2. As to character of course offered.

DEPARTMENT OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS OF HAMILTON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

1. Hebrew:

SEMITIC LANGUAGES.

(1) Grammar, with practical exercises.

First year.

(2) The prose accents and accentuation.

(3) Translation and study of selections from the historical boɔkз.

2. Elements of comparative Semitic philology.

1. Hebrew:

(1) Prosody, with practical exercises.

(2) Poetic accentuation.

Second year.

(3) Translation and study of selections from the poetical books.

(2) Translation and study of selections from the Peshitto Old Testament. (3) Translation and study of selections from historians and commentators. 3. Assyrian (optional):

(1) Grammar, with practical exercises.

(2) Translation and study of transliterated texts.

(3) Translation and study of cuneiform texts.

1. Hebrew: Reviews.

2.

Chaldee" (elective):

Third year.

(1) Grammar, with practical exercises.

(2) Translation and study of selections from the Targums.

(3) Translation and study of Biblical “Chaldee."

3. Syriac (optional):

(1) Translation and study of selections from the Peschitto New Testament.

(2) Translation and study of selections in verse.

4. Assyrian (optional):

Translation and study of cuneiform texts.

5. Arabic (optional):

(1) Grammar, with practical exercises.

(2) Translation and study of selections from the Koran and the Arabic Bible.

(3) Translation and study of selections from the poets.

6. Comparative Semitic philology and grammar (optional).

To illustrate the intermitting system of the elective course the work at Oberlin Theological Seminary is given:

Comparative Semitic and Septuagint Greek.-In 1890, and every second year, a class will be formed in the Greek of the Septuagint with special reference to the influence of the vocabulary and grammar of that important version upon the New Testament Greek. In 1891, and every second year, a class will make a beginning in comparative Semitic grammar by reading comparatively the first four chapters of Genesis in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic; 40 hours.

At the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, whose peculiarity of independence of schools has been noted, twelve collateral studies, previously irregularly pursued in private classes, have been organized into definite specialties for resident or under-graduates. The first four of these schools deal with Arabic, Aramaic, Assyrian, and the Coptic languages, but it is of the sixth, the eighth, and the twelfth that mention is made here. The sixth course is in Patristic Greek, and during the year "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" and portions of Justin Martyr, etc., were read. The eighth course is in Patristic and scholastic Latin, with readings in Tertullian, Augustine, Bede's History, and the Imitation of Christ. The twelfth course deals with German, as is shown by the following:

Theological German.-The importance of the German language is appreciated by numbers of students in theology. A special class has been regularly organized for beginners; advanced students who shall prosecute with the professor a course of reading in German works of exegesis, church history, systematic or practical theology, will in the future be entitled to a diploma for attainments in this course. The junior class for the present year has mastered the forms and read considerably in the New Testament. The senior class has read largely in the Old Testament.

At the School of Theology of Boston University Spanish is an optional study for those intending to labor among Spanish-American populations. The instruction is given in this as in a number of other studies in the College of Lib. eral Arts of the University. The same advantages are offered at Yale and other seminaries which are university departments.

POST GRADUATE COURSES.

Postgraduate work is individual, and when such students are congregated into classes their work is but the work of the seminarium. A fourth year of work was established at the Andover Seminary as early as 1858, but only survived for a short period. In 1881 it was again established and on a firm basis.

FOREIGN DEPARTMENTS.

When George Primrose, the son of Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, went to Holland to teach the natives English he found his purpose frustrated by his inability to speak Dutch. It has long been found necessary to teach the missionary to the Indian the language of those among whom he is to labor and even to send out native preachers, and quite an effort has been made by several schools during the last decade to educate a ministry that is to deal with our foreign populations. This effort is not only Christian and denominational but patriotic. At the Old German Theological School of Newark (Presbyterian) it is held as a fundamental principle that "to reach any powerful body of foreign people in a large way there must be a native ministry springing from among the people themselves. In view of the great power of the German people in this land it is wise to concede the German language during the period of transition. Success in German churches among adult Germans by ministers preaching exclusively in the English tongue is exceptional, depends on special individual genius, and can not be depended upon for a general system of evangelization. * * * In order to bring the German mind-educated through a long history so entirely different from our own-into sympathy with our doctrine and practice, a rightly devised and wisely conducted indoctrination of the German mind is necessary. * The instruction should be in both languages. * * * The graduate as an individual should gravitate towards the German flock, the pastor and flock as a mass should gravitate towards the American life. The practical effect of the education of German ministers by our established American theological seminaries has been to educate the student away from the German people, thus gaining the individual pastor but losing the flock."

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The German Baptist churches in America, according to the Rochester Theological Seminary, were, in 1850, only 10 in number and, as their number increased many young men of mature years felt themselves called upon to preach the gospel to their countrymen, and the course of the German department, established many years ago, was arranged to suit their scholastic attainments. The course of instruction is subject to modification, according to the needs of the students. The study of the English language does not cease with the second year, but is continued by attendance at many of the lectures and other exercises of the English department. The course of instruction, now extended to six years, is divided into two parts; first, a preparatory or academic course, embracing the three lower classes; and, secondly, the theological course proper, embracing the three higher classes. Students in these higher classes not infrequently continue at the same time their academic studies.

