbatim, but the reporters, though of high reputation in the line of their cus- tomary work, were not in habits of thinking corresponding to the discussions, and were not always successful in catching the spirit and form of the speeches or remarks of members. To restore what was lost, by reference to his own full reports made during the Conven- tion, to refer to speakers themselves for corrections which their recollection might supply, and to omit reluctantly that which no process could bring to shape, imposed abounding care and responsi- bility upon the editor, occasioning delay in publication, and rendering it impossible to make the volume the perfect and imperishable pho- tograph of the Convention which had been designed. The report must fail therefore to express the vital energy, the living power, of that most remarkable meeting. And yet it is a monument of think- ing and utterance on Christian education, worthy and destined to endure. It records an epoch in the history of the Baptist denomi- nation, from which the work of education is to proceed under added enlightenment, and we may hope with augmented power. The

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volume appears in two forms. The Social Union having published a complimentary edition on fine paper; for the members of the Conven- tion, and for libraries, and other public uses, made over the types without cost to the American Baptist Educational Commission, for the publication by the Commission of a cheap edition for general dis- tribution. Of this edition there has been a large circulation, partly gratuitous, and partly at a merely nominal price. The demand for these Proceedings from every quarter of the country has been among the gratifying proofs of the common interest in education to which the Convention gave expression, and to which it has imparted a fresh and encouraging impulse.

We cannot consider in detail the contents of the volume before us. It is made up chiefly of the papers read in the Convention, and the discussions to which the papers gave rise. The papers were as follows : On Academies, by Professor S. S. Greene, LL. D., of Brown University; on Education Societies, by the Rev. Gr. W. Bosworth, D. D.; on Scientific Studies, by President J. R. Loomis, LL. D., of the University at Lewisburg ; on Fellowships, by President Alvah Hovey,

D. D., of Newton Theological Institution ; on the University of the Nineteenth Century, by President M. B. Anderson, LL. D., of the University of Rochester ; on the Denominational Press and Educa- tion, by the Rev. J. W. Olmstead, D. D.; on the Organization of Denominational Work in Education, by the Rev. Lemuel Moss, D. D.; on Jesuit Collegiate Instruction, by President Gr. W. Samson, D. D., of Columbian College ; on the Kind and Extent of Ministerial Cul- ture Demanded in our Time, and in our Denomination, by President

E. G. Robinson, D. D., of the Rochester Theological Seminary ; on the Most Advanced Ministerial Culture as Illustrated in the Work of Preacher and Pastor, by President E. Dodge, D. D.,. LL. D., of Madison University ; and on the Demand of the Age for the Higher Education of Women, by President J. H. Raymond, LL. D.,of Vassar College. Oral addresses in lieu of written papers were delivered, on the Duty of Educators to lead the Cause of Education, by Presi- dent G. W. Northrup, D. D., of the Chicago Theological Seminary ; on Education in the Southern States, by Professor J. L. M. Curry, LL. D., of Richmond College; and on Endowment of Literary and Theological Institutions,, by the Rev. Edward Bright, D. D. Most of these papers and addresses were referred to committees, appointed early in the session, on Questions of Education in Academies, Pro- fessor William Hague, D. D., chairman; Questions of University Education, the Rev. Samuel L. Caldwell, D. D., chairman ; Questions of Theological Education, Professor James P. Boyce, D. D.; chair-

man; and Questions of Denominational Work in Education, Presi- dent Kendall Brooks, D. D., chairman. The paper on the Education of Women was referred to a special committee, of which President Clark was Chairman. The Proceedings contain the reports of all these committees, with the action of the Convention requesting the Baptist Educational Commission to assume a national name, character, and functions.

These papers, addresses and reports, with the discussions to which they gave rise, invite analysis and criticism. Considering, however, that it was the writer of this article through whom these gentlemen were invited to the parts which constituted the leading features of the Convention, it would hardly be accounted fitting in him to be the critic of their performances. Suffice it to say that they performed a signal service for their brethren, for which our own and after times will give them thanks. Among the names which we have given, are those in whose absence, and without whose early and continued cooperation, the Convention could not have been the success which it proved to be. Our present office is humbler and more fitting than that of critic. " Having had perfect understanding of all these things from the very first," we choose rather the part of historian, and, in addition to the recital of facts, to recall to notice some of the more prominent characteristics of this assemblage.

