Considered by many to be the most brilliant American ever, Jonathan Edwards is the consummate theologian. He was a pastor, and a missionary; he was an author and a preacher; he was university president and a renowned evangelist. To read anything by Edwards is to be challenged and convicted at the superficial way our generation treats theology.
While obviously Edwards was gifted by God, his education as a boy certainly trained him to maximize his gifts. He was the only son in a family with 10 daughters, four of whom were older than him. His father, Timothy, graduated from Harvard and then became a school master—a bit of a teacher and principal in one person—in Connecticut. After marrying the daughter of an influential pastor, Timothy himself became a pastor in East Windsor, where Jonathan was born.
Jonathan’s mother, Esther, did much more than give birth to Jonathan and 10 daughters, she also assisted with their education. However (and this puts a little wrinkle in the home school debate) she was not a professing Christian at the time, although she was a student of theology. As a side note, Esther would eventually say that she was converted under her husband’s preaching when Jonathan was 12.
Jonathan’s father was his main teacher. Because of his education, he excelled in teaching Greek and Latin, and taught Jonathan at an early age. However, churches then often paid their pastors too little, and Timothy spent much of his time returning to his earlier profession by tutoring the students from the community. Jonathan most likely received much of his instruction from his father, in the company of other children.
When Jonathan was eight, his father was forced to serve as a military chaplain for battles against the French. This left Jonathan to be instructed by church members in his father’s absence.
At age 13, Jonathan left for college. While considered young (some students began as old as 16), it was not exceptionally so. It has often been said that Jonathan went to Yale, but there is more to it than that. In the early 1700’s, Harvard had begun to slide away from evangelical Christianity. They had recently fired their president, Increase Mather, a famous puritanical minister. To understand the significance of this, imagine if The Master’s College fired MacArthur for being to concerned with religion. Many Christians responded to this by starting a new college, which according to Marsden was “opened on a shoe-string.”
This new college was called The Collegiate School of Connecticut, which is another way of saying it did not even have a name. It also did not have a campus, or a location. Many of the families who formed it were vying for one location or another, and so they sent their children to that location for study. Edwards then actually began his studies in Wethersfield, about 10 miles South of East Windsor, and 40 miles north of the New Haven campus.
When you picture this, don’t picture modern day Yale, or really any modern concept of college. Instead, picture 10 students, ages 13 through 17, living away from their families, in a house, under the supervision of a tutor. While in concept it might be closer to a modern boarding school for high school students, the entrance requirement was a mastery of Latin.
In Jonathan’s third year at the Collegiate School, the students from Wethersfield tried to join the students in New Haven. However, the New Haven campus was much more naturalistic (reading Descartes, Locke, Newton) and Anglican while the Wethersfield campus was more traditional (reading Latin and Greek, studying geography) and Calvinistic. Jonathan and his classmates revolted and returned to the make-shift campus in Wethersfield. However, Jonathan would return to the New Haven campus one year later, largely because they built a new dorm which he thought would help his learning. It was around this time that the school became known as Yale, named after the benefactor who built the new dorm.
There are some lessons that can be drawn from Jonathan’s early education. First, he was trained exceptionally well by parents who were exceptionally busy. His father was pastoring, tutoring others, and still taught him Latin and Greek. Second, his parents were in diverse places as to their religion, and yet from them Jonathan learned morality, and the refusal to compromise. And third, his parents had such confidence in him, that they had no qualms (that they recorded) in sending him away to school, six weeks before his thirteenth birthday.
While obviously Edwards was gifted by God, his education as a boy certainly trained him to maximize his gifts. He was the only son in a family with 10 daughters, four of whom were older than him. His father, Timothy, graduated from Harvard and then became a school master—a bit of a teacher and principal in one person—in Connecticut. After marrying the daughter of an influential pastor, Timothy himself became a pastor in East Windsor, where Jonathan was born.
Jonathan’s mother, Esther, did much more than give birth to Jonathan and 10 daughters, she also assisted with their education. However (and this puts a little wrinkle in the home school debate) she was not a professing Christian at the time, although she was a student of theology. As a side note, Esther would eventually say that she was converted under her husband’s preaching when Jonathan was 12.
Jonathan’s father was his main teacher. Because of his education, he excelled in teaching Greek and Latin, and taught Jonathan at an early age. However, churches then often paid their pastors too little, and Timothy spent much of his time returning to his earlier profession by tutoring the students from the community. Jonathan most likely received much of his instruction from his father, in the company of other children.
When Jonathan was eight, his father was forced to serve as a military chaplain for battles against the French. This left Jonathan to be instructed by church members in his father’s absence.
At age 13, Jonathan left for college. While considered young (some students began as old as 16), it was not exceptionally so. It has often been said that Jonathan went to Yale, but there is more to it than that. In the early 1700’s, Harvard had begun to slide away from evangelical Christianity. They had recently fired their president, Increase Mather, a famous puritanical minister. To understand the significance of this, imagine if The Master’s College fired MacArthur for being to concerned with religion. Many Christians responded to this by starting a new college, which according to Marsden was “opened on a shoe-string.”
This new college was called The Collegiate School of Connecticut, which is another way of saying it did not even have a name. It also did not have a campus, or a location. Many of the families who formed it were vying for one location or another, and so they sent their children to that location for study. Edwards then actually began his studies in Wethersfield, about 10 miles South of East Windsor, and 40 miles north of the New Haven campus.
When you picture this, don’t picture modern day Yale, or really any modern concept of college. Instead, picture 10 students, ages 13 through 17, living away from their families, in a house, under the supervision of a tutor. While in concept it might be closer to a modern boarding school for high school students, the entrance requirement was a mastery of Latin.
In Jonathan’s third year at the Collegiate School, the students from Wethersfield tried to join the students in New Haven. However, the New Haven campus was much more naturalistic (reading Descartes, Locke, Newton) and Anglican while the Wethersfield campus was more traditional (reading Latin and Greek, studying geography) and Calvinistic. Jonathan and his classmates revolted and returned to the make-shift campus in Wethersfield. However, Jonathan would return to the New Haven campus one year later, largely because they built a new dorm which he thought would help his learning. It was around this time that the school became known as Yale, named after the benefactor who built the new dorm.
There are some lessons that can be drawn from Jonathan’s early education. First, he was trained exceptionally well by parents who were exceptionally busy. His father was pastoring, tutoring others, and still taught him Latin and Greek. Second, his parents were in diverse places as to their religion, and yet from them Jonathan learned morality, and the refusal to compromise. And third, his parents had such confidence in him, that they had no qualms (that they recorded) in sending him away to school, six weeks before his thirteenth birthday.
2 comments:
Interesting reading, thanks.
Thank You CT.
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