# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S31
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 31 —

...ten [students] came, and in the fall of 1877 four new students from
Steeden entered the College. The annual board fee for them amounts to
$850.00. In the course of time, friends were indeed found who took on
support for individual students among them, and two of them relocated
last fall to the seminary at St. Louis, and one to the one at
Springfield, but all the remaining students are dependent exclusively
on our College. Since the College, however, has no funds at its
disposal for maintaining entirely destitute students, the supervisory
board could find no other solution than to use the tuition money paid
in by students not studying theology — money that would otherwise have
been handed over to the General Treasurer — for the support of these
students. But even this money did not suffice, and at present matters
stand such that a debt of about $300.00 in board fees is owed to the
institution. How is this debt to be covered, and how is further
provision to be made for these students, given that the Synod as such
has hitherto, on principle and no doubt rightly, refused to take on
the support of poor students?

To this it was answered: that the Synod has hitherto held to the
principle of not, as such, concerning itself with the support of poor
students, has been done for weighty reasons. It will continue to hold
to this principle and will in no case involve itself in the support of
poor students. If a student is so poor that he does not possess the
necessary board money himself, let him look for a patron or benefactor
— be this a single individual or an entire congregation — and let his
board be paid by that patron. If he has no such patron, we do not, it
is true, turn him away, but he must then be content with very meager
fare. Let one only try to secure patrons for exceptionally gifted
students, and sources for their support will indeed open up — all the
more so if the students do not consider themselves too proud to
approach people with humble requests for what is needed. Luther
himself, as a student, had to seek his bread at other people's doors,
and was not ashamed to beg most humbly for charitable gifts. But our
congregations, too, should take it to heart that it is their duty to
take up the cause of poor students with all zeal and diligence, and to
see to their daily support. This is a work of love that stands on
almost the same level as caring for widows and orphans. It would truly
be a great disgrace for us if, for lack of such a charitable spirit,
highly gifted students had to abandon their studies and turn to
another calling. In neglecting poor students who are dependent on the
charity of others, one sins not only against the students themselves
but also against the whole Church, which is meant to benefit from the
gifts of such students. Among other examples of such Christian charity,
that of Frau Cotta, who supported Luther during part of his student
years, shines before us all as