and exercising the reason. Acquiring knowledge, the writer
maintained, was secondary to the main purpose of education, teaching
students to think. °
The earliest data available on instruction from the student point of
view comes from the notebook of Daniel Platt, Class of 1825. Entering
the Institution at the age of twenty-four, he supported himself by
making shoes, often with an open book on his bench. The notes, which
relate chiefly to theology, church government, and pastoral relations,
show the Emmons influence in Kendrick’s teaching as, for example, his
use of questions in lecturing and his emphasis on systematic divinity.
In the notebook are also to be found fragments of practical advice
Kendrick gave his fledgling preachers, such as warning against the
delusions of death-bed repentances. He urged them to use common
sense and become acquainted with the world outside their religious
books. He stressed the necessity for cultivating a simple preaching
style, of handling sermon topics in a thorough manner, and of avoiding
those on which “frantick [sic] imagination [s] are apt to run wild &
do violence to … reason [,] common sense [,] & scripture.” °°
Kendrick was not only wise in his instruction but also tolerant. Three
members of one of his classes refused to accept his belief in “limited
atonement” even when he examined them publicly before sixty or
seventy visiting ministers. Though he considered them to badly mis-
taken theologically, his kind personal feeling for them did not change.
The faculty assigned to the students what were then standard
textbooks. They could be purchased at the local printing office or in
Utica from the publishers of the Baptist Register. Copies of several are
still to be found in the University Library.
Interest in the study of science first appeared in 1823 when Joel W.
Clark opened a subscription in Boston for $1,000 to purchase a Euro-
pean “Philosophical apparatus.” Though the project fell through and
no equipment was obtained until after 1833, the Executive Committee
repeatedly mentioned the need for it in the Annual Reports. They also
appropriated $25.00 “toward defraying the expense of a course of
lectures in chemistry for the benefit of the students provided they
make up the difference.” They were given in 1831 by Dr. William
Mather, a graduate of College of Physicians and Surgeons at Fairfield,
