# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S192
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

190 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

for an improved program of ministerial training. At the college
level secular education objectives, even those of general Christian
education, should be significantly different from those involved
in the training of Christian ministers. Under these conditions
unusual efforts would be required to carry forward the effective
spiritual conditioning required in sound ministerial training.

This proposal would involve an intricate faculty personnel
control system (similar to details specified in discussion of Valpa-
raiso-River Forest plan, pages 154 to 158) if the Synod were to
maintain full responsibility for the entire ministerial program.
It appears that such control would indeed be required if the real
objectives of the Senior College were to be achieved. At the
same time it wbuld be no less vital to develop a formula which
would assure the University an equal opportunity to maintain its
academic accreditation and integrity.

A major inherent advantage of the plan is the guarantee of
immediate accreditation of the Senior College program and conse-
quent unqualified general recognition of the B.A. degree. There
are also many who believe that broader, rather than more restricted,
contacts with future lay leaders of the Church and with the less
restricted educational environments would create genuine ad-
vantages for our future ministers and for the Church.

The listed objectives, however, would indicate the need for
great caution in the application of any plan to achieve broader
secularizing contacts during the ministerial training offered by
the Church. In the light of the philosophic attitudes and “mind-
sets” normally originating in today’s average home and school
backgrounds; the major emphasis on and the preoccupation with
professional and vocational interests and the proportionately de-
creasing opportunity for positive growth of the Church’s influence
in the thought and life of boys; and the general expansion of
contact with predominantly secular viewpoints through the swift,
and relatively cheap, channels of communication and travel would
all seem to demand the application of every available, unadulterated,
consecrating power if there is to be justified hope of training leaders
prepared to dedicate body and spirit to lifelong service to God.

Valparaiso Extension on River Forest Campus

The proposal to place a Senior College on the campus of Con-
cordia Teachers College in River Forest, Ill, under the academic
administration of Valparaiso University contains some attrac-
tive potentialities, but involves very complex mechanics of ad-
ministration.

The desirability of this arrangement will depend in part upon
the formal relationships which might be established between the