a greater degree of freedom, especially commercial freedom, than had been possible on the Manor. The land was purchased from the Mohawks. To each of the fifteen original proprietors, except Van Corlaer, who received a double portion, was assigned a village lot 200 ft. sq., a tract of bottom-land for farming purposes, a strip of woodland, and common pasture rights. Many of the early settlers were well-to-do and brought their slaves with them, and for many years the settlement was reputed the richest in the colony. It received a serious set-back in 1690, when on the 9th of February a force of French and Indians surprised and burned the village, massacred sixty of the inhabitants and carried thirty into captivity. The village was rebuilt in the following year, and a military post was established. About 1700 there was a considerable influx of English settlers. In 1748 the French and Indians again descended on the region and killed many of the inhabitants of the outlying settlement at Beukendaal, 3 m. N.W. of Schenectady. Schenectady became a chartered borough in 1765 and a city in 1798. The first newspaper, the Gazette, was established in 1799. For some years after the completion of the Erie Canal, Schenectady, which had formerly been an important depot of the Mohawk river boat trade to the westward, suffered a decline. The first two railways in the state made Schenectady their terminus, the Mohawk & Hudson opening to Albany in September 1831 and the Saratoga & Schenectady in July 1832; the original station of the Mohawk & Hudson is still standing. It was not, however, until its new manufacturing era began, about 1880, that Schenectady's modern growth and prosperity began.
See Jonathan Pearson, A History of Schenectady Patent in the Dutch and English Times (Albany, 1883); G. S. Roberts, Old Schenectady (Schenectady, 1904); and G. R. Howell and J. H. Munsell, History of the County of Schenectady (Albany, 1887).
SCHENKEL, DANIEL (1813–1885), Swiss Protestant
theologian, was born at Dägerlen in the canton of Zürich on the
21st of December 1813. After studying at Basel and Göttingen
he was successively pastor at Schaffhausen (1841), professor
of theology at Basel (1849); and at Heidelberg professor of
theology (1851), director of the seminary and university preacher.
At first inclined to conservatism, he afterwards became an
exponent of the mediating theology (Vermittelungs-theologie),
and ultimately a liberal theologian and advanced critic.
Associating himself with the “ German Protestant Union ” (Deutsche
Protestanten-verein), he defended the community's claim to
autonomy, the cause of universal suffrage in the church and the
rights of the laity. From 1852 to 1859 he edited the Allgemeine
Kirchenzeitung, and from 1861 to 1872 the Allgemeine Kirchliche
Zeitschrift, which he had founded in 1859. In 1867, with a view
to popularizing the researches and results of the Liberal school,
he undertook the editorship of a Bibel-Lexicon (5 vols., 1869–1875),
a work which was so much in advance of its time that
it is still useful. In his Das Wesen des Protestantismus aus den
Quellen des Reformationszeitalters beleuchtet (3 vols. 1846–1851,
2nd ed. 1862), he declares that Protestantism is a principle
which is always living and active, and not something which was
realized once and for all in the past. He contends that the task
of his age was to struggle against the Catholic principle which had
infected Protestant theology and the church. In his Christliche
Dogmatik (2 vols., 1858-1859) he argues that the record of
revelation is human and was historically conditioned: it can
never be absolutely perfect; and that inspiration, though
originating directly with God, is continued through human
instrumentality. His Charakterbild Jesu (1864, 4th ed. 1873;
Engl. trans, from 3rd ed., 1869), which appeared almost
simultaneously with D. Strauss's Leben Jesu, met with fierce opposition.
The work is considered too subjective and fanciful, the great
fault of the author being that he lacks the impartiality of objective
historical insight. Yet, as Pfleiderer says, the work “ is
full of a passionate enthusiasm for the character of Jesus.”
The author rejects all the miracles except those of healing,
and these he explains psychologically. His main purpose was
to modernize and reinterpret Christianity; he says in the
preface to the third edition of the book: “ I have written it
solely in the service of evangelical truth, to win to the truth
those especially who have been most unhappily alienated from
the church and its interests, in a great measure through the fault
of a reactionary party, blinded by hierarchical aims.” Schenkel
died on the 18th of May 1885.
