The New International Encyclopædia/Hartford Theological Seminary

HARTFORD THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. A Congregational institution, founded in 1834 at East Windsor Hill, Conn., under the name of the Theological Institute of Connecticut, and removed in 1865 to Hartford, with a change of name. The legal constitution of the seminary vests its control in a board of trustees, who are elected by the Pastoral Union — an association of nearly 200 ministers, all of whom give assent to the creed of the Union, a statement of doctrine drawn up in 1834, with singular breadth of view. Although the seminary was established at a time of theological controversy, the occasions of dispute then have long ago ceased to exist, and the institution now is concerned simply with the problem of training ministers for present-day work on the broadest lines of intellectual and spiritual development. In the reconstruction of theological pedagogy in America during the last twenty-five years, the seminary has been often the pioneer and always abreast of the most enterprising progress. The faculty in 1903 numbered twelve professors and twelve regular lecturers, and the student body was about eighty-five. At that time the library contained over 81,000 volumes and nearly 45,000 pamphlets — being unsurpassed in this country in several of its special collections. The main buildings are Hosmer Hall, valued at $150,000, erected in 1880 by James B. Hosmer, and the Case Memorial Library, erected in 1902 by Newton Case at a cost of $100,000. Since 1890 the faculty has issued The Hartford Seminary Record, a quarterly magazine.