It will impress the most cursory reader that the topics which we have enumerated embrace every interest and form of higher educa- tion, and every grade of institutions in which such higher education is dispensed. Herein, in this comprehensive character of its aims and deliberations, it was peculiar in our assemblages for educational purposes. Brown University, first in the order of our institutions, established at a period when theological education was a matter of private tuition, was designed and set in operation with as comprehen- sive notions of education as then anywhere prevailed. Fifty years, however, had demonstrated that it was doing comparatively little to give us an educated ministry, which was our great practical need. Then it was that movements towards theological education more exclusively had an almost simultaneous rise in New England, New York, and the Middle States, and though out of these movements colleges and universities likewise sprung, the more comprehensive ends of education were always subordinated to the central and con- trolling idea of an educated ministry. It was in consequence of this that education as a practical denominational interest came to be fixed in the minds of our people as ministerial education, and not the edu- cation of our laity as well. A discourse on education in our pulpits

10

meant a discourse on the education of ministers, and an appeal for funds to promote education was an appeal for that purpose. The evidence of this will be found in every man's thoughtful recollection, and in the remarkable uniformity in the action on education taken in our associations, state conventions, and other deliberative bodies where denominational sentiment found utterance. It is not true that other tendencies did not reveal themselves. Such tendencies were manifested to a certain extent in the processes just referred to, by which colleges and universities, as at Waterville and Hamilton, grew out of movements essentially theological. In the Educational Con- vention held at Albany, in 1849, the most intellectual assemblage of Baptists ever called together from the state of New York, such ten- dencies, inchoate, scarcely conscious, found striking expression, and though out of that meeting sprang two theological seminaries and two universities, where it is difficult to see that more than one of each was required, it is unquestionable that from that time education took a wider range in the minds of friends of both these seats of learning. Perhaps in New England the denominational view of edu- cation was never so restricted as in some other parts of the country. The presence there of Brown University, the great influence of Dr. Wayland, and the prevailing habits of thought in New England, were to a certain extent safe-guards against the restriction which prevailed elsewhere. But there and everywhere this great, apparent and immediate need of the churches in respect to an educated min- istry, narrowed the view of education, and consequently the sphere of denominational activity in respect to it. It was not seen, it only begins now to be seen, that the narrow view is not only false in prin- ciple, but destructive of its own ends. There can be no such thing as a ministry generally well educated, for a laity not generally well informed. The law is unfailing, and ought to be. It is not the design of Christianity to raise up classes and castes, but to build up man. It is for this reason that universal teaching is the function of Christianity, and her pupils are all men, of every nation and kindred and tongue and people under heaven. Doing her work in the human soul, in the centre of intellectual and moral forces, she lifts up human society by enlightening and purifying the individual man, with no distinctions which are not found in the variety of capacities and opportunities. Education, as the work of the Christian church, less comprehensive than this, must always be attended with the mischiefs of maladjustment. To have an educated ministry the education of the laity must be carried along, pari passu. Besides, on no other principle of procedure can candidates for the ministry in requisite

numbers be found. The doctrine of a divine call to the ministry is fundamental, and to be maintained, theoretically and practically. But a divine call to the ministry comes as a blessing to the churches in connection with the use of proper means. At present our candi- dates for the ministry, so far as coming from our conscious modes of denominational action, are young men " sought out," and educated at the expense of the denomination. But this process gives us, after the trial of it for fifty years, not more than fifty men per year, educated by the highest processes of our theological seminaries, in a denomi- nation numbering more than a million communicants, and with an adhering population of probably more than five millions. We speak correctly, therefore, when we say that in the narrow process there is something destructive of its own ends. Suppose our methods changed. Suppose our theory of education to be the highest practi- cable education of our whole people. Suppose our Academies to abound in proportion to our numbers and our wealth. Suppose our colleges and our universities to be filled with our young men pro- ceeding from these academies. Suppose all these institutions of higher learning to be encompassed with the prayers of our people, and to be the scenes of gracious visitations of the Holy Spirit : is it conceivable that out of these young men there should not come a host to fill our theological seminaries, and to preach the gospel? This is the experience of the Congregational churches of New Eng- land, and in a lesser degree, we think, of the Presbyterian churches elsewhere in our country, and this is the explanation of the numbers who fill their theological seminaries, and recruit their ministry. A great number of the ministers of those churches entered upon their studies for the simple purpose of an education to qualify them for any sphere of life. They may have gone to their studies converted young men, or they may have been converted in the revivals with which American academies and colleges have been so largely blessed. God called them to the ministry in their studies, and they became preachers of his gospel. We have had in the Baptist churches a limited mea- sure of the same happy experience. What we need is to advance to the full measure of it. That portion of our ministry educated by our highest processes will then be in nearer ratio with our wants, and will represent more widely the various classes which make up our churches, — the rich, the well-to-do, and the poor. In other words, the composition of the ministry will be as various as the classes who receive the blessings of the gospel, the only rule of composition proper to churches which aim to be as catholic as those of the New Testa- ment and as the designs of Christianity.

