# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S250
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

248 | SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

achieve a broader musical foundation and training. The program
will also include, of course, those additional music contacts which
are indicated by the requirements of culture and balance.

To achieve these objectives will require that the music program
at our schools be under the guidance of a musician who is at the
same time a sound and judicious educator. Some classroom in-
struction in fundamentals, history, and theory of music will be
required. Only musicians who are steeped in Christian doctrine,
Lutheran conviction, and Lutheran traditions will be in a position
to carry out a program calculated to produce rich spiritual and
educational values for the Church. It will be readily apparent
that a thorough theological training and a Lutheran background
would be a distinct asset to any instructor in our schools. Your
Board feels, therefore, that this important work should no longer
be placed largely into the hands of men and women who are not
members of our faculties and certainly not, as has sometimes been
the case in the past, into the hands of those who have never held
membership in the Lutheran Church.

Present circumstances indicate that the acute shortage of
teachers and the consequent crowding of the Teachers Colleges is
creating a situation in which increasing numbers of teacher-training
students are enrolling in the high school department of our
Preparatory Schools. This condition is an additional factor which
makes it extremely desirable to provide adequately for music
instruction in these schools at an early date. Teachers Colleges
may gradually be forced to depend to an increasing degree upon
the academy departments of the Preparatory Schools and the Lu-
theran High Schools for their college students. Under such circum-
stances an adequate program of music instruction would become
unconditionally necessary.

Finally, we have in mind also the fact that regional accrediting
agencies would be well aware of the definite weakness which
exists in the department of fine arts of our Colleges under present
conditions. Strengthening of this department might well be one
of the prerequisites for regional accreditation.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. That the Board for Higher Education in consultation with
the local Board of Control be directed to analyze the needs
at each Preparatory School and at the Theological Sem-
inaries. ;

2. That the Board for Higher Education be authorized to es-
tablish full-time music services on a professor or instructor
basis where these appear warranted, and that the Board be