The Emancipation of Massachusetts. By Brooks Adams. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. pp. 382. The story of the Pilgrims has two sides,- one, as told in the Fourth of July orations and on Forefathers' Day; the other, as given here with vigor and unrelenting asperity. The tale, it may be, is no worse than that of our "century of dishonor," or of the British rule in India or Ireland, or of the Napoleonic Empire, which were all crimes of the secular power; and has to set against it the unique record of the creation of a free and vigorous State. But it is a tale, perhaps, still better worth our study. We shall return to it next month. Agatha and the Shadow. A Novel. Boston: Roberts Brothers. A Year in Eden. By Harriet Waters Preston. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Young People's History of Ireland. By George Makepeace Towle. Lee & Shepard. Boston: Risifi's Daughter. A Drama. By Anna Katharine Green. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. The Monarch of Dreams. By Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 16mo. pp. 52. John Jerome: His Thoughts and Ways. A Book without Beginning. By Jean Ingelow. Boston: Roberts Brothers. pp. 255. Footprints of the Saviour: Devotional Studies in the Life and Nature of our Lord. By the Rev. Julian K. Smyth. Boston: Roberts Brothers. pp. 231. The Nation in a Nutshell. A Rapid Outline of American History. By George Makepeace Towle. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 16mo. pp. 147. (Well described in the title.) Scriptures, Hebrew and Christian, arranged and edited for young readers as an introduction to the study of the Bible. By Edward T. Bartlett, D.D., and John P. Peters, Ph.D. Vol. I. Hebrew Story from Creation to the Exile. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. pp. 545. Price $1.50. (To be reviewed in our next.) EDITOR'S NOTE. - From press of matter, several articles already in type are unavoidably deferred to March. Among these is a careful and valuable résumé of Prof. Kuenen's important volume on the composition of the Hexateuch. The very recent intelligence of the death of Rev. W. G. Eliot, of St. Louis, and of Rev. David A. Wasson, also forbids here a fit notice of the life and work of these true and noble men. UNITARIAN REVIEW VOL. XXVII. MARCH, 1887. HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL. No. 3 The history of the Harvard Divinity School is in one respect very different from that of the other departments of the University. They began with small classes; and the classes gradually increased, though not without fluctuations. The first college class, for example, numbered nine: the present Senior Class numbers two hundred and thirty-nine. The Divinity School began also with small classes, but here the resemblance ceases. The classes did not grow larger. The average at one period of its history is not very different from that at another. Within the narrow limits that the number of students allows, there have been, indeed, great variations. These have been sudden and apparently capricious. Only twice did the number of a graduating class reach fourteen, several times thirteen; but the average has been much less than that, and a class of fourteen would perhaps be preceded or succeeded by a class of three. The reason for this lack of increase in the matter of numbers suggests interesting questions. Perhaps the cause may be found, to some extent, in the fact that the Unitarian body, with which the School has been closely connected, has been in a like manner comparatively stationary in the matter of numbers. The relation between the School and the denomination cannot, however, have been one merely of demand and supply; for this denomination has often felt sorely the need of preachers. A deeper explanation is found in the fact that, unfortunately, the Unitarian body has not produced so many ministers as it has needed. Indeed, in the last years, its supply has come to a large extent from without its own borders. The cause of this fact, and the possibility of its removal, are matters that I cannot here discuss. However little change there has been in the numbers of the School, there have been great changes in its internal economy. The kind of men, the grade of their culture, their previous history, these have been very different at different periods of the history of the School. For the first six years, beginning with 1817, it had no students who were not graduates of Harvard. In 1823 appears a student from Brown. For five years, one graduate of Brown stands every year by the side of Harvard men. Next in importance to Brown, so far as the supply of students in the earlier days of the School is concerned, stands Bowdoin. In the thirteenth year of its history is the first graduate who has not a college degree. The number of men who are not college graduates increases as the years pass, until we reach a period when the college men are in a great minority. In process of time, also, the number of colleges represented in the Divinity School is greater in proportion to the number of students than that in any other branch of the University. These colleges are some of them in States not dreamed of when the School was founded. In 1859, the School was larger than it had been before or than it has been since. It numbered in all thirty-six. In this number there were only six who had college degrees. This temporary increase was the result of a very peculiar history. Rev. George H. Hepworth, then a clergyman in Boston, had felt the need of bringing more men into the Unitarian ministry. The field was white for the harvest, but the laborers were few. He undertook to establish a Divinity School in Boston. It was without endowment and without buildings. The Unitarian clergymen of Boston lent their aid. The various departments of study were distributed among them. Surely, so far as the teaching force was concerned, the School was strong. Circulars had been scattered broadcast over the land. The students were to support themselves by work. There was either no entrance examination or a very slight one. Neither money nor training was required. A goodly number of men responded to the call. I hope that some time the whole inner history of this movement will be written. At present, I have only to do with its outcome. The School proved a troublesome thing to manage, and the Harvard Divinity School was urged to take the students off its hands. This was a critical moment for the Harvard School. Its requisites for admission had not been high. To receive these students, it would have, substantially, to give up all requirements for admission. This it decided to do. The bars were taken down, and almost any one whose character seemed good might enter. It was in the year after this change took place that my connection with the school as a teacher began. Whatever may be thought of the policy of the step just taken, the result was certainly, for the time, most interesting. These men who had come without special intellectual preparation were hungry and thirsty for knowledge. They were thoroughly in earnest. Some of them were very hard workers. They received most gladly such help as could be given them. The more sharply a sermon might be criticised, for instance, the happier and the more grateful did the man appear. He felt that he was getting what he came for. I never knew such progress as some of these men made. Indeed, taking it all together, though there were some failures, the experiment had all the success possible to it. If we look over the list of the men who were in the School at that time, taking those who had left a brilliant record in college, those whose education was beginning, and those who in the matter of culture stood between the two, rarely has the School done better work. Rarely have there been more men in its walls at one time whose names were to become familiar to the churches; rarely, more whose less known work was to be more earnest and successful. The next year, so far as regular students were concerned, the former requirements for admission were restored. These, however, were not high; and for some time the standard of scholarship of most of the students was low. I have said that the experiment had all the success that was possible to it. It may be asked, Why, then, could the School not continue indefinitely in the same line of work? One reason was obvious to any who knew anything in regard to the relation of the School to the University. At this distance of time, the truth may be spoken with all openness. The School had lost caste in the University. It was considered a place which any one could enter, and where any one who entered could receive from the beneficiary funds aid sufficient to cover all his expenses. What in the college is a scholarship, to be striven for, here was believed to be freely given to whoever might need. This picture was hardly overdrawn. Lest I should seem to criticise the management of the School, I will say that the step was taken at the urgency of some of the most venerated among the clergy. There was a great cry in the churches for ministers. The number of educated men who offered themselves for the service had been growing smaller, till the supply threatened to fail. We know what, according to the parable, must be done, when the guests first bidden prove unworthy. I will say, further, that, coming as I did from a part of the field where men were sorely needed, and becoming profoundly interested in the students whom I found at Cambridge, I was, until experience corrected the mistake, in sympathy with the course that the School was following. I have it on my conscience that I helped to secure aid for men whose place was not in such an institution. I remember men, one of whom at the last accounts was doing good business as a tailor, and another as a shoemaker, and I hope plying their trades none the worse for their experience in a Divinity School. I think with less pleasure of one or two others, who might well have followed their example. Yet I must repeat my tribute to the worth and the practical success of the majority of the men who |