# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S745
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 47

As our library is expected to function both as a research and
working library, funds are needed for both purposes. In the first
instance, we should be building a collection of Lutherana and
Reformation materials second to none in our country. In the
second instance, we ought to keep abreast of the times in the
acquisition of current materials for our working library. A wealth
of materials now being published in Europe certainly needs to
be acquired for both purposes.

Much material still remains unavailable in our lower stacks,
both of research and current value (five to ten thousand volumes).
This is due to the fact that we lack both the financial means and
the personnel to properly assemble, sort, accession, and catalog the
items. Many need to be rebound for use. This material has
accumulated over the past twenty years.

Report on the Graduate School

We have made steady progress in the development of our
Graduate School. Our greatest difficulty is the shortage of man-
power in our teaching staff and, next to this, the lack of adequate
classroom facilities, suitable living quarters for graduate stu-
dents, and scholarships to make it possible for able and deserv-
ing men, either from the ranks of recent graduates or from the
ministry and teaching profession, to pursue advanced theo-
logical studies.

Men of our Church who are endowed by God with scholarly
talents should be able to continue their theological studies in an
orthodox Lutheran Graduate School. Lutheran pastors and gradu-
ates of theological schools are attending non-Lutheran seminaries
in ever-increasing number, and the Church should not remain
indifferent to this situation. No student can be exposed to the
influence of an able teacher and not be affected by his theology.
If our Church does not meet this situation now, the consequences
will be serious. It seems imperative that we provide and control
the entire theological training of our future pastors and pro-
fessors. The excuse that our duty is to train pastors and mis-
sionaries for the Church is no longer valid. We must do both—
train pastors and missionaries and also Lutheran scholars.

There are marked tendencies today among pastors and theo-
logical students to attend the graduate schools of secular universi-
ties and earn their Master’s and Doctor’s degrees. This trend has
become quite pronounced. The Master’s and Doctor’s degrees as
conferred by universities certainly have their value, but at. best
they can only be supplementary to the real professional training.
They do not necessarily enhance the pastoral proficiency or the
theology of the theological student. But as long as there is no