Address. When the Board chose a professor, however, they probably knew beforehand enough about his ideas and had’ enough confidence in his character to make such procedure superfluous.
The new appointees in their inaugural addresses at the time of the Annual Meeting explained the importance of their fields of instruction to the Education Society members and thus indirectly to the denomination. Objections to education for ministers had begun to wane among the Baptists, but many were still lukewarm and gave grudgingly to the Institution. Dr. Kendrick tried to rouse them repeatedly in the Annual Reports and in the columns of the Baptist Register where he had the sympathetic assistance of editor Alexander M. Beebee and professors Maginnis and Eaton.
The faculty reported with pride to the Society in 1834 that the wisdom of expanding the course of college instruction to the full four years had been borne out by the first year’s experience. The attendant disorganization had been slight and the students responded enthusiastically to the changes which placed the Seminary “by the side of kindred institutions.” Two years” study in the preparatory department, four in ‘the collegiate, and two in the theological, the faculty was convinced, provided adequate training for young men going into the ministry. For those whose age or other circumstances made so extensive a preparation impossible, there was the four-year “English course” which omitted the classics and Hebrew but included specified work in all departments.
A few young men who were anxious to begin preaching or get into the missionary field as soon as possible chafed at the delay the lengthened course imposed. The majority, however, seem to have been glad to take advantage of their opportunities, which, it should be remembered, had been widened by demand of the students themselves. The faculty, naturally, discouraged the more impatient ones who wanted to leave before completing the course, and William Dean of the Class of 1833 advised all who planned to join him in missionary work in Siam not to cut short their studies but to learn all they could. The faculty believed that satisfactory work required two hours of study for each hour of class. Usually a student took three subjects a term with daily recitations in each. The academic year consisted of three terms-winter, spring and summer.
Language study, the classics, Hebrew, and English made up the
