Category Archives: Chapter 5

p. 83 – Student life, 1833-1846

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entered left to go into the ministry without completing their courses or even advancing to the beginning of the theological instruction. The principal reason was lack of funds.

The Education Society, so far as its means permitted, assisted poor students after they had been enrolled long enough for the faculty to judge their “character and talents.” As beneficiaries, they received board and tuition in return for a pledge promising to refund the expenditures in their behalf. In 1840 the Trustees refused to accept students as beneficiaries unless they gave clear intention of completing their course.

The total annual expense in 1833 in any of the three departments was $58.00, of which $16.00 represented tuition and $42.00 board and washing at the rate of $1.25 per week. By 1846 expenses for a lay student in the collegiate department totaled $93.00. Of this sum, tuition represented $30.00; board and washing, at $1.25 per week, $50.00; room rent, $9.00; incidentals, $3; and sacred music instruction $1. A non-ministerial student in the academic department paid the same charges except tuition, which was $20.00. Ministerial students in the academic and collegiate departments were not charged for room rent, hence their expenses were $74.00 and $84.00 respectively. Stu­dents in the theological department paid only $54.00 since tuition and room rent were free.

The quality of food which the Steward, in his efforts to keep down expenses, was able to provide for $1.25 per week would not be rated very high by modern standards. One student wrote in 1841, that breakfast consisted of coffee, bread and butter; dinner of meat, potatoes, bread and butter; and supper of milk, bread and butter. Today such a diet would be considered totally inadequate, but a century ago when Americans made relatively little use of fresh fruits, milk and leafy vegetables it was not so unsatisfactory as it now seems.

In the late 1830’s, Steward James Edmunds had great difficulty in getting provisions. Flour cost more than $60.00 a barrel and ordinary quality wheat $1.87 a bushel. Over three barrels of flour, or fifteen bushels of wheat, were needed each week to supply his boarders. Since the Steward did not find sufficient breadstuffs in the immediate vicinity, he had go as far as Ohio to buy them. He also resorted to substituting potatoes for the expensive wheat flour.

The Cottage Edifice served as the commons until 1838 when the

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p. 82 – Student life, 1833-1846

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paid in advance and they were prohibited from occupying rooms or using facilities “so as to interfere with the convenience or abridge the privileges of those students having the ministry in view.”*

The faculty reported in 1843 that the policy of admitting non-theologues to the collegiate department had worked well. Approximately thirty had entered, and with few exceptions they had been “regular in their deportment and successful in their studies.” Most of them were members of Baptist churches. Their conduct had been so exemplary that the piety of the ministerial students had not suffered.

The experience of the faculty with non-ministerial students in the collegiate department was doubtless in the minds of the Trustees when they came to consider the declining enrollment of the academic department in the early 1840’s. The losses in this department were explained by the Society’s straightened finances, which made it necessary to curtail the number of beneficiaries. To remedy the situation the Board, on faculty recommendation, decided in 1843 to admit lay preparatory students on the same basis as in the collegiate department. The number of non-ministerial students in the collegiate department grew steadily from five in 1839 to thirty-four in 1845. The aggregate for the academic department, however, in the period from 1843 to 1845 was only twenty-nine.

The total number of students in all departments during the years 1833 to 1846 grew steadily; there were 124 at the beginning of the period and 211 at the end. A year-by-year comparison, however, reveals considerable fluctuation with a low of 120 in 1838 and a peak of 239 in 1841. The collegiate department had the largest registration­ 40 in 1833, a maximum of 148 in 1842, and 146 in 1846. Enrollment in the academic department varied from a high of 75 in 1833, explained by the inauguration at that time of the six-year course, to a low of 27 in 1841; by 1846 it stood at 34. There were no theological students from 1833 to 1835 because of the course changes. In 1835 there were three; the peak of 34 came in 1840 and then a decline to 30 in 1846.

Statistics on student enrollment must be accepted with caution since they represent only numbers registered at particular dates and do not indicate how long students remained at the Institution. In 1843 Dr. Kendrick wrote that since 1833 more than three-fourths of those who

*Baptist Education Society,  Annual Report, 1839, 3, 13-14.

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p. 81 – Student life, 1833-1846

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entrance originated among friends of the Institution who asked whether the Education Society might open the collegiate department to non-ministerial students without prejudice to the Society’s original objective. They considered the moral and religious influence pervading the Institution made it especially desirable as a place to which they might send their sons for a liberal education.

