was under the immediate direction of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. The Plan of the Seminary required professors to subscribe to the Confession of Faith and Catechisms of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., pledging not to “inculcate, teach, or insinuate” anything contrary to that Confession or oppose any fundamental principle of Presbyterian polity.27 By the late 1830s, the Seminary had positioned itself on the conservative, Old School wing of Presbyterianism, rejecting the “softer” Calvinist tenets that were embodied in New School Presbyterianism and the New Haven Theology, as well as cooperation with other Protestants in voluntary societies.28 Old School and New School Presbyterians remained formally separated from 1837 until 1870. Bruce Kuklick argues that Princeton by mid-century had become “the arch-symbol of conservative philosophy and theology.”29 (Samuel Miller, for example, deplored the “semi-Pelagian” spirit of Yale, charging that its students lacked “the meek, humble, devout spirit of the Gospel.”30) Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Seminary’s conservatism manifested itself in its friendliness to Southern values and its opposition to both the New Haven Theology and Charles Finney’s brand of revivalism.31
Of students from the first decade of the Seminary’s existence, 25 became professors and 15, college presidents—a testimony, variously, to the Seminary’s scholarly reputation, to the lack of opportunities for Presbyterian ministerial training elsewhere, and to the few men in America with sufficient education to assume a college presidency. In 1855, Princeton stood as the largest of America’s 45 theological seminaries.32 Soon, however, its enrollment was outstripped by Union’s.33
Development of graduate education at the institutions here studied remains somewhat confused: on this point, Princeton was not alone. Princeton University established graduate programs in various fields in 1877, with the first doctorates awarded in 1879.34 Only in the early twentieth century, however, did Princeton Seminary advertise a “post-graduate department” that allowed seminary graduates to continue their studies with concentration in particular areas, including church history.35 The Th.D. program established at the Seminary in 1940 was changed to a Ph.D. in 1973. As noted above, the University Ph.D. program in religion was added in 1955.36
Harvard Divinity School and Harvard University
In 1805, Unitarian-leaning Henry Ware was appointed Hollis Professor of Divinity in Harvard College, an event that spurred more traditional Calvinists to found Andover Theological Seminary.37 In 1819, “Divinity” branched off into a separate “Theological Department” (i.e., what became the Harvard Divinity School).38 Decades later, President Charles Eliot claimed that the founding of the Divinity School showed Harvard’s commitment to “unbiased investigation”: teachers and students were not required to subscribe to “the peculiarities of any denomination.”39
Church history, however, remained an “orphan discipline” at the Divinity School40—despite Harvard College’s establishment of the first professorship of history in the United States.41 The original plan for the School called for a position in ecclesiastical history (and four others), but no funds for this appointment were forthcoming. Some limited provision was made for instruction in the subject, but the proposed professorship languished.42 Over the years, church history was taught by Henry Ware, Charles Follen, Convers Francis, Frederic H. Hedge (1857- 187843), and Joseph Henry Allen (1878–1882).44
In 1854, the report of a Visiting Committee appointed by the Harvard College Overseers noted that the Divinity School had only two (overworked) Professors, one in “Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care” (with church history as a minor sideline45), and the other in “Hebrew and Other Oriental languages”/“Biblical Literature.” The committee recommended the establishment of two more professorships, including one in ecclesiastical history. Yet again, no professorship was forthcoming. The Visiting Committee’s report nevertheless confidently announced that divinity students were advancing from “loose and unsettled notions to a well-grounded and stable faith.” The course of study, it concluded, is “well ordered, systematic, impartial, and full.”46 “Full” might not be the word that springs to present-day readers’ minds, given the School’s inadequate staffing.
Throughout mid-century, the School remained small and somewhat lackluster. Between 1840 and 1880, Sydney Ahlstrom admits, its scholarship did not keep pace with the standards of the day.47 When Thomas Hill was sworn in as President of Harvard in 1863, he rhetorically asked in his inaugural address: “Our Divinity School prepares its scholars to take charge of parishes; but where are our young men coming simply as lovers of truth, simply as scholars, for aid in exploring the highest realms of human thought?”48 Apparently nowhere.
The Divinity School’s change of fortune came with Charles Eliot’s appointment as President of Harvard in 1869. Eliot, so an enthusiast later claimed, planned “to make this a university school of theology instead of a drill-shed for Unitarian ministers.”49 In his Annual Report for 1874–1875, Eliot scored the state of Divinity at Harvard.50 Four years later, he led a campaign to endow five new professorships for the School, to be filled by scholars trained in historical and critical methods.51 At Harvard, Eliot insisted, there should be a nondenominational theological school positioned within the university, offering courses to all students, not only to future ministers.52 This arrangement, he argued, would ensure that ministerial training upheld the “standards in truth-seeking which modern science has set up.”53 Reorganizing the Divinity School as effectively undenominational, Eliot later claimed, was one of the most important accomplishments of his forty-year presidency.54
At last, in 1877, the Divinity School received a gift for the endowment of the Winn Professorship in Ecclesiastical History;55 in 1882, it was awarded to Ephraim Emerton. Emerton, a layman who had earned his Ph.D. at Leipzig in 1876,56 was then teaching history in Harvard College. As Winn Professor, Emerton was charged with introducing new methods, including the seminar, to the study of church history, and opening church history courses to non-Divinity students.57
Others were less pleased with Eliot’s plan, including the disappointed candidate, Joseph Henry Allen, who had provided instruction in ecclesiastical history since 1878. Although gracious in public about not receiving the coveted Professorship, Allen confided to several correspondents that Eliot arranged to pay Emerton only his regular salary as instructor in history, thus saving the Winn funds (“at a stroke $2000”) for other purposes at the University.58 Moreover, Eliot’s promotion of “scientific theology” (in Allen’s view) was fatuous: he had no understanding of what that phrase meant.59
According to Harvard catalogs from the 1880s and 1890s, Emerton taught all periods of church history through the seventeenth century. Now, historical approaches to divinity subjects become standard at Harvard. In 1896, John Winthrop Platner, a graduate of Union Seminary, was also appointed to a position in church history at Harvard, but after a few years he decamped for Andover.60 Platner had little praise for Emerton’s approach. On one occasion, inviting Arthur Cushman McGiffert of Union Seminary to lecture at Harvard in order to “arouse more interest in the study of Church history here,” he commented that “they don’t even know what it means.… Regard the trip somewhat in the light of missionary work.”61
By 1886–1887, the Divinity School counted six resident graduate students among its total student population of 21; by the early twentieth century, more than half the School’s students were considered graduate students. At first, Master’s and Ph.D. degrees were awarded through agreement with the University Graduate School, but in 1914–1915 the Divinity School received permission to offer the Th.D. A Ph.D. in Religion, offered by the University, was added in 1934.62
Yale Theological Department, Yale Divinity School, and Yale University
