# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S508
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report of Board for Higher Education | ~ - §09.

indardized tests for’ checking the outcome of the, instruction
uch fields as German, Latin, English, Mathematics, and
ence are not commonly used. Diagnostic tests, e.g., English
Reading, Mathematics, are practically never employed. Defi-
ite: “exceptions to this statement are’ Winfield and Bronxville.

pte ligence tests for entering students are used by most of the.
nstitutions. Fort Wayne, Oakland, and Portland do not report
eir use. It is questinoable. whether adequate use is made of
information which these tests yield. ~

‘In foreign-language’ instruction too.much stress is placed on
grammar, too little’use is made of the direct method. There
is much evidence that the majority of the teachers in the: field
“are entrenched in traditional aims and procedures. The final
outcomes are on the whole as unsatisfactory as one might
anticipate.

a) Thé objectives of German teaching are more or less con-
fused. While it is acknowledged that the German teachers
shall train approximately one fourth or one third of their
students in a speaking knowledge of the language so that
they may later preach in German, the classwork ordinarily
is arranged as though the entire class were to meet this
aim. Some way needs to be found to replace the current
hit-or-miss procedures for supplying a minimum number
of students sufficieritly trained for the active ministry by
means of the German Janguage. Under the present meth-
ods the majority of students after six years of language
instruction can neither read nor speak the language with
any acceptable degree of fluency.

‘b) The instruction in Latin still errs in the direction of static

-.reading, with infinite detail in grammar, in syntax. The
stress is not so much on Latin as a means for the convey-
ance of thought, but rather on the study of the language
as an end in itself.

In the College Division

The criticisms of teaching in the high ‘school in general are also
applicable to the college divisions.

- In addition it should be recorded that in many instances the
instructional procedure had not advanced to the level of the college
-student in the nature of the material covered, or the teaching methods
employed, or the quantity of work to be expected of the student for
the next class. One gained the impression that these junior colleges,
in more than one instance, were mere glorified high schools. ;

The ultimate aim of all teaching should be to make the student -
independent of the teacher. A conscious acceptance of this aim by
the professor should be evident at least in the college division. The