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Lerefore wlierL so many of the intelligent ana tne cultivated, educators and friends of education, came together to con- sider educational topics of the widest comprehension. In some respects these topics might have been improved. But it must be borne in mind not only that the Convention itself was an experiment, but that however much of consideration and influence may have been accorded to the mind charged with the duty and responsibility of organizing the meeting, much was to be accorded in return to the individual gentlemen who had consented to share in the experimental undertaking. This considered, it is believed that the topics may justly claim approval as embracing substantially the educational interests of the denomination, whether as relating to the education of the ministry or of the laity, of man or of woman, whether as* relating to institutions of learning, or to the popular interest in education without which institutions are but as the armour of dead men hung in deserted halls.

There is another view of this Convention, nearly related to the foregoing, which will impress the mind of the reader of these Proceed- ings : the progress of fifty years. We have spoken freely of the defects of our processes. Defective, however, as they have been, and important as it is that they be amended, to look only at their defects would be to fail to recognize that benign Providence which has given to us occasions of thanksgiving and hope. It is easy to conjecture what might have been, if Dr. Manning had had immediate successors. In his day it was the habit to bring Brown University into relations with all American Baptists. The evidences of this are numerous and incontrovertible. Dr. Maxcy, a brilliant youth, endowed with wonderful powers of oratory, on which even in our day old men, his pupils, have been wont to dwell with rapture, took the chair which Manning's death had made vacant, but his brief presidency failed to in- crease the bonds which bound the University to the denomination which had given it birth. Then came the long administration of Dr. Messer, an able man, cool, astute, of questionable orthodoxy, and wanting, in every essential respect, the qualities to make him a denominational leader. In his day came the grand opportunity of the University. Harvard in going to the Unitarians, had lost the confidence of the orthodox. Yale was remote, and as yet but weak. The Congre- gationalists of Massachusetts sent their sons in large numbers to Brown. A quarter of a century ago many of the highest civic stations of Massachusetts were filled by sons of Brown, pupils of Messer ; — Metcalf, Morton, Eeed, Forbes, Mann, Barton, Davis, Kin- nicott and Mellen, are names which we readily recall. Of seventy

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pastors of the Mendon (Congregational) Association, down to 1851, graduates of colleges, twenty-one were graduates of Brown, Yale having furnished seventeen, and Harvard nine. Of eighty-seven licentiates down to the same year, graduates of colleges, thirty-two were graduates of Brown. For the time, the classes were large. Forty seven graduated in 1814. In this administration, at such a time, when a new impulse came to the denomination in respect to education, while the University had a patronage which the rise of Amherst was destined to withdraw, it needed at its head a leader, to bind to it, as in the days of Manning, the Baptists of the Middle States, and make it for a century the powerful centre of education for the denomination. The leader was wanting, and the opportunity passed. Messer wTas unable to hold even New England. His sun declined on educational movements inaugurated in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, destined to issue in other colleges and universities under the patronage of the denomination.

This period, as contrasted with the present, was most fittingly brought to the notice of the Convention, in remarks of Dr. Caswell, and we are justified in extending the contrast, that we may see what God hath wrought. Fifty years had elapsed, when this Con- vention assembled, since the founding of Waterville College, now Colby University, and Columbian College, the first of our colleges after Brown. Waterville graduated its first class of two in 1822, with the illustrious name of George Dana Boardman to begin the list of its Alumni ; and Columbian its first class of three in 1824, enrolling in that humble list the honored name of James D. Knowles. Both these colleges began their career in the feebleness of institutions without endowments, and both were destined to long struggles with poverty. Brown, like Yale, had performed its honorable work by force of the ability in teaching of its. instructors, and without the aid of more than the most inconsiderable endowments. Dr. Way land came to the presidency of Brown in 1827, finding that university, when considerably more than the first half century of its history had passed away, with only its two college buildings, University Hall and Hope College, its nearly worthless house for the President, its absolutely worthless philosophical apparatus, a meagre library, worthless as a working library for college purposes, and endowment funds amounting to no more than about thirty-four thousand dollars. Attempts had been made to establish theological seminaries in New York city and in Philadelphia, both of which had proved abortive. The attempt to establish a theological school in Waterville had issued in the feeble college. An humble beginning, whose endow-

