# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S273
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

PARISH EDUCATION 278

rials and of special manuals for teachers is also contemplated.
A special appeal is being made to Synod to make this Centennial
year and the second century an era of Synod-wide and intensive
Bible ‘study, in order that all members of the Church may be-
come thoroughly acquainted with the Book of Life.

Part-Time Agencies

This section of the report deals with vacation Bible schools
(summer schools), Saturday schools, and released-time classes.
While the Sunday school is sometimes classed as a part-time
agency, it is so important that it has been dealt with separately.
Congregations that have not found it possible to begin a parochial
school have realized that the brief one-hour per week session of
the Sunday school was not sufficient to give the children ade-
quate religious instruction. For this reason they have used addi-
tional part-time agencies. Even congregations with schools have
begun one or more part-time agencies. Entirely apart from the
educational value of these agencies they have proved to be ex-
cellent missionary agencies.

Each of these part-time agencies merits individual attention,
but some idea of their utilization in Synod is evident from these
combined figures for all three part-time agencies (vacation Bible

‘schools, Saturday schools, released-time classes) :

AN Part-Time Schools Pupils
1943 20 1,819 51,655
1944 2 2,169 59,914
1945 2 2,360 68,884

The over-all growth in these part-time agencies has been appre-
ciable during the past triennium. There are still, however, far too
many children who are expected to get their entire formal religious
instruction in Sunday school. Clearly, while we await the further
expansion of our system of parochial schools, we must make
greater use of these part-time agencies.

The Vacation Bible School. The vacation Bible school is a
daily school in religion conducted by a congregation during the
summer vacation period. It is intended for children of the con-
gregation and for other children of the community. Reports for
the past triennium show increasing use of this agency:

Schools Pupils Non eer Teachers
1943 ~__________. 842 28,146 7,050 1,998
1944 907 31,234 7,915 2,206
1945 _ ————- 1,043 38,168 10,816 8,188

Recognizing the importance of providing more adequate ma-
terials for this agency, a Vacation Bible School Conference was
held in November, 1944. At this conference educational leaders

Proceedings, 1947 18