So I left him with that comfort, hoping that he would not leave the Seminary in his intellectual excitement, for I felt sure that his Rationalism or Agnosticism or whatever form of mind he was in, would pass and give way to something with more color and inspiration in it.
Our studies for the second year were more practical and philosophical than those we received during the first year. I was ready to appreciate the value of the studies more after my summer’s experience as a missionary. The intellectual honesty and sincerity of Burner was indicative of the spirit which one of the professors, who later left us, engendered in us. One incident will illustrate the temper of his art of teaching. Our class, in its first year, had approached this man’s recitation with a feeling of fear, for his astute mind and his impassive manner in the classroom, and withal, his absolute fearlessness in bringing up the other side of an affirmative, had not reacted in his favor. Even before we knew him, we had him placarded, in our minds, as an unbeliever! One day when we came into his class we found that some one had written on the blackboard, the professor’s name with this legend after it:
“Professor —— Atheist!”
When he came into the classroom, and saw that, I thought he would burst into tears; a look of patient wonder came into his eyes, and he merely said to me,
“Mr. Priddy, will you kindly take the eraser and give us a clean blackboard!”
Our first class under this teacher was one in psychology. We met and his first question was,
“What are we to study?”
Instantly one of my classmates replied,
“Psychology!”
“What is psychology?”