14

merits were poverty and consecrated work, had been made at Hamil- ton, and was destined to endure. Newton Theological Institution was organized in 1825, its original land and buildings, in order for use, costing seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight dollars. It graduated in 1826 its first class of two, the late Dr. Eli B. Smith, long known as a successful educator, and the Kev. John E. Weston, whose calamitous death early transferred him to a higher sphere, but whose name connects itself to-day with our advanced work in theological education, in the person of his son, Dr. Weston, of Crozer. So we entered on the half century which the period of the Brooklyn convention closed. How different now the view. Brown has added to its buildings, Manning Hall, and Rhode Island College, the Presi- dent's house and the Laboratory ; its apparatus has been brought into proximate accord with the requisitions of the time, and its library of thirty-eight thousand volumes ranks among the best for univer- sity purposes. Its funds have advanced from thirty-four thousand dollars, in 1827, to five hundred and nine thousand four hundred and eighty-three dollars and twenty-six cents, in 1870. The pro- perty and endowments of Brown University must at the present time be estimated at considerably more than a million of dollars. Waterville, out of the poverty of fifty years ago, has risen to com- parative independence in a fortune which, without precise information, we suppose to be four hundred thousand dollars. If, as we do not doubt, the new subscription to the funds of Newton, already in pro- gress when the Convention was held, shall be fully completed when this article issues from the press, the property and endowments of Newton will have risen from eight thousand dollars in 1825, to a half a million in 1871. If to these great sums the amounts gathered up in the buildings and endowments of academies be added, the total increase, in the last fifty years, of funds and property in our educa- tional institutions in New England, must be more than two millions of dollars. It is not all from the liberality of our own people. We share in a greater or less degree the government and the honor which attaches to Brown University, with others, and among these have been found liberal benefactors and patrons ; and it must be considered likewise that accretions to the value of grounds and buildings have come with the progress of the country, and the depreciation of money. With every abatement, however, it is an advance to awaken thought- fulness and hope. If we pass from New England to New York we find not much less than a million of dollars accumulated in the Uni- versities and Theological Seminaries of Hamilton and Rochester, and this chiefly within the last twenty years. If we pass to Pennsylvania

'5

we find Lewisburg and Crozer, the offspring of the same period, with aggregate funds and properties, we presume, approximating three- fourths of a million. Columbian, in the latter part of the half cen- tury, has emerged from its gloom to prosperity, with an inheritance, which we have not means of estimating, in its buildings, but in these it has a considerable property, and in its lands, which the extending metropolis already invades, the provision of substantial endowment. We have not the space to extend this survey beyond the territorial limits of the educational labors of half a century ago, to the West, where rising colleges and the Theological Seminary at Chicago, attest the nascent interest in education of younger communities ; nor to the South, where from the ashes of the war there is appearing the resurrection of institutions which had been planted and fostered by kindred, faith, and hope and zeal. Admit that we have erred in colleges too many, and that not a few are weak, with no certain prospects of strength or rank ; admit that not one, North, or South, or East, or West, has means for the enlargement of its operations to the breadth of present demands; admit that some of those most advanced are even in painful need of larger endowments : and still will it be true that the record of half a century, marked by contrasts such as we have named, is itself an inspiration, an occasion for grati- tude, and a prophecy and a pledge which, under God, shall not fail us, of better things to come. Admit, too, that we have erred in theological seminaries too many ; and still shall we find hope and courage in the character and extent of our achievements in respect to them. With a more specific work than our colleges, they are, in their means and furnishings, in advance of the colleges, some of them having attained to ease, and comfort, and independence in their work. Behold Newton, and Hamilton, and Eochester, and Crozer, and Chi- cago, and Greenville, with their lands, buildings, libraries, and endowments, with nearly or quite twenty-five teachers, all qualified by discipline and learning, and many of them holding high rank in the scholarship and thinking of the time, dispensing a culture ex- ceeded by no institutions of their class in the world, and compare them with the humble, landless, houseless, bookless beginnings of Chaplin and Chapin in Waterville, of Hascall and the elder Ken- drick in Hamilton, of Stanford and Matclay in New York, and of Staughton in Philadelphia, and the achievements of the half century seem more like the dreams of romance than the record of the stern realities of life. We ought to cover ourselves with shame if we were capable of ingratitude or despondency. True, good men have been sacrificed in the process, good men have died without witnessing on

