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much connected with Dissenters , and having ventured to speak of them and their affairs without first taking care to obtain accurate information , he has , unintentionally no doubt , done them great injustice . After asserting ( p . 164 ) , that " the Dissenters have no institutions which profess-to teach the higher branches of education , he says , ( p . 169 , ) " It is a source of deep
regret , that , up to this hour , no adequate means of an intellectual education have . been provided for the teachers of religion among the Dissenters . " These assertions I must take the liberty to deny . I say nothing of the merit of Dissenting Colleges and Academies in comparison with the proposed London University , but it is notorious that they have existed in great numbers , and have been liberally and zealously supported by the voluntary con- ^ tributions of various branches of the Dissenting body .
For some account of the institutions at present in action amongst the Dissenters , chiefly for the education of ministers , I may refer to a valuable pamphlet entitled , " Thoughts on the Advancement of Academical Educa- < tion in England , ' now known to be the production of the Rev . James Yates , M . A ., F . L . S ., M . G . S ., a gentleman as much distinguished for his eminent learning and varied acquirements , as for his candid and truly catholic spirit , who will , I have no doubt , be proud to acknowledge himself indebted for a considerable part of his advantages of education to a Dissenting college There are no less than seven institutions for the education of ministers
amongst the Independents alone , some of them deriving very considerable incomes from annual subscriptions . There are four similar institutions among the Baptists , abundantly sufficient to shew that they are not indifferent to the intellectual education of their religious teachers , and have > not neglected the means which appeared to them sufficient to secure it . But 1 naturally feel particularly interested in vindicating the Presbyterian or Unitarian Dissenters from the charge
brought against the whole body , and fqr this purpose nothing more can be necessary than the statement of a few plain facts . Of the older academies for the education of Presbyterian ministers , I shall only say that they fully satisfied the wants of the period , and produced an abundant supply of truly learned , as well as pious and laborious pastors . But I claim for the Presbyterian Dissenters the merit of having taken the lead in this country in improving the system of education for young men after they have left a com- *
mon school . In the plan of the Warrington Academy , established in 1757 , we meet with enlightened views on which no other body of men would at that time have acted , and which , except in the institutions since supported by the same body , have hitherto been but little applied . The young men were to be " free to follow their own judgmental in their inquiries after truth , without any undue bias imposed on their understandings ; " and besides the divinity students , others were to be received , designed for commercial life or for the learned professions , it being an important object to " lead
them to an early acquaintance with , and just concern for the true principles of religion and liberty . " . The subjects of study are described to be , besides theology , " moral philosophy , including logic and metaphysics , natural philosophy , including the mathematics , the languages , and polite literature ; ' * and three tutors were appointed to give instructions in' these various departments . An institution which " professed to teach the higher branches of education ^ the especial object of which was to supply " adequate means of intellectual education to the religious teachers" of one great class of Dissenters , and which had for its tutors such men as Dr . Taylor , Dr . Aikin , Gilbert Wakefield , Dr . Priestley and Dr . Eniield , existed for twenty-six years ,
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Dissenting Colleges . 255
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1827, page 255, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1795/page/23/
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