# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1905_S47
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

11th Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1905. 47

"In connection with this, the Board of Oversight takes the liberty
of submitting to the Reverend Synod the urgent request that it no
longer delay expanding the institution into a full gymnasium,
because both the good of the Kingdom of God in general and the
interest of the great West and Southwest of our synod in particular
call for such an expansion, and because the circumstances of the
institution itself are just now especially favorable for such an
expansion.

"The good of the Church in general requires such an expansion.
We need more preachers, more candidates for the preaching office.
This is so evident that it needs no further discussion. The synod
therefore needs more students at its institutions. One means of
gaining more students for an institution is, without doubt, its
expansion and completion. It lies in the nature of the case that an
institution attracts more students the better it is equipped and the
more complete its course of study. The history of every institution
has proved this, and the history of this institution has proved it
too. When at one time the Western and the Kansas District gave
the institution its Tertia class, the number of students at once
began to grow. When in 1896 the Delegate Synod, on taking over
the institution from the districts named, took the Tertia away
again, the number of students steadily declined. And since the
Tertia was reinstated in 1902, we have likewise recorded such an
increase in the number of students that we have had over 100
students every year for the last several years. One can therefore
rightly expect that, with the addition of two further classes, the
number of students will increase accordingly as well. If, then, the
synod wants to draw more students — that is, more candidates for
the preaching office — from its western and southwestern districts
in particular, it must take to heart the expansion and completion
of this institution.

"For the western and southwestern part of our synod, with its
428 pastors, its 306 congregations belonging to the synod and 272
not yet belonging to the synod, and its 268 preaching stations, and
its 19,126 voting members, it is of quite special interest that this
institution be expanded and completed. This part of the synod,
which is still relatively young and has until now had to be
supplied mainly with candidates for the preaching and teaching
offices from other parts of the synod, is evidently soon to be in the
fortunate position of being able to supply itself, for in recent years
it has filled not only our institution with over 100 students a year
but also a teachers' seminary with about 80 students. But so that
this may become easier still for it,