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The Emerging Distinction between Theology and Religion at Nineteenth- Century Harvard University

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

Stephen Shoemaker
Stephen Shoemaker*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Many scholars of religion who teach today in nondenominational schools may take it for granted that these schools have no institutional mandate to espouse a particular religious agenda. Yet, how did this relatively new approach become common during the last century, when in the preceding era the opposite was true? A close reading of one context or institution can reveal broader trends applicable in many other realms. The evolution of the approach to religious scholarship at nineteenth-century Harvard can serve as one such specific, but widely illuminating, point of inquiry. The deliberate shift away from instruction in doctrinal theology toward a more modern approach to religion as an academic field of study became a prominent trend in American higher education, with Harvard leading the way. But why did Harvard pursue this particular agenda in advance of other institutions? This article suggests that the answer lies largely in political concerns. Harvard was concerned with issues of perception and the practical consequences resulting from public expression of disapprobation.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 101 , Issue 3-4: Centennial Issue 1908–2008 , October 2008 , pp. 417 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © President and fellows of Harvard college 2008

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References

1 George Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Estab-lished Nonbelief (New York: Oxford Press, 1994) 7.

2 Ibid., 415.

3 Ibid., 186.

4 Ibid., 193.

5 Julie Reuben, The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Margin-alization of Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) 13.

6 Ibid., 107, 113, 101.

7 Josiah Quincy, “Notes on Harvard College,” unpublished, 1840, Harvard University Archives (HUA).

8 James Walker, “Discourse,” September 1855, 10, HUA.

9 Charles W. Eliot, “What Place Should Religion Have in a College,” unpublished address given before the 19th Century Club of New York, 3 February 1886, 14, HUA.

10 Quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936) 259.

11 Hollis, Facts and Documents in Relation to Harvard College (Boston: T. R. Marvin, 1829) 94, 96.

12 Response of Quincy to charges made by George Bancroft in 1845. Quoted in Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 259.

13 Quoted in James Walker, Memoir of Josiah Quincy (Cambridge: John Wilson, 1867) 51.

14 Josiah Quincy, Inaugural Address, 2 June 1829, unpublished, 3, HUA.

15 James Walker to R. C. Winthrop, 20 March 1855, HUA.

16 Corporation Records, vol. 8, 30 March 1844, 232, HUA.

17 Committee Report on the Religious Condition of Students, June 1846, HUA.

18 Ibid.

19 Edward Everett, Open Letter to the Faculty, May 1846, HUA.

20 Ibid.

21 Committee to Consider the Resolution of Dr. Gannett, March 1849, HUA.

22 James Walker to R. C. Winthrop, 20 March 1855, HUA.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 James Walker to R. C. Winthrop, 2 April 1855, HUA.

26 Ibid.

27 “You are entirely right about Cambridge,” wrote Samuel Lawrence to his brother in 1844, “and the sooner the authorities see it the better, and a Divorce takes place. The Divinity building would make a good stocking mill with a steam engine, and I know a party who would like it.” Ronald Story, The Forging of an Aristocracy: Harvard and the Boston Upper Class (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1980) 79.

28 Review of Publications Relating to Harvard College (Boston, 1831) 391, HUA.

29 Jared Sparks to Edward Everett, 20 February 1852, HUA.

30 Report of a Committee of the Overseers and Memorial of the Corporation of Harvard College on the Relations Between the Theological School and the College (Boston: John Wilson & Son, 1852) 3, HUA.

31 Ibid., 10.

32 Ibid., 11.

33 Ibid., 12.

34 Ibid., 14.

35 Samuel Eliot, A Sketch of the History of Harvard College and of its Present State (Boston: Charles Little and James Brown, 1848) 124.

36 Sydney Ahlstrom, “The Middle Period,” in The Harvard Divinity School: Its Place in Harvard University and in American Culture (ed. George Huntston Williams; Boston: Beacon Press, 1954) 102.

37 George H. Williams, “An Excursus,” in Harvard Divinity School, 351.

38 Charles W. Eliot, “Address at the Inauguration of Daniel C. Gilman,” in Educational Reform: Essays and Addresses (New York: Century, 1898) 43.

39 Eliot, “What Place,” 10.

40 Ibid., 14.

41 Charles W. Eliot, “The Secularization of Education, Not a Rational End” unpublished address before the Unitarian Club of Boston, 1886, 11, HUA.

42 Eliot, “What Place,” 12.

43 Charles W. Eliot, Annual Report of the President of Harvard University to the Overseers on the State of the University for the Academic Year 1878–1879, 22, HUA.

44 Charles W. Eliot to Francis Greenwood Peabody, 20 August 1879, HUA.

45 Charles W. Eliot, Annual Report, 1878–1879, 21.

46 Eliot, “What Place,” 10.

47 James McCosh, Religion in a College: What Place it Should Have (New York: A C Armstrong & Son, 1886) 8.

48 Ibid., 12.

49 Eliot, “What Place,” 10.