oaths, required what many worthy men could not conscientiously perform, are they, when thus excluded, to bury their learning in their own bosom, and those who adhere to them to be doomed to unavoidable ignorance? Would not the liberal spirit of scholars and of Christians have led them to rejoice in the diffusion of knowledge by the dissenting tutors; and as their youth could not consistently with their principles come to Oxford and Cambridge, that they had persons qualified to teach them elsewhere. Few, we believe, will now stand up in defence of those who brought this accusation against the first generation of our tutors; but it was gravely urged at the time, and both Mr. Morton and Mr. Cradock were at the pains. to draw up a grave defence of their conduct".

In the dissenters of the present day, there will be a general wish to know what was taught, and what was the mode of instruction in the seminaries during this period. When it is considered that the tutors had received their education in the universities, and that some of them were engaged in the business of tuition in their colleges, it may naturally be supposed, that in their new seminaries, they entered on the same departments of literature, and adopted the same methods of instruction, which were used by themselves before, and which were regularly employed in the universities, as best adapted to the improvement of the studious youth. In confirmation of this general reasoning, the accounts which have been handed down to us of the method of study in the academies lead us to conclude, that this was the case.

The Greek and Latin classics were an important

2

Calamy's Continuation, p. 177-197, 732-735.

object of attention: logic, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy, rhetoric, theology, and biblical criticism appear to have been comprised in the ordinary course of a student for the ministry.

In Mr. Owen's life, there is a list of the books which he used by way of text or syllabus to enlarge on in his lectures to his scholars'.

Samuel Palmer, the advocate of the dissenting academies, gives us the following account of his tutor's plan of education, and of the employments of the students in their different classes.

"It was our custom to have lectures appointed to certain times, and we began the morning with logic: system which we read was Hereboord, which is the the same as is generally read at Cambridge. But our tutor always gave us Memoriter the Harmony, or opposites made to him by other logicians; and of these the most diligent took notes, and all were advised to read Smiglecius, Colbert, Ars Cogitandi, and Le Clerc, or whatever books of that nature we occasionally met with. Being initiated in philosophical studies by this art, we made another step of reading Goveani Elenctica, which being done, the next superior class read metaphysics, of which Fromenius's Synopsis was our manual, and by directions of our tutor, we were assisted in our chambers by Baronius Suarez, and Colbert. Ethics was our next study, and our system Hereboord; in reading which our tutor recommended to our meditation Dr. Henry More,

In logic, Burgersdicius, Hereboord, Ramus: in metaphysics, Fromenius, Eustachius, Baronius: in physics, Le Clerc, Du Hamel: in geometry, Pardie's Elements, Euclid: in astronomy, Gassendus: in chronology, Strauchius: in ecclesiastical history, Spanhemius: in theology, Wollebius, Ryssenius's Abstract of Turretine.

Marcus Antoninus, Epictetus, with the comments of Arrian and Simplicius, and the morals of Solomon; and under this head, the moral works of the great Puffendorf. The highest class was engaged in natural philosophy, of which Le Clerc was our system, whom we compared with the ancients and other moderns, as Aristotle, Des Cartes, Colbert, Staire, &c. We disputed every other day in Latin upon the several phi losophical controversies; and as these lectures were read off, some time was set apart to introduce rhetoric, in which that short piece of John Gerard Vossius was used in the school, but in our chambers we were assisted by his larger volume, Aristotle, and Tully de Oratore, These exercises were all performed every morning, except that on Mondays we added as a divine lecture, some of Buchanan's Psalms, the finest of the kind, both for purity of language, and exact sense of the original: and on Saturdays, all the superior classes declaimed by turns, four and four, on some noble and useful subject, such as De Pace, Logicane magis inserviat cæteris disciplinis an Rhetorica, De connubio virtutis cum doctrina, &c. and I can say, that these orations were, for the most part, of uncommon elegance, purity of style, and manly and judicious composure.

"After dinner our work began in order by reading some one of the Greek or Latin historians, orators, or poets, of which first I remember Sallust, Quintus Curtius, Justin, aud Paterculus; of the second, Demosthenes, Tully, and Isocrates's select Orations; and of the last, Homer, Virgil, Juvenal, Persius, and Horace. This reading was the finest and most delightful to young gentlemen of all others, because it was not in the pedantic method of common schools: but the delicacy of our tutor's criticisms, his exact de

scription of persons, terms, and places illustrated by referring to Rosin and other antiquarians, and his just application of the morals, made such a lasting impression, as rendered all our other studies more facile. In geography, we read Dionysii Periegesis compared with Cluverius, ed. Bunonis, which at this lecture always lay upon the table.

"Mondays and Fridays we read divinity, of which the first lecture was always in the Greek Testament, and it was our custom to go through it once a year, we seldom read less than six or seven chapters, and this was done with the greatest accuracy. We were obliged to give the most curious etymons, and were assisted with the Synopsis Criticorum, Martinius, Favorinus, and Hesychius's Lexicons, and it was expected that the sacred geography, and chronology should be particularly observed and answered too at demand, of which I never knew my tutor sparing. The other divinity lecture was on Synopsis Purioris Theologiæ as very accurate and short; we were advised to read by ourselves the more large pieces of Turretine, Theses Salmurienses, Baxter's Methodus Theologiæ, and archbishop Usher's, and on particular controversies many excellent authors, as on original sin, Placæus, and Barlow de Natura Mali; on grace and free will, Rutherford, Strangius, and Amyraldus; on the popish controversy, Amesius, Bellarminus Enervatus, and the modern disputes during the reign of king James; on Episcopacy, Altare Damascenum, bishop Hall and Mr. Baxter; bishop Stillingfleet's Irenicum, Dr. Owen and Rutherford; and for practical divinity, Baxter, Tillotson, Charnock; and in a word, the best books both of the episcopalian, presbyterian, and independent divines were in their order recommended, and

constantly used by those of us who were able to procure them; and all, or most of them, I can affirm were the study of all the pupils.

"I must not pass this over without an observation or two to the honour of my tutor, that I never heard him make one unhandsome reflection on the church of England, and that on all controversial points he never offered to impose on the judgment of his pupils.

“I have not said any thing of the affairs of our house and our social conversation, which in the most was unexceptionable. My tutor began the morning with public prayer, in the school, which he performed with great devotion, but not with equal elegance and beauty in English; but in Latin, in which he often prayed, no man could exceed him for exact thought, curious style, and devout pathos.

"At divinity lectures, the eldest pupils prayed; in these I often joined with peculiar delight, and went away with a raised mind. Men of lesser genius were allowed forms of their own composure, or others as they thought proper. Prayer in the family was so esteemed, that I do not know that it was once omitted; and to prevent any disorder, nine o'clock was the latest hour for any person to be abroad. Obscene or profane discourse, if known, would have procured expulsion, and the smallest vanities reproof, which my tutor knew how to give with a just and austere resentment." P. 4-7.

Mr. Cradock is said to have drawn up systems on the different sciences for himself, which his students were required to copy for their own use.

One of the fullest accounts of the methods of education in that period is given by Thomas Secker, a