# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S328
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

328 PARISH EDUCATION

grades and for students attending the public high school. Every
additional hour of religious instruction given to our children and
youth holds the promise of a higher measure of indoctrination
for our church, a firmer and more active faith-life on the part of

our youth, and a heightening of the moral and spiritual standard
of the nation.

N. Special Assignments and Activities of the
Board for Parish Education

1. The Committee on Tests and Measurements

The members of this committee are Dr. Theo. G. Stelzer, Dr.
Henry J. Boettcher, Prof. Walter O. Kraeft, Dr. Elmer Pfleger,
and Dr. Arthur L. Miller. In the past triennium the Unit Tests
on Luther’s Catechism have been completed. These provide seven
unit tests to parallel the Catechism, and each test has two forms.
The Attitude Inventory, in two forms, has been completed and is
used by a considerable number of schools. The Test on Biblical
Information has been completed and provides a test on the Old
Testament and a test on the New Testament, each in two forms.

2. Sunday School Teacher Training

The year 1957 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the
synodical Sunday school teacher-training program. Twenty years
is a short period of time. But to the members of the committee
who planned the courses and nurtured the delicate plant in its
early stages of growth, these twenty years are eventful ones, es-
pecially when viewed in contrast to the previous fifty years, during
which there was no official program for the training of Sunday
school teachers. One effort had been made. In the early thirties
a correspondence course was inaugurated. However, only a limited
number of people took this course. Seldom were more than 300
teachers enrolled at one time, and most of them did not complete
the four units of the course. The Concordia Teacher-Training
Program, launched in 1937, was the first organized effort to enlist all
Sunday school teachers of our church in systematic, specialized
training. This undertaking was a success from the very start.
Pastors had been waiting for something like it. The program came
as an answer to prayer.

During the past 20 years 430,000 textbooks plus the accompany-
ing test sheets and Instructors’ Guides have been distributed.
The original series of six courses has been expanded to twelve. -
62,000 course cards have been awarded to 32,000 students, repre-
senting 1,860 congregations. Teachers who have completed four
courses are granted a first certificate; a second certificate is granted
for completing an additional four courses; a special award is

gran
To «
Acco
the }
upwi
of te
41,04
to ye

the k
sents
class:
myrii
impr
tend
prom
Distr
these
interc
incre:
ers W
our ¢
crow!

decad
at evr
texthr
will b
ought
short,
and t

way t:
teache
gainec
teache
course
teache
fifty 5
of spe
going
is not]

sugges