# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1857_S357
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 357 —

The Schoolteachers' Seminary at Fort Wayne. Appointment of a Second
Professor at the Pro-Seminary and Schoolteachers' Seminary There.

It is well known that our institution at Fort Wayne was from the
outset intended to train Christian-minded young men, according to
their gifts and abilities, partly as preachers and partly as
schoolteachers; and indeed most of the preachers coming out of this
institution also had to take on the office of schoolteacher at the
same time. But since attention rightly had to be focused chiefly on
the practical training of these men for the actual preaching office,
it could not be helped that only a comparatively small number of
young men were trained for the office of schoolteacher, so that they
did not meet the pressing need. Pastors Lochner, Dulitz, and
Fleischmann in Milwaukee had therefore undertaken, two years ago, to
set up a schoolteachers' seminary [Schullehrer-Seminar] there in
Milwaukee, in order to remedy the great shortage of capable
schoolteachers. Experience, however, had convinced them that Milwaukee
was not a suitable place for such a seminary.

Against this, a paper [Referat] by Dr. Sihler now demonstrated
convincingly that, under present circumstances, Fort Wayne was
precisely the most suitable place for it.

Moreover, a statement and petition from the Fort Wayne congregation
established the need for a capable man to be called to the
pro-seminary [Proseminar] who could stand strongly at Professor
Crämer's side, take a portion of his excessive workload off him, and —
by living at the seminary and among the students — remedy the need in
every respect, both through more complete instruction and through
closer supervision, in a way that had until now been possible only
through the assistance of the previous vicar, Pastor Föhlinger, at the
pro-seminary (whose departure had, moreover, now left a gap there).

The thought therefore naturally arose of calling such a man to the
pro-seminary who could, at the same time, take over the direction of
the schoolteachers' seminary, should the latter be combined with the
former.

The Chicago Teachers' Conference [Lehrer-Conferenz], by contrast, had
proposed to the Synod in a petition — among other matters — regarding
the schoolteachers' seminary, that an independent, free-standing
institution be established, and had supported this proposal with
several arguments concerning the disadvantages that would arise from
combining it with a preachers' seminary. Pastor Francke's congregation
had also shown itself willing to help establish such an institution in
its midst.

Although the Synod recognized the merit of the Chicago Teachers'
Conference's concerns about such a combination of the two
institutions, and duly acknowledged the willingness of the
congregation named to help establish a schoolteachers' seminary, it
could nevertheless not fail to recognize the greater weight of the
arguments presented in the paper mentioned above in favor of such a
combination. It settled on the view that, under present circumstances,
establishing the schoolteachers' seminary at Fort Wayne and joining it
to the preachers' seminary [Prediger-Seminar] there was the easiest
and most practical course, and that it would be best to call a
suitable man to the pro-seminary who would also take over the
direction of the schoolteachers' seminary.

Against the concern that this latter arrangement might cause the
special subjects taught to the schoolteacher students to suffer undue
neglect, it was further pointed out how, through the soon