# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1887_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

20 Proceedings of the 20th General or

agreement already existed, remain with the electoral college, whose
members, being present here now, could reach agreement this time
more quickly than usual. — For the rest, the supervisory board in St.
Louis requests no extraordinary appropriations, and expresses only the
wish that the start-of-school-year date fixed for all our educational
institutions might be modified for St. Louis.

A hardship similar to that in St. Louis is currently found also in our
Gymnasium at Fort Wayne. Since Director Bischoff's resignation and
return to the pastoral office, the faculty there has, to be sure,
temporarily divided the work of the directorship among themselves and
kept the lessons going, as well as was in any way practicable. But now,
unfortunately, the elections held by the electoral college have so far
been entirely fruitless. Two of those elected have already declined. It
almost seems as though no one among us any longer quite trusts himself
to take on this office — and perhaps not entirely without reason. For
either an unusually gifted man will have to be found, or else an
entirely different way of conducting this office will have to be devised,
if the director is to go on doing everything himself and alone; or else a
regular, ongoing participation of the other teachers in some of the
duties of the directorship must be arranged, in cooperation between the
supervisory board and the faculty, and then fixed by the Synod — if we
do not want to see the resignations and declinations go on repeating
themselves. — Otherwise, however, the supervisory board's report has
predominantly good news to share, and is gratifying in this respect too:
that apart from a salary increase for the director it asks for no
particular larger appropriations, but only points out to the Synod that
it would be cheaper to build a teacher's residence on our own land than
to go on paying house rent indefinitely. A small change regarding the
start and close of the school year is, however, also wished for at Fort
Wayne.

What we ought to do regarding Fort Wayne will now, however, depend
at least in part on what is decided regarding a petition from the
Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota districts. In it they offer the
Progymnasium at Milwaukee to the General Synod as its property,
specifically with the wish that it be raised to a full Gymnasium.
Perhaps the most advisable course, then, would be to take up this
matter before, or at least together with, the report from Fort Wayne,
and for that purpose, as requested in the petition, to fix a definite time
at once for discussing it. — That we need a greater number of fully
trained pastors, and should accordingly do what we can to obtain
them, will occasion no difference of opinion among us. The only
question will be, first, whether for this purpose