USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > History of Andover theological seminary, 1933 > Part 7
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The catalogue of 1831 printed the name of Edward Robinson as professor extraordinary of sacred literature. Robinson had studied and taught at Andover a few years before and then spent a long term of study abroad. He be- came renowned as the author of biblical researches in Pales- tine and as founder of the Bibliotheca Sacra. Reverend Thomas H. Skinner came to Andover shortly afterward as professor of sacred rhetoric, but within two years he was followed by Edwards A. Park, who thus commenced a service of forty- five years to the Seminary.
In 1839 the catalogue included for the first time the names of the Trustees and the Visitors, preceded by those of the Faculty. The course of study was outlined on a single page, and for a year appeared a statement of an Advanced Class. Three years later the size of the catalogue had increased to sixteen pages. Within two years brief notices were given of the Library, which then contained more than thirteen thou- sand volumes; to the Porter Rhetorical Society, with its li- brary of 2,600 books; and to the Society of Inquiry, which had accumulated 1,400 publications. Names of instructors appear and disappear : Beckwith, Talcott and Henry B. Smith,
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Russell, Robbins, Dickinson, and Robie. Professors Woods and Stuart were retired as emeritus. In 1844 the number of students fell below one hundred and continued in the nineties most of the time for a number of years.
Both Justin and Bela B. Edwards joined the Faculty during this period. Justin Edwards was a farmer's son and was compelled to struggle for an education, but he graduated with honors from Williams College in 1810. During the second year of his theological course at Andover he was asked to become pastor of the South Parish Church, which then in- cluded members from the Seminary and Academy, and he remained in that position fifteen years. He was one of the founders of the American Tract Society, and acted as corre- sponding secretary and manager. For seven years he was pastor of the Salem Street Church in Boston, and then for the same length of time he was secretary of the American Temperance Society. In 1836 he was elected president of the Seminary, but after six years he resumed secretarial duties, this time of the American and Foreign Sabbath Union. He was devoted to these various causes and wrote Sabbath and Temperance manuals, besides a commentary on the New Testament which was published at Andover by the American Tract Society. He held an unusual relation to the Seminary. A student within three years of its founding and pastor in the South Parish for fifteen years, he became president of the school, was thirty-three years a Trustee, and finally chair- man of the Board. Thus he saw Seminary life from all its angles.
Bela B. Edwards had a literary as well as an educational career. Trained at both Amherst and Williams and a grad- uate of Andover in 1830, he served as assistant secretary of the American Education Society for five years and then became editor of the American Quarterly Register. He held that po- sition for fourteen years, and part of the time was editor of the American Quarterly Observer and of the Biblical Reposi- tory. Later he was on the board of the Bibliotheca Sacra. He was not ordained until 1837, when he became professor of the Hebrew language and literature at Andover Seminary,
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where he remained until his death fifteen years later. His spirituality and friendliness earned for him the encomium- "that tender heart, that seraphic spirit." His monument bore the inscription : " An humble student of the Bible ; an admirer of nature, an enthusiast in the classics and the fine arts ; deli- cate and practical in his tastes; careful and patient in his researches ; of multifarious learning, of comprehensive judg- ment ; earnest and sensitive, but gentle and serene ; severe towards himself, charitable to others ; he was a discreet coun- sellor, a revered friend, a disciple whom Jesus loved."
With the middle of the nineteenth century came changes which marked the approach of the semi-centennial of the Seminary. The founders were gone or lingered, like Squire Farrar, to help celebrate the fifty years. The familiar figures of many years were seen no more in the classrooms. Pro- fessors Woods and Stuart had seemed as firmly planted as the elms on the campus. Yet the time had come when the eye was dimmed and the natural force abated, and they exchanged the lectures of the classrooms for the mellowing thoughts of the fireside. Long had they been neighbors on Main Street, one in a house that had been built two years after the opening of the Seminary, the other six years later. But as new occu- pants took the chairs of instruction, so they replaced the older men in the professors' houses. Professor Barrows gave a new oriental atmosphere to the study that for so long had breathed the flavor of theology. Professor Thayer before long restored the biblical atmosphere in the Stuart house.
