# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1905_S168
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

168 Proceedings of the 26th General or

succeed. The matter was also presented personally by the committee at several larger conferences.

"But at first all these efforts met with little success. Only once some of the larger pastoral and teachers' conferences warmed to the cause, and our committee sent out a sample booklet of pupils' work, did the outlook improve. This had its greatest effect among the teachers.

"The great majority had been under the impression that only especially excellent work could be considered for the exhibit — work that, with honest effort, children simply cannot produce. The sample booklet, however, convinced them that only real, honest schoolwork was wanted, and encouraged them to pledge their participation in the undertaking to the committee.

"By insisting precisely on real schoolwork, rather than a collection of showpieces, our committee acted entirely in the spirit of the officials of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Prof. H. Rogers, the head of the Department of Education, stressed both in his publications and in person how desirable it was that honest work provide a genuine glimpse into the conditions and accomplishments of the higher and lower schools, and that a display of showpieces specially and long prepared for the occasion would be entirely worthless.

"The sample booklet appeared in January 1903, and within a few months so many pastors and teachers had promised contributions to the school exhibit that our committee could allow itself the hope that the undertaking was now secure. And when our committee traveled to St. Louis in July 1903 to review all the schoolwork sent to the Concordia Publishing House, it found its expectations confirmed. To be sure, we did not find so large and general a participation of teachers and school-keeping pastors as we had wished and striven for, but the material submitted was nonetheless ample enough to put together a fine and worthwhile exhibit on this occasion, and varied enough to give a genuine glimpse into the conditions and accomplishments of our Lutheran city and country schools scattered across the whole country. In the following months, even up to the opening of the World's Fair, individual further contributions still came in.

"A substantial help and relief to the work, for our committee and for all the pastors and teachers who took part in the school exhibit, was provided by the Concordia Publishing House, in