nized the Seminary Church, November 9, 1845. Pastoral duties were assigned to Professors Maginnis, Conant, and Eaton, and Brother Burchard was made deacon. Adoniram Judson, the famous Baptist missionary to Burma, who was then on his first visit to Hamilton, had come to the meeting and at its close gave the church his blessing. The founding members “felt that the occasion was rendered more impressive and memorable by his presence, and the spiritual prospects of the church were brightened by his prayer.” Granted fellowship by a church council a few days, later, the new organization from time to time added students to its roll and remained in existence until 1851.
Democracy characterized the procedures and practices of the faculty in the ’30’s and ’40’s. Their “Bye-Laws,” drawn up in 1834 and revised slightly in 1841, provided for a chairman, and secretary, and standing committees, elected from among themselves. The chairman presided at faculty meetings and public occasions and in general exercised functions relating to the internal government of the Institution similar to those of a college president. The secretary not only carried out the record-keeping duties normally associated with his office, but also prepared the annual report of the faculty and supervised the machinery for admitting students. The seven standing committees stipulated in 1834 included one for the reception of applicants for admission, one for examining them after they had been at the Institution for a term on trial, and committees on discipline, the monitorial system, requests (petitions), internal regulations (buildings and commons), and publications and public meetings. Committees on music and beneficiaries were added in 1841. Faculty meetings, held at least once a week, were limited to two hours’ duration and usually opened with prayer. The minutes reveal active participation by all members of the group. Important matters of policy and petty details, many of them in the present-day dean’s province, they treated with care and due deliberation.
Aside from, the faculty resolution, passed in 1833, “that it is expedient for the officers to open their recitations generally with a short address to the throne of grace,” no restrictions, theological or otherwise, were placed on what the professors taught or the methods they used. Professor Maginnis was so impressed with the fact that no one questioned him about his religious views or asked him to sign a creed before he was appointed that he commented on it in his Inaugural