# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S149
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 147

- ACTION
Concerning requests 1, 2, and 4, upon the recommendation of
Committee 1, Synod included an appropriation of $29,528 under the
“Building Grants.”
Concerning request 3, it was resolved that the petition for an
organ be referred to the Board of Higher Education, with power

to act.

B. REPORT OF THE BOARD FOR HIGHER
EDUCATION
(Memorial 152)

(This section, B., includes special memorials and resolutions pertaining
to “Higher Education”)

The history of Synod’s higher education closely parallels the
history of the first century of Synod’s existence. In this Cen-
tennial year we have good reason to recall that the organizations
established by the founding fathers were established to serve
the primary purposes of preserving, defending, and spreading
“the Gospel message of salvation by grace, through faith, in the
crucified and risen Savior of all mankind. To achieve this objec-
tive, they made provision for synodical action in two great fields
of activity: education and missions.

In addition to such adequate perception of the fundamental
activities which required their vigorous support, God also gave
the founders of our Synod marvelous qualities of perseverance
and determination motivated by the heroic faith which enabled
them to persist in the pursuit of their basic objectives in the face
of frightening odds and the most inauspicious conditions. We may
indeed be inspired to emulate them when we consider that the
progress which we survey at this turn of the century has resulted
from the inspiring victory which God gave them in the titanic
struggle occasioned first by the absolute absence of educational
facilities and later by the inability of Synod’s original College and
Seminary to provide manpower in sufficient quantity to prevent
serious losses and restricted spiritual services.

We thank God for the clarity of thought and purpose which
has enabled our beloved Synod to recognize at the very outset and
during a hundred subsequent years that whatever form its many
_endeavors and activities have assumed, they all trace back ulti-
_mately to the two great objectives: teach and preach, The history
_ ofthe past century is eloquent testimony to the blessing of God
n this simple basic plan.