# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1944_S640
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

66 . SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

growing shortage of Christian day school teachers in the field, which
‘has necessitated an ever stronger recruitment of students in ‘an;
effort to meet Synod’s need, has also contributed Strongly to the *@
high enrollment. :
The growing enrollment has made it necessary to use all avail-"4
able teaching help to the best advantage. Powerless to call full 7
professors, the Board of Control, with the approval of Synod’s
Board for Higher Education and Board of Directors, has annually:
engaged a number of qualified full-time assistants and one or two %
part-time instructors and thus has been able to carry on the work .'
of teacher training. The permanently called faculty has been oe
augmented by only two men. One was allowed at the synodical “

College Department, offering the Bachelor of Science Degree with 34
a major in Elementary Education, has been provided by the ad-
dition of only two permanently called professors.

While the temporarily engaged assistant professors have done.

very fine work, experience has shown that it is not in the best
interests of the school to have so much of the teaching taken care
of in this way. Assistant professors have comparatively insecure
tenure of office, and the more highly qualified and valuable they
are, the more likely they are to be called elsewhere. Nor can‘
Synod expect the solid planning for the future good of the school’
on the part of the young man whose salary is comparatively low,
' whose re-engagement is always more or less in doubt, and whose
total tenure of office is scarcely sufficient to give him the proper
perspective. .

Time has shown that Synod’s action in 1938 and again in 1941
was wise. The professorship allowed in 1938 has enabled Con-
cordia Teachers College to lay a solid foundation for adequate
instruction in Geography, a subject which the world war has :
brought to greater emphasis than ever in our elementary school
system. The professor called in 1941 has devoted himself whole- .-”
heartedly to building up and cataloguing the library, with outstand-
ing success and real benefit to students and faculty alike.

Various other areas, particularly Practical School Art, the =
Manual Arts, Home Economics, and Health Education, in which our
synodical elementary school system has been admittedly weak,
have either not been touched at all as yet in our teacher-training
program or have received but passing attention and no progressiv
development from year to year. ,

The field of Art and Art Education is being served by an an-
nually appointed full-time assistant professor who has had many
years of experience as a schoolteacher. Since our own Christian
day school field, in harmony with the national trend, gives evi-