# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S486
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

486 Report of Board for Higher Education

organization to the prevalent pattern. Can our system as now organ=4g
ized into two years of junior college and one pretheological year’
St. Louis supply a training adequate for the majority of the candidat
for the ministry?

_ A comparison of our theological training with that which prevails
in other Protestant circles does not appear to be decisively significan’
Recruitment for the ministry in other Protestant church bodies, as:
rule, is undertaken at the end of high school, often during, or at th
-end of, college. This procedure, wholly different from our own, h
peculiar weaknesses. The high school and college training of stude
entering ‘their seminaries is highly diversified and frequently consis
to a large extent of courses not suitable as basic for theological study:
Although the Bachelor of Arts degree is customarily required °f.
entrance to their seminaries, the B.S. B.Ed., B.Mus., or any other;

current Bachelor’s degree is accepted by some of their theolopi
schools.

The minimum list of required fields of study in general educatio:
prepared by the national accrediting association, the American. Ass
ciation of Theological Schools, includes ten subjects to be taken,
through a total minimum of 42 semester hours—less than one and 2%
one-half years of college work. It is well known that not all
accredited seminaries assess deficiencies in terms of this list.
practice, then, the pre-seminary education does not generally con
of four years of liberal arts studies. In other words, the mere in’
duction of the A.B, degree into our pretheological system of educat
without a thorough study and evaluation of the nature and quality o
work for that degree would be meaningless. It would be merely th
adoption of a prevalent pattern without direct and practical reference
to Synod’s needs which must always be of paramount importance.<#

Furthermore, the frequent elimination of exegetical languages from''®
Protestant theological training is based both on ‘theoretical consider
ations and on practical necessity. Little time is available for study:
of the rudiments of ancient faguages, nor have the students on th
whole had that degree of linguistic training during early adolescence
which makes it easy for them to acquire a language mastery durin
their twenties. A further outcome of this type of recruitment is th
persistent lack of sufficient candidates for their needs ‘

C. The Strength of Our System

Our system, on the other hand, recruits the students at the time
of confirmation. This supplies us with an ample number of minis.
terial students. Most important, it gives us the opportunity te
provide an integrated curriculum, It makes possible a six-year pre*
seminary conditioning in spiritual attitudes and outlook. Inispite of
the rather heavy load of ancient languages, our students receive
rather comprehensive background of general liberal arts courses
‘Twenty-one units of high school work and seventy-four semester