p. 48 – Teaching and learning, 1820-1833

er, they seem to have been discontented at the white man’s theological school and by 1831 all had left. One became a teacher at the Carey Mission and another, John Tecumseh Jones, became a preacher and was instrumental in the founding of Ottawa University in Kansas.

To earn part of their expenses, students often taught in district schools during the long winter vacation. Some also conducted writing and singing schools and a few assisted with the elementary instruction in the Seminary. Kendrick had student help for much of his secretarial work.

Supplying in churches destitute of pastors was the most common way for students to earn money. The experience gave them valuable training and occasionally the churches liked them well enough to ask them to become their settled pastors. Such contacts also served as effective advertising for the Institution. Students provided the first regular preaching for the First Baptist Church of Syracuse and the congregation furnished a good horse and saddle for their use, Stephen Gano, speaking to students in chapel in 1825, told them they should never be ashamed, for their profession nor worry about preaching “God’s word.” “It is not required of you to explain why God made such a declaration,” he said, “show he has made it.”*

The manual labor experiment which flourished on the campus for a few years represented another attempt to provide financial assistance for students.. This experiment was part of the general manual labor movement, then a fad among educational “institutions all over the country. Since gymnastics and games were frowned upon, or at best seldom encouraged; the movement won approval as a means of promoting physical exercise as well as enabling students to earn money. At Andover they split wood, kept gardens and made coffins and wheelbarrows. In New York State there were five .schools which had extensive manual labor arrangements, the most famous being the Oneida Institute of Industry and Science; which was founded in 1829 at Whitesboro, Oneida County.

Members of the Education Society, aware of the necessity of exercise for their proteges, especially since several were farm boys, recommended to the Executive Committee in 1818 “the propriety of requiring of the students, suitable exercise for the improvement of their health.” When land near the “stone building on the plain” became available, Hascall and Kendrick supervised their work in a garden.

*Daniel Platt, Notebook, I, 91-94

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