DEFICIENCIES OF CLERICAL EDUCATION.

BY JOHN W. DRAPER, M.D., LL.D., OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK.

(From "Thoughts on the Future Civil Policy of America," p. 273.) THERE are three organs of public instruction-the School, the Pulpit, the Press

As respects schools, the primary condition for their efficiency is a supply of well-trained and competent teachers. In former times the education of youth was too often surrendered to persons who had become superannuated in other pursuits, or had failed in them, or had been left in destitute circumstances. But little heed was given by parents or the public to the quality of the information imparted in these concerns. There was a vague notion, which, as we shall see, still unhappily prevails as regards the higher establishments of education, that the training of the mind is of more importance than the nature of the information imparted to it.

Normal schools for the preparation of teachers must necessarily be an essential part of any well-ordered public-school system. In these, young persons of both sexes may be prepared for assuming the duties of teaching. The rule under which they should not only be taught, but likewise subsequently teach-the rule that should be made to apply in every establishment, from the primary school to the university, is this-Education should represent the existing state of knowledge.

But in America this golden rule is disregarded, especially in the case of the higher establishments. What is termed classical learning arrogates to itself a space that excludes much more important things. It finds means to appropriate, practically, all collegiate honours. This evil has arisen from the circumstance that our system was imported from England. It is a remnant of the tone of thought of that country in the sixteenth century; meritorious enough and justifiable enough in that day, but obsolete in this. The vague impression to which I have above referred, that such pursuits impart a training to the mind, has long sustained this inappropriate course. It also finds an excuse in its alleged power of communicating the wisdom of past ages. The grand depositories of human knowledge are not the ancient, but the modern tongues. Few, if any, are the facts worth knowing that are to be exclusively obtained by a knowledge of Latin and Greek; and as, to mental discipline, it might reasonably be inquired how much a youth will secure by translating daily a few good sentences of Latin and Greek into bad and broken English. So far as a preparation is required for the subsequent struggles and conflicts of life-for dis

cerning the intentions and meeting the rivalries of competitors—for skill to design movements and carry them out with success-for cultivating a clearness of perception into the character and motives of others, and for imparting a decision to our own actions—so far as these things are concerned, an ingenious man would have no difficulty in maintaining the amusing affirmation that more might be gained from a mastery of the game of chess than by translating all the Greek and Latin authors in the world.

The remarks I am thus making respecting the imperfections of general education apply, I think, very forcibly to the education of the clergy. The School, the Pulpit, the Press, being the three organs of public instruction, a right preparation of the clergy for their duty is of as much moment as a right preparation of teachers and journalists.

In the education of the American clergyman the classical element very largely predominates. Indeed, it may with truth be affirmed that it is to no inconsiderable degree for the sake of securing such a result that that element is so carefully fostered in the colleges, from which it would otherwise have long ago been eliminated, or, at all events, greatly reduced in prominence. The strength of this wish is manifested by the munificent endowments with which many pious and patriotic men have sustained classical professorships. Perhaps, however, they do not sufficiently reflect that the position and requirements of the clergy have of late years very much changed. Preaching must answer to the mode of thinking of the congregations. But now literary authority has to a very great degree lost its force. Elucidations of Scripture and the defence of doctrine, in modern times, require modern modes of treatment.

But, moreover, in one important respect is the education of the clergy defective. Unhappily, and, it may be added, unnecessarily, there has arisen an apparent antagonism between Theology and Science. Tradition has been made to confront discovery. Now, the discussion and correct appreciation of any new scientific fact requires a special training, a special stock of knowledge. That training, that knowledge, are not to be had in theological seminaries. The clergyman is thus constrained to view with jealous distrust the rapid advancement of practical knowledge. In the case of any new fact, his inquiry necessarily is, not whether it is absolutely true, but whether it is in accordance with conceptions he considers established. The result of this condition of things is, that many of the most important, the most powerful and exact branches of human knowledge, have been forced into a position they never would have voluntarily assumed, and have been compelled to put themselves on their defence-Astronomy, in the case of the globular form of the earth, and its position as a subordinate planet; Geology, as respects its vast antiquity; Zoology, on the problem of the origin of species; Chemistry, on the unchangeability of matter and the indestructibility of force.

In thus criticising education in the higher American establishments, I present views that have forced themselves on my attention in an experience of thirty years, and on a very extensive scale. Not unfrequently I have superintended the instruction, professional or otherwise, of nearly four hundred young men in the course of a single year, and have had unusual opportunities of observing their subsequent course of life.

The education of the clergy, I think, is not equal to that of physicians or lawyers. The provisions are sufficient, and the time is sufficient, but the direction is faulty. In the study of medicine everything is done to impart to the pupil a knowledge of the present state of the subjects or sciences with which he is concerned. The profession watches with a jealous eye its colleges, exposing without hesitation any shortcomings it detects. It will not be satisfied with erudition, it insists on knowledge.

But such modernised instruction is actually less necessary in the life of a physician than it is in the life of a clergyman. The former pursues his daily course in an unobtrusive way; the latter is compelled by his position to publicity. The congregations whom he must meet each Sabbath day, and, indeed, perhaps more frequently, are often too prone to substitute the right of criticism for a sentiment of simple devotion. Very few among them can appreciate the monotonous, the wearing strain of compulsory mental labourlabour that at a given hour must with punctuality be performed. On topics that have been thought about, and written about, and preached about for nearly twenty centuries, they are importunately and unreasonably demanding something new.