The Trustees and faculty spent long hours at meetings in June and August, 1839, deliberating the proposal. In exploring all of its phases they were not unmindful of the contribution which the tuition of non-ministerial students would make to the, chronically empty treasury. Dr. Kendrick, alone among the faculty, strongly opposed the change. He foresaw that it would be the entering wedge for reorienting the Institution’s character and educational program. Prospective preachers, he believed, should be protected from the contaminating worldly influence of non-theological students. “Can our young men,” he asked “preparing for the ministry, in the incipient state of their piety, before their religious habits are formed, become the companions of prayerless youth, to room and study, and lodge with them for a term of years, and not be retarded in the cultivation of their Christian graces?” He feared also that the “prayerless youth” might create disciplinary problems. The most serious objection he raised, however, was that the change would impair the confidence of the churches and cause them to withdraw their patronage.*

When the decision was made, with Dr. Kendrick’s the only negative vote, he announced that, though he had used every means to prevent the step, he would do all he could to make the new policy successful. His arguments, however, were responsible for many of the qualifying restrictions attached to the resolution as finally adopted. It provided that, “for the time being,” the faculty might admit to the collegiate department “a limited number of young men, who may not have the ministry in view,” but in no case were they to exceed the total of ministerial students in all departments of the Institution. Lay students were to possess good religious or moral character. They were to be well prepared for whatever classes of the collegiate department they proposed to enter, and no modifications for their benefit were to be made in the course of instruction. Their tuition and fees were to be

*Seymour W. Adams,Memoirs of Rev. Nathaniel Kendrick, D.D. and Silas N. Kendrick (Philadelphia, 1860), 172-176.

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Young men not seeking to be preachers first admitted (p. 80)

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1842 that sometimes the churches sent to Hamilton “simple hearted brethren desirous to do good” but generally devoid of other qualifications. Following their dismissal after the trial period, they often circulated among the churches as bona fide representatives of the Institution. These, men, the Trustees felt, cast discredit on the Seminary and on the cause of ministerial education.

The Institution, though designed and maintained primarily for Baptists, was open, by 1833, to qualified young men of every evangelical denomination. They were subject to the same requirements as applicants from Baptist churches and pursued the same course of instruction. The number of non-Baptists, however, was small and few traces of their presence can be found.

Academic qualifications for admission to the collegiate department were based from 1833 to 1846 on completion of the course of instruction offered by the preparatory department or the equivalent. Those entering the theological department were expected to have finished a college course. Applicants, who because of their age or other circumstances were unable to devote the necessary time, were still allowed to take the three-year Shorter or English course, the entrance requirements of which were the same as the preparatory department’s.

The faculty apparently found a large number of students poorly prepared, especially in the elementary subjects. To eliminate this difficulty they urged all young men who thought of coming to the Institution to apply for admission as soon as they were qualified to enter the academic department. The students in the Shorter course, particularly, were often deficient in preparation. Professor Raymond facetiously wrote of one as being “an incorrigible rebel against all the rules of Grammar & of Dictionary” who “long before he crossed our academic threshhold” had been “a hardened offender … an Ethiopian whose skin could not be changed . . . and unto all good spelling reprobate.” Yet Professor Raymond was quite ready to admit that such students “with all their disadvantages” usually proved a credit to the Institution.*

The most radical change in the admissions policy and, in fact, one of the fundamental changes in the history of the Institution, occurred in 1839 when the Trustees decided to admit young men who did not “have the ministry in view.” Sentiment for broadening the basis for

*John H. Raymond to James Edmunds, New York, N.Y., Dec. 17, 1844.

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p. 79 – Student life, 1833-1846

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Chapter V – STUDENT LIFE, 1833-1846

The religious and intellectual interests which earnest youths preparing for the ministry might be expected to possess gave the dominant tone and color to student life in the 1830’s and ’40’s as it had in the previous decade. Most of them came from homes of modest or limited circumstances. If some lacked polish and sophistication, this shortcoming was offset by a resolute devotion to acquiring the training consid­ered necessary for their chosen vocation.

The faculty scrutinized prospective students carefully and required them to furnish satisfactory written evidence that they were church members in good standing and that, in the opinion of the churches, they possessed “talents which may, with proper cultivation, render them useful in the gospel ministry.” After the testimonials had been presented, the faculty examined applicants as to religious experience, call to preach, and academic preparation. Those accepted were permitted to enter on trial. If at the end of three months they showed “sufficient evidence of personal piety, or of talent, or of a desire for improvement” they became students in regular standing. After 1840 they were required to subscribe to a declaration to obey all the laws and regulations of the Institution and “Divine Providence permitting,” to complete the course of instruction.

Both the faculty and Trustees went to great lengths not to seem to interfere with the acknowledged prerogatives of the churches in selecting the candidates for the ministry. To have done otherwise would have invited sharp criticism, especially from the many Baptists who distrusted “man-made” preachers, as they called those who had formal training. The faculty repeatedly urged, however, that the churches exercise “the utmost caution in recommending young men as proper candidates for the ministry.” The Trustees noted in their report for

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