\6

earth the triumphs of their labors, but every successive generation of good men will still find occasions for sacrifice, and will die with hopes unfulfilled. The world will not be finished in our day, and the noble of earth will toil and suffer till the Lord shall come in his glory. But the personal resume, suggested by the remarks of Dr. Caswell, is not less striking. Dr. Caswell, graduating in 1822, went imme- diately to join the faculty of Columbian College, Washington. There he met Professor Irah Chase, then teaching Latin and Greek and Biblical Interpretation in the infant college. " He had gone through the regular course of theological studies in Andover," said Dr. Cas- well. " 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." Theological semi- naries were at that time a novelty, and it is not particularly strange that few of our ministers had enjoyed their advantages. Two Ver- mont youths, Irah Chase and Alvah Woods, and one Boston youth, Henry J. Bipley, were the very first to find their way to the Baptist ministry through the seminary course added to that of the univer- sity. University students had taken theology under private tuition. It would have been a point of greater interest if Dr. Caswell could have told us how many of our ministers at that time were college graduates. We have sought in vain for signs of an average of one a year in the first fifty years of Brown,1 and we have no thought that there were as many as fifty, whether from that or other colleges, in the United States in 1822. We distinctly remember that thirteen were all the Doctors of Divinity who could be reckoned up a dozen years later. At the end of the half century under review, more young men enter the Baptist ministry annually, through the most advanced literary and theological courses of our time, than had been graduated by Brown in the first fifty years of its history, or than could be found in the United States in 1822. This is progress. We leave the ratio, taking into account the increase in the number of our churches and members, to be calculated by those who have the leisure. Nor is this all. The half century has been illustrious for the names of Christian scholars and preachers, the product of this period, who, under God, have placed the scholarship and the pulpit of our educated men in the rank with the best of the age. Concede that we are wanting deplorably in the number of young men, candi- dates for our ministry through the processes of college and seminary

1 Thirty-four certainly, and two or three doubtfully, are all which the most faithful inquiry enables us to identify. »'

7

training, — concede that the demand for preachers of culture and power was never so great among us, relatively to the supply, as now, — concede all this, and then let it be remembered that this demand is itself the product of the wonderful changes of half a century, and let it cheer us that we advance to our work on the vantage ground / which this astonishing history has given us.

Nor is the progress less marked in respect to the education of our laity. "Without being able to verify our statements, we venture to express the belief that there are more students from Baptist families in Brown University to day, than were found in it in any fifteen or twenty years of its first half century; and we should not be sur- prised to know that the number of such students now annually grad- uating from the colleges of the denomination throughout the country, would reach very nearly the total number of such graduations in the half century when Brown was our only college. We say this remem- bering the increase of the national population, and of the population of our own faith. We say this with the deepest sense of our present short comings, with the profound and sorrowful conviction of paren- tal and pastoral remissness in respect to the education of young men, but with the belief that every consideration of gratitude for the past and of hope for the future, calls on us to remember how grand is the progress which it has pleased God to give us.

And here it is worthy to be noted, in passing, that the intelli- gence of the laity of no denomination is to be measured solely by the progress and patronage of its own institutions. The facilities of public education are greatly increased, and in the higher institutions of the country, whether for young men or for young women, the young of different denominations of Christians are more or less inter- mingled. Of our ministry even, many were educated in colleges, and some in theological seminaries, not our own. In our turn, we educate in our colleges and seminaries ministers of other denomina- tions. There are many occasions which make this intermingling a necessity, and in so far it is no occasion of regret. It promotes alike the fellowship of letters, and the fellowship of Christianity. It tends to make the most intelligent of our population homogeneous in character. But it is a point most seriously open to question, whether, though we are accounted the strictest of the sects, we have not in fact been accustomed to diffuse our patronage, to a neglect of our own institutions, which has been oftentimes little less than criminal. A fault in the maladjustment of our institutions, to which we shall presently refer, will explain this diffusion of patronage in part, but the maladjustment itself may have been in no small degree owing to

