# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S455 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) ; Report of Board for Higher Education am 455 | : Educational - Aims and Procedures . tion aims to serve three types of students: pretheological, . . - ing, and the general student. . The course. offerings. for. ih groups are practically identical, a unit’ of typing or book- ngvalgebra or piano, being the minor variants to an extremely guage problem. Obviously, this is. not a very satisfactory: eh “for either the ‘teacher-training or the, general student. “other deficiencies should be noted. Promotion is by classes, urses. -In the case of students entering after several years Dliblic’ high schools, graduation and. ¢onsequent . transfer to the. college classes at sister institutions follow at the end of four ts of work on the secondary level: _While the students are tutored ligion and the languages, there is no, insistence on completing a ed program of courses nor on offering a specified number of edits or units for graduation. ’The curriculum organization is not good in certain areas. - Different ivels of language work are combined into one class; algebra and oinetry are extended over four years up into the senior class}: erous courses meet but three times per week; two foreign Bnguages are required in the freshman class. - To the administration’s credit is the insistence on daily preparatfon ‘the student and the thoroughness in drilling certain fundamentals. J fnfortunately, the student's education lacks breadth. - he causes for the ‘institution’s educational pattern are, no doubt, omplex, but the following factors appear to be closely related to it: emoteness from the stream.of contemporary educational thought; daily battle with makeshift equipment and inadequate facilities; rlost important, the need for holding students in the face of a con- tly declining enrollment. While not inherent in the small school, ducational weakness is usually associated with it. : ; Equipment . Deficiencies in equipment are numerous. The collection of books nthe library is altogether too meager, and their housing is quite madequate. Laboratory equipment for biology. is virtually non- existent; for chemistry it is barely acceptable. . Classroom equipment or instructional purposes is lacking. ; : Enrollment The enrollment has varied from the peak of 43 in 1922 to 16 in 1936.° Since that time. it has fluctuated between 19 and 33. The 1943 enrollment was 23. ' Of this number thirteen were pretheological, five teacher-training, d five general. Since 1932 the senior class has enrolled between two and six students. Apparently the holding power of the institu- tion is quite low. Many. students drop out before graduation from the four-year course.