thorough and effectual preparation for the ministry. Indeed, it is rare to meet with a student of this Seminary, that has taken a full course of study, who does not, after four or five years' experience in the ministry, wish that it were in his power to come back and protract the period of his preparation. Good sense and experience necessarily engender such desires as these. Most sincerely do I wish that these views, which have been forced upon me by long and repeated experience, might be seriously weighed by all young men in a state of preparation for the ministry. They would help to render them very patient under the protracted period of their preparation; above all, when that preparation might be completed by the age of thirty, or even of thirty-five. It must not be supposed, however, after all which I have said, that the Faculty of this Seminary take the position, that all who go into the ministry must go through a regular course of study in a theological seminary, or even in a college. We never have once thought of maintaining such a position. In the primitive age of Christianity, there were different orders of men in the ministry, who were diversely qualified. There were apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, preachers, and even others still. So it may and should be now. I do not mean, that all these orders, with the same names and offices should exist; for some of these were extraordinary, and therefore temporary. What I mean is, that men of different degrees of acquisition, and different kinds of talent, may be admitted to the ministry, with profit to the church. Some begin preparation for this work so late in life, that they ought not to go through a nine or ten years' course of preparatory study. They may be very useful, by their sound sense and solid piety, in a humbler grade of action. It is not the less honorable in the sight of God. But let none of those who have talents and opportunity to cultivate them, neglect to do so. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. It is so in the church, as well as out of it. Else why did the Saviour choose a man that had been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, to convert the Gentile world, and not select one of the twelve, not even the disciple who leaned on his bosom? Men cannot teach what they do not know; and men cannot bring out of their treasures things new and old, who have laid up neither. Such is the short and simple account of this whole matter. Nor can it be said, with justice, that the primitive age of Christianity employed teachers who were introduced into their office with but little delay. How long were the apostles under the teaching of Jesus himself? What does Paul mean, when he says that a teacher must be didaztizós, i. e. fitted to teach? And what, when he says that he must not be veóquτos, i. e. an unexperienced man? Besides; even if it could be shown, that men in the primitive age came speedily into the teacher's office, it would do nothing toward establishing views opposite to those which I have inculcated. The Spirit then bestowed extraordinary and miraculous gifts; we do not expect them now, and have no right to act on the presumption that they will be bestowed. Knowledge is then an aid which must be sought, in order to qualify men for the great business of teaching. I have only to add, that I do most sincerely entreat every young man, who looks forward to the sacred office, to consider well this subject, and not to act with hurry and precipitation in respect to it. I would hope, moreover, that what I have said will encourage many excellent young men, somewhat advanced in the period of their youth, not to forego the work of the ministry, because they must come into it somewhat late. Should the views I have now suggested be subservient to either of the purposes just named, I shall not have undertaken in vain to make this brief communication. Yours truly, Theol. Seminary, Andover, April 4th, 1839. M. STUART. VOL. XI. 59 AMERICAN EDUCATION SOCIETY, AND ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. [From the English Correspondent of the New York Evangelist.] THERE is no institution in your country | which belong to us, as Congregationalists. that excites greater interest among Christians in this land, than the one above named, when its magnitude and its objects are brought before them. They are surprised at two things: first, at the immense number of its beneficiaries; and, secondly, at the liberality of its constitution- the former being more than double the number than can be found in all our theological institutions, belonging to evangelical denominations, which have specifically in view the education of a rising ministry; the latter being so different from what exists in our institutions. Each denomination has its own seats of learning, and its separate circle of supporters, who patronize (speaking generally) their own sect. I ain, of course, not including the students in our English and Scotch universities, who are preparing, as for a mere profession, for the state churches. The question has been again and again asked, "Why is there no similar institution in Britain with your Education Society? Do we not need as many ministers as you do? and are not the wants of the world so great, as to call for multiplied efforts? I greatly fear that we are not prepared for such a magnificent and useful society. Allow me to state a few reasons, which will, perhaps, lessen the surprise of some of your readers, who are disposed to reproach us for the absence of such an institution. There has been, till very lately, a mighty obstacle thrown in the way of a liberal education among Dissenters: the universities of England were closed against them, unless they were prepared to compromise their principles, and be guilty of perjury. If a few entered at Cambridge, to study general literature, and proceeded to A. B., they were not called on to degrade themselves; but, as it regarded students of theology, it was out of the question to attempt such an entrance. This, however, I do