369 SPEECH, IN THE BOARD OF OVERSEERS OF HARVARD [At an adjourned meeting of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College, held in the senate chamber in Boston, Feb. 3, 1831, the Committee, consisting of Dr. SPOONER, Rev. Dr. CODMAN, and Rev. Mr. WALKER, to whom were committed the Statutes establishing a Theological Faculty in the University, reported, that a majority of the Committee were in favor of recommending a concurrence with the proceedings of the Corporation. Whereupon Dr. CODMAN rose, and moved that the subject be recommitted and postponed to the next stated meeting of the Board. The motion being seconded, Dr. Codman thus addressed the Board.] May it please your Excellency, It is with great reluctance that I rise to offer a few remarks on the Report of the Committee now before this honorable and reverend Board, and in favor of its recommittance for further consideration. With my highly respected colleagues on that committee I had the unhappiness to differ in opinion. They were in favor, as appears by their report, of recommending to this Board a concurrence with the proceedings of the corporation in the establishment of a theological faculty in this University. Although on many subjects that have come before this Board, as in the establishment of a professor of German literature, I have cheerfully given my voice in favor of concurrence with that truly enlightened and dignified body, and although I have great confidence in their wisdom, and ability, and sound judgment, yet on this occasion I was constrained, I trust from honest and conscientious motives, to differ from them as to the expediency of establishing a theological department in the University; and I feel it my duty to state to this Board the reasons of my dissent from the report of the committee. In the remarks which I beg leave to offer on this subject I shall confine myself to the question of expediency. Whether, in the existing state of public opinion on religious subjects in this Commonwealth, it is expedient for this University to descend from that high and elevated station which it ought to hold as the University of the State, and, by the establishment of a theological department, lend its mighty influence to the support of any one sect of professing Christians. With regard to the denomination of which the proposed theological faculty is well known to consist, I am far from wishing to make any invidious or unkind remarks. Many of my intimate friends and relatives belong to that denomination. The doctrinal views of the three professors are well known to be Unitarian. Should this be disputed, which I presume will not be, I have only to appeal to their publications. The senior professor, for whose private character I have reason to entertain the highest esteem, is one of the champions of the Unitarian faith-the avowed correspondent of Rammohun Roy, the Unitarian convert and missionary in India. His son, the amiable and accomplished professor of pulpit eloquence and the pastoral care, we were told in the public prints, was the accredited representative of the American Unitarian Association at a public meeting of the Unitarian denomination in England;-and the learned and talented professor elect of biblical literature, I presume no one will deny, belongs to the same class of professing Christians. Although I do not harmonize with these gentlemen in religious opinion, I entertain towards them, individually, sentiments of respectful consideration and personal regard. They have the same right to their peculiarities that I have to mine, and I should be the last person in the world to wish to deprive them of that right, or to lessen their facilities of propagating what they honestly believe to be the doctrines of Christianity. I have always been the advocate of religious freedom in its widest extent. I wish every man to enjoy the privilege of worshipping God according to the dictates of his own conscience. I rejoice that we live in this land of freedom, where no religious denomination is established by law. There is nothing that I deprecate more than any exclusive advantages granted by the State to any religious sect. It is well known that in this Commonwealth there is a great diversity of opinion on religious subjects. To mention no others, there are Orthodox and Unitarian Congregationalists, Baptists, Episcopalians and Methodists, all highly respectable in numbers and influence-and all directly or indirectly interested in this University. To this ancient and venerable seat of learning, patronized by themselves through their representatives in the legislature, it is natural that they should wish to send their sons to receive the advantages of a liberal education. And, sir, could they be assured that the University was only a literary institution, and had no necessary connection with any religious sect, they would cheerfully avail themselves of the privilege of placing their children under its fostering care, and not be under the necessity, as they repeatedly have been, and now are, of sending them elsewhere. It may be said that every college must have its distinctive religious character, and that, as the government of Harvard University, and many of its friends and patrons, are of the Unitarian denomination, it is right and proper that they should have a theological department of that character. I would allow the force of this argument, if Harvard College had been founded by Unitarians, and if it were not so intimately and so inseparably connected with the State. But, sir, it is well known that Harvard College was not founded by Unitarians, but by Orthodox Congregationalists. The professorship of divinity was not founded by Unitarians, but by a Calvinistic Baptist, of precious memory, who, in the very statutes which you are advised in the report on your table, to adopt, expressly requires that his professor should be "of sound and Orthodox principles." On this subject I |