# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S918
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

220

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

not alone as a product of heredity, but also and importantly
as the product of a dynamic social environment. It follows,
therefore, that the senior college curriculum must give the
student a rather comprehensive training in the sciences of
society and some training in the science of psychology.

. Since the minister will necessarily work within the or-
ganization of the Church, he must understand his Church,
not only in terms of its current structure and functioning,
but also in terms of its own historical development and in
terms of its relation to the history of Christendom. Since,
moreover, the present seminary curriculum devotes a very
large amount of time to the field of church history, it
appears to be desirable to incorporate some attention to
this area in the senior college curriculum. ,

. Since language skills are exceedingly important both for the

learning and for the transmission of the Word, it is indis-
pensable that the senior college curriculum yield a high
degree of competence in the use of the English language
and a working competence in certain ancient and classical
languages and in modern German.

. Since religion, whether as Something to be learned or as

something to be taught, is a system’ of ideas, and since it
is a system of ideas which must exist, not in a vacuum, but
in relation to other ideas, and since its ideas and its rela-
tionships to other ideas can be comprehended, not by the
peripheral organs of sense, but only by the thought proc-
esses of the mind, it appears necessary that the senior col-
lege curriculum provide at least a reasonable foundation in
philosophy.

. Since the minister is, of course, a teacher, and since he may

have a responsibility for other teachers, it is proper. that
‘the curriculum provide a basic appreciation of education;
at least from the historical point of view. -

. Since the individual differences of students are natural, in

the sense of being created, and since these differences place
the individual differently in the social organism ‘in view of
which they were created, it is necessary not only to recog-
nize differences in aptitudes and interests, but also to en-
courage some development along different paths of com-
petence. Since all of these paths must, however, lie within
the general area of the ministry, it does not appear to be
desirable in the senior college to place more than incidental
emphasis upon the pursuit of studies calculated to develop
differentiating competences or to provide more than a