not regret; except as discovering an exclusive and bigoted spirit. Dissenters would not have been so useful nor so spiritual, had these young men been exposed to the corrupting influences of these national seats of learning. What they might have gained in Greek and mathematics, (for in these branches only do they stand for honors,) they would have lost in personal piety, in purity of motive, and in humility of heart. They would, in fact, have been unfitted, by the associations formed in those demoralizing and aristocratic schools, for the humble, yet efficient theological seminaries The exclusive system referred to, confined our means of literary and classical improvement to our grammar schools-to private or public proprietary schools-to the Scotch colleges, and to our theological seminaries. This rendered it necessary, in the last named institutions, to occupy more time in classical and philosophical studies, than would have been required had the young men been previously trained in a literary institution; for I suppose a larger proportion of our educated ministry have given up secular employments for spiritual labors, than with you: so that, though they had had a good education when boys, it became necessary to go over again the higher branches of classical learning, which they had pursued at school in early life, when they entered on theological pursuits. The funds which were provided for the institutions with which these pious youth became connected, were in general sufficient to support or aid all that the buildings could accommodate. If appeals were made to the public for pecuniary assistance by any of them, it was to their own friends, or to the ministers who had been educated at them. This is one reason why no general or national society has been formed for the education of ministers. We had no colleges to which young men could be sent; and as institutions already existed, and had been in existence for many years, supporters had predilections for certain places of learning, and were not disposed to do any thing that might lessen the efficiency of their favored schools. They could not see that they might greatly promote the interests of such institutions, by sending beneficiaries to them, and paying for them. They seem to have clung to the idea, that a national society would interfere with the individual interests of their own alma mater. There is, perhaps, another reason, that has kept from the Christians of this country the necessity of doing more for educating the ministry. It is this: that few of our theological institutions have their full compliment of numbers. There are ten such seminaries, belonging to the Congregational denomination, in this country; and I believe that I am correct when I say, that they could receive one-fourth more in addition to the number they now have. This is known; and it has an injurious effect on Christians in general, in lessening their exertions in a cause of such vast importance to future generations. I have little doubt, if a much greater number of can didates came forward, desiring the work of the ministry, so as to fill our existing institutions, that Christians would be roused to exertion, and be more likely to aid a society like yours. I admit most fully, that this is not a favorable view to give of the state of our churches. From them, the young men must come; and if even existing seminaries, which have not been able hitherto to supply ordinary demands, are not filled, how are the present extraordinary demands of the world to be met? At present, we find it very difficult to get suitable men to fill our vacant churches. There is a deficiency to a great extent; and how this can be supplied, unless increased exertions are made, I cannot tell. It is true, there is a class of ministers without churches, who seem to hang as a dead weight on the community. They never should have been in the ministry at all; but, having entered it, they cannot, or will not, turn their hands or energies to any thing else. Such men live amongst us, and seem to give strangers the idea, that we have too many ministers. It is not so, however: we need a large supply of welleducated, strong-minded, devoted men. We have difficulties to contend with, that you know nothing of in your country. A dominant national church closes many doors that would be open to Christian enterprise, did it not exist. We need men who have vigor-moral power, to break open those closed doors. We need pioneers. We are using means to get them, and hope some will be procured. The last difficulty I would name, as preventing a national education society, is the jealousy of the sects now existing. The Episcopalians are out of the question. The Wesleyan Methodists have only very recently admitted the necessity of an educated ministry. The other sections of Methodism care nothing about it. I am sorry to say, that the most ignorant men, as to general knowledge, are encouraged to occupy the pulpit. They do not desire education. The denominations that are left are the Baptist and Congregationalist. The former have theological institutions of their own; and you know, as well as I do, that a spirit of liberality is not spreading among them. The Congregationalists, of course, cannot be expected to sustain a NATIONAL Society, when they would have all to pay, and very little of the benefit in return, either for themselves or the common cause of Christian liberality. As far as I know their opinions, they are, and ever have been, the determined friends of an educated ministry. This was shown in former generations, when there was opposition and persecution on this very account. Thus, amidst the influence of a state church, of sectional prejudices, and of isolated effort, we can at present form no great, widely spreading educational institution, having in view the increase of ministers of Jesus Christ. TEACHERS SEMINARY, ANDOVER, MASS. THE Trustees of Phillips Academy, some | exercises of the Institution. In the third years since, projected the plan of a Seminary story are three lecture rooms, a library, and as