# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S155
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 155

3. That congregations be urged to hold their teachers by im-
proving salary, living, and working conditions, by extending the
tenure of women teachers, and by enabling teachers to secure
additional training.

Factors are here recommended that are aimed at making the pro-
fession attractive for those who are in it as well as for those who plan
to enter it. In 1955 the installed men teachers of Synod received an
average salary of $255 a month, plus free use of a dwelling or its
equivalent in rent allowance. It can be assumed that other types of
teachers in Lutheran schools received less remuneration. A profession

that offers living and working conditions that are unsatisfactory cannot
expect to attract or to hold those who should be attracted and held.

A security-conscious age also causes individuals to look for security
in the teaching profession in Synod. A contract for regular women
teachers for the duration of a school term does not provide security
for the entire year. The manifestation of esteem on the part of the
congregation for the teacher as expressed in tenure and financed oppor-
tunity for additional training is important.

4. That Synod take immediate steps to provide additional
training facilities by

a) the maximum utilization of Synod’s preparatory schools
for pastor and teacher training;

b) the further consideration of eliminating the high school
department of Seward and at other preparatory schools;

c) the expansion of dormitory space at River Forest and
Seward and the preparatory schools.

d) the recognition that our increased need for teachers will
make necessary a third terminal teacher-training institution and
that the Board for Higher Education be instructed to initiate pre-
liminary studies to this end and report to the 1959 convention of
Synod,

The expansion of dormitory space at River Forest and other prepar-
atory schools can be effected by the acquisition of off-campus housing
for additional enrollment. It is assumed that classroom and other facil-
ities can absorb the increased enrollment. Off-campus housing of stu-
dents poses problems in supervision that can be mitigated by selective
recruitment. The expansion of dormitory space for teacher training at

Synod’s colleges cannot be expected to result in more teachers until
after 1965.

5. That Synod set a goal of supplying 60 per cent of the
teacher need by 1965, and that the Board for Higher Education be
instructed to initiate preliminary studies of the means by which
the goal can be reached and report to the next convention of Synod.

Saints of God, the dawn is bright’ning,
Token of our coming Lord;

O’er the earth the field is whit’ning;
Louder rings the Master’s word:

Pray for reapers, Pray for reapers,
In the harvest of the Lord!