# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S53
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 53

[; Language Courses

Introductory language courses in the languages of the country
shich our missionaries are called. — Recordings and other devices
émployed by competent language teachers.

“The enrollment for 1943/44 was eight; for 1944/45 — eight;
af 1945/46-—16; for 1946/47 — 15.

"=" Some of the letters received from graduates and missionaries
“in foreign lands who attended the Mission School testify to the
“Yalue of their preliminary training in the School. The Mission
“Boards, too, are convinced of the advantage of the School and are
resolved to work toward having all foreign workers receive a year’s
raining in the Mission School before entering active service,

A School for All Forms of Specialized Mission Training

oe ‘Ie we are at all to meet the needs of the present day, the Mis-
sion Department of the Graduate School of Concordia Seminary
‘must be improved and extended to offer courses which will prove
- attractive to our young graduates and to future women workers
in the foreign fields as well as to the missionaries home on furlough
and to their wives. In addition to Foreign Mission workers we
: ghould also be prepared to offer courses to all graduates and pastors
who are in need of specialized training in the various branches of
e Home Mission fields, in clinical training for institutional mission
work, in slum missions, radio mission, etc.

‘There is at the present time no other advanced Lutheran School
‘of Missions in the United States. Even the number of schools of
_ mission in other denominations is small. Some of these schools
are heavily endowed, and though their enrollment is small, they
‘nevertheless have a large staff of instructors, each a specialist in
his department. However, because of the prevailing Modernist
tendencies at these schools, they cannot be recommended to our
missionaries for their further mission and theological training. For
that reason it is imperative that our Church expand its Mission
Department at Concordia Seminary to meet the needs of all spe-
cialized forms of mission training.

If we are at all to be successful in foreign lands, we must
have a missionary staff that is theologically well grounded. All
students in the Mission School ought therefore be required to take
the advanced courses in theology which are offered in this Graduate
School. Our missionaries must, above all, be thorough theologians,
well indoctrinated in God’s Word. They must be practical mis-
sionaries. They must furthermore be able to advise and guide in
the building of the Church in a new land. They must be able to
direct the preparation of Lutheran literature. They must be
qualified to assume leadership in the training of a national ministry