THE

EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE

AND

MISSIONARY CHRONICLE.

NOVEMBER, 1860.

OUR COLLEGES.

AN INAUGURAL LECTURE DELIVERED AT SPRING HILL COLLEGE, SEPTEMBER 21ST, BY THE REV. DR. ALLIOTT, ON HIS ENTERING ON THE OFFICE OF PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.

I CANNOT commence my duties as Professor of Theology and Philosophy in this College without first congratulating the Committee, and especially my esteemed friend, the Rev. Professor Barker, who has so long, so honourably, and so successfully devoted his best energies to the mental progress of the students, on the result of their past labours. This College has stood second to no other in the literary attainments of its alumni; and it has been honoured to send forth into the Church a large body of men who have exerted, and are still exerting an amount of influence on their age, which is, under God, to be attributed in great part to the education they have received. May I express my hope that the College will never lose its literary position? I have no sympathy with the sentiment expressed by some, that our ministry is over-educated, and that we should have better preachers if we were content to have inferior scholars.

True piety indeed is the first qualification of a candidate for the ministry. All other qualifications without this would be only "as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal;" and so far as this qualification is concerned, I admit that education is not essential. The doctrines of Christ are sometimes hid from the wise and the prudent, whilst they are revealed unto babes; accordingly we not unfrequently find amongst the most uneducated, bright examples of strong faith and of the life of religion in the soul. But piety, although of primary importance, is not the only qualification for the Christian ministry. Every one will admit that there are many eminent Christians who have not the gifts requisite to efficiency in the pulpit. Still it may be said that this is no proof of the need of a highly educated ministry; on the contrary, that many who have had but little education have had the necessary gifts,

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and preached the Gospel very acceptably and usefully. I do not deny this. Indeed when I look on the one hand at our lay preachers, and at the value of their services, I feel that we cannot be too thankful to God that He has put it into the hearts of many private Christians to dedicate the powers He has given them to His service and glory; and when I remember, on the other hand, that some who have had but few literary advantages, have not merely been called to, but greatly blessed and honoured of God in the pastoral office, I cannot but allow that a talent for public speaking and for many other duties of the pastorate may exist where the mind has been comparatively undisciplined-nay, even where its views are contracted and its attainments very few. In such cases, however, the true question is not as to the talent and usefulness of such men, but whether their talent and usefulness would not have been largely increased had they enjoyed in early life the advantages of a more thorough education. No doubt natural talent and extraordinary mental power may do much to compensate for the want of mental culture; but if we look to the history of our race, and to the men of the present day, who exert the largest amount of influence, we shall ordinarily find that wherever talent and mental power are most fully developed, the mind has been previously subjected to a process of training and mental discipline which have brought out and strengthened its natural faculties, and fitted it for a degree of self-culture for which it would otherwise have been incompetent.

Granting, however, that there ought to be some education, the inquiry has of late been started, whether the system pursued in most of our colleges is the best adapted to make good theologians and efficient preachers, or whether it does not for this purpose need a radical change. Some, who would not deny that there should be such an education as will develop the mental powers and fit a man to think, and to think vigorously, have put the question-whether the study of theology in its different branches would not answer this end if the classics, the mathematics, and philosophy were to a great extent laid aside; and have maintained that we should produce better theologians and more powerful preachers by giving less attention to what they call secular learning, and more time to dogmatic and exegetical theology, and to cognate subjects.

I propose in this lecture to examine this question, and to inquire whether the College would better answer its end, and render more service to the denomination and to the Church of Christ, if we were in great measure to discard the languages, to banish mathematics, to let philosophy alone, and to give more undivided attention to studies directly bearing on the work of the ministry.

