WAYLAND, FRANCIS:
Baptist preacher and educator;
b. in New York Mar. 11, 1796; d. at Providence,
R. I., Sept. 30, 1865. He was graduated from
Union College in 1813; studied medicine for three
years; uniting with the Baptist church, he studied at
Andover Theological Seminary, 1816-17; was tutor
in Union College, 1817-21; pastor of the First Baptist
Church in Boston, 1821-26; professor in Union
College in 1826; president of Brown University,
1827-55; pastor of the First Baptist Church in
Providence, 1855-57; and subsequently devoted
himself to religious and humane work. He is widely
remembered as a college officer. The text-books
which he prepared for the use of his own classes
came into general use. In the reorganization,
brought about by him, of the courses of study in
Brown University in 1850, he did much to reform
the
general system of college education. By his
lectures on psychology, political economy, and
ethics, and by his personality he exerted great in
fluence on his pupils; he delivered weekly chapel
sermons, and gathered the students together for
Bible instruction. He was one of the founders and
the first president of the American Institute of In
struction, for many years presiding over and taking
an active part in its deliberations. 'He did much to
secure the founding of free public libraries.
Eminent as an educator, Wayland stands hardly
less distinguished as a preacher. He was admired
for his broad and deep thought, and grace of ex
pression. Some of his discourses, as, for example,
his sermon on
The Moral Dignity of
the Missionary
Enterprise,
are prominent inlthe annals of the Amer
ican pulpit. In all his course of public service he
never ceased to be an earnest and effective preacher
of the Gospel.
Besides sermons, addresses, and discourses his
works embrace
Elements of
Moral Science
(New
York, 1835);
Elements of
Political Economy
(1837);
Limits of
Human Responsibility
(Boston, 1838);
Domestic Slavery Considered as a Scriptural Institu
tion, in a Correspondence
(1845);
Memoir of
the Life
and Labors of
the Rev. Adoniram Judson
(2 vols.,
1853);
Elements of
Intellectual Philosophy
(1854);
Notes on the Principles and Practices of
the Baptist
Churches
(1857);
Letters on the Ministry of the Gos
pel
(1863); and the
Memoir of the Christian Labors
. of
Thomas Chalmers
(1864).
Bibliography:
The funeral sermon by G.
I.
Chace was pub
lished, Providence, 1888; and his
Life and Labors, by
his
sons F. and H. L. Wayland, 2 vols., New York, 1889.
