# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1884_S49
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fourth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. 1884.   49

Word and always aim at the one thing needful — but the pupils also bow beneath the discipline of the Word of God. The spirit that prevails at this institution is indeed no monastic one, but neither is it a coarse, insolent one; rather, it is on the whole a cheerful and fresh, yet withal Christian, spirit. We may not, of course, conceal that alongside godly, earnest boys who lead an exemplary life, there are also to be found some who are lukewarm, indolent, and frivolous. But amid all youthful frivolity and unruliness of the flesh (whose presence must certainly not surprise us, when we consider that our pupils are at this institution precisely in the years when both stir most powerfully), not a single gross excess has occurred during the past years (since our previous report) as a result of which expulsions would have had to take place. The Director of the institution is met by the pupils, generally, with respect and affection, and his admonitions and punishments are accepted without murmuring; in the class, work, and free hours, Christian discipline and order generally prevail. In short, what we testified three years ago we can with joy repeat this time as well: the Word of God rules at this our institution.

"Passing on to the report on the state of health of the pupils of our institution, we can, according to the medical sick-list, describe this too as, on the whole, thoroughly satisfactory. To be sure, some acute cases of illness occurred, and the institution has also to lament the loss, through death, of two pupils from the upper classes; for the rest, however, the inhabitants of the institution, according to the physician's report, enjoyed reasonably good health. The conspicuous occurrences of abdominal pain, after having been absent for a whole year, did indeed appear again in this past year, but only sporadically and not as severely as in earlier years; the climate fever has almost entirely disappeared. And now that the canal flowing past near the college has been filled in, and the immediate vicinity of the institution has been further built up and drained, we do not hesitate to declare the state of health of this our institution — which is not confined to a small plot, but lies, as free and fair as no other institution of our Synod, in the midst of a great, splendid property of more than 25 acres — to be better than it has ever been at any earlier time.

"As for the enrollment of the gymnasium, it has, in recent years, declined — as was indeed to be expected ever since the founding of the pro-gymnasiums [*Progymnasien*, preparatory schools feeding into the gymnasium]. Whereas in the school year 1880–1881 the number of pupils still stood at 247, it had already sunk, in the following school year 1881–1882, to 207; in the school year 1882–1883 to 197; and in this school year it stands at 171." (Report of the Board of Control.)