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ARTISTIC STUDIES IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES

PROFESSOR WALDO S. PRATT, Mus. D.

HARTFORD THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

The importance of this topic from our point of view needs no extended emphasis. We are charged with the problem of arousing interest in the various applications of the fine arts to religious uses, and, if possible, of stimulating advance in such applications. But nearly all of these applications that we can touch take place in the routine of church life and activity. Pre-eminently do they appear in the great field of public worship as one aspect of that life. In this field all must recognize the immense influence of the ministry in determining what shall be the canons of theory and what the usages of praxis. To a degree that is almost appalling, public worship is what the ministry makes it, particularly in those communions where liturgical rules and traditions are most flexible or formless. More than this, popular thought about all that pertains to public worship or branches out from it must be strongly dominated by the average thought among the ministry. "Like priest, like people."

If, then, we would move wisely and effectively toward the popular uplifting of church building and decoration, of church music and hymnody, of the use of artistic appliances in Sunday school instruction, of the religious applications of literary art both in the church and in the home, and of the whole popular apprehension of the interrelation between things æsthetic and things religious, we must early concentrate effort upon the strategic center of the whole situation—which is the ministry. Unless the ministry generally can be awakened to the altogether unique values of fine art in manifold forms for accomplishing spiritual results of the highest importance and the greatest permanence, we shall be driven to the much slower process of so generating thought among the laity that they in time shall compel the clergy to move, whether they will or no.

But we should cordially acknowledge that among ministers there are many whose minds are open in this direction and who are eager to recover for Christianity to-day that artistic power that it has had in other ages in fuller measure than now. Ministers of this class, however, can hardly be said to be common, or, so to speak, typical. They are scattered here and there, and there are few means by which their efforts can come to combined expression and so exert their full power.

We may perhaps venture the guess that most of them are men of middle age, whose interest in the artistic side of religion has grown gradually as experience has broadened and as reflection has become mature. The younger men, as a rule, seem much less commonly in sympathy with this aspect of Christian effort. To some of them artisticness means effeminacy or luxury, and perhaps a care for the beautiful seems like carelessness about the true and the good. Neither in college nor in the seminary have they received any positive impulse to think otherwise. All their contacts with art have been with it as simple amusement, and usually very empty-headed and even heartless amusement at that. I think that it is safe to say that the constant influx of young life into the ministry is not bringing with it any considerable knowledge of the fine arts in their larger forms nor any decided purpose to apply them vigorously in their God-intended work in the interest of spirituality.

This brings us face to face with our question. In what directions should the theological seminary aim to teach artistic subjects? which of these are most necessary and most practicable? and what methods are germane in each? The time here at our disposal is so short that no adequate statement can be made of this really extensive subject. What I shall say must stand without argument or illustration for the most part.

Art topics, it is now well understood, can enter into formal education in three somewhat distinct ways. First, the student may be introduced to the technical processes of an art and drilled in these as if his object was to become an artist—a method that presupposes some noticeable natural aptitude and that involves a large expenditure of time. Second, instead of working thus synthetically, he may be trained in the analysis of art products and given a historian's sense of how they have been gradually developed as expressions of civilization— a method that has the great advantages of being analogous to methods in constant use in other fields and of making not too great demands upon the student's time. Third, instead of either pursuing technical skill or scientific or historical information, efforts may be made to present to the student's appreciation in a somewhat informal way more or less extensive collections or reproductions of art works for their general cultural effect. Each of these methods has its own decided value, and through various combinations of them art subjects of different kinds may be made integral parts of a curriculum in any educational institution. For the needs of a theological seminary they should be used with due regard to the limitations of time and relative emphasis

that are more or less obvious. In colleges and universities all of them are in successful operation in the interest of several different fine arts, notably in literature. The question for us is as to how much of them may be practical and desirable in a seminary. Let us take the three methods in turn.

Technical training for the sake of active artistic skill is called for in a seminary in three forms of fine art-in literary composition, in public reading and speaking, and in singing (with possibly the rudiments of musical construction). The acquisition of a forcible literary style as a true art is of inestimable importance to a minister, since language, written and spoken, is the tool whereby the minister does most of his professional work. All seminaries have prolonged courses in homiletics, or the preparation of sermons, yet these plainly do not suffice to make their graduates the experts in the use of English that they ought to be. It is disagreeably notorious that the average minister is careless and crude in this direction, and the worst of it is, that he so often despises culture of this sort as merely a decorative accomplishment rather than something that concerns the very substance and potency of all that he is to say or write. All seminaries, too, have some drill in the art of public speaking, especially in its more advanced forms. Very few of them, however, go down to the root of the matter or provide systematically concatenated courses. For myself, I must believe that one of the prime essentials in a seminary is drill in voice-building, through individual lessons at first, so as to ascertain and correct those deep-lying faults or misconceptions that often hamper a minister throughout his career. The object at first should be the real culture of the conversational voice quite as much as the so-called oratorical" voice. On this foundation many different and more advanced lines of special study can be rested with hope of real utility. Voice-building, too, opens the way toward the art of singing, which almost every one now recognizes as of the greatest importance for the active minister. Here again the plea must be for attention to the matter systematically, beginning with the art of sightsinging, with its involved drill in part-singing. This will pass over more or less, especially with some students, into a study of the rudiments of harmony, but this need not be pressed as a necessity. That seminary is especially fortunate to those students to whom is also accessible the practice of well-drilled chorus choirs or a choral society, since these provide that more elaborate experience with part-singing which is almost out of the question in the seminary itself. We put down, then, on our list of courses in art subjects designed to give real