In that ordeal the clergyman spends his existence. To maintain the respect that is his due, there are but two things on which he can rely-purity of life and knowledge. Men unconsciously submit to the guidance of what they discern to be superior intelligence. Here comes into disastrous operation the defective organization of the theological seminaries. Content with such a knowledge of nature as might have answered a century ago, the imposing and ever-increasing body of modern science they decline. And yet it is that science and its practical applications which are now guiding the destinies of civilization.

In my "History of the Intellectual Development of Europe" I have had occasion to consider the consequences of the Reformation, and may perhaps be excused the following quotation: "America, in which, of all countries, the Reformation at the present moment has farthest advanced, should offer to thoughtful men much encouragement. Its cities are filled with churches, built. by voluntary gifts; its clergy are voluntarily sustained, and are in all directions engaged in enterprises of piety, education, mercy. What a difference between their private life and that of ecclesiastics before the Reformation! Not, as in the old times, does the layman look upon them as the cormorants and curse of society. They are his faithful advisers, his honoured friends, under whose suggestion and super

vision are instituted educational establishments, colleges, hospitals, whatever can be of benefit to men in this life, or secure for them happiness in the life to come."

No one can study the progress of modern civilization without being continually reminded of the great, it might be said, the mortal mistake committed by the Roman Church. Had it put itself forth as the promoter and protector of science, it would at this day have exerted an unquestioned dominion all over Europe. Instead of being the stumbling-block, it would have been the animating agent of human advancement. It shut the Bible only to have it opened forcibly by the Reformation; it shut the book of Nature, but has found it impossible to keep it closed. How different the result, had it abandoned the obsolete absurdities of patristicism, and become imbued with the spirit of true philosophy-had it lifted itself to a comprehension of the awful magnificence of the heavens above and the glories of the earth beneath-had it appreciated the immeasurable vastness of the universe, its infinite multitude of worlds, its inconceivable past duration! How different, if in place of for ever looking backward, it had only looked forward-bowing itself down in a world of life and light, instead of worshipping, in the charnel-house of antiquity, the skeletons of twenty centuries! How different, had it hailed with transport the discoveries and inventions of human genius, instead of scowling upon them with a malignant and baleful eye! How different, had it canonized the great men who have been the interpreters of Nature, instead of anathematizing them as Atheists!

In our national development it is for the American clergy to shun that great, that fatal mistake. It is for them to remember that the Reformation remains only half completed, until to the free reading of the Book of God there is added the free reading of the Book of Nature. It is for them to remember that there are two volumes of Revelation-the Word and the Works; and that it is the indefeasible right of every man to study and interpret them both, according to the light given him, without molestation or punish

ment.

Since the invention of printing, the power of the pulpit has been subordinated to the power of the press, which is continually gathering force from the increasing diffusion of education. In America the newspaper has become a necessary of life. It makes its successful appearance in villages of which the population would be considered, in other countries, inadequate for its support. Cheap reading is to be had everywhere. The consequence is, that all sides of a question are apt to be read. It is affirmed that the consumption of paper in America, for printing and writing, is more than that of England and France put together.

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF PRIMARY EDUCATION.

BY EDWARD SEGUIN, M.D.

(From his recent work, "Idiocy, and its Treatment by the Physiological Method," published by William Wood and Co. New York.)

THUS education connects a small body with all bodies, a small intellect with the general laws of the universe, through specific instruments of perception.

This being the law of perception of phenomena, it does not matter through which sense we perceive; the same operation being entirely from the mind, is always identical with itself; this law is nothing less than the principle of our physiological method of education.

Thence the law of evolution of the function of the senses ending in intellectual faculty, rules from the youngest child to the most encyclopædic nervous apparatus. A corollary law to this, is the mode of perception and idealization of the impressions according to certain conditions, conformable to the teachings of anatomy and physiology. One thing at a time, is the law of sensorial perception for inferior animals. As many things at a time as necessary to form. a complete idea, is the law for the intellectual comprehension of man. In animals some senses are more perfect than in man, hence their sensations are more perfect than ours; nevertheless, theirs being received in singleness and registered without associations, cannot become ideas, because their notions acquired alone, live or die alone, incapable of fecundation; the lower animals are as far down as that.

But we cannot study the progress of sensorial and intellectual evolution without finding already animals inferior to mammalia which register their sensations and feelings in comparison with each other, and with a meaning attached to them. These animals must receive compared and comparable impressions, to be capable of combining them presently or hereafter, to form new judgments and determinations. The ant, the bee, the spider, the blue-fly and many more, give evidence of their power of idealizing notions, and of the rationality of their determinations. But for the immense

majority of animals, the rule seems to be one perception at a time, whose isolated notion is incapable of entering into collections of images, parents to ideas. Though every observation points to the probable issue of this difference between man and brutes, as being only a gradation, whose lowest strata begins lower than the corals, which know in what direction to build and propagate, and ends where man does not yet dare to aspire. However, few minds are