THE TRAINED LAYMAN 323 



Springfield, Mass., the other in Chicago. No school can create the 

 ideal general secretary; he requires the education of experience; 

 but a large proportion of the most enterprising and successful secre- 

 taries of to-day have received their strongest impressions at one 

 of these excellent institutions. At each a thorough mastery of the 

 Bible and a general introduction to the best working religious and 

 educational methods is given emphasis. As a result of the tireless 

 promotion of religious education in the Associations, there is being 

 appointed in every large organization a secretary who is a Bible 

 study specialist. He supplements and enforces the more general 

 religious work of his colleagues. 



Such a teacher finds his training to-day at one of the universities 

 like Chicago, or Vanderbilt, or Yale, or at the colleges for men or 

 women which are equipped to give thorough Biblical instruction, 

 or in such a specialized institution as Dr. Wilbert W. White's Bible 

 Teachers College in New York, recently given an adequate home by 

 Miss Gould. At the latter institution the practical and experimental 

 side of Bible training is given prominence. 



The extensive courses for lay students at the Union Theological 

 Seminary, New York, exhibit more thoroughly than the arrange- 

 ments made by any other theological institution the good results 

 among the laity of the provision at such centres of religious educa- 

 tion of opportunities for those who desire to become better able to 

 meet their opportunities as lay workers. Whether it is better than 

 the independent lay college it is hard to say. 



For the important posts of pastor's assistant, Bible school superin- 

 tendent, and the like, the Bible Training School of Chicago, and the 

 Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy, particularly the latter, fur- 

 nish needed instruction. The school at Hartford has been notably 

 successful in developing able teachers and organizers. These schools 

 will prosper, and others like them will arise. 



The most productive school of all for the training of religious 

 leaders will continue to be, as it always has been, the close association 

 of a successful leader with a chosen pupil. A pastor's class of one 

 will rarely fail to develop the qualities of initiative, resolution, and 

 ability to direct the effort of others. It is the most sacred duty of 

 the true religious leader to keep placing his hand on some available 

 personality, who shall be trained for future independent service. 



It will be fully apparent to one who has followed this discussion, 

 that the rise of the laity as men and women of religious initiative 

 does not mean the corresponding decline of the ministry. On the 

 contrary, the greater the number of such qualified laymen and 

 laywomen,the more need will there be for the still better trained min- 

 ister. The layman will never displace the minister until the latter 

 becomes satisfied with the relatively meager training which meets 