a branch of the Academy under their a room for philosophical apparatus. This charge, the object of which was to afford the means of a thorough scientific and practical education, preparatory to the profession of teaching, and to the various departments of business. The Seminary was opened in September, 1830. The repeated calls from the South and West and from the public generally, for well educated teachers, have induced the Trustees from time to time to make large appropriations for increasing the advantages, and, at the same time, diminishing the expenses of the students in the Seminary. They have erected a commodious and substantial stone building sufficient to accommodate two hundred students. The basement story embraces a chemical laboratory furnished with apparatus for an extensive series of illustrations. In the second story is a large and convenient room, which is used as a chapel for morning and evening devotions, and for all the general and public apparatus is sufficient for illustrating most of the important principles in mechanics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, optics, and astronomy. The institution is also provided with an extensive cabinet of minerals, and numerous specimens and drawings for illustrations in the science of geology, together with a complete field set for practical surveying and civil engineering, the cost of all which, including the chemical and philosophical apparatus above mentioned, has been about two thousand and two hundred dollars. There is also a library, containing eight hundred and fifty volumes, which is open to all the members of the Institution. Connected with the Institution is a convenient boarding-house, and a farm under good cultivation, affording to such as may desire it, an opportunity for manual labor, either as a means of preserving health, and defraying, in part, the expenses of board, or, in connection with an experimental and | Spring Term.-Astronomy.-Moral Phipractical study of the science of agriculture. losophy.-Political Economy. To this important but neglected part of education, special attention will be given, accompanied with a course of lectures by one of the officers of the Institution. Courses of lectures, experimental and theoretical, are given on chemistry, mineralogy, geology, natural philosophy and asAll who board at the boarding-house are tronomy.-Weekly exercises in composition, provided with neat and convenient rooms, declamation, and the general principles of duly furnished for study and lodgings. For elocution, are continued through the whole the use of rooms and furniture, each occu- course; and particular instructions are given pant is charged one dollar a term. The in elocution, both in private exercises and lighter and more perishable articles, such public lectures, by an experienced instrucas sheets, pillow cases, towels, &c. the tor, employed for the purpose. During the students provide for themselves, either by fall term, familiar lectures are given to bringing them from home, or by purchasing those who are preparing for the important of the Institution with the privilege of re-art of teaching. Instructions are also given turning them again at a fair valuation. To in sacred music. provide these rooms, six three story build- The object of this system of instruction ings are erected near the boarding-house, is not to hurry the student through a superaffording apartments sufficient for the ac- ficial course of study, but to begin a thocommodation of from seventy to one hun-rough course, and to carry it as far as cirdred students. The entire value of the establishment, including the several buildings and farm, is not less than thirty thousand dollars. The students are divided into three classes, styled Junior, Middle, and Senior. The course of study occupies three years, and is designed to be substantially the same as that of a collegiate education, with the exception of the ancient languages. Those who wish to pursue any particular branches of study are permitted to attend any of the recitations in the regular classes for which they may be qualified. To such as wish to pursue a more extended course of study, opportunity is also afforded. The following scheme gives a general view of the studies pursued in each term. Candidates for admission must pass a satisfactory examination in reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and geography. JUNIOR CLASS. cunistances will allow. While therefore it is adapted to furnish suitable qualifications to those who propose to become occasional, or permanent and PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS, it is equally suited to the wants of all those young men, who, without entering upon either of the learned professions, would qualify themselves for honorable and useful employment in any department of business, whether as intelligent merchants, mechanics, seamen, or agriculturists. This Institution has already sufficiently illustrated its practical utility and high importance. More than one thousand students have enjoyed, to a greater or less extent, its privileges. These students have come from more than twenty different States and provinces, and have returned to enter into every department of business above mentioned. From fifty to one hundred students from this Seminary have, in a single winter, been employed as teachers of district schools. Many have become perma Fall Term-Preparatory studies review-nent instructors, and are now receiving a ed, Algebra, Rhetoric, Watts on the Mind. Winter Term.-To such as may be qualified, opportunity is afforded to engage in the business of teaching; and such studies are pursued as may be best adapted to the attainments and circumstances of the students. Spring Term.-Geometry, Trigonometry, Book-keeping by Double Entry, Political Class Book, Evidences of Christianity. MIDDLE CLASS. Fall Term. - Smellie's Philosophy of Natural History, Paley's Natural Theology, Mensuration, Surveying, Civil Engineering. Winter Term.-As above. Spring Term.-Olmsted's Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Botany. SENIOR CLASS. Fall Term.