Pastoral Education in 1840
Pastoral education has changed significantly since the 19th century. Historian William Westfall includes part of a letter penned by The Rev. Featherstone Lake Osler in a chapter of Learning to Practise: Professional Education in Historical and Contemporary Perspective. Osler’s program of clergy apprenticeship appears to include a group of up-and-coming pastors learning from him in everyday life:
The following is the
plan I pursue with regards to them. At 6 a.m. they meet in my study for
Scripture reading. This engages them until half past seven, when we breakfast.
Afterwards they study … until evening…. We take an early tea, after which I
give them three hours to correct their exercises, hear them read etc. By
this means none of my public duties [is] neglected, as I attend to [the
students] when my outdoor … work is done…. On Sunday I send out two of them
to … different outposts to read prayers, superintend the Sunday schools and
visit the sick…. One I keep home to assist me in my central Sunday school. (Westfall, 49).
Those eager students probably looked forward to that early tea!
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