artistic skill of a strictly technical sort, three items: Drill in literary style, drill in vocal expression, drill in singing.

Fully as strong a plea may be made for courses of a scientific or historical character in a number of directions. Such courses are naturally carried on through lectures, the benefit of which consists in the gradual acquisition by the student, not only of a large body of information, but of a personal keenness of appreciation and discrimination that is quite as important. I almost hesitate to give the list of topics that seem to me important and somewhat practical, simply because I shall be charged with being chimerical. Yet most of the topics that I would urge have been tried in some way and found possible and useful. In most seminaries there is a call for some work in English literature, especially in its relations to religion and morals. This may take many forms; such as, the Theology of the English Poets, the Moral Influence of Fiction or the Drama, the Impress of the Historic Church upon the Development of Literary Art in General. Probably, there would be an advantage in having the point of view varied from year to year. Doubtless there is a place for courses upon the style and thought of particular writers of conspicious power, such as any one might name. In connection with the work in elocution, there ought to be some historical and critical work done to give an idea of the vast extent of the field of eloquence in its several great applications. The field of music, too, offers an unlimited range of useful themes, beginning with that which joins hard upon literature, upon theology and upon practical spirituality, namely, the history of hymnody, which ought to be conspicious in every seminary curriculum. To this I would add the history of church music as a special branch of musical art, and I would push out beyond this, if possible, to include some sketch of the general history of music as a whole, sufficient to give an idea of its close relation to the history of civilization. I also believe that there is room occassionally for analytical studies in particular musical art-forms, especially the oratorio, but not forgetting the symphony, the 'song and some instrumental forms. The lives of certain musicians may sometimes be considered by themselves with much profit, especially those that have left a positive impress upon sacred music. From music it is natural to pass to several of its sister arts. Almost every one of them had its origin in the Church, has given to the Church much of its choicest energy, and has powerfully affected the course of religious and moral development in the past. Architecture is conspicuous in this regard, and probably all seminaries ought to offer to their students some means of knowing by observation and

explanation the styles and forms that have been associated with the Church in different periods, both for their historic value and for their wealth of suggestion as to present-day church-building. Painting and sculpture are almost equally valuable, and for the same reasons. Reproductions of such art-work, also, are of the greatest use in religious education in the Sunday school, and ministers cannot afford to be absolutely ignorant about them. In short, it may almost be said that no established discipline in the history of fine art can be named that would not have utility if given a place in a seminary curriculum at some time.

The objection to all such courses is, that, to make them worth while in a scientific sense, they must be presented by an expert, must occupy a long series of class-room hours, and must be entered into by the student with such thoroughness that they seriously invade his time and his energy for other studies. For a few of them, like the history of hymnody, for example, it may be said that the profit is well worth all it may cost. For others, however, I think that the way to bring them in is rather under the head of "cultural" courses, in which the aim is not so much to address the student's intellect and reason as to affect his instinctive taste and feeling. The best good of a course of demonstrations of oratorio music or of architectural masterpieces, for instance, is not that which can be tested by an examination or set down in note-books, but that unconscious awakening of the heart to artistic beauty and meaning which may become a lifelong possession and joy. Accordingly, I believe that most work in these directions should be conducted somewhat informally, and with such an emphasis on the exhibition of specimens that they may speak for themselves, and work almost unaided that influence upon sensitiveness, upon imagination, upon reverence and aspiration, that is in their power. There is hardly a seminary that does not have professors who could add one or more such cultural courses to their list with success, and in doing so would establish a new link of sympathy between themselves and their students. Handled in this way, such courses would escape the danger of becoming too technical or too devoid of definite religious application, and the close relation of students with their regular instructors would encourage that questioning and discussion that make such studies peculiarly profitable. The one point of greatest practical difficulty is in the providing of specimens for use. All these involve considerable monetary expenditure, yet every one of them can be justified as a part of library equipment. For example, in these days the reproduction of music by mechanical piano-players is advancing with startling rapid

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