# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1905_S23
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

11th Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1905. 23

...when the congregations are not yet able, or not yet willing, to call
a parish-school teacher. Our younger pastors in particular, as a rule,
willingly and diligently keep school. God will reward their diligence
and faithfulness in time and eternity. At the same time, the dear
congregations are earnestly requested not to let their pastors carry
the office of teacher any longer than is absolutely necessary. Keeping
school alongside caring for the preaching office has worn out many a
young man's strength before his time, and the school itself is better
served by a schoolteacher who devotes his undivided strength to the
school.

The General Presidency.

When the Synod elected me six years ago to this office, thus joining
the General Presidency with a professorship, it made the arrangement
that I should keep only the instruction in dogmatics, while the
instruction in pastoral theology should be transferred to another
member of the faculty. This arrangement was followed for only one
year. It soon became apparent that the work connected with the General
Presidency now falls much more than before into the summer months,
that is, into vacation time. For this reason, in the last five years I
have again given the entire course of instruction in the seminary
originally assigned to me. Now there is a memorial from the Michigan
District before the Synod, asking that the General Presidency again be
separated from the office of professor. This can be done all the more
easily since the General Presidency has, over time, come to be so
shaped that discharging it no longer requires laying down the pastoral
office. On this point I owe the Synod a brief explanation.

The office of General President has, in the course of time, become
something quite different. Originally the General President was the
visitor of all congregations and pastors. This kept the General
President in strenuous activity. As the Synod grew, the work of
visitation had to be handed over to the district, which carried it out
through the district president and his assistants, the visitors. It
was still possible, however — at least this was for a time the custom
— to appeal at once to the General President from the judgment and
action of the district president. But this part of the work, too, was
taken from the General President in the year 1887. The Delegate Synod
of that year established that complaints against the district
president must first be brought before the district. It is true that
the Delegate Synod of 1887 still determined that the General President
should have the right, on the spot...