# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S177
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

~ we Ww Bh RR

mm erie

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 177

its strongest ally in the dedicated home, where Christian fathers
and mothers are eager and willing to send their children, if
necessary and possible, to the very ends of the earth in the service
of the Gospel ministry. Hundreds of examples of inspiring parental
sacrifice and influence could be collected.

The history of the Christian ministry records instances when
holders of the ministerial office tended to be recruited from certain
types of homes only. A democratic church body is bound to seek
talented persons as trainees for the ministerial calling whose
parents may pursue their own calling in the broadest imaginable
range of occupations open to the Christian. A mark of strength
in Synod’s ministerial recruitment can be the degree of recruit-
ment from many homes other than the present parsonages and
teacherages of the church, although these parsonages and teach-
erages are exceptionally strong sources for the recruitment of
qualified young men and young women.

To an increasing extent, parental educational level seems to
be related to the occupational status of the parents. While the
next generation’s attraction to advanced training and education
is not exclusively dependent upon the educational level attained
by this generation’s parents, it is noteworthy that, on the basis
of our preliminary studies, neither the best-educated parents in
Synod today nor those whose education was cut short or handi-
capped provide the most promising homes for the young men and
women who today are motivated toward the church professions.

The nature and the quality of previous schooling is an im-
portant group factor which affects recruitment for the work of
the church.

Because of the high degree of family mobility in the last
twenty years, students now in training in Synod’s colleges and
seminaries often exhibit a distressing number of frequent changes
in elementary and secondary schooling, in contrast to the predomi-
nant pattern of a generation ago when often admission to a synodi-
cal school meant admission to the second school in the student’s
experience.

Even without such frequent change in schools, the students
who apply for admission to Synod’s institutions are themselves
the evidence that the institutions of prior training cover an ex-
ceedingly broad range of quality.

While it is not possible to generalize on the basis of the avail-
able evidence, there is also a suggestive variety in previous school
experience in terms of the kind of elementary schooling. Table 3
shows the number of years in either Lutheran elementary schools
or in public schools spent by this year’s graduates of Synod’s
four terminal schools.