There are two points of view in which we may regard our colleges,— one as developing the intellectual powers, the other as communicating knowledge. We will pursue our inquiry in reference to both these

points, and first regard them as developing the intellectual powers. All study tends to develop and to strengthen the mind. No doubt then that this is the case with theological study, especially when the attention is directed to some of the more difficult questions presented by theology. But what I wish now to ask is, whether this would be equally the case if the mind entered on theological inquiries without previous discipline, and whether the discipline involved in such inquiries would be an adequate substitute for the discipline which the classics, the mathematics, and philosophy would afford. Now in order that the study of theology may excite mental power, instruction must not be passively received, but independence of mind and vigorous thinking must be exercised in the search after truth, For this, however, the mind which has undergone no previous training will be comparatively unprepared. Hence the man who looks to theology alone, or principally, for mental discipline, will not obtain the discipline and power from the study which he would do if his thinking powers were previously developed by other studies. But even if this were otherwise, theological studies would never educate and develop the powers of the mind in the same way as the languages, mathematics, and philosophy. We are accustomed to think only in connexion with language. If we try to think without it, our thoughts, even if we can think at all, are confused and indefinite. To be able, then, to use language with accuracy and precision, must tend to give accuracy and precision to our thoughts. But no one will possess this power who does not understand the principles of language, and has not acquired a knowledge of words, and of their different shades of meaning. Leaving out of consideration, for the present, all other uses of the study of the classical languages, I need not say that it materially assists a man in the general understanding of language, and in gaining a full mastery of his native tongue. The study, then, is of importance to the development of the thinking faculty, a faculty that never can be properly developed except the power be acquired of accurate thinking.

Mathematics is a mental discipline of a kind peculiar to itself. They cannot be studied at all without concentration, patience, and consecutiveness of thought; accordingly, they tend to correct the habit of desultory thinking into which the uneducated fall, and which all find it difficult to overcome. It may be said that concentration and patience of thought are essential to pursuing other studies advantageously. I admit it; but in ordinary cases such concentration and patience will not be given except the mind has been previously disciplined, and hence the other studies referred to will only be very imperfectly pursued, even if pursued at all, by an undisciplined mind, and will never call forth the mental powers which they legitimately demand. Other studies need the power of mind required by mathematics, but mathematics not only need it, but make the mind give it. Lord Bacon says, "In the pure mathe

matics I can report no deficiencies, except it be that men do not sufficiently understand their excellent use, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it. So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a body ready to put itself in all postures, so in the mathematics, that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal and intended." The use which Lord Bacon here calls "collateral and intervenient," is with us principal and intended, and it is a use which cannot be as effectually drawn from any other study. At the same time, the mental discipline of mathematics does not supersede the utility, considered as a mental discipline, of logic and mental philosophy. I do not deny that a man who has never studied logic may reason well, and detect many sophistries in false reasoning; but if the science of reasoning is understood, it will unquestionably improve the power; moreover, the exercises in a course of logic are such as to call the intellectual powers into play, and by so doing to quicken and invigorate them. Mental philosophy requires a mind already somewhat disciplined, but where there is such a mind it tends to perfect its discipline. It brings into use powers which are unexercised in the pure mathematics and in logic-the power of minutely observing phenomena, and the most difficult of all phenomena, the phenomena of our own mindsthe power of reasoning morally as well as demonstratively. It moreover excites attention, and leads to the practice of independent thinking, by presenting questions on which much is to be said on both sides, and considerable differences of opinion exist. And although it may be said that this is the case with theology, there is less danger in trifling with philosophy than with theology. We rather want the developed powers for theology, than to make it a mere instrument of developing them. But independently of this, the theology drawn from Scripture will never exercise the powers as thoroughly as philosophy. In revealed theology we are called to believe on the ground of authority, but authority finds no legitimate place in philosophy. In philosophy our own observation and reason are the ultimate standard of appeal. Accordingly there is more scope for the exercise of mental power, and more dependence has to be placed upon it. Hence the discipline will of necessity be superior. So far, then, as the development of the mind and the training of its powers are concerned, we can find no substitute for the languages, mathematics, and philosophy. Theology does not pretend to do, in the way of mental discipline, what the languages and the mathematics are designed to accomplish; and, with the exception of natural theology, which is really a branch of philosophy, theology cannot take the place of philosophy in training the mental powers; nor, I may add, would even natural theology do all in this respect, which may be