Other works:—Friedrich Schleiermacher. Ein Lebens- und Charakterbild (1868); Christentum und Kirche (2 vols., 1867-1872); Die Grundlehren des Christentums aus dem Bewusstsein des Glaubens dargestellt (1877); and Das Christusbild der Apostel und der nachapostolischen Zeit (1879). See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, Otto Pfleiderer, Development of Theology (1890); and F. Lichtenberger, History of German Theology (1889).
(M. A. C.)
SCHERER, EDMOND HENRI ADOLPHE (1815-1889), French
theologian, critic and politician, was born in Paris on the 8th
of April 1815. After a course of legal studies he spent several
years in theological study at Strassburg, where he graduated
doctor in theology in 1843, and was ordained. In 1843 he was
appointed to a professorship in the École Evangélique at Geneva,
but the development of his opinions in favour of the Liberal movement
in Protestant theology led to his resigning the post six
years later. He founded the Anti-Jésuite, afterwards the
Reformation au XIX* siecle, in which he advocated the separation
of the Church from the State; but he gradually abandoned
Protestant doctrine. In thought he became a pronounced
Hegelian. Eventually he settled in Paris, where he at once
attracted attention by brilliant literary criticisms, at first
chiefly on great foreign writers, contributed to the Revue des
deux mondes. He was elected municipal councillor at Versailles
in 187Q, deputy to' the National Assembly for the department
of Seine-et-Oise in 1871 and senator in 1875. He supported
the Republican party. Towards the end of his life he devoted
himself mainly to literary and general criticism, and was for many
years one of the ablest contributors to Le T emps. He was a.
frequent visitor to England, and took a lively interest in English
politics and literature. He died at Versailles on the 16th of
March 1889.
His chief works are: Dogmatique de l'Eglise réformée (1843), De l'état actuel de l'Eglise réformée en France (1844), Esquisse d'une théorie de l'Eglise chrétienne (1845), La Critique et la dfoi (1850), Alexandre Vinet (1853), Lettres a mon curé (1853), Etu es critiques sur la littérature contemporaine (1863-1889), Etudes critiques de littérature (1876), Diderot (1880), La Démocratie et la France (1883), Etudes sur la littérature au X VIII' siecle (1891). A memoir of him, by V. C. O. Gréard, appeared in 1890. See also an article by Professor E. Dowden in the Fortnightly Review (April 1889).
SCHERER, WILHELM (1841-1886), German philologist and
historian of literature, was born at Schiinborn in Lower Austria
on the 26th of April 1841. He was educated at the academic
gymnasium at Vienna and afterwards at the university, where he
was the favourite pupil of the distinguished Germanist, Karl
Viktor Mtillenhoff (1818-1884). Having taken the degree of
doctor philosophise, he became Privatdozent for German language
and literature in 1864. In 1868 he was appointed ordinary
professor, and in 1872 received a call in a like capacity to Strassburg,
~and in 1877 to Berlin, where in 1884 he was made member
of the Academy of Sciences. He died at Berlin on the 6th of
August 1886.
Scheher's literary activity falls into three categories: in Vienna he was the philologist, at Strassburg the professor of literature and in Berlin the author. His earliest work was a biography of the great philologist Jakob Grimm (1865, 2nd ed. 1885); he next, in con-Junction with his former teacher Miillenhoff, published Denkmziler deutscher Poesie und Prosa aus dem 8. bis 12. Jahrhundert (1864, 3rd ed. 1892). His first great work was, however, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (Berlin, 1868; 3rd ed., 1890), being a history of the German language with especial reference to phonetic laws. He contributed the section on Alsatian literature to O. Lorenz's Geschichte des Elsasses (1871, 3rd ed. 1886). Other important works are Gdstliche Poeten der deutschen Kaiserzeit (Strassburg, 1874-1875.); Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert (1875); and Vortrdge und Aufsdtze zur Geschichte des geistigen Lebens in Deutschland und Usterreich (1874). Scherer's best-known work is his history of German literature, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur (Berlin, 1883; 10th ed., 1905; English translation by Mrs F. C. Conybeare, 1883; new ed., 1906). T is work is distinguished by the clearness with which details are co-ordinated with a general and comprehensive survey of German literature from the beginning to the death of Goethe. Besides many other philological treatises, Scherer wrote largely on Goethe (Aus Goethes Fnihzezt
