The Negro's church,.

44

The Negro's Church

The Younger Ministers Have More College Equipment
Table I makes plain that the two youngest groups, repre-,senting pastors less than forty years of age, have an appreciably higher percentage of men holding college degrees than
have the three groups beyond forty. The percentage in the
two groups below forty is approximately twice that of those of
the groups of 40-49 and 60 and above, and half as large
again as that of the group 50-59. The percentage of the men
holding A.B. degrees in the first age-group, twenty to twentynine, is more than double that of the age-groups forty to
forty-nine and sixty and above. It is more than one and onehalf times the percentage of the pastors fifty to fifty-nine.
Although 20 per cent. of the pastors between the ages of
fifty and fifty-nine were college graduates, as against 15.9 per
cent. of the men between forty and forty-nine years of age,
the men in the latter group carried a higher percentage of
college degrees into the ministry when they entered than did
the men in the former group. It was possible, in the case of
26 of the 32 men holding college degrees in the age-group
fifty to fifty-nine, to compare their years in the ministry with
their years of graduation. Of the 26, 53.8 per cent. had their
college degrees when they entered the ministry. Of the 35
college graduates between forty and forty-nine, 32 gave their
years in the ministry and years of graduation; 20, or 62.5
per cent., carried college degrees with them into the ministry.
In the light of these facts, it is not too much to say that the
younger men in the ministry under forty years of age entered
the ministry with more academic and technical equipment
than the older men beyond forty.
YOUNGER MEN BETTER TRAINED THEOLOGICALLY
Table II shows that the percentage of men holding B.D.
degrees is highest (17.6) in the age-group thirty to thirtynine; that it is lowest in the age-group fifty to fifty-nine.