i8

this habit. Certain we are that if we had more conscientiously patronized our own institutions, those institutions would have been more nearly in accord with our needs, and far stronger than they are. It is a shame to us if the question ever arises whether there are or can be those better than our own, and that question will be heard of no more when the loyalty of our people to the institutions which we rear shall inspire us with a proper interest in their strength and usefulness. We need a great deal more of education among us, and a great deal more which springs from our own sources. "We need in all our congregations .the social influence and power of a large fellow- ship of education. An educated class, not held by personal convic- tion of the strongest kind, will go for sympathy into other connec- tions where they find it. It is of no use to deplore the fact; the duty is to find a remedy, and that remedy is the simple one of a wider diffusion of high education, in institutions reared by ourselves, and advanced to the highest character of the times in which we live. These' last statements are the natural introduction to thoughts less agreeable, suggested by the Proceedings before us, but most impor- tant to be- borne in mind. Here were represented six1 theological semi- naries, which, though opening their doors for all comers who are able to take the whole or parts of their courses, have their courses specially adjusted to the character and needs of graduates of colleges. That is to say, the course proper is the course for such graduates. All else is, to a certain extent, grace, concession. Possibly Greenville should be regarded' as an exception. Its system is peculiar. Aiming to be as comprehensive in its range of work as the divine vocations to the ministry, it creates divisions into schools, as few or as many of which may be taken as the diverse character and progress of students may require, a certain number of the schools being required as conditions of graduation with highest honors. The discussion on questions suggested by the Greenville system constituted the most brilliant of the debates of the Convention, a discussion the brilliancy of which has not been preserved. But even at Greenville, as elsewhere, the crown of all is the course for graduates, and for this, preparation is made in the quality of the professors, and in the libraries which are in process of accumulation. Under this view the seminaries stand before the public, and are held in the public estimation. They are professional schools beyond the college, and as President Anderson very justly and forcibly remarked in one of his discussions, they alone preserve a high demand for preparation for professional study.

1 We do not reckon theological departments of colleges, most of which are now happily suspended.

Law schools, medical schools, and scientific schools, content them- selves with any measure of intellectual preparation which they can find. Theological seminaries alone, so far as we know, exact for their highest courses the preparation of a university course, or its equivalent. Of such seminaries, including Greenville, we have six, — dispensing the highest education of the ministerial profession, an education far beyond that required by any denomination in England, including the Established church, with its Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. From six theological seminaries, repre- sented in the Convention, we then turn to thirteen colleges and uni- versities for the education of young men, and to four exclusively for young women, — seventeen in all. These vary very greatly in strength and resources, and in the quality of the education which they dispense. Many of them have academic or preparatory de- partments, and in point of fact they range from academies with orna- mental crowns in the shape of a college course, up to colleges and universities dispensing the best education. But they profess to be colleges, and invite a patronage, either local in no sense whatever, or local in no such restricted sense as generally applies to academies proper. They all assume the character and functions of colleges. From these seventeen colleges and universities, we turn finally to the academies represented, and we find nine, of which one should be omitted altogether, — eight therefore in fact. If we re-survey these institutions, as to comparative strength and resources, we shall find, so nearly as we are able to conjecture, in the six theological semi- naries, an amount of property, including endowments, of the present value of from one million two hundred to one million five hundred thousand dollars ; in the seventeen colleges from three to four mil- lions ; and in the eight academies from four hundred thousand to five hundred thousand dollars. Assuming that the Newton subscription is filled, as in this calculation we do assume, Newton is fairly pro- vided for so far as present necessities go ; Crozer is of course provided for, in its actual possessions and in the care of the honored family whose name it bears ; Hamilton has, we believe, a provision deemed adequate for the present; Rochester requires an addition to its funds, which it is hoped will not long be delayed ; and Chicago and Greenville are imperatively demanding a material increase. All things con- sidered, the strength of our provisions for educational work lies in our theological seminaries. We have no university or college whose provision^ for the work now in hand, or required to be done, is for one moment to be compared with the pecuniary preparation for their work of Newton or Crozer or Hamilton. Nothing in educa-

