HOW NOT TO TRAIN THE CLERGY.
IF the Church of England is to remain a truly national Church it must comprehend the whole nation. It must not refuse its offices and ministrations to anyone who seeks them. There is no other basis upon which an established Church can be logically defended. On the other hand, if this be the basis of the establishment there is no logical argument against the maintenance of a national Church in a Christian State. An established national Church is, in our opinion, necessary ; nevertheless, the conditions upon which establish- ment is practicable must be observed. What is true of the nation in its relation to the Church ought to be true also of the clergy of the national Church as representative of the nation. Many schemes have been set forth, and new ones are still being presented, for the better training of the clergy. There is a notorious need for the clergy to be more numerous, more cultivated, and better trained for their work ; but we would judge every single scheme by the test whether it would or would not fit in with the essential theory of the Church as a body automatically embracing everyone in the nation.
The chief value of the earnest and powerful "open letter" on the "Training of Candidates for Holy Orders" (Spottis- woode and Co. Is. net), which Dr. A. C. Fleadlam, Professor of Dogmatic Theology in King's College, London, and formerly Principal of the College, has addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, is that it does accept this test, and dismisses or accepts schemes for training in accordance with it. Besides his experience at King's College Dr. Headlam taught for some years for the Theological School at Oxford, and for thirteen years was Examining Chaplain to the late Bishop of Southwell. He therefore speaks with reason and authority, and his arguments are plainly those of one who is under intense conviction of the truth of what he says. We need not dwell upon his discussion of the common evil of an excessive devotion to examinations, though this weaves itself in and out of all his thoughts, but will come to the particular schemes for the better training of the clergy. It is a subject that concerns everyone. No one who is accustomed to "sit under" the same preacher Sunday after Sunday, or who comes in contact with the organizing power or weakness of the parson in a non-provided school, or who watches the effect of the parson's methods and character on village life, whether on its economic, its social, or its intellectual side, can
possibly say that he is indifferent to the training of the clergy. Four main proposals have come from the Bishops, and have been, of are being, discussed. The first is that there should be a central entrance examination ; the second, that there should be one general external examination for all theological students ; the third (which is now being discussed), that every candidate for Orders after the year 1917 must have a Univer- sity degree ; and the fourth, that every candidate should spend at least a year in a theological college. The third and the fourth chiefly occupy Dr. Headlam's attention, and these are the proposals we wish to consider. They excite Dr. Headlam's indignation. But though his indignation is great our own is greater. These proposals are flatly opposed to the spirit of the true test for a national Church. If they were adopted the Church would have taken a definite step towards a mistaken exclusiveness. Even as the Church should minister to everyone, so should it draw upon all the resources of the nation for its clerical recruits. Fewer candidates instead of more would be forthcoming if a policy of exclusiveness were adopted, and the Church would be committed to a sort of ecclesiastical and intellectual lollardism in choosing the clergy.
Dr. Headlam believes that if a University degree were insisted upon, the rule would soon have to be rescinded, so serious would be the reduction in the number of candidates. He does not forget to mention that the proposal is made in conjunction with a new financial scheme under which it is hoped that a large sum of money could be employed in enabling candidates for Orders to take University degrees. But even if this large sum of money could be counted upon, the policy, in our judgment, would be absolutely false. That a University degree, particularly an Oxford or Cambridge degree, with all the benefits of contact with culture and of the collegiate life that it implies, is highly desirable, we willingly admit. We only wish that it were practicable for every clergyman to have had such a training and experience. As far as possible it should be the practice, but when we reflect upon the question whether a rigid rule ought to be made we only become more and more astonished that anyone should have the recklessness to offer any such proposal. Dr. Headlam says that men whom he taught at Oxford reached a lower standard than the men whom he taught subsequently in London and who took no University degree. But a more serious matter is that the type of man who makes up his mind comparatively late in life to take Orders, and who could not reasonably be asked to become an undergraduate against his will at Oxford or Cambridge, would be excluded. Men of this type are often the best of clergymen. Only very strong con- viction has prevailed upon them to step aside from a layman's occupation and take Orders; their religious faith has already withstood the assaults of intellectual doubt ; they are trained men, probably versed already in affairs and worldly knowledge, and men able to deal with their fellows. We have all heard of men who have left the Navy, the Army, or some profession to become parsons. The proposed rule would, for practical purposes, shut out such men, and the result would be a loss and a crying injustice to the Church. The writer remembers seeing a man of some fifty years of age studying among a number of lads who were working for matriculation, the "Little Go," and so forth, in a crammer's establishment. The crammer was a parson, and the elderly student was acting as a lay-reader in the parson's parish, and in return for his services he received a certain amount of coaching. He was eventually able to satisfy the Bishop's examining chaplain and was ordained. The difficulties in the way of that man's going to a University would probably have been insuperable. Dr. Headlam's objection to the proposal to make a University degree compulsory is in brief that it would unduly cripple freedom and initiative. Such a system as has been worked out at Kelham by Father Kelly, who in Dr. Headlam's opinion "has done more to raise our conception of what is required in training for Orders than any other person in the Church at the present time," would be banned as an avenue of entrance to Orders. We heartily agree that there should be "very great opportunities of variety in training and every opportunity for new experiments being started."