Edwards A. Park was transferred from the chair of sacred rhetoric, which he had held for eleven years, to the chair of Christian theology as successor of Woods. Some thought that his theological coins did not ring true, but he lived to be recog- nized as the champion of Calvinistic orthodoxy and to fasten his system of theology upon the thought of a generation of Congregational ministers. Austin Phelps became Bartlet pro- fessor of sacred rhetoric, and came to exert an influence over the preaching of his pupils comparable to that of Park in the- ology. Calvin E. Stowe was a professor of high standing for twelve years in his own right, while he enjoyed the reflected
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glow of his wife's fame. W. G. T. Shedd, as professor of church history, brought added reputation to Andover through his books as well as his classroom instruction. Lowell Mason and George F. Root at times were instructors in music.
Elijah P. Barrows became professor of the Hebrew lan- guage and literature in 1853. A graduate of Yale, he had been at Western Reserve University for fifteen years as professor of sacred rhetoric. At Andover he taught Hebrew at first, and was then promoted to a full professorship. He was to remain at Andover for thirteen years and then to round out his teaching career at Oberlin. It was usual for Andover to look with preference to her own alumni as prospective teachers, but this did not prevent a wider look abroad if there was a professor of note rising above the horizon somewhere else. The successor of Barrows was Charles M. Mead, who had graduated from Middlebury, had been a teacher at Phillips Academy at Andover, and then had gone to study at Halle and Berlin. By that time he was prepared for a pro- fessional career, and the Trustees elected him to the chair of Hebrew language and literature at Andover, which he occu- pied for fourteen years until 1882. Later on he put ten years into literary work in England and Germany and many more in America, taught at Princeton and Hartford seminaries, and was one of the American revisers of the Bible. He was author and editor. He was bespangled with degrees, doctor of philosophy from Tübingen, doctor of divinity from Middle- bury and Princeton, and doctor of laws from Middlebury, but he was human just the same.
The number of students was in the nineties for several years. There were exactly one hundred in 1854. Three years later the number had risen to one hundred and twenty-three, representing the five states of the Old Northwest, Canada, and England, as well as New England, and fourteen of them were from institutions other than the Congregational colleges of New England.
At the middle of the century the earlier alumni were bearing the burden and heat of the active ministry. They must have looked back in thought now and then to the old Brick Row
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and the classrooms where they had struggled with Hebrew roots and Greek stems, waged wordy battle over 'ologies and 'isms, and practised the art of swaying the minds and emo- tions of congregations. They recalled the friendships that were cemented as they walked under the green canopy of Elm Arch or looked out on the "old orthodox green, so very orthodox that all the paths are at right angles, and no cuts across." There they had opened their hearts to one another ; there they had pondered long in the Society of Inquiry whether their duty lay near at home or farther afield; there they had sung lustily on the chorus of the Lockhart Society, or had declaimed on the platform of the Porter Rhetorical Society. Or their thought wandered to the staid frolics of the town church or the professors' homes, or to the long walks across country to woods and ponds and around the bald hills. They remembered how they strolled along Indian Ridge and traced the windings of the Shawsheen River, or loafed on the slope above Pomp's Pond, or climbed Sunset Rock to get a view of the sunset.
Sunsets from Andover Hill were frequently eulogized by those who loved the old town. One speaker at the fiftieth anniversary declared: "I have looked upon the far-famed sunsets of Italy, and my sober conviction is that never was there a display of the beauties and glories of the firmament more magnificent than that which is often furnished, from this very spot, to those who here are in training for the Chris- tian ministry ; as if to them, like the apostle at Patmos, a door was opened into heaven. Even now after years of absence I cannot rid myself of the impression, deepened by so many hours of twilight musings, that the transition from this fav- ored place to the mansions of the blessed is specially easy and natural, that the gates of pearl and the stones of sapphire lie just beyond those gorgeous clouds in the western sky, which forever are taking and giving glory in the light of the setting sun."
