when in Europe all the apparatus of the more advanced criticism that could
then be procured; and after his return to Boston he gave his attention to
bringing out the New Testament in the most scholarly form that was then
possible. In 1808, in connection with William Wells, and under the
patronage of Harvard College, he republished Griesbach's Greek Testament,
with a selection of the most important various readings. He also formed a
plan of publishing in this country all the best modern English versions of
the Hebrew prophets, with introductions and notes; but he did not find the
necessary support for this project. In The Monthly Anthology and in The
General Repository he "first discussed subjects of Biblical criticism in a
spirit of philosophical and painstaking learning, and took the critical
study of the Scriptures from the old basis on which it had rested during
the Arminian discussions and placed it on the solid foundation of the text
of the New Testament as settled by Wetstein and Griesbach, and elucidated
by the labors of Michaelis, Marsh, Rosenmüller, and by the safe and wise
learning of Grotius, Le Clerc, and Simon." "It has," wrote George Ticknor,
"in our opinion, hardly been permitted to any other man to render so
considerable a service as this to Christianity in the western world."[1]
In 1811 Mr. Buckminster was made the first lecturer in Biblical criticism
at Harvard, on, the foundation established by the gift of Samuel Dexter;
and he entered with great interest and enthusiasm upon the work of
preparing for the duties of this office. We are assured that "this
appointment was universally thought to be an honor most justly due to his
pre-eminent attainments in this science";[2] but his death the next year
brought these plans to an untimely end.
To some extent the critical work of Buckminster was continued by Edward
Everett, his successor in the Brattle Street Church. Mr. Everett's
successor in that pulpit, Rev. John G. Palfrey, became the professor of
sacred literature in the Harvard Divinity School in 1831, and was the dean
of that institution. In his lectures on the Jewish Scriptures and
Antiquities, published in four volumes, from 1833 to 1852, he gave the most
advanced criticism of the time. A more important work was done by Professor
Andrews Norton, who was as radical in his labors as a Biblical critic as he
was conservative in his theology. For the time when they were published,
his Statement of Reasons, the first edition of which appeared in 1819,
Historical Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, 1837-44,
Translation of the Gospels, with Notes, 1855, Internal Evidences of the
Genuineness of the Gospels, 1855, have not been surpassed by any other work
done in this country. As a scholar, he was careful, thorough, honest, and
uncompromising in his search for the truth. In an extended note added to
the second volume of his work on the Genuineness of the Gospels he
investigated the origin of the Pentateuch and the validity of its
historical statements. He showed that the work could not have bee its man
written by Moses, that it was a compilation from prior accounts, and that
its marvels were not to be accepted as authentic history.[3] In dealing
with the New Testament, Professor Norton discarded the first two chapters
of Matthew, regarding them as later additions. Frothingham speaks of Norton
as "an accomplished and elegant scholar," and says that his interpretations
of the Bible were by Unitarians "tacitly received as final." "He was the
great authority, as bold, fearless, truthful, as he was exact and
careful."[4] Although these words of praise intimate that Unitarians were
too ready to accept the conclusions of Professor Norton as needing no
emendation, yet his work was searching in its character and thoroughly
sincere in its methods. Considering the general attitude of scholarship in
his day, it was bold and uncompromising, as well as accurate and just.
Another scholar was George Rapall Noyes, who was a country pastor in
Brookfield and Petersham from 1827 to 1840, and devoted his leisure to
Biblical studies. He became the professor of Hebrew and, lecturer on
Biblical Literature in the Harvard Divinity School in 1840. His
translations, with notes, of the poetical books of the Old Testament,
beginning with Job in 1827, were of great importance as aids, to the
interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. His translation of the New
Testament, which appeared after his death, in 1868, gave the best results
of critical studies in homely prose, and with painstaking fidelity to the
original. That Noyes was in advance of the criticism of his time may be
indicated by the fact that, when he published his conclusions in regard to
the Messianic prophecies in 1834,[5] he was threatened with an indictment
for blasphemy by the attorney-general of Massachusetts. Better judgment
prevailed against this attempt to coerce opinion, but that such an
indictment was seriously considered shows how little genuine criticism
there was then in existence. What are now the commonplaces of scholarship
were then regarded as destructive and blasphemous. Noyes said that the
truth of the Christian religion does not in any sense depend upon the
literal fulfilment of any predictions in the Old Testament by Jesus as a
person.[6] He said that the apostles partook of the errors and prejudices
of their age,[7] that the commonly received doctrine of the inspiration
of the whole Bible is a millstone about the neck of Christianity,[8] and
that the Bible contains much that cannot be regarded as revelation.[9]
Even as early as 1835 these opinions were generally accepted by Unitarians;
and they were not thought to impair the true worth of the spiritual
revelation contained in the Bible, and especially not the divine nature of
the teachings of Christ. It was very important, as Dr. Joseph Henry Allen
has said, in speaking of Norton and Noyes, that "these decisive first steps
were taken by deliberate, conscientious, conservative scholars,--the best
and soberest scholars we had to show."[10]
The work of Ezra Abbot especially deserves notice here, because of "the
variety and extent of his learning, the retentiveness and accuracy of his
memory, the penetration and fairness of his judgment."[11] For fourteen
years previous to his death, in 1884, he was the professor of New Testament
criticism and interpretation in the Harvard Divinity School. He also
rendered important service as a member of the American committee on the
revision of the New Testament. His essay on The Authorship of the Fourth
Gospel was one of the ablest statements of the conservative view of the
origin of that writing. The volume of his Critical Essays, collected after
his death, shows the ripe fruits of his "punctilious and vigilant
scholarship." He was a zealous Unitarian, and did much to show that the New
Testament is in harmony with that faith. In 1843 Rev. Theodore Parker
published his translation of De Wette's Introduction to the New Testament,
with learned notes. The extreme views of Baur and Zeller were interpreted
by Rev. O.B. Frothingham in his The Cradle of the Christ, 1872.
