# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S468
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

468 Report of Board for Higher Education

requested that the pretheological training be extended ‘t

third year of college work. This latter request was not gran
and the seminary at present Provides two years of college’ wor!
followed by three years of actual theological -studies. ’

3. The curriculum itself has undergone numerous ad justments sin

1930. Exegetical languages have been ‘introduced. So, f
instance, in 1930 the institution undertook the instruction
New Testament Greek and -made its study compulsory for
students. This step constituted a change in the fundament
program and purposes of the institution. To our knowledg
it was not. authorized by Synod. In fact, it is questionabl
whether Synod, in succeeding years, recognized that the inst:
tion had thereby undergone an im
pattern.

4. The minimum age of entrants lik
Past decade, but not in sufficient degree to maintain the form
type of entering student. A minimum age limit ‘of seventeen
years was in force prior to 1932 at a time when the minimuny
academic requirement was eighth-grade graduation. This seven
teen-age minimum at that time Tepresented a three to four-ye
“above normal” age group. It justified the designation “thos
who later on in life decide to enter the ministry.” , ‘ont

The minimum age for entry since 1932 is eighteen years. Thig2@

represents an increase of but one year. In the meantime the academic: ¥

entrance requirements have been increased by four years, i. e., to the
level of high school graduation. High school graduates ordinarily aré
eighteen years old. Consequently, the institution’s age limits en-
courage entry of the “normal age” group of high-school graduates,
This certainly represents a very definite change in the type of student

ewise was raised during th

ard, it would have been more
level at entry to 21 years,

traised to: high school graduation. A considerable Portion of the enter-:
ing class of 1942 was of “normal age”; 24 per cent were eighteen years;
old, and an additional 16 per cent wi

To this extent, at least, the ideal of
in life decide to enter the ministry”

who decide early to do so.

“training young men who later °
has given way to training of thos

‘5. ‘The foregoing modifications of ‘Springfield’s pattern have als

Produced a change in the critical time differential of the Spring
field-St. Louis programs.

changes: ,

The following table summarizes thes