# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S60
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

60 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

teaching positions in the various institutions of higher education
in our Church. Definite scholarly attainments, certified in terms
of college and university credits and degrees, are necessary, not
only for the sake of teaching competence but also to enable the
schools to maintain their accreditation. Synod has no provisions
for the acquisition of such credits and degrees by pastors and
teachers who would be potential candidates for teaching positions,
and the matter is wholly one of private initiative and chance
opportunity. When, therefore, electoral boards face the problem
of calling a man, the choice is practically limited to the few men
on the list who may meet the minimum technical requirements
for the position in the form of credits and degrees, even though
the credits may have been acquired at schools of inferior standing,
and the boards may be compelled by the circumstances to pass
over candidates of superior scholarship and character who have
not had the opportunity to acquire recognized scholastic credits
and degrees. This problem will become still more acute if the
recommendation of the Board for Higher Education is adopted
that all academies, junior colleges, and teachers’ colleges shall
seek accreditation with the respective regional agencies, such as
the North Central Association, an action that seems all but in-
evitable in view of the current developments. Then it will become
inescapable to define teacher qualifications in the current American
pattern of credits and degrees, and teachers in our synodical
schools, whether on permanent or on temporary appointment, will
be obliged to meet these requirements, Such an agency as the
proposed Institute, one of whose purposes is to promote post-
graduate study, would be in an advantageous position for the
handling of this problem. Particularly when new men are called
who lack the necessary credits and degrees, the Institute would
be in a position to direct the work of these men, and also to pre-
pare the assistants who will serve the institutions temporarily until
the regularly called men are prepared to take over the work.
Attention should also be called to the fact that there is
precedent for the second purpose mentioned above in the activities
of the Postgraduate Home Society, which during the 1920's
maintained a student home near Columbia University, N. Y., and
financed the postgraduate work of a number of men who today
hold key positions in our college faculties by reason of a training
which they would never have received but for the help of this
society, or who now hold positions of special responsibility in

the ministry. Tue Kansas District

W. H. Meyer, President
W. J. Svevzre, Secretary