# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S170
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

170 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

There may well be differences of opinion regarding the educational
level at which this difference should receive practical recognition,
but a comparative study of the Objectives of Ministerial Training
and of general Christian education leaves room for no uncertainty
in the conclusion that the difference in requirements is real and
basic, A school which adopts a dual objective and serves a stu~
dent body in which a majority registers for general Christian edu-
cation cannot at the same time put its ministerial training program
in anything but a secondary place.

Adequacy of Present System

In the light of the Church’s 100-year history it must be ad-
mitted that our current program of ministerial training has met the
educational needs of the great majority of Lutheran ministers in
the normal parish during most of the past century. Quantitatively
the system has also proved adequate. ,

The elements of strength inherent in our present highly in-
tegrated program of ministerial training beginning with the fresh-
man high school year and extending through to graduation from
the Seminary deserve very careful evaluation. In specialized cur-
ricular offerings, this program currently exceeds the requirements
of most Protstant ministerial training programs which, at best, con-
trol the actual Seminary program but are related in only an ad-
visory capacity to the candidates’ college training and are com-
pletely divorced from his high school career.

There are extensive values also in the economy of time, energy,
and funds achieved for the student and for the Church by means
of the present system. Assuming that the training can be made
adequate, there is the conservation of an entire year in the stu-
dents’ academic life. Adjustments which contemplate abandon-
ment or generalization of the high school departments without rec-
ognizing the need for substituting similar educational service,
would involve serious losses for ministerial students. Particularly
in languages and in formal religious instruction the student would
have to complete the junior college years in order to reach ap-
proximately the level which he now reaches at the end of the
high school program.

Perhaps a more thoroughgoing readjustment and improvement
could make the present system of ministerial education meet
Synod’s current needs. As a result of the recommendations of the
Hausmann survey, some notable advances have already been ef-
fected. However, there has been insufficient time to observe the
effects of the two most significant proposals; indeed, there has
been opportunity to do no more than to initiate implementation of
these proposals. We refer to the program of regional accreditation