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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
An important new educational institution was created in America in the early nineteenth century—the theological seminary. The development of seminaries, although almost completely ignored by twentieth-century educational historians, was an important achievement with far-reaching consequences for religion, education, and society. Education for the ministry became formally organized, systematized, and extended in the specialized theological seminaries which substantially improved professional preparation. Within a generation of the founding of Andover in 1807, the theological seminary became the accepted pattern of professional training for the educated and learned ministry in Protestant churches. Alumni of seminaries and divinity schools not only preached the gospel, but also extended education throughout the land by establishing and supporting literally thousands of educational agencies and institutions: colleges and seminaries, academies and common schools, churches and Sunday schools, libraries and the religious press, and benevolent and reform societies.
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