Various attempts were also made by those who were not professional scholars
to bring the Bible into harmony with modern religious ideas. One of the
most notable of these was that of Dr. William Henry Furness, pastor of the
church in Philadelphia from 1825 to 1875. His Remarks on the Four Gospels
appeared in 1835, and was followed by Jesus and his Biographers, 1838,
Thoughts on the Life and Character of Jesus of Nazareth, 1859, and The Veil
Partly Lifted and Jesus Becoming Visible, 1864, as well as several other
works. His attempt was to give a rational interpretation of the life of
Jesus that should largely eliminate the miraculous and yet preserve the
spiritual. These works have little critical value, and yet they have much
of charm and suggestiveness as religious expositions of the Gospels. Of
somewhat the same nature was Dr. Edmund H. Sears's The Fourth Gospel: The
Heart of Christ, 1872, a work of deep spiritual insight.
[Sidenote: The Catholic Influence of Harvard University.]
The catholic and inclusive spirit manifested by the Unitarians in their
Biblical studies is worthy of notice, however, much more than any definite
results of scholarship produced by them. In the cultivation of the broader
academic fields which their control of Harvard University brought within
their reach this attitude is especially conspicuous. At no time since it
came under their administration has it been used for sectarian purposes, to
make proselytes or to compel acceptance of their theology. During the first
half of the nineteenth century, Harvard was in some degree distinctly
Unitarian; but since 1870 it has been wholly non-sectarian. When the
Divinity School was organized, it was provided in its constitution that no
denominational requirements should be exacted of professors or students;
yet the school was essentially Unitarian until 1878. In that year the
president, Charles W. Eliot, asked of Unitarians the sum of $130,000 as an
endowment for the school; but he insisted that it should be henceforth
wholly unsectarian, and this demand was received with approval and
enthusiasm by Unitarians themselves.
In 1879 President Eliot said at a meeting held in the First Church in
Boston for the purpose of appealing to Unitarians in behalf of the school:
"The Harvard Divinity School is not distinctly Unitarian either by its
constitution or by the intention of its founders. The doctrines of the
unsectarian sect, called in this century Unitarians, are indeed entitled to
respectful consideration in the school so long as it exists, simply because
the school was founded, and for two generations, at least, has been
supported, by Unitarians. But the government of the University cannot
undertake to appoint none but Unitarian teachers, or to grant any peculiar
favors to Unitarian students. They cannot, because the founders of the
school, themselves Unitarians, imposed upon the University the following
fundamental rule for its administration: that every encouragement shall be
given to the serious, impartial, and unbiassed investigation of Christian
truth, and that no assent to the peculiarities of any denomination of
Christians shall be required either of the instructors or students."[12]
Dr. Charles Carroll Everett, dean of the school from 1878 to 1900, has said
that "in some respects it differs from every other theological seminary in
the country." "No pains are taken to learn the denominational relations of
students even when they are applicants for aid." "No oversight is exercised
over the instruction of any teacher. No teacher is responsible for any
other or to any other."[13]
In 1886 compulsory attendance upon prayers was abolished at Harvard
University. Religious services are regularly held every week-day morning,
on Thursday afternoons, and on Sunday evenings, being conducted by the
Plummer professor of Christian morals, with the co-operation of five other
preachers, who, as well as the Plummer professor, are selected irrespective
of denominational affiliations. In this and other ways the university has
made itself thoroughly unsectarian. Its attitude is that of scientific
investigation, open-mindedness towards all phases of truth, and freedom of
teaching. Theology is thus placed on the same basis with other branches of
knowledge, and religion is made independent of merely dogmatic
considerations.