20

tion is a fixed quantity, and a theological seminary which was fin- ished would require to be begun again from the foundations. But the demands for the expansion of educational processes can never be in professional schools, unless in schools of discovery like those of sci- ence, what they are in universities and colleges, whose range must forever fill the widening sphere of liberal education. It is true, we believe, that the income from endowments and tuition at Brown and Madison is equal to the annual expenditure, and this may be true at Colby, but immediate additions to endowments for present work are required at Rochester, Columbian, and elsewhere; and a very large sum is necessary at Chicago to remove from, that university men- acing danger. There is a divinity which shapes the ends of univer- sities, as of individuals, rough hew them how we will. There are currents in human affairs as irresistible as the floods of Niagara. There is a drift in education in this country. There is success and honor for every college which does good work, but some greater than others, in resources, in patronage, in range of instruction, and in influence on the world, is a destiny as sure as the course of the stars. There will be great universities, whether Christian men make them and hold them fast to Christian teaching or not ; some Christian denominations will recognize that destiny and move to meet it, whether Baptists do so or not; and there will be great crowds of young men, hedged in by no lines of county or state, knowing neither South nor North nor East nor "West, who will be drawn to these universities by instincts and motives which no analysis can reach, and no arguments control. If our colleges would fall in with this drift, and woe betides them if they do not, onward and higher must be their everlasting motto. The rejuvenation of Harvard by an ex- pansion of its range of instruction in literature and science, rendered possible, consistently with the conservation of disciplinary studies, by the increase of the terms of admission already announced, is herald of new distinctions in American colleges, destined to impose new burdens on their treasuries. We welcome the honorable emula- tion. We desire to see Brown, and Rochester, and Madison, and the rest, pushed in their work, and in the demands which they make on the munificence of their friends. This will raise all to a higher sphere, and if only a few attain the highest distinctions, that will be a result in harmony with the ordinary emulations of human life. " They which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize." Some of our universities are in condition, if only they could receive the necessary funds, to move with an equal step with the best in this line of destiny. But not one of them can do it with less than an

21

addition of half a million to its funds within the next ten years. It is millions which we need in our colleges and universities to-day for present work, and in that early coming future in which without the expansion of our most advanced institutions we must find ourselves in an inferior position among the educational forces of our country.

We are less concerned about our colleges, however, than about our academies. In this apartment the- Proceedings before us betray bit- terly our deficiency. Here we are weakest. We know of no academy, under the patronage of the denomination, which has more than a nominal endowment. This constitutes the maladjustment of our institutions to which we have referred. Our institutions are strongest in proportion as they are are removed from the great body of our people. Our theological seminaries, designed necessarily for a limited though most important class, are first in strength; next are our colleges and universities, designed for greatly larger, but still limited numbers; least of all are our academies, whose function it is to bring the first grades of higher education near to the homes, and within the means of the great mass. This maladjustment brings its punish- ment, in the meagre number of students in our colleges for the want of academies from which they may proceed, and in the small number of students in our theological seminaries for the want of students from the colleges. We have attempted to achieve impossibilities. The system of American education is a pyramid, having its base in the all-comprehending sphere of public instruction. Next to this stand the academies, themselves the highest to which the greater number who rise above the sphere of public instruction can go, but the institutions in which multitudes find the inspiration which carries them to the still higher stage where are found the colleges and universities. Still above this, for the comparatively few, are the professional schools, including schools of theology. The natural place at which to begin the erection of a pyramid is at its base. We have attempted to build from the apex. It is told, to illustrate the punctuality of labor to quit at the hour, that an Irishman having his pick-axe lifted in the air when the clock began striking for twelve, left it there till the hour came for resuming work. The story of his performance is little less absurd than the attempt to construct the educational pyramid by laying the apex in mid air, and proceeding thence downward to the foundation.

It is no surprising matter therefore that the discussion which arose on the paper on academies, was among the most interesting and im- portant in the Convention, nor that that paper, and the discussion thereon arising, have given a new tone to the thoughts and hopes of

22

our people widely throughout the country. We want no more theological seminaries, now, nor conceiveably within the next hundred years, — we want only that what we have be made strong; we want no more colleges at present, but we want all which we have raised to higher tone, capacity, and influence, some of them blooming and ripening into universities of the highest order; we want academies multiplied, with good buildings, good apparatus, and good endowments, inferior to none which the country boasts, and accessible universally to our sons and daughters. This will be to adjust the machinery of education by due proportions, and out of such an adjustment, so far as institutions are concerned, and by no other means whatever, will come the solution of the problem of an educated people. We must have academies, or our whole superstructure must fail and disappoint us. In relation to this we shall do well to learn from our Methodist brethren, who have made their academies more their specialty in education, and who are reaping the reward.