-Mineralogy. - Geology. liberal compensation, and exerting an extensive influence in almost every State in the Union. Connected with the Institution is a preparatory department, occupying a separate building, and taught by a separate and permanent teacher,-under the general supervision of the principal. In this department, lads from eight to sixteen are thoroughly taught the elementary branches of an English education, preparatory to their admission to the higher department. It also answers the important purpose of a MODEL SCHOOL for the practical illustration of the art of teaching to those who are preparing for this employment. The price of board in families is from two to three dollars per week. In the boarding establishment, it is usually from $1,00 to $1,25, and will not under any circumstances exceed one dollar and fifty cents per week. Tuition is paid in advance, at the rate of fifty cents per week, and no allowance is made for occasional absence, or for leaving before the close of the term. The anniversary is on the Tuesday preceding the first Wednesday in July. There are three vacations annually ;-the first, of four weeks from the anniversary; the second, of two weeks from the Wednesday of the week preceding the annual Thanksgiving in Massachusetts; the third, two weeks from the second Wednesday in March. The instructors are: REV. LYMAN COLEMAN, M. A. Principal, and doings; and that thus the Christian community will be informed of the amount of his labors, of the skill and energy with which he acts, and of the obstacles with which he has to contend: of course, he is cheered with the fond expectation, that though he may seem to spend his strength for nought, he at least enjoys the sympathy of that community. Not so always with the minister of an obscure parish. He may perhaps have scarcely fewer obstacles to surmount; his labors may be scarcely less self-denying, than those of the missionary to the heathen. But he is in a Christian land; and though in common with the misT. D. P. STONE, M. A. Teacher of Elocution. sionary he is cheered and sustained by the MYRON N. MORRIS, B. A. Teacher of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Scientifiction, yet he has not the consolation derived consciousness of enjoying divine approba and Practical Agriculture. MR. WILLIAM H. WELLS, Teacher in the Preparatory Department. MR. G. F. B. LEIGHTON, Teacher of Sacred Music. NORFOLK AUXILIARY. EXTRACTS from the sermon delivered before the Auxiliary Education Society of Norfolk county, Ms., at their Annual Meeting in June, 1838, by the Rev. Lyman Matthews of Braintree. The sermon is based upon Prov. xxv. 28. He that hath no rule over his own spirit, is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. The subject discussed is The importance of self-control. from the assurance that he enjoys the symshould he have those sympathies? His cirpathies of the Christian community. How cumstances are not known; the obstacles he encounters are unobserved; his trials are unsuspected; and though his labors are abundant, and may, in fact, produce great good direct and indirect, yet unless it please God by his instrumentality to produce some unexpected and remarkable results, it may happen, it has happened, that pursuing the noiseless tenor of his way, he is accounted if not an unfaithful, at least an inefficient laborer in the vineyard. In assuming such for the exercise of self-control in its most a station, I repeat it, there is opportunity uncompromising form. The minister has ample occasion also for the exercise of this virtue in cultivating his chosen field. Aside from the temptations to remissness which arise from native in In the close of the discourse, Mr. Matthews has the following important and ap-dolence, or from spiritual apathy, the temppropriate remarks. The complete mastery of himself is a matter of the first importance to a minister of the gospel. "He that hath no rule over his own spirit, is like a city that is broken down, and without walls." If this is true of men in secular employments, it is emphatically true of the Christian minister. Without the government of himself, he can neither be happy, nor successful in his work. tations are manifold from other sources. He needs to suppress all irritability, that he may affectionately reprove the obstinate. He needs to suppress impatience, that he may perseveringly teach the ignorant or the indifferent. He needs to exercise meekness, that he may instruct those that oppose themselves. In a word, he needs to be able to lead self captive at his will, most successfully to prosecute the cultivation of his spiritual field. Self-control is indispensable to a minister The minister often has occasion for the in the management of his pecuniary conexercise of uncompromising self-control in cerns. Riches," says lord Bacon, "are the choice of his field of labor. There is the baggage of virtue; they cannot be sometimes a degree of self-denial requisite spared, nor left behind, but they retard in assuming the station of a minister in an the march." Now if this is true only of obscure parish, which the public servant in riches in the common acceptation of the any other calling is never required to ex- term, then it is true that the virtue of most ercise-self-denial, to which even the min-ministers is in little danger of being retarded ister, in more conspicuous stations, is a stranger. The pastor whose field of labor is such that his movements are all seen, receives due credit for every well-directed effort, whether it produces immediate results or not. Even the missionary in pagan lands, is aware that the churches which sustain him require a faithful report of his by this sort of baggage. But if it is true, as it doubtless is, restricting the meaning of riches to mere competency of this world's possessions, then the virtue of many ministers is in danger. The minister ought to be able so to manage his pecuniary affairs, that his attention to them shall consume the least possible amount of time. Especially |