The Baptist colleges in the mid-nineteenth century

Abstract

The era between the 1830s and the opening of the 1860s witnessed a gradual shift in Baptist ministerial education. Nonconformists were becoming more respectable; and educational standards were rising in society at large. There was therefore a tendency for an academy to turn into a college. A change of scale meant that several institutions grew into larger bodies. The setting often altered from basic provision to grand facilities. The instruction delivered generally ceased to be amateurish and became more professional. The purpose shifted further from evangelism to study. Standards rose from the elementary to the advanced. The range of studies tended to move from a narrower to a broader variety. And the theology shifted from a confessional to an evangelical stance. Although there was resistance to the trends, especially from C. H. Spurgeon, traditional academies were becoming colleges with a newer ethos.