A student writing from Andover Hill in 1856 thus de- scribed the school and its environs : "To the north the eye can travel up to the blue hills of New Hampshire, and only three
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miles distant stand and smoke the mammoth factories of the city of Lawrence. The whole scenery about is dotted with se- questered villages and snow-white farmhouses. Lowell, Salem, Haverhill, and Boston, are next-door neighbors. On the south is a hedge of railroad; on the east we can almost hear the roaring of the ocean ; on the north flows the devious but busy Merrimac ; while the west, to say nothing of its home associa- tions, gives us a never-to-be-forgotten sunset. Thus environed, overarched by a deep blue sky, and standing upon ground whose beauty pen and paper cannot paint, Andover is the spot for a seminary .... Nearly every house looks like a country- seat, and even the old edifices, which were raised, I suppose, in the last century, have an air of neatness about them, being clothed in the purest white. It is a very wealthy place ; but the wealth of the Seminary astonishes me. Nearly every house within a quarter of a mile is owned by the Trustees."
The Seminary approached its semi-centennial with pride and confidence. It was no longer an experiment. It had settled down to steady usefulness decade by decade. Its graduates had gone hither and yon on various errands bent. They were pastors in country and city. They were missionaries in the East and the West. They were in demand for chairs of instruc- tion and administration in the colleges, in editors' sanctums, and in secretarial offices. Times were changing. The anti- slavery agitation was in the air. Anti-masonry and anti-popery were clamorous for support. The Mormons had been creat- ing excitement in Missouri, and the Kansas Crusade was on. But staid old New England was not revolutionary, either with quack religion or social creed. The Congregational churches were still orthodox, and the old gospel was the theme of the pulpit. Those were halcyon days for theological professors, leisurely days for village ministers. They were not hazed by committees and disturbed by telephone calls. They were not vexed, as their brethren were later, by labor unions or the Ku Klux Klan. They could still take time to drive leisurely around among their parishioners and listen to the recital of ills real or imaginary. There were no campaigns of religious education or social service. Sermons, to be sure, must be
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wrought out on the anvil, not tossed together with an assort- ment of stories; because the people had ideas of their own about doctrine, and they liked to hear orthodoxy expounded. And the deacons held their positions for life, while the min- ister's was more precarious and subject to behavior accordant with the will of elect laymen. But the minister was held in honor in his own church and community, and to be an alumnus of Andover gave prestige.
The year 1858 brought the fiftieth anniversary, and the semi-centennial was celebrated on Wednesday and Thursday, August fifth and sixth. Old graduates forgot for the time their worries over the financial depression that had come the year before, and their forebodings over the shadow that was spreading over the nation with its threat of civil war. Not in a rumbling stagecoach and a cloud of dust over the turnpike did they return to Andover, as in the olden days, but with greater comfort, if not cleanliness, over the rails. They came back to find the old carpenter shop made over into a residence for Professor Stowe and his family. Very likely they stopped to pay their respects to the militant wife who had kindled a conflagration of emotional excitement across the country by her descriptions of the suffering of the Negro. Uncle Tom's cabin was away down south in the land of cotton, but his wrongs were vivid to the conscience of America, because the wife of a professor gave voice to the heart of a race while she rocked the cradle of her youngest child.
Seminary customs had not changed much. If the visitors had grown soft out in the pastorate, they must get up to a 6.15 o'clock chapel service before breakfast. Even in Anni- versary Week Seminary prayers must not be delayed, and breakfast must wait. Seminary Commons had been moved ten years before to the corner of Main and Morton Streets. Alumni greeted one another and exchanged reminiscences, and met again in class reunions. They caught step with the academic procession, and absorbed the spirit of the anniver- sary which was so important a landmark in Andover history. Dr. Leonard Bacon recited the story of progress in an his- torical address. Memorial addresses were delivered on the
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illustrious members of the Faculty who had passed on. The Library and its collections were thrown open for inspection. A spirit of decorous gaiety pervaded the campus, and a rosy future was anticipated for the Seminary.
