Question: “Whence did this superstition [of celibacy] arise?”
Answer: “From the Gnostic notions of the malignity of matter, and the best means of counteracting its influence.”12
Miller’s recommendation that students take notes on their reading and make abstracts of important points suggests that notetaking was not then a customary practice in colleges. Above all, he opposed “mere speculative and unsanctified learning”: remember that you must die, he warned his students.13
Henry Smith: Union Theological Seminary
Before Henry Smith arrived at Union in 1850 to teach church history, the subject was (minimally) covered by a local pastor, Samuel Cox. Cox lectured once a week on church history—while Hebrew grammar received five hours, and “Harmony of the Gospels,” three. In the 1840s, Edward Robinson, Union’s famous professor of biblical studies, also offered some lectures on church history in the first three (or perhaps five) centuries.14
From a letter Cox addressed to Smith before the latter joined the Union faculty, we get a taste of his style and approach. Cox sees himself as preparing the way for Smith, “by outline and generality, not ambiguity, respecting the grand vertebral column of history, its osteology and loca majora.” He continues:
They [the students] have been very attentive, and I have endeavored to affect them with a sense of the sine-qua-non importance to ministers of its thorough and scientific acquisition.… I go on the principle that premises must be before inductions, and hence that without knowing facts, dates, places, men, relations, and some circumstances, they are not prepared for philosophizing as historians. Hence, I teach them the elements, the what, where, when, who, why, how, and the connections, consequences, antecedents, and motives, as well as we can know them, in order [sic] to their masterly use of them in their subsequent lucubrations. But I prefer the grand to the minor relations and matters of history; suppose Church History to be in re so connected with secular history, since the Church and the world mutually affect and modify each other, that the former cannot be understood without the latter; and so endeavor to fix in consecutive order, in their minds, those great events, which, when well understood are seen to regulate the others, and at once to stimulate the student, and direct him, in his later researches.
Despite his grandiose tone and condescending assurance to Smith that he will counsel the Union community to make allowance for Smith’s inadequate preparation and greenness as a teacher, Cox himself (judging from student lecture notes) did not have a strong grasp of the subject.15
Smith served as Professor of Church History only until 1855, when he transferred to the Professorship of Theology. In his first half-year at Union, Smith lectured to the seniors four hours a week, covering the ecclesiastical and doctrinal history of the first six centuries, and gave fifteen lectures on “theological encyclopedia,”16 an introduction to the theological curriculum derived from German university practice.
Still under discussion in Smith’s era was the question of the best means of preparation for would-be ministers: private instruction or theological seminary? Private instruction for the ministry is peculiar to America, Smith told his class; in Europe, schools of theology date back for centuries—think of Iona, founded around 521. Jumping to the eighteenth century, Smith described ministerial training in colonial America. After college the student would spend about a year with a minister of note who provided practical training and whose small salary was supplemented by student fees. Some distinguished northeastern clergymen in the course of their careers trained up to 60 ministerial students apiece. A half century ago, Smith mused, ministers were usually more cultivated than their congregations, but with the rise in the general level of lay education, that situation no longer always obtains.17 Students must prepare well to keep up.
Seminary education, however, was better than private instruction. Although critics charge that seminaries do not prepare men for the pastoral life, are “injurious to piety,” and easily spread doctrinal corruption, Smith countered that in a group setting, students learn to critique each other’s views and are less likely to become “tinctured” by one person’s peculiarities. Moreover, seminaries provide a complete course of instruction that individual ministers cannot replicate. The greatest works in all branches of theology have been produced by scholars at seminaries, Smith claimed.18
Despite Smith’s reputation as a progressive, his approach to church history often seems both adversarial and apologetic. On the progressive side, Smith advocated “a broader theological culture,” in part because students who are to be ministers need to understand the sects and controversies of America. To this “broader culture,” church history contributes by making ministers more careful in their choice of language and more averse “to the petty and easy art of the unscrupulous polemic.” It teaches them not to stress minor points of difference.19
This broader view, however, was still circumscribed. Ministerial students, in Smith’s view, needed to be fortified to defend and advance their Presbyterian beliefs and polity against the claims of other Christian groups, not just those of “infidels.” Progress in theology, he claimed, consists in “giving the truth a new form adapted to the new warfare it is called to meet.” Students must learn how to refute the views and practices of others (for example, Roman Catholic approaches to Scripture) and to adjudicate competing theories about the consequences of the Fall for the human race.20 Although intra-Protestant controversies, in Smith’s view, pale beside those between Protestants and Catholics, only by studying history can Rome’s claims be understood.21 Striking what he imagined as a sound mean, Smith recommended that theological education should be “conservative without bigotry and progressive without lawlessness.”22
In his class on “Theological Encyclopedia,” Smith advised students on their course of study. First, they should pursue a broad program, with philology as a foundation. Historical studies come second. Natural science is important for addressing questions of biblical interpretation on such topics as “controversies concerning the races of men” and the resurrection of the body. Philosophy teaches students to analyze, construct arguments, and answer objections. “Master Plato, or some of the works of Aristotle,” Smith urged; learn both the history of philosophy and modern philosophy. Psychology and ethics also should not be neglected; for “mental philosophy,” “Reid’s as good as any.”23
Smith recommended that once every six or eight weeks, students should put “all [their] strength into some sermon or essay,” a recommendation implying that students were not accustomed to writing papers. “Have some independent definite investigation,” Smith counseled. Every student should have two or three theological “hobbies,” so that he can be a “terror” to his friends on these points. Students should stay abreast of contemporary history by reading newspapers; when perusing foreign ones, they should keep a map in hand.24 Smith also tried to stimulate his students by organizing an essay competition, offering a first prize of $50 and a second of $25—but only one senior opted to enter.25
Archival materials provide a warm portrait of Smith as a teacher. The professor, he thought, should expound points according to students’ needs. If the relation between teacher and student does not remain open, the teacher will become dogmatic and the student will copy his dogmatism. Each student should be encouraged and “brought out through the medium of a free discussion.” New School Presbyterian teachers and ministers, Smith asserted—implying a contrast with the Old School Presbyterians of Princeton—enjoy freedom of explanation; they understand that modern philosophy and theology should work together, rather than in opposition. Intellectual stumbling blocks should not be deemed irreconcilable.26 Smith’s (Hegelian-inspired) vision of the harmonious unity of knowledge is here in evidence. The unity, nevertheless, is constructed around Christian confession.
Smith’s former student Thomas S. Hastings, later President of Union, recalled his impression of Smith’s teaching. His approach to church history, Hastings testified, “was so different from anything we had known before—so much more scientific