# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1887_S35
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fifth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1887. 35

"As for the students' conduct and behavior, we can only say to a
Reverend Synod that it has improved since the last Synod. The
students submitted themselves to God's Word and Christian discipline.
To be sure, there is no lack of various sins and bad habits, but the
prevailing spirit among them is a Christian one. Of the professors,
too, we can bear witness that they administer their difficult and
laborious office faithfully and conscientiously, each according to the
gifts God has given him.

"II. Turning now to the needs of the institution, the supervisory
board finds itself obliged once again to come before the Reverend
Synod with requests and proposals. They are as follows:

"1. The Synod should now also authorize the building of a suitable
residence for the Director. He still lives in the seminary buildings at
present, which is not only extremely burdensome for him and his
family — given the constant use of organs, pianos, and violins, harmful
to the sick in cases of illness, and disruptive to instruction — but also
reduces the space so badly needed by the students. Indeed, we were
already compelled, not long after the new building was completed, to
announce in the "Lutheraner" that in that particular year, for lack of
space, new students could only be admitted in individual urgent cases.
For this residence for the Director, about $3000.00 would need to be
appropriated.

"2. The Synod should approve the construction of a service building
together with living quarters for the steward [Hausverwalter] and his
staff. That this has been an urgent need for the institution for the
past three years already may be shown by the following:

"a. All the rooms belonging to the household operations are located in
the basements, or 'basements.' These 'basements,' however, given the
low-lying position of the seminary grounds, are highly unsuitable for
the nearly constant occupancy of the staff concerned. Our dear
steward's family has already repeatedly suffered from rheumatic and
various other ailments, which, according to the physician's judgment,
they have contracted through constant residence in the 'basement.'
While all the drainage installed so far does protect against the
'basements' being flooded (formerly, in heavy rain, the water often
stood two to three inches deep in the kitchen and dining hall), the
general dampness of the swampy soil cannot be removed by any
'drainage.'

"b) In addition, both the kitchen and the dining hall have long since
become too small. For four years now the seminarians simply can no
longer be seated in the dining hall, as we already pointed out at the
last delegate synod. But because great sacrifices were already being
asked of the Synod at that time, we stated that we would try to make
do on our own. To that end, two of the students' living rooms located
above the kitchen had to be converted, together with it, into dining
halls,