# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S234
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 233
mendation of the president after study by the faculty, beginning
no earlier than the summer of 1959.

6. Since the schools of the church are closely related in
their purposes and in their service to the church and its trained
workers, a maximum transfer of credit is to be encouraged among
the several institutions offering work on the graduate level.

7, In working out any program of graduate studies, the needs
of the church are to be paramount. Only as the chureh profits
from such graduate studies can they be justified. At the same
time, any graduate work which is offered must meet the highest
educational standards and be acceptable to regional, state, and
voluntary educational agencies.

Next Steps in the Service of the Church

In an unsolicited testimonial addressed to the plenary mem-
bers of the Board for Higher Education early in March 1956,
Dr. C. C. Colvert, professor and consultant on junior college edu-
cation at the University of Texas, made these comments on Synod’s
ministerial and teacher-training system.

“T have followed with interest your program in higher educa-
tion and I must say that I think you have the most modern higher
education program of any private or public group in the United
States. Even as far back as 1852 there was talk of having the first
two years of college as a separate unit, possibly in connection with
the high school, and with the junior and senior years of the senior
college as a separate unit or possibly with graduate work so that
better teaching and more specialization in the areas of higher
education could be accomplished.

“This was mentioned again in 1869 and then again in 1892
and has been frequently discussed in higher education circles since
that time. Since your church, however, is the first one to attain
this ideal — that is of having your junior colleges as separate enti-
ties—and then your two-year senior college to complete the
general education program, followed by your graduate work or
specialized training —I would like to see this program of yours
broadcast far and wide. I think it can have a very healthy influence
on the development of higher education. It seems to me we must
come to it not only in private education but in public education.”

This important comment by a leading observer of the Ameri-
can educational scene, reprinted here with his permission, is
included not in the sense of providing easy sanction for past
developments or to solicit irresponsible and uninformed judgment
on the part of the church for developments presently under way
or to be planned for the colleges and seminaries of the church
as they proceed in their critically important task of recruiting and

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