efficiency requiring the hours to be limited. The college ought to respond both for this reason and in the interest of religious effectiveness.

e) The question of industrial education should be carefully studied with a view to determining whether and how far it can be introduced in connection with the mission schools and colleges. Experimentation will be necessary in order to find the best line of work for each school.

f) Some modification of the salary-scheme, at least of some of the missionary societies, ought soon to be effected. The position of head of a college under new conditions cannot be successfully occupied except by an educator of some experience. Such a man may sometimes be found among the professors and he may be willing and able to remain at the salary which the society pays its missionaries. But sometimes a new man ought to be sent, and often it will be impossible for him to go on the present salary-scale.

g) The temptation to seek large numbers of students, or even to accept applicants beyond the capacity of the college properly to care for them ought to be sternly resisted by the managers of colleges and discouraged by the societies at home. This temptation is naturally very strong. In no country do the authorities of the college love to turn away students from their doors. But the missionary college is perhaps under especial temptation because decrease in numbers might be viewed by the board at home as reason for diminution of appropriation. In the present situation, however, rigorous limiting of numbers is the stern duty of many of the colleges, and diminution of numbers might be the surest evidence of efficient management. The great need of India is not more college graduates with their present qualifications and ambitions, but more men whose education has made them ready and willing to serve their country along the path of her greatest need rather than that of their own financial profit and social standing.

Of course all this constitutes not a plea for less education, still less an argument for a less generous support of the colleges. India cannot have too many educated men if only they are educated to meet India's present need. What is called for is even greater care than has been exercised that the education given should be of the right type, and that to this end the colleges should be so well equipped that the staff can meet both the requirements of the universities and

the moral requirements of the situation, and that if need be to this end the number of students should be limited. To the accomplishment of this result home boards must co-operate with the faculties of the schools in increasing both staff and equipment, and in accepting reduction of students not as an excuse for reduction of the force, but as evidence that the missionary teachers are courageously carrying out the policy which the situation earnestly demands.

h) The matter of hostels is of great importance. Oversight and healthy moral influence out of classroom are as important as inside. What is needed is not dormitories in which the students lodge without supervision or under rigid rules, but something that at least approximates a home with the personal influence of a man of high character. The influences surrounding students in Indian cities are such that residence of the student in lodgings outside the college and without proper oversight is extremely unwise. Generally speaking students should not be received beyond the capacity of the college buildings.

i) Tuition should be the same as in the government colleges, possibly with some carefully guarded provision for partial remission of tuition to students of poor Christian parents. It is sometimes alleged that students go to Christian colleges chiefly because tuition is lower. It is doubtful wisdom to draw students by the inducement of cheapness. Even non-Christian parents often give as the reason for sending their sons to Christian colleges that they are under better moral influences and come into closer contact with the professors and are more considerately treated. These are legitimate inducements and should be made as strong as possible. The Christian colleges should give as good an education in other respects as the government or native colleges, and should add these.

i) It is deserving careful consideration whether in the present situation facilities for the education of girls ought not to be greatly increased with a view to reaching the home life of the Indian people and thus affecting the whole life of the nation at its source.

k) Thus far reference has been made almost exclusively to the Christian colleges. But the majority of students in India are at present in government colleges, and this situation is likely to continue. These colleges cannot exert any direct religious influence, and their

moral influence is limited to that of the personal character of the staff, which, though usually high, unfortunately is not in all cases all that could be desired. The hostel conducted under Christian influence commends itself as one of the best agencies yet devised for supplementing the moral influence of the governing college itself. Lord Curzon especially approved this method of influencing the students morally. The Oxford and Cambridge Hostel at Allahabad is an excellent example of what can be done in this way. The authorities of the colleges will welcome, or at least will not object to, hostels under strong Christian influence. To provide such in connection with government colleges would be a service of great value.

THE TASK AND METHOD OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

PROFESSOR BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D.D., LL.D., PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY; PROFESSOR WILLIAM ADAMS BROWN, D.D., LL.D., UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY; GERALD B. SMITH, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

By "Systematic Theology" is meant that department or section of theological science which is concerned with setting forth systematically, that is to say, as a concatenated whole what is known concerning God. Other departments or sections of theological science undertake other tasks. Whether such a being as God exists needs to be ascertained, and if such a being exists, whether he is knowable; whether such creatures as men are capable of knowing him, and, if so, what sources of information concerning him are accessible. This is the task of apologetical theology. These matters being determined, it is necessary to draw out from the sources of information concerning God which are accessible to us, all that can be known of God. This is the task of exegetical theology. A critical survey of previous attempts to draw from the sources of information concerning God what may be known of God, with an estimate of the results of these attempts and of their testing in life, is next incumbent on us. This is the task of historical theology. Finally we must inquire into the use of this knowledge of God and the ways in which it may be best applied to human needs. This is the task of practical theology. Among these various departments or sections of theological science there is obviously place for, or rather there is positively demanded, yet another, the task of which is to set forth in systematic formulation the results of the investigations of exegetical theology, clarified and enforced by the investigations of historical theology, which are to be applied by practical theology to the needs of man. Here the warrant of systematic theology, its task, and its encyclopedic place are at once exhibited. It is the business of systematic theology to take the knowledge of God supplied to it by apologetical, exegetical, and historical theology, scrutinize it with a view to discovering the inner

relations of its several elements, and set it forth in a systematic presentation, that is to say, as an organic whole, so that it may be grasped and held in its entirety, in the due relation of its parts to one another and to the whole, and with a just distribution of emphasis among the several items of knowledge which combine to make up the totality of our knowledge of God.

It is clear at once that "systematic theology" forms the central, or perhaps we may better say the culminating, department of theological science. It is the goal to which apologetical, exegetical, and historical theology lead up; and it provides the matter which practical theology employs. What is most important in the knowledge of God-which is what theology is-is, of course, just the knowledge of God; and that is what systematic theology sets forth. Apologetical theology puts us in the way of obtaining knowledge of God. Exegetical theology gives us this knowledge in its disjecta membra. Historical theology makes us aware how it has been apprehended and transmuted into life. Practical theology teaches us how to propagate it in the world. It is systematic theology which spreads it before us in the form most accessible to our modes of conception, pours it, so to speak, into the molds of our minds, and makes it our assured possession that we may thoroughly understand and utilize it. There is nothing strange, therefore, in the common manner of speech by which systematic theology absorbs into itself all theology. In point of fact, theology, as the science of God, comes to itself only in systematic theology; and if we set systematic theology over against other theological disciplines as a separable department of theological science, this is not that we divide the knowledge of God up among these departments, retaining only some of it—perhaps a small or a relatively unimportant portion-for systematic theology; but only that we trace the process by which the knowledge of God is ascertained, clarified, and ordered, up through the several stages of the dealing of the human mind with it until at last, in systematic theology, it stands before our eyes in complete formulation.

The choice of the term "systematic theology" to designate this department of theological science has been made the occasion of some criticism, and its employment has been accompanied by some abuse. It is, no doubt, capable of being misunderstood and misused, as what