To meet manifest and growing needs" the German department of the Chicago Theological Seminary was opened in 1882, the Dano-Norwegian in 1884, and the Swedish in 1885. "6 The German department is in close connection with the German Seminary at Crete, Nebr., and has already received students from it. The Swedish department has the approval of many of the Swedish churches in this country, both among those which are independent and those which belong to the 'förbundet.' The Dano-Norwegian department has no ecclesiastical connections. It originated in the suggestion of a banker in Chicago, a Norwegian by birth, who has rendered it pecuniary aid." These foreign sections of the school are thus described:

The departments are under the charge of able and judicious teachers of high Christian character, graduates of foreign universities. The instruction given to the students in these departments is similar to that of the special [English] course, and it is expected that they will, as far as possible, attend lectures in the middle and senior years with the regular classes. It is required, also, that all foreign students shalf take at least two exercises a week each year in their own languages. They are allowed to omit in the English course, in the first year, homiletics and natural theology; in the second year, Old Testament introduction; and in the third year, pastoral theology. They have an equivalent for these studies in their own languages. Instruction in English is given

1 Now 150.

to those who are not familiar with that language by Rev. Reinert August Jernberg, a native of Norway, a graduate of Yale College and of Chicago Theological Seminary.

The Slavic department of the Oberlin Seminary was opened at the instance of the officers of the American Home Missionary Society, and has for its object the training of young men of Slavic descent for missionary work among their countrymen in the United States. The course of study now occupies three years, and is pursued in English and Bohemian. In Bohemian, the students are taught by a native teacher the correct use of the language, and are drilled in the preparation and delivery of such addresses as are likely to be required of them. The students for this department are obtained through the instrumentality of the superintendent of missionary work among the Slavic people.

Quite as near to national sympathy, and, in a certain sense, still more deserving of it, are the descendants of those who occupied the territory now covered by a European civilization and also of those who were brought here for the purpose of being sold into perpetual slavery. An interpretation of the Constitution' has made the Indian a peculiar kind of foreigner in our imperium, and an amendment to the Constitution has made the negro a member of our body politic. The General Government cares for and educates the first, while the other has been launched into the struggle for existence without further provision than the constitutional provision referred to, and an education in the public schools of his native State. The improvement effected in the social condition and enlightenment of these two races is largely, if not entirely, due to religious enthusiasm. There is not an American denomination of wealth or power that has not distinguished itself in this work, and it would be invidious to make distinction further than to say that the Protestant churches have operated largely in the South as well as in the West, and that the Roman Catholic Church has also been eminently successful in missionary work among the Indians.

race

66

If we bear in mind the injunction of the German Theological School and the practice of the foreign departments of certain seminaries, one Indian school especially calls for our attention. The Santee Normal Training School was established in 1870 for the purpose of educating native teachers, preachers, interpreters, and business men for the Dakota or Sioux Nation. The great object of the work is to prepare a native agency which shall work the regeneration of a which is so thoroughly controlled in all their ideas and customs by their own religion that no change of life is possible except through the substitution of another." Hence, while the students are fitted for citizenship, care is taken to maintain their common interest in, and sympathy with, their own race. This gives law to the methods and makes it needful to use two languages in order to make the student a competent instructor among his own people. The very idea of education had to be planted in the Indian mind, says Dr. Riggs, the principal. The following are the studies pursued:

Worcester vs. State of Georgia, 6 Peters. The Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, having been seized while performing, under the sanction of the chief magistrate, the duties of a minister of the gospel among the Cherokees, and having been condemned for thereby violating as an intruder a law of Georgia, to four years' hard labor, appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which declared the Cherokees a nation, over which Georgia had no control, Chief Justice Marshall delivering the opinion.

The language of the American negro being English and as he is no longer a heathen, the scope of instruction of the colored theological school is to educate the colored pastor as well as train him as a minister. Thus it follows that the course in a majority of the theological institutions or departments is very simple, being confined in its religious branches to the study of the Bible and of church history. Of the seminary type, however, is the course the Gammon Theological Seminary and that of the theological department of Howard University. In both, however, Hebrew and Greek are optional. In regard to the course in these languages the dean of the latter institution informs the Bureau that they are "for those who have had the advantages of a college education. Most of the students take the English course of study."

In closing this subject, which might as well have been headed "missionary" as "foreign departments," a project of the Boston University to enlarge the usual missionary department into a distinct course, is to be mentioned. In its scientific aspect the course might be called a department of the philosophy and comparison of religions with special reference to missionary labor. As sketched the course is of three years.

CHAIRS ON THE RELATION OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION.

