THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

The Andover Theological Seminary is now in its third year since its removal from Andover to Cambridge. Rev. A. P. Fitch, D.D., president of the Faculty, spoke as follows upon the conditions of the seminary:

Our growth since coming to Cambridge is best shown by the enrollment. When we began work here the seminary had about gone to pieces. We began work with four men of our own and gave courses which 16 Harvard men attended. The next year we had 12 students in Andover and also taught 20 Harvard men. This year we are giving instruction to 22 Andover students and there are 20 Harvard men taking work under our Faculty. Such a ratio of increase, of course, cannot keep up, but we look for a steady growth. That indicates the wisdom of the removal from Andover, but we are also enjoying the benefits of a revival in religious interest among the young men.

We are now constructing our first building, which is pronounced by experts to be the finest and handsomest example of college architecture in eastern Massachusetts. It is on property which we bought from the Charles Eliot Norton estate-five acres altogether-and adjoins the land of the Harvard Divinity School. The building will cost about a quarter of a million dollars. For the time it will house the seminary completely, offering even dormitory facilities for the men.

We except to be using it next September and then can give up the temporary arrangements which we now use. Since we removed to Cambridge the administrative offices through the courtesy of the University have been in Divinity Hall and the lectures have been given in the Divinity Library.

The new building will doubtless serve to accentuate in the popular mind the fact that we are affiliated only, and in no sense merged with, Harvard University. The building is modeled after the quadrangles so familiar in English university structures, and a good example of which is the Episcopal Theological Seminary plant here in Cambridge.

Our library, which is a famous theological collection and consists of about 70,000 volumes, some of which are rare manuscripts and first editions, will be housed in a specially constructed fire-proof stone and steel section of the building, having stack room for 150,000 volumes. With it will be placed the Harvard Theological Library. The chapel will be on the second floor of one division of the building and will be lighted by windows of old English pattern for which glass of the 13th and 14th century style is to be made. In the building will be four class rooms, five seminary rooms, a Faculty room, professors rooms, the beginnings of a dormitory system, with provision for 15 students to start with and a common room.

Undertaking such a building and making such an investment, of course, indicates that we anticipate continued growth. We look for a good increase next year, even if we do fall behind the large percent ratio of increase which we had this year over last. I may say that the trustees are much encouraged by the present outlook for greater enrollment, although the year is not yet advanced to the time when applications for instruction are most numerous. The policy of the Faculty is to accept men for their quality rather than to seek after mere quantity of students. We weigh an applicant's intellectual and personal attributes quite as carefully as his piety, and aim to get the best men in New England.

Andover Theological Seminary is affiliated with Harvard University, not merged with it, as has been reported. Andover students become ipso facto Harvard students and can take Harvard courses towards Andover degrees, while Harvard students may also take Andover courses towards University degrees. Andover professors and Harvard teachers likewise in the same manner co-operate with the corresponding institution.

Co-operation is found not only in the Faculties, but in the student bodies as well. The exchange is large and I think I am safe in saying that a great majority of the students in one school take work in the to her. Of our 12 students last year, for instance, 10 took courses under the Harvard Divinity Faculty. On the other hand, of the 33 Harvard men, 20 took Andover work. I should say that the proportion this year was quite as large.

The present catalogues of the two institutions show the courses about evenly divided so far as numbers are concerned between the co-operating Faculties. Andover, in addition to Harvard's divinity courses, also lists a number of subjects in several departments of Harvard College, which might be of some interest to future clergymen. These are generally on early history, philosophy, ethics, economics and sociology. The seminary offers instruction in the Old and New Testaments, their languages and philosophy, church history, theology, practical theology-which includes such topics as the technique of the preacher-the history of religions and ethics