This undenominational temper at Harvard University has been developed
largely under Unitarian auspices. Its presidents for nearly a century have
been Unitarians, namely: John T. Kirkland, 1810-28; Josiah Quincy, 1829-45;
Edward Everett, 1846-49; Jared Sparks, 1849-53; James Walker, 1853-60;
Cornelius C. Felton, 1860-62; Thomas Hill, 1862-68; and Charles W. Eliot
since 1869. Kirkland, Everett, Sparks, Walker, and Hill were Unitarian
ministers; but under their administration the university was as little
sectarian as at any other time.
When the new era of university growth began in 1865, with the founding of
Cornell University, the influence of Harvard was widely felt in the
development of great unsectarian educational institutions. Although Ezra
Cornell was educated as a Friend, he was expelled from that body, and
connected himself with no other religious sect. He was essentially a
Unitarian, often attending the preaching of Dr. Rufus P. Stebbins. The
university which took his name was inspired with the Harvard ideal, and,
while recognizing religion as one of the great essential phases of human
thought and life, gave and continues to give equal opportunity to all
sects.
Another instance of the same spirit is Washington University, which began
under Unitarian auspices, but soon developed into an entirely
undenominational institution. Members of the Unitarian church in St. Louis
secured a charter for a seminary, which in 1853 was organized as the
Washington Institute. In 1857 it was reorganized as Washington University,
and the charter declared, "No instruction, either sectarian in religion or
party in politics, shall be allowed in any department of said university,
and no sectarian or party test shall be allowed in the selection of
professors, teachers, or other officers of said university or in the
admission of scholars thereof, or for any purpose whatever." Sectarian
prejudice, however, regarded the university as essentially Unitarian; and
for the first twenty years of its existence three-fourths of the gifts and
endowments came from persons of that religious body.
Although Dr. William G. Eliot knew nothing of the original movement for
forming a seminary under liberal auspices, he gave the institution his
unstinted support and encouragement. He was the president of the board of
management from the first, and in 1871 he became the chancellor. At his
death, in 1887, the university included Smith Academy, Mary Institute, and
a manual training school, these being large preparatory schools; the
college proper, school of engineering, Henry Shaw school of botany, St.
Louis school of fine arts, law school, medical school, and dental college.
It then had sixteen hundred students and one hundred and sixty instructors.
The endowments have since been largely increased, the number of students
has increased to two thousand, and important new buildings have been added.
Dr. Eliot gave the university its direction and its unsectarian methods,
and it has attained its present position because of his devoted labors. The
Leland Stanford Jr. University in California, and Clark University in
Massachusetts, both founded by Unitarians, further illustrate the Harvard
spirit in education.
[Sidenote: The Work of Horace Mann.]
Horace Mann was an earnest and devoted Unitarian, the intimate friend of
Channing and Parker, to both of whom he was largely indebted for his
intellectual and spiritual ideals. He was inspired by their ideas of reform
and progress, and to their personal sympathy he owed much. It is now
universally conceded that to him we are indebted for the diffusion of the
common-school idea throughout the country, that he developed and brought to
full expression the conception of universal education. In full sympathy
with him in this work were such men as Dr. Channing, Edward Everett,
Theodore Parker, Josiah Quincy, Samuel J. May, and the younger Robert
Rantoul; but he made the common school popular, and put it forward as a
national institution. When Mann became the secretary of the Massachusetts
Board of Education on its creation, in 1837, the theory that all children
should be educated by the state, if not otherwise provided for, was by no
means generally accepted; nor was it an accepted theory that such education
should be strictly unsectarian.[14] Mann fought the battle for these two
ideas, and virtually established them for the whole nation. On the first
board one-half the members were Unitarians,--Horace Mann, the younger
Robert Rantoul, Jared Sparks, and Edmund Dwight. Some of the staunchest and
most devoted and most liberal friends of Mann were of other denominations;
but the work for common schools was thoroughly in harmony with Unitarian
principles. Edmund Dwight was largely instrumental in securing the
establishment of a Board of Education in Massachusetts, and he brought
about the election of Horace Mann to fill the position of its secretary. He
was a leading merchant in Boston, and his house was a centre for meetings
and consultations relating to educational interests. He contributed freely
for the purpose of enlarging and improving the state system of common
schools, his donations amounting to not less than $35,000.[15]
The first person to clearly advocate the establishment of schools for the
training of teachers was Rev. Charles Brooks, minister of the Second
Unitarian Church in Hingham from 1821 to 1839, afterwards professor of
natural history in the University of the City of New York, and a reformer
and author of some reputation in his day. In 1834 he began to write and
lecture in behalf of common schools, and especially in the interest of
normal schools.[16] He spoke throughout the state in behalf of training
schools, with which he had become acquainted in Prussia; he went before the
legislature on this subject; and he carried his labors into other
states.[17]
Horace Mann took up the idea of professional schools for teachers and made
it effective. Edmund Dwight gave $10,000 to the state for this purpose, and
schools were established in 1838. When the first of these normal schools
opened in Lexington, July 3, 1839, its principal was Rev. Cyrus Peirce, who
had been the minister of the Unitarian church in North Reading from 1819 to
1829, and then had been a teacher in North Andover and Nantucket. "Had it
not been for Cyrus Peirce," wrote Henry Barnard, "I consider the cause of
Normal Schools would have failed or have been postponed for an indefinite
period."[18] Dr. William T. Harris has said that "all Normal School work
in this country follows substantially one tradition, and this traces back
to the course laid down by Cyrus Peirce."[19] In the Lexington school
Peirce was succeeded by Samuel J. May, who had been settled over Unitarian
churches in Brooklyn and Scituate.[20]
The work done by Horace Mann for education includes his labors as president
of Antioch College from 1852 to 1859. He maintained that the chief end of
education is the development of character; and he sought to make the
college an altruistic community, in which teachers and students should
labor together for the best good of all. He put into practice the
nonsectarian principle, made the college coeducational, and developed the
spirit of individual freedom as one of cardinal importance in education.
