In order to satisfy ourselves, we lately turned
over the catalogues of all the principal divinity schools in the
country, to see if any chairs of natural science had been
established, or if candidates for the ministry had to undergo any
compulsory instruction in geology or physics, or the higher
mathematics, or biology, or palaeontology, or astronomy, or had to
become versed in the methods of scientific investigation in the
laboratory or in the dissecting-room, or were subjected to any
unusually severe discipline in the use of the inductive process. Not
much to our surprise, we found nothing of the kind. We found that,
to all appearance, not even the smallest smattering of natural
science in any of its branches is considered necessary to a
minister's education; no astronomy, no chemistry, no biology, no
geology, no higher mathematics, no comparative anatomy, and nothing
severe in logic. In fact, of special preparation for the discussion
of such a theme as the origin of life on the earth, there does not
appear to be in the ordinary course of our divinity schools any
trace.
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