One of the great 19th century contributions of the mainline American Presbyterian Church to the world was the creation and labors of the Presbyterian Board of Education in 1833. The idea for this work was born out of informal discussions about the need and value of using the printing press to promulgate the teachings of the Presbyterian Church, and it was the Synod of Philadelphia that approved a resolution to "constitute a board of managers to prepare, publish and circulate Presbyterian tracts and books inculcating the distinctive doctrines of our Standards, which board shall be known as 'The Board of Managers of the Presbyterian Tract and Sabbath-School Book Society,' under the care of the Synod of Philadelphia." A series of tracts was published over the next few years (Samuel Miller’s Presbyterianism the Truly Primitive and Apostolical Constitution of the Church of Christ was Tract No. 1; the Westminster Shorter Catechism was Tract No. 5) met with great success, and by 1838, the organization was re-named "The Board of Publication of Tracts and Sabbath-School Books of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America."
Many of the ministers found at Log College Press served on the Presbyterian Board of Publication, such as Ashbel Green, Samuel Miller, Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, Henry Augustus Boardman, Archibald Alexander, William Pratt Breed, William Swan Plumer, and others. Joseph Patterson Engles, author of the Catechism for Youth, was a publishing agent of the Board. Many of the works found at Log College Press are the fruit of the labors of the valuable organization.
A very useful aid to learning more about the history and legacy of Board of the Publication is Willard Martin Rice (1817-1904), History of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work (1888). We at Log College Press, and all who appreciate the vast body of great Presbyterian literature of the 19th century, owe them a great debt, and in this book one finds the names of the individuals whose labors we hope in a sense to carry on into the 21st century.