"The ideas for which he stood," has written one who has carefully studied
his work in all its phases, "spread abroad among the people of the Ohio
valley, and showed themselves in various state institutions, normal
schools, and high schools that were planted in the central west.
Altogether, apart from Mr. Mann's visible work in Antioch College may be
found agencies which he set at work, whose influence only eternity can
measure. It was a great thing to the new west that a high standard of
scholarship should be placed before her sons and daughters, and that a few
hundred of them should be sent out into every corner of the state, and
ultimately to the farthest boundaries of the nation, with a sound
scholarship and a love for truth there and then wholly new. His reputation
for scholarship and zeal gave his opinions greater weight than those of
almost any other man in the country. As a result the most radical
educational ideas were received from him with respect; and he carried
forward the work of giving a practical embodiment to co-education,
non-sectarianism, and the requirements of practical and efficient moral
character, as perhaps no other educator could have done. His influence
among people, and the aspirations which he kindled in thousands of minds by
public addresses and personal contact, did for the people of the Ohio
valley a work, the extent and value of which can never be measured."[21]
[Sidenote: Elizabeth Peabody and the Kindergarten.]
Horace Mann was largely influenced by Dr. Channing throughout his career as
an educational reformer,[22] as was his wife and her sister, Elizabeth P.
Peabody. It was to Channing that Miss Peabody owed her interest in the work
of education; and his teachings brought her naturally into association with
Bronson Alcott, and made her the leader in introducing the kindergarten
into this country. She was influenced by the kindergarten method, at an
early date, and she gave years of devoted labor to its extension. In
connection with her sister, Mrs. Horace Mann, she wrote Culture in Infancy,
1863, Guide to the Kindergarten, 1877, and Letters to Kindergartners, 1886.
As a result of her enthusiastic efforts, kindergartens were opened in
Boston in 1864; and it was in 1871 that she organized the American Froebel
Union, which became the kindergarten department of the National Educational
Association in 1885. The Kindergarten Messenger was begun by her in 1873,
and was continued under her editorship until 1877, when it was merged in
The New Education.
Miss Peabody's Kindergarten Guide has been described as one of the most
important original contributions made to the literature of the subject in
this country. Her name is most intimately associated with the educational
progress of the country because of her enthusiasm for the right training of
children and her spiritual insight as a teacher.
[Sidenote: Work of Unitarian Women for Education.]
Much has been done by Unitarian women to advance the cause of education.
The conversations of Margaret Fuller, held in Boston from 1839 to 1844,
were an important influence in awakening women to larger intellectual
interests; and many of those who attended them were afterwards active in
promoting the educational enterprises of the city. In 1873 Miss Abby
Williams May, Mrs. Ann Adeline Badger, Miss Lucretia Crocker, and Miss
Lucia M. Peabody were elected members of the school committee of Boston,
but did not serve, as their right to act in that capacity was questioned.
Thereupon the legislature took action, making women eligible to the office.
The next year Misses May, Crocker, and Peabody, with Mrs. Kate Gannett
Wells, Mrs. Mary Safford Blake, and Miss Lucretia Hale, were elected, and
served. In 1875 Misses Crocker, Hale, May, and Peabody were re-elected; and
in 1876 Miss Crocker was elected one of the supervisors of the public
schools of Boston. It is significant that the first women to hold these
positions were Unitarians. It is also worthy of note that Miss Sarah
Freeman Clarke, sister of James Freeman Clarke, was the first landscape
painter of her sex in the country; and that Mrs. Cornelia W. Walter was the
first woman to edit a large daily newspaper, she having become the editor
and manager of the Boston Transcript at an early date.