# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S479
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report of Board for Higher Education . 479
at, as the student body declines, the professors be called to
other stations, preferably teaching positions. This must be a
‘major consideration in the solution of the entire problem. It.
bvious: that Synod will. not permit any individual to suffer
iy way by a change in its educational system. The entire
problem of the full use of the campus at Springfield should also
sreceive careful study. .

That the proper board be authorized to undertake the estab-

: ishment of a Bureau of Missions, including a small permanent

: staff of instructors, for the purpose of training foreign and

».specialized missionaries.

.but natural that the president and faculty of the Springfield

minary should feel an intense concern in this matter. For many
their very lifeblood has been spent willingly and eagerly, ‘day

' {meeting the difficult problems of their institution. It. can hardly
xpected that theirs would be a completely objective judgment or
“they would readily assent to the closing of their institution. .
pst strange, indeed, would it be if they did not advance every |

: school and to the faithful teachers who have led them into com-
ence to serve their Lord in the glorious work of the Gospel

‘

mport to the total work of our Missouri Synod.

“We also hope that they will recognize in the proposal to convert
their Alma Mater into a more specialized training school and a center
f all Foreign Mission activities, an opportunity for a noble, more
essential, and continuously important service of the Springfield in-
‘stitution to the work of our Church than it can render at the present
time. ,

, Several matters were brought into clear relief by the vigorous
resentations of representatives of the Springfield faculty, Board of
‘Control, the Central and Southern Illinois Districts, ‘and alumni of
‘Springfield in the open hearing which the Board of Directors and the
‘Board for Higher Education conducted in St. Louis on November 9,
1943. Especially prominent in this hearing was the evidence of the -
-historical loyalty of Springfield graduates to their Alma Mater and the
deep and intense interest of the faculty and of: adjacent ‘Districts
-in the Springfield Seminary.

, In the open hearing the representatives enumerated above were
invited freely to state their objections to any firidings and conclu-
sions incorporated in the survey. Their objections were carefully
noted and considered by your Board for Higher Education. However,

‘
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