Scarcely was the celebration over when war broke upon the country. The community hummed with excitement, and pres- ently volunteers were drilling in expectation of marching southward. The students could not escape feeling the emo- tions of the time. They joined in the exercises that attended the raising of a flag, which was flung to the breeze at the Seminary, listened to the prayer of Professor Park, the pres- entation speech of Professor Phelps, and the address of Pro- fessor Stowe, and thrilled as they sang Mrs. Stowe's original hymn written for the occasion. The men of the Seminary fraternized with the Phillips Guard, the Havelock Grays, and the Andover Light Infantry, and realized that real war was at hand. Mrs. Stowe gave a collation to the Havelock Grays.
Interest in the anti-slavery movement had been current in the years before the war. A small abolition society was or- ganized in Andover at least fifteen years earlier. The society on one occasion appointed a student delegate to a convention in New York. It was necessary to obtain the permission of Pro- fessor Woods, and this was refused. The student went in spite of the refusal, expecting to be disciplined on his return, but he escaped. It was only a few years since the Trustees had reprimanded the Faculty because its members spent too much time out of town, and perhaps the Faculty thought it as well not to press their authority against a student.
A number of students enlisted in the army; others who would have entered delayed or abandoned their purpose. The number of students declined from one hundred and thirty- three in 1860 to sixty-eight in 1864. Andover alumni joined the army either as chaplains or soldiers until the Seminary was represented on the roster by sixty-five men. One man was brevetted a brigadier general. Four were killed or died of wounds. A chaplain was killed as he was going to the relief of a wounded comrade.
The Lockhart Society broadened its repertory to include
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patriotic songs. They sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" at the flag raising. At a town celebration on Washington's Birthday they rendered the same song and added "Hail Columbia," "America," and the "Russian Hymn." They did not disdain to assist in a festival of the Female Missionary Society in the town hall. After the war had progressed, con- scientious men faced the problem whether country or Semi- nary had the more immediate claim. It was then that the Lockhart Society lost both its president and secretary by enlistment.
Other evidences of the widening scope of the Society ap- peared even before the war. Its members accepted an invita- tion to spend the evening at Abbot Academy. The secretary recorded a minute in the archives that "the Society passed several hours very pleasantly in the company of the teachers and their pupils, chatting, partaking of a handsome collation, singing and listening to music by some of the young ladies," after which they took their leave, and like real college boys sang a couple of pieces as a serenade.
Even more venturesome was an excursion to the neighboring town of Middleton to give a concert. They went in three con- veyances over the road, performed their parts creditably, and then accepted an invitation to a hospitable home for refresh- ments. In due time they commenced the return journey, be- guiling the way with various adventures of the road in mid- Victorian fashion, making merry with "all manner of music, stories, jokes, and other theological amusements," and arriv- ing at the Seminary about "21/4 o'clock A.M., well pleased, in good order, and sleepy." One wonders whether Dr. Pearson would have disciplined the boys for such revelry fifty years before, and whether the student who thought it frivolous to meet in society at a professor's house would not have been scandalized. That this was not the only fling engaged in by the singing society is clear from the record of a visit of nine of them to the North Andover Church. They rendered "Lovely Night," the "Miller's Song," and a march "in a proper and artistic manner," but these were plainly unacceptable to the audience of young children, so one of the students read to
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them "Darius Green and His Flying Machine" amid tre- mendous applause, and the Society sang "Three Black Crows" and "Upidee," and adjourned.
Amid these occasional diversions the Society did not forget its main purpose. It resolved as a result of experience and observation that theological students should cultivate their musical capacities sufficiently so that they might start a tune in social worship, and might exert an influence in guiding the music of the sanctuary. They resolved also that church wor- ship should be conducted wholly as a devotional service, and not as an artistic or operatic performance. And finally they resolved that it was highly important that churches should have congregational singing, and that Sunday School children should be trained to sing such music as they would come to use in the service of worship in the meetinghouse.
