# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S214
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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214 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

The desirability of high school level training for the church
professions continues to be a matter of debate. There are those
who hold that the synodical high schools have served Synod well
throughout its history and that, ideally speaking, every future
church worker (or at least the majority of such workers) should
begin their training immediately after confirmation. There are
others who feel that the growth of the high school system, accom-
panied by recent and impending expansion in community Lutheran
high schools, makes the synodical high school program superfluous
or at least optional for Synod as well as for the student.

The critical national problem of the recruitment and training
of an adequate supply of teachers for the schools of the land,
dramatized in the recent White House Conference, finds its parallel
and counterpart in the crucial problem of the recruitment and
training of an adequate supply of competent persons for our
church schools. Here, too, the range of suggested answers to the
key problems cover a wide range. Shall Synod in the long run be
committed to train all the teachers needed for the ever-increasing
number of classrooms in the schools of the congregations? Shall
the training of those who are to be qualified teachers, church
musicians, directors of parish education and youth work, and
principals be extended downward ideally into the high school level,
or shall gradually rising state certification standards lead to an
upward extension of the preferred-training program into a fifth
college year?

There is also a proper, lively interest and discussion of the
best organization on the seminary level for training of pastors. As
Synod’s need for pastors continues and even increases, shall Synod
commit itself to the establishment of more seminaries than the
two it now has, or shall it restrict itself to the operation and un-
limited expansion of two theological seminaries? For the provision
of an adequately trained ministry, shall the requirements of the
so-called practical program of the Springfield Seminary be raised
or, in order to meet the current shortage of pastors in Synod,
shall the program standards of the seminaries be lowered and
supplemented by an extensive and generous program of short
courses and colloquy?

There can be no question that Synod will continue to be con-
fronted with a series of desperately difficult decisions regarding
the planning, organization, and control of its training system as it
seeks to match its capacity to recruit, train, and place an adequate
supply of competent pastors and teachers with the express needs
of the congregations, missions, and schools of Synod.

In the considered judgment of your Board for Higher Educa-

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