# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S433
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

CONSTITUTIONAL MATTERS : 4338

of catechisms, etc. In practically every field, particularly in
reign fields, the mission work centers about schools, colleges,
seminaries, for native workers. At home the Foreign Mission Board
is intensely interested in the proper schooling for its white
workers. On the college campus the missionary to our students is
continually dealing with the educational problems of the college.
The missionaries to the deaf have their educational problems with
their sign language or lip reading, their school for the deaf, etc.
“There is no mission activity that can be successfully conducted
without an intensive educational program.

The Board for Parish Education is interested in making its
parochial schools and its part-time agencies better mission
agencies. It declares it is as much interested in the adult con-
firmation class as a missionary agency as is any Board for Mis-~
sions of any kind. It shares responsibility with the Board for
Higher Education in fostering the high school. The Board for
Higher Education shares responsibility for our educational in-
stitutions with the Board of Directors of Synod. The Board of
Directors decides on repairs at our educational institutions because
our Constitution makes that their obligation. The Board for
Higher Education administers the operating budget, and it is not
always easy to tell whether certain repairs belong in that budget
or not, nor can it be denied that granting or not granting an
allowance for repairs will affect the operation of any of our edu-
cational institutions. There is overlapping and as a result red
tape, waste of time and of effort and the smooth forward progress
of our work is often hampered.

3. A Growing Need for Proper Co-Ordination

Because of this overlapping we have need of an over-all
policy. We have no agency today to properly effect such a policy.
The Board of Directors would be the logical agency, but as now
constituted it deals primarily with financial matters of Synod and
only with financial matters. It receives the various budget requests
and then passes them on to the Fiscal Conference with its recom-
mendation as to the total budget to be allowed. It appropriates
funds for many purposes. By appropriating funds or not ap-
propriating them it actually decides on many policies for the
boards. Yet it is not closely co-ordinated with these boards. It has
no direct connection with them. Its only connection is through
executive secretaries responsible to their boards.

No Board of Directors is able to get the proper over-all picture
unless our many boards are properly integrated into the Board
of Directors and the members of the Board of Directors have first-
Proceedings, 1947 28

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