Excerpt from Plea in Behalf of Western Colleges: A Discourse Delivered Before the Society for Promoting Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, in the First Presbyterian Church, Newark, New Jersey, October 29, 1845 and in the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, February 29, 1846 That the soul be without knowledge, it is not good - Proverbs xix. 2. I propose to address you in behalf of the Society for the pro motion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West. The kind of education which that society seeks to promote, is that which is usual in the Protestant literary institutions of the older States of the Union. - A Protestant seminary of learning is a definite thing. It suggests a well-known and familiar thought to every mind. It is designed to secure the best practicable dis cipline of the intellectual powers, by instruction in the arts and sciences, and by an extended and diligent cultivation of Greek and Roman classical learning. It proposes to bring the soul under the control of the highest and purest principles of morals, and to imbue it with independence of thought, and with the inextinguishable love of liberty. Its course of study and discipline is arranged with a view that the heart shall be pervaded with the most thorough religious principles drawn directly from the Bible, and that the student shall form his own manly Opinions in religion, independently of the decisions of synods and councils, and the traditions of the Fathers. It designs to acquaint the mind with the elementary principles of freedom, the history and value of the Reformation, and the events which have conspired to make our civil and religious institutions what they are. It is intended to place before the rising generation the best models of integrity, patriotism and piety, which the world has furnished; and to prepare those to whom will soon be entrusted all in this land that is valuable in liberty, in learning, and in religion, to receive intelligently the inestimable trust, and to transmit it unimpared, and improved in their hands, to future times. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.