Early modern Scottish Presbyterianism prided itself on its learned clergy. In the ideal, its ministers would know Latin, Greek and Hebrew, be well grounded in Reformed doctrine, and be able to preach each Sunday without notes for an hour or more. In this study Jack Whytock explores the education of the Scottish clergy in both the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Secession Churches between the Reformation and the mid-nineteenth century. As he demonstrates, post-Reformation Scottish ministerial education was modelled on the continental Reformed pattern, especially that of Calvin's Geneva. Candidates for the Church of Scotland ministry first completed an arts course, normally four years, at one of Scotland's universities – gaining a foundation in philosophy, Latin and Greek. They then proceeded to a divinity hall attached to one of the universities, where they attended for another three or four years, studying Hebrew, theology and ecclesiastical history. The divinity halls of the Church of Scotland generally consisted of two or three professors, and were provided with libraries, classrooms and student bursaries. Their academic sessions lasted for only about five months, but when the candidates were not attending the divinity hall, their studies were to be supervised by the ministers of their local presbyteries. It was the presbyteries, moreover, that examined candidates in doctrine, general learning and languages, and assessed their sermons, before licensing them to preach or ordaining them to the ministry. In the 1730s, meanwhile, a number of Scottish Presbyterians, unhappy over doctrine and policy in the established Church of Scotland, broke away to form the Secession Church. This original Secession Church in turn split up after further conflicts, until by the early nineteenth century there were four Secession denominations. Whytock shows how these small Secession denominations endeavoured to continue the old model of ministerial formation. Their students normally attended an arts course at one of the universities. A more learned minister in the denomination then served as the sole professor of a ‘divinity hall’, which usually met for an eight-week session each year in the professor's church. Students were expected to attend four of these sessions, while a presbytery would supervise each candidate's education during the rest of the year. The system of ministerial formation within both the established Church and Secession Churches proved reasonably effective, at least until the mid-nineteenth century and the growing need for more specialised professional clerical training in an era of higher biblical criticism, new scientific challenges to the faith and a more educated laity. Whytock's book is his revised doctoral thesis. It is largely a chronicle of the different divinity halls and professors, and his detailed descriptions of their practices are often repetitive and verbose. The author's sympathies are very much with the Secession Churches, and he downplays the significant contributions of the Scottish Enlightenment, which had more influence on the established Church than among the Seceders. Still, the book is based on considerable research and provides the first comprehensive account of the training of the clergy in early modern Scottish Presbyterianism.