# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1899_S58
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

58 Proceedings of the 24th General, or

"The state of health in the institution has been quite excellent
throughout the three years. Serious cases of illness have not occurred
at all, and even minor illnesses have been relatively few. The Oversight
Board, following the practice of other synodical institutions, has made
an arrangement with a physician whereby he receives $2.00 annually
from each student, for which he treats all cases that arise and supplies
the medicines.

"The spirit prevailing among the students has been excellent
throughout the three years and still is. Discipline is therefore very
easy. The students submit to the institution's order without murmuring
and themselves strive to uphold it among one another. No gross
offenses have occurred at all in the three years, and stringent measures
for the maintenance of discipline and order have therefore never had
to be taken, nor has any student had to be dismissed as unworthy.

"Nor has diligence been lacking among the students in the three
years. They have throughout been honestly diligent in meeting the
demands placed upon them. If occasion has been taken for the
complaint that our institution does not throughout reach the same
level of achievement as the corresponding classes in full gymnasia
[classical secondary schools], this lies in part in the exceedingly weak
preparatory training that most of the students newly entering with us
bring from the as yet less developed parish schools of our West, and in
part also in other circumstances whose prompt removal the Oversight
Board considers highly desirable.

"As for the institution's external affairs, we have spent only as
much money on repairs as was absolutely necessary for the upkeep of
the institution's property. Apart from the painting of the woodwork
on the inside and outside of the buildings, the refurbishing of individual
rooms, the building of a coal shed, and the rent for three professors'
dwellings, the only larger expenditure in the three years arose from the
laying of a footpath of stone slabs in front of the institution. One of
boards would admittedly have come half as cheap, but would always
have needed repair and, from time to time, renewal again. Now the
work is done once for all, and the expense likewise made once for all.

"Finally we take the liberty of adding the request that the
institution, as regards library and teaching aids, be placed on an equal
footing with other similar institutions. A nice beginning has already
been made toward the library through the kindness of a few brethren.
Of teaching aids, however, very little is on hand. The physical
apparatus, for instance, is almost entirely the private property of the
professor concerned.