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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Professional Schools in the United States, whether of medicine, law, engineering, or theology, are of relatively recent orgin. It is a matter of interest that the ministry was the first profession in America for which a technical and standardized training was provided. While the first law school in America was founded in the same year as the oldest theological seminary (1784), the courses were loosely organized and there was no definitely prescribed amount of work required of graduation and no academic requirement for the practice of law. In all the institutions where there were law departments or law schools, even as late as the middle of the last century, the law students were considered as distinctly inferior to the regular college students.
1 Shewmaker, William O., “The Training of the Ministry in the United States of America before the Establishment of Theological Seminaries” (Papers of the American Society of Church History, Second Series, Vol. VI.New York: Putnam's Sons, 1921), 187.Google Scholar See also Dexter, E. G., A History of Education in the United States (New York, 1904), 325.Google Scholar
2 Sweet, W. W., Indiana Asbury-DePauw University, 1837–1937: A Hundred Years of Higher Education in the Middle West (New York: Abingdon Press, 1937), 67.Google Scholar
3 For a description of the usual training received by the medical practitioner in America in the latter eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries see McMaster, J. B., History of the People of the United States (New York, 1883), I, 27–30.Google Scholar
4 Records of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, etc., (Philadelphia, 1904), 511.Google Scholar At this (1785) meeting of the Synod of New York and Philadelphia it was considered “whether in the present state of the church in America, and the scarcity of ministers to fill our numerous congregations, the Synod, or Presbyteries ought therefore to relax in any degree, in the literary qualifications required of intrants in to the ministry¶” And it was carried in the negative by a great majority.
5 Humphrey, Edward F., Nationalism and Religion in America,1774–1789 (Boston, 1924), 267.Google Scholar During the first twenty-seven years of the history of the College of Rhode Island, more than twice the number of graduates entered the Congregational ministry than entered the Baptist ministry.
6 For a discussion of the private teaching of theology see Shewmaker, op. cit., 150–169. An excellent account of the activities of Nathanael Emmons in this regard will be found in Park, Edward A., A Memoir of Nathanael Emmons: With sketches of his friends and pupils (Boston, 1861), Chap. xiii, pp. 215–265.Google Scholar
7 For an account of the “log college” movement among American Presbyterians see Sweet, W. W., Religion on the Amerwan Frontier: The Presbyterians (New York: Harper, 1936),Google Scholar Chap. iii, “Cultural and Educational Influence of the Presbyterians in the Early West,” 54–81.
8 For a brief statement regarding the professorships of divinity at Harvard, Yale, and the College of New Jersey, see Shewmaker, op. cit., 128, 148, 149.
9 See Weutz, A. H., History of the Gettysburg Theological Seminary, (Philadelphia,1926),Google Scholar for a discussion of ministerial education among American Lutherans in the colonial period, especially Chaps. I to IV.
10 The situation in regard to the ministerial supply in the Dutch Reformed church is briefly told in The One Hundred Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of New Brunswick Theological Seminary (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1934)Google Scholar, “Historical Address” by President William H. S. Demarest, 52–67.
11 To be n theological seminary in the sense in which I am using the term in this paper, there must have been at least two members on the theological faculty. Thus all the “one man” institutions are eliminated from this classification. It is in this sense that the Dutch Reformed Seminary qualifies as the first Theological Seminary in America. See “Historical Address” by President William H. S. Demarest, op. cit., 57.
12 Claims have been made that Service Seminary of the Associate Presbyterian Church begun in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, in 1794 is the oldest seminary in America. This school, however, was a one man institution, the Reverend John Anderson constituting the entire faculty during the early years, whereas the New Brunswick Seminary had a faculty of two from the beginning. See “Early Theological Education West of the Alleghanies” by Johnson, Jesse, (Papers of the American Society of Church History), Second Series, V., 121–130.Google Scholar
13 The lists of graduates of Yale College from 1745 to 1792, which specify the occupations after graduation, illustrate the growing secular interests among American college students during these years. Total graduates from 1745 to 1763 … 505. Of this number, 186 entered the ministry, 64 became physicians, 56 were lawyers, “and many of the remainder who were not formally admitted to the bar, took the place of trained lawyers in their several communities”. Total graduates from 1763 to 1778 … 484. Of this number, 154 entered the ministry, 59 were physicians, and 52 lawyers. Total graduates from 1778 to 1792 … 543. Of this number, 168 were lawyers, 129 were ministers, and 57 were physicians; from 1792 to 1805 the total graduates were 540. Of these, 182 became lawyers, 109 ministers, 87 entered business, 40 became teachers, 37 physicians, and 27 became farmers and planters. Thus it will be seen that the proportion of ministers to the total graduates steadily declined from 1778 onward. (See Dexter, F. B., Biographical Bketches of the Graduates of Yale College, II, 786; III, 715; IV, 744; V, 810.)Google Scholar
14 For a summary of the moral and religious conditions prevailing in the American Colleges toward the close of the eighteenth century see Sweet, W. W., “The Churches as Moral Courts of the Frontier,” (Church History, Vol. II, 03, 1933), 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Sprague, W. B., Lectures on Revivals of Religion, etc. (New York, 1833), Appendix, 336–354.Google Scholar
16 The beginnings of the state university movement are well portrayed in Tewksbsry, Donald O., The Founding of American Colleges and Universities before the Civil War, (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1932)Google Scholar, Chap. iii, pp. 133–207. See also his discussion of the attempts to secularize the colonial colleges, and the Dartmouth College Case, 142–154.
17 The most recent history of Andover Theological Seminary is that by ProfessorRowe, Henry K. (Newton, Massachusetts, 1933).Google Scholar
18 Sweet, W. W., Religion on the American Frontier: The Presbyterians, 77–78.Google Scholar See also Eaton, S. J. M., History of the Presbytery of Erie (New York, 1868), 94–95Google Scholar; also Smith, J., Old Redstone (Philadelphia, 1854), 209–10.Google Scholar
19 “Early Theological Education West of the Alleghenies,” by Johnson, Jesse, in The Papers of the American Society of Church History, Second Series, V, 121–130.Google Scholar
20 A recent and most fascinating account of the establishment of Lane Theological Seminary and the student rebellion which occasioned the formation of Oberlin Theological Seminary is Barnes, Gilbert H., The Anti-Slavery Impulse, 1830–1844 (New York, 1933), 41–45; 64–68; 71–76.Google Scholar As also the Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher, edited by Charles Beecher (New York, 1865), II, Chaps. xxiv, xxxii-xxxiv.Google Scholar
21 W. W. Sweet, op. cit., 78–81.
22 Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher, II, 273.Google Scholar
23 A Plea for the West, by Lyman Beecher (Cincinnati and New York, 1836).Google Scholar
24 The attitude of Methodists toward theological seminaries is interestingly set forthin Garber, Paul N., The Romance of American Methodism (Greensboro, N. C., 1931)Google Scholar, Chap. ix. See also numerous references in Cartwright's, Autobiography (New York, 1856)Google Scholar; and Brunson, Alfred, A Western Pioneer (Cincinnati, 1872), 2vols.Google Scholar