# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1914_S38
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

38 Proceedings of the 29th General or

Prof. Crull, who for forty years gave all the German instruction at
our institution with complete faithfulness and great skill and
worked with great blessing, has fallen seriously ill with a nervous
disorder and has had to give up teaching that was certainly
unforgettable to all his students, past and present. He broke down
under the burden of work. Already at Easter of last year he
complained of increasing nervousness, and at the start of this
school year he was unable to resume the work that had become so
dear to him. As a result, various rearrangements of subjects became
necessary, and the board of control appointed Pastors Wm. Moll and
Paul Stöppelwerth as assistant teachers, so that the professors would
not be overburdened with work.

7. While we can report with joy on the flourishing state of our
institution and call upon our Synod to give praise and thanks to
God, who for these 75 years has ruled over our institution with His
grace and rich blessing, we cannot, precisely for this reason, avoid
— indeed we consider it our duty — after thorough consultation with
the Reverend General President, the electoral board, and the
faculty, to lay before the Reverend Synod the following important
matter for serious consideration. — Especially in recent years, not
a few students have applied for admission to the sixth-from-top
class [*Sexta*] whose knowledge of the German language was so
extremely deficient that they could not profitably attend the
instruction in Latin and German given by means of the German
language. If they were gifted and diligent, the instruction in
German given to them in the seventh-from-top class [*Septima*] (ten
hours a week) enabled them to make up what they had missed and still
complete the Sexta in their first year. But if their prior knowledge
was also inadequate in other subjects — for example, English and
arithmetic — they generally spent a full year in the Septima and
could then usually be advanced to the Sexta in good standing at the
end of the school year. Thus the Septima arrangement instituted by
the General Synod has proven excellent with us.

But it was not only for admission to our Sexta that such students,
wholly deficient in German, applied; some also sought to enter
higher classes of our Gymnasium. Some came from the institution at
Conover, N. C., whose three upper classes had, as is known, been
discontinued; others came from congregations of our English
District. These had indeed attended a "high school," but had
received no proper instruction in German, and were consequently
unable to take an active part in the instruction in Latin, Greek,
Hebrew, and German given by means of the German language — indeed,
for the most part they were not even able to understand instruction
given in the German language. The question thus arose: "What is to
be done with these students, who come from our own circles?" — The
next step