The early sessions of the United Free Church General Assembly frequently saw debates on the merits of candidates who were proposed for professorships in the Church's three colleges in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. What is surprising today is how often ministers who became well known for their contribution to scholarship in one particular field had been proposed for a chair in an entirely different subject. Professor A. M. Hunter, for example, who became a widely acknowledged New Testament scholar, was originally proposed in 1919 to the United Free Church Assembly for the Chair of Church History in New College in Edinburgh, and some years later for the Chair of Christian Ethics in Aberdeen. James Moffat, who gained worldwide recognition as a scholar, interpreter and translator of the New Testament into popular language, was Professor of Church History in Glasgow for two years.

In 1911 the post of Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Training in Trinity College Glasgow came to be filled at the General Assembly. The two front runners were William Clow, who, as we have seen, represented a very conservative approach to social theology, and Robert Drummond, minister of Lothian Road United Free Church, who said that all his life he had a glorious battle to fight against conservative obscurantism.