# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

20   Proceedings of the 19th General [Synod], or

resolutions passed by the last synod have been carried out. This time no
special appropriations of money are being requested from that quarter.

Comparatively small, too, this year are the requests for our
Gymnasium [college-preparatory school] in Fort Wayne. It asks only for
a not very costly improvement of the washrooms, wishes for a teacher's
residence to be built, unless the Synod should prefer to add a new wing
to the main building instead, and proposes that the Synod fix a definite
date for the beginning and end of the school year.

Far greater and more pressing, by contrast, are the requests from
the seminary in Springfield. Our property there has recently, by
decree of the Circuit Court, been declared free of the mortgage in
question, but — incomprehensibly — not at the same time of the clause
that makes ownership conditional on continuing to operate a school
there. This latter point, however, could, on the assurance of those with
expert knowledge, still be obtained, and without cost to us. If that were
achieved, then what has sometimes been talked about could happen: we
could sell our property there and move the seminary. But we ought first
to weigh carefully that finding another site would not exactly be easy,
that the move would cause much unrest and disruption, that putting up
new buildings would in any case cost more than any proceeds from the
old ones, and finally and above all that the chief drawbacks which have
here and there made moving the institution seem desirable will probably,
for the most part, be capable of being removed. All this ought to be
weighed against any possible advantages before we come to a final
decision. But if we remain in Springfield, something proper must be
done, and at once, so that our students there — I will not say may live
decently and comfortably, but may simply be able to stay at all. Some
180 young men have had to spend their time there in a space where
scarcely 100 should have lived. They have done so without complaint,
and God has in his grace kept the institution safe from the dangers of
such crowding. But it would now be tempting God were we to expose
them to it any further. There is no question that the need is greatest
here. I have therefore asked Dr. Dümling, after inspecting the site
together with the supervisory board and the faculty [*Lehrercollegium*],
to draw up a plan for erecting a new building and for any possible
alteration of the old one, and to have the costs calculated as exactly as
possible. He at once undertook this labor, and Mr. Paul, a master
builder from Fort Wayne, also agreed to take part in the work. The plan
and the estimate we owe to these two brothers — according to which the
total cost would come to $20,000 to $22,000 — I hereby lay before the
Reverend Synod. The supervisory board there further requests: the
ratification of the