Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/244

* THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 200 THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. professorship in divinity was established at Harvard in 1638, and a similar provision was made at Yale in 1740. A new direction was given to. theological edu- cation by the Pietist movement. At Halle a university was founded in 1694, where it was jiossible for Spener and Francke to exemplify their principles. They maintained that the Christian minister must himself have a pro- found religious experience, that he should not be boimd by an oath to teach in accordance with man-made creeds, but that he should pro- claim the word of God contained in the Scrip- tures. The influence of English Quakerism with its doctrine of the inner light and its protest against a hireling ministry is unmistakable. In the semiuarium ministerii ecclesiastici estab- lished at Halle in 1714 Francke endeavored to give to converted men desirous to serve as preachers such a knowledge of the Bible and such an acquaintance with the practical duties of the pastor as to tit them to be true spiritual leaders. While the demand for a spiritual crisis rather than a normal growth of religious ex- perience could not be carried out in a State Church and had a tendency to foster self-decep- tion, the break with dogmatism and the centring of interest upon the practical aspect of the min- istry, the training of the man rather than the elaboration of his doctrine, bore permanent re- sults. The appeal to Christian consciousness and the disregard for the letter led to biblical criticism,* as is seen in Dippel, Edelmann, Michaelis, Zinzendorf, and Semler, and a new estimate of the history of the Church, doing more justice to the heretical bodies, -was intro- duced by Gottfried Arnold. At the English universities rationalism exer- cised a greater influence than pietism. This was largely the result of the zealous cultivation of natural science. The idea that revelation itself is to stand or fall by the test of reason was ac- cepted by the apologists as well as by the Deists, by Lardner and Paley not less than by Collins and Toland. From England this rationalistic movement spread to the Continent. In the school of the Remonstrants at Amsterdam, Le Clerc expounded to theological students the principles of Collins and Locke. Gottingen was established in 1737, largely to serve as a bulwark against supernaturalism, and other centres of rationalism were .Jena, Helmstedt, and Heidel- berg. Theological students came under the in- fluence not only of Eichhorn, Paulus, and Henke, but also of such men as Reimarus and Lessing, • Herder and Goethe, Kant and Fichte. If the effect of pietism upon theological education was that much stress was laid upon the conscious experience of an inner change, and the nourish- ment of religious emotion, rationalism put the emphasis upon the reasonableness of true reli- gion and the supremacy of morality. During the nineteenth century certain impor- tant changes occurred. A large number of schools grew up in Europe and America. In Germany the most important additions were the Univer- sities of Berlin ( 1810), Bonn ( 1818). and Strass- burg (reorganized 1871). In Switzerland schools xmsupported by the State have been established at Geneva, Lausanne. Neuchatel, Basel, Bern, and Zurich, and State universities teaching the- ology at Fribourg and Neuchatel. In France the theological faculty of the University of Strass- burg was removed to Paris in 1877, and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes was founded in 1868. The University of Amsterdam was established in 1877, and universities were founded in Chris- tiania in 1813, and Helsingfors in 1827. Besides Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, the Church of liugland has twenty-three theological schools, the English Methodists ten, the Congregation- alists eleven, the Baptists nine, the Presby- terians three, the Unitarians one, and two are inidenominational. Except the Dutch Reformed Seminary at New Brunswick, N. J. (1784), and the United Presbyterian Seminarj' at Xenia, Ohio (1794), all Protestant schools of theology in the United States have been founded in the nineteenth centurv. They number about 120. When the large extent of territory, the numerous denominations, and the special needs of the colored and the foreign churches are considered, the nxnuber is not excessive. Concerning many of them, however, it must be said that they are very inadequately equipped, both as to teach- ing force and library facilities, and they do not represent a high grade of scholarship. Some of these are connected with universities. Many are located in or near important educational centres. The course is generally three years in length, and a collegiate training is as a rule re- quired for admission. A tendency to seek independence of educa- tional control is characteristic of the period. In Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and France the principle of academic freedom has won gen- eral recognition. Berlin at the outset repudi- ated all attachment to any particular creed or school. While pressure is often brought to bear in the matter of appointments, the tradition of a German university is generally the determining feature. In Holland the relations between pul- pit and chair are more cordial. In England and Scotland freedom of investigation is now gen- erally granted to the biblical teachers. All higher institutions of learning in the United States were for a long time either founded by religious bodies or privately endowed. The former were naturallv controlled by the denomi- nations supporting them ; the latter either give no theological instruction or are affiliated with some ecclesiastical organization. Theology is not taught in any of the State universities founded in the latter part of the century. But as it is widely felt that the various disciplines that enter into the theological curriculum have a imiversal human interest, and should be stud- ied in an atmosphere of scientific research and free from ecclesiastical dictation, many of them have found a way into such imiversities as .Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Columbia. Pennsylvania, Michigan, California, and others. Harvard by making its school undenominational has taken an important step in this direction. The most significant change in theological education during the century was the general introduction of historico-critical methods of in- vestigation. In the interpretation of Hebrew and early Christian literature, and the study of Church history, German theological teachers have been the chiefleaders : but, owing to the relations of the faculties to the Christian State as well as to the Church, no provision is yet made in any German university for the comparative study of