We come to the proposal that every candidate for Orders should spend at least a year in a theological college. This is in our judgment the worst of all the proposals. Some of the colleges are homes of such particularism and prejudice as are
the worst enemies of the idea of a national Church. Dr. Headlam writes of this proposal :—
" If it were put in the vague form in which I have sometimes seen it put—'should have been at a theological college or had
other special training should not myself be inclined to take exception to it. Put in the narrower form of attendance at a resident theological college, it would, I am sure, be a mistake.
There is no doubt that in many ways the theological colleges
have raised the standard of training for Orders. They have laid stress upon the necessity of spiritual and devotional life ; to many of those who have been undergraduates at Oxford or Cambridge, and have not learnt there any special discipline of life, they have probably been invaluable. But that does not for one moment mean that they ought to be made the sole avenue for entrance
into the ministry of the Church. They have had undoubtedly very serious defects. They have generally failed to provide any
intellectual stimulus, and the want of intellectual stimulus has been a serious defect in a large body of the clergy of the Church of England. I remember once spending a week in Scotland with a body of Scotch divinity students, and then coming immediately to one of our better-known theological colleges ; and I was struck by the completely different atmosphere in which I found myself. In many ways it was far more attractive. But the men in the English college seemed to be entirely destitute of any intellectual interest in connexion with their subject. Then further: the theological college undoubtedly puts a parti- cular mark upon the men it sends out. They represent, of course, different phases of opinion. But the result is only too often to put on a veneer of piety or ecclesiasticism with- out allowing it to get a deep hold, or to give the external catchword of a system without the intellectual basis. The result is that the young curate goes out with a fully made system and attempts to impose it upon people without discretion. The fault lies really in the absence of intellectual grip. That this danger exists is undoubted. I have again and again had long talks with laymen—earnest Church laymen of various opinions—who have deplored this tendency in their clergy. They have recognized their zeal and earnestness, but they have felt that they had a too cut-and-dried system which they were anxious to impose upon an unwilling parish, and that they never seemed to have gripped the intellectual basis of what they were teaching. And, again, a system such as this would take away the opportunities of that variety of training which has always been one of the sources ot strength to our Church. It would, for example, have prevented the work which was done for so many years by the late Dr, Vaughan. On the other hand, I have again and again been impressed with the value of the discipline of life which is for most of our men at King's their principal training in character. Some of these are paying for their course by doing lay work, some of them are in business, many of them have a hard, rear struggle to support themselves. In some cases this system fails, but not in any larger number of cases than in resident theo- logical colleges, and the type of man produced is often strongei and more self-reliant. His piety and devotion are self-taught It was a point on which the late Bishop of Southwell always laid stress, that if a man's faith and earnestness were real, the discipline of life, and even its incongruities, were a better school of piety than the artificial atmosphere of the college. Non-residential universities are not so attractive as residential, but they teach a good deal the residential university fails to give. But what I would complain of most is the attempt that is being made to force this one system compulsorily on everyone. That is quite contrary to the conditions of freedom which have always characterized the Church of England. The right way for those who desire to promote this particular method of training is to provide theological colleges of the type that they approve, to make them efficient so that they may attract men, and to use their personal influence and advice to persuade candidates for Orders to go to them. If they did that the Church would gain. It will not gain if they try to obtain their end, not in this way, but by making regulations which will simply destroy other methods of training. It is to some of us a cause of deep regret and resentment that this interference with liberty should come from representatives on the Bench of that section of the Church who have profited most in the past by the liberty of the Church of England."
The Bishop of Southwell's words deserve letters of gold. Any training that produces good results is a good training. Life in a theological college may be the only training for some men, but we do protest against the preposterous notion that it is the only training for all men. We sincerely hope that the Archbishop will heed Dr. Headlam's wise warning,
for we are persuaded that it represents the feelings of a vast number both of laymen and clergymen.
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