One of the results of the conflict between science and those who believe in revealed religion appears to be the foundation and endowment of new chairs in our theological seminaries, with the view of studying the matter, which may be considered, in military parlance, as carrying the war into Africa. The theological seminary at Columbia, S. C., has a Perkins, professor of natural science in connection with revelation and Christian apologetics; the seminary at Princeton, N. J., has a Stuart, professor of the relations of philosophy and science to the Christian religion; the San Francisco Seminary has a Montgomery professor of apologetics and missions, while the seminary at Oberlin has a Douglass lectureship on the relations of science and religion, and on comparative religion. The scope of this instruction, as might be expected, is very intimately connected with apologetics. At least this is the case at the Columbia (S. C.) Seminary, whose course in the department of natural science, in connection with revelation and Christian apologetics, is concerned in its first year, with the philosophy or basis of religion, in its second with comparative religion, or the study of the forms in which theism has manifested itself, and in its third year with the connection of science with revelation. Of a less apologetic nature from the standpoint of Christianity as a revealed religion and more related to the science of religions, if such a term be allowed, is the comparative study of the religions of the world. The great enterprise of Oxford in publishing the sacred books of Oriental peoples, the remarkable interpretations of Greek, Roman, and Teutonic mythology and folklore, a revival, it would seem, of the exegesis of later Hellenic writers,' the work of Sanskrit scholars, Egyptologists, and Assyriologists in France, Germany, and England, have created an enthusiasm in the direction of inquiry into the scientific basis of theism that has forced its way into the professional schools of Christian theology, though the study is apologetic only so far as it brings out in strong relief the religion of the peoples of Europe against the background furnished by the religions of the conservative peoples of the Orient. The work of the Divinity School of Boston University will illustrate a course in

Comparative theology.-Introduction to the history of religion, comparative theology, and the philosophy of religion; special examination of the ChaldæoAssyrian, the Egyptian, Persian, Indo-Aryan, Chinese, Greek, and Teutonic religions; comparative cosmology and mythical geography of the most ancient nations; essays and discussions.

The courses of the Presbyterian seminaries at Princeton and San Francisco are more particularly concerned as yet with theism and anti-theistic theories. The Princeton course does not seem to be definitely fixed. The dean of the Ryder Divinity School of Lombard University informs the Bureau that the course of that school gives prominence to the relations subsisting between science and religion. The course of the department of the seminary at Columbia, S. C., is given in full.

1 Hibbert Lectures for 1888, Lecture III.

NATURAL SCIENCE IN CONNECTION WITH REVELATION AND CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS.

The instruction in this department is given by means of lectures and recitations. No text-books are prescribed, but books of reference are recommended. Oral and written exercises are regularly required in the class

room.

Each year a course of lectures is given to the several classes in the seminary. In these courses the ground of Christian apologetics is covered in a general way. In all the courses attention is directed to the scientific aspects of the various topics under discussion; and during the senior year special attention is given to the relations of natural science and revelation.

1. Junior year.-The nature, scope, spirit, and aim of apologetics; the theory of knowledge, and the relations of knowledge and belief; the nature of the religious consciousness and theistic belief; the various theories to explain the origin of religion; theistic arguments in detail, and their precise import; antitheistic theories: Atheism, agnosticism, positivism, materialism, and materialistic evolution, pantheism and idealistic evolution, deism, socialism, secularism. Other topics required from time to time in defense of Christianity will be taken up.

2. Middle year.-Comparative religion: Islam, religions of Egypt, Canaan, Phoenicia, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Persia, India, China, Japan, Western Europe, and savage tribes. The supernatural in its historical manifestation. Revelation as historical: Higher criticism and false historical theories of the Scriptures. The Miracle: Its historical evidence and import. The Christ of history: Discussion of false historical views of Christ and the Gospel narratives. The supernatural in a kingdom: The church historically considered. The evidences in general, external, internal, and experimental.

3. Senior year. The connection of science with revelation: Several preliminary questions considered. The field of scientific inquiry will be reviewed and results compared with the Scriptures at various points of contact. Physics: Matter and force briefly considered. Biology: Nature and origin of life. Origin of species by the theory of descent: Anhropology, relation of man to the brute creation, the races of men, the unity and antiquity of the race, man's primitive condition, the pre-Adamite theory. Geology: Specially in its bearing on Genesis. The Deluge: Astronomy and chronology as they relate to the Bible, creation and evolution.

At New Haven a university professorship of music has been created, which is for the divinity school as well as for other departments of Yale. In fact music, elocution, and physical culture appear to have been assuming considerable proportions as concurrent theological studies or exercises.

LAW.

Through a committee, the National Bar Association has for nearly a year been making an investigation of the condition of instruction in jurisprudence, not only in America, but the world over. By the agency of this Bureau a circular of inquiry has been distributed, the answers to which are now receiving the attention of the committee. In a few days their report will be given to the public, and there is therefore no necessity of instituting for the law schools such a far less pretentious and thorough study as has here been made for the schools of medicine and theology.

[NOTE.-As these pages go through the press it can be definately stated that the final report of the committee will appear as a part of the annual report of this Bureau for the school year 1890-91, and also, at an earlier date, in phamplet form. The report as thus presented will contain the results of the very thorough study which the committee made of the methods in vogue in a number of our representive schools of law, and a supplementary series of essays dealing with the study of jurisprudence in European schools, the curricula (in tabular form of the American schools of law, and with the study of law in collegiate institutions and commercial schools.]