They continued occasionally to go out into the country to give a concert, and once they sang at an entertainment given by the Boston School of Oratory in the Old South Church, the proceeds being turned over to the cause of home missions. They furnished the music for public meetings of the Porter Rhetorical Society and the Society of Inquiry. They profited from the instruction of Lowell Mason. But they were not without annoyances. On one occasion they attempted an effort beyond their powers which "but for ye accuracy and efficiency of President Seymour would have involved ye Lockharts in un-get-out-able disgrace." The week before that unfortunate occurrence the members of the Society lost patience with the second bass, and it was voted to instruct the president to labor with him and bring him up to a higher standard of attendance and practice or to ask his resignation.
Years before the Society had asked the Trustees to pro- vide an instructor in music, and at times such instruction was given. Not long after the last incidents occurred a musical director was receiving seventy-five dollars a year, including the organist, for leading the Glee Club, which the Society sometimes called itself, providing a choir for the Sunday evening services and an organist and leader for morning prayers and the Wednesday evening conference, and giving
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a course of twelve lessons in elementary music to the students through the winter.
Inter-Seminary relations took on a new phase. Back in the early days of the century, when a few students were cher- ishing the flame of missionary interest, they were concerned with the state of mind of different seminaries on that subject, and branches of the Brethren were organized. But denomi- national interests divided attention and increased organiza- tions, and inter-seminary relations lapsed. After 1870 the idea of closer friendliness led to the organization of a social union of the theological students at Boston University School of Theology, the Cambridge Episcopal School, the Newton Theological Institution and Andover. In the early winter of 1875 the Andover students played host to the Union, receiving the delegates in the forenoon, holding a public meeting in the South Parish Church, where Phillips Brooks and other well- known ministers addressed them, with music by the musical societies of Andover and Boston University, with class prayer meetings and a visit to the library, and in the afternoon a dinner followed by toasts and a God-speed as the visitors left for Boston on a special train. Similar rallies were held inter- mittently in subsequent years. Once the students assembled at Boston University, another time at Cambridge, when Har- vard and Tufts were represented. Several of the conferences at Andover were devoted to the subject of missions. The ebb and flow of interest depended on the leadership of a few men who from time to time had a larger vision than the ordinary.
Andover felt the competition of other schools as the num- ber of seminaries increased, and a tendency appeared to decline in numbers. Once the Civil War was over, the enroll- ment increased. Young men who had been delayed by the war entered the school. In 1866 the mark of one hundred was passed once more, though attendance was to drop off seri- ously in the next decade. The fluctuation in attendance was occasioned by a number of factors. A partial cause of the oc- casional dearth of students was the decrease in the number of college students entering the ministry. The rise of Hartford and Yale stiffened competition. Andover was one of the first
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of the seminaries to experiment with an English course for men who had not had the advantage of college preparation. A special professor was appointed for their instruction with power to decide the courses that the students should take, be- sides a prescribed course in Historical Studies in the English Version of the Scriptures. In twelve years eighty students were enrolled in the department, but the experiment came to an end with the resignation of Professor Taylor, who had been in charge. The Advanced Course, which had been tried early in the history of the Seminary, was tried again, and reached the number of more than one hundred. Yale had made a suc- cess of the plan, and its inception at Andover drew Trinitarian students from Harvard. They liked freedom from lectures, the opportunity of having special distinguished instructors from outside to lecture to them, even from Europe, and they enjoyed doing creative work under the direction of the Faculty.
Attendance at the Seminary depended many times on whether a student could obtain pecuniary aid. The founders of the institution realized that such would be the case and made provision for scholarships. The Constitution provided that no student in the school should ever be charged tuition. Soon there was more demand than could be met, since many of the men depended solely on their own exertions. Scholar- ship funds were therefore sought for, and the time came when a student received two hundred dollars a year from the Semi- nary and the American Education Society, and additional assistance for special need.
Eventually it became necessary to raise funds for increased endowment and new buildings. The Seminary was fortunate at the beginning in its benefactors. The necessary buildings were provided and sufficient money was available for the modest needs of the school. With a professor's salary fixed at one thousand dollars, or even fifteen hundred, as it was after 1819, with a residence rent free, the demands upon the treasury were not heavy. Yet one-third of the benefactions were unproductive of income, so that the vested funds were not so large as was popularly supposed. When the large num-
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