We are transcending the limits which we had assigned for ourselves, and must restrict what we have to say upon our only remaining topic within narrow space. It will be observed that the practical question of our denominational work in education occupied very prominently the attention of the Convention, and that while it indicated a desire to place the cause of education in its proper place in our denomina- tional activities, it showed likewise that further ripeness of view was necessary in order to unanimity in respect to methods and ends. The simple expedient was adopted of attempting by means of the enlarge- ment of the functions of the Educational Commission, to awaken the minds of our people generally to a higher interest in education; leaving more definite measures to future determination. All things considered, the largest progress in this direction which could reason- ably have been expected, was made. But just here lies one of the chief practical problems of our future. The existence of institutions which have come into being, wisely or unwisely, and which have their own fixed methods of operation, must be respected, — the ten- dencies of our people to act from considerations of state boundaries and from local habits, must be accepted as facts, likely always to have more or less of influence; and these are causes which may forever prevent our working according to plans which are essentially the wisest and most effective for the good of the whole. We can have no centralized force in education which shall interfere with prescribed or local rights and liberties. It does not follow, however, that we can do nothing to bring our work into unity, and to give to it the force of a great common cause. We work in nothing else so dis-

^3

jointedly as in education. We have no common counsels, no common organs, as in the work of missions. How great a gain it would be to the cause of education if we had these, was indicated by the force which attached to the opinions and action of the National Convention at Brooklyn, on the single subject of academies. Nobody's liberty is invaded, but new thoughts are stirred, and the cause of education in that department receives a new, and, we may hope, an enduring stimulus. He who should be able to organize our whole educational work, conserving and setting forward what is, and so enlightening and directing our public mind that what springs forth in the future from our uninvaded freedom, and from our spontaneities, shall be wiser and better adjusted, would confer on our people benefits too large for human admeasurement. If educators shall be leaders of education, if they shall come universally to the distinct consciousness that they are not to limit the direct influence and power of their culture to the classes taught in their rooms, but are to use it in edu- cating the people to an appreciation of education, a most important step will have been gained. Dr. Wayland was a man so grand in his proportions that one hesitates to indicate how he might have been grander in his work, but with deference and veneration we express the opinion that Dr. Wayland, though he stood foremost among educators, would even as such have been greater, if more of the great power of his life had been expended in rallying his brethren to better work in education. If pastors shall take up education as part of pastoral care, applying in public instruction and in private influence the argu- ments which lead ministers as a class to educate their own children better than the children of any other class are educated, inspiring with lofty aspirations the mother who rocks the cradle of her child, and the father who sometimes takes an hour from worldly care to fore- cast the destiny of his son, we shall have gained another step still farther in advance, and pledge of indefinite progress. How can pastors fail to do this ? After their fashion, and a wretched one it is, the priests of Eome will have an eye to the education of the children of their church. It was John Knox who, on the basis of the schools of Scotland as he found them, gave to the education of Scotland the impulse and the type which have made the Presbyterian clergy of that land the guardians of its intellectual culture, and the land itself the home of a civilization as advanced as the world has seen. The Congrega- tional clergy of New England followed their example, and there is not a foot of soil over which our flag waves which has not felt the influence of their schools. No function more certainly belongs to the ministers of Christianity than the care of education. In the end,

24

that form of faith which educates the people will have the pe And finally, if under these healthful influences of educators pastors, the common Christian mind, advancing in piety and in i ligence, shall see that the enduring inheritance to be transmits children is that only which is found in intellectual and moral religious character, that to live best for children is to train them then shall come the day when our institutions will be strong in resources which an intelligent and consecrated people have apart for purposes of education, and the day of our struggles stinted means for great work will have passed away. How to orgi for this renovated sentiment, how to promote it, this is our c tion. The present writer, whose humble labors in this direction but incipient and must be brief, was anxious, at the Conventio: cast this task upon one younger and stronger, with prospect of y in which to carry it to proximately satisfactory results. This, was not permitted him. In pursuance of the recommendatior the Convention, the Baptist Educational Commission became "A: ican," and assumed functions commensurate with the title. As quested by the Convention, it has proceeded to call local convenl of similar character, of which two or three are just now to be 1 In due time perhaps another National Convention will be called, the question will then come to its ultimate solution whether Amer Baptists will give to their work in education the stimulus and pc of a common cause.

Sew all S. Cuttin

Bkooklyn, N. Y.