# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1914_S68
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

68 Proceedings of the 29th General or

1. that the Reverend Synod express its joy that Lutheran academies or
high schools have been founded in several places, and that it
encourage our Christians to make diligent use of them and to support
them vigorously (recommendation raised to a resolution);

2. to resolve that a year gradually be added to the course of our
gymnasiums, that is, that a lower and upper Prima be established, and
that a beginning be made with this as soon as possible at one
gymnasium.

(Since this part of the committee report did not come up until the
last session, so that there was no time to consider the recommendation
further, the motion was tabled.)

Instruction in the use of the vocal organs.

Petition.

When the Pastoral Conference of central Northern Illinois met in the
summer of 1913 to discuss matters of the Kingdom of God, the brethren
took deeply to heart the old complaint that so many workers in the
preaching and teaching ministry are hindered in their work by throat
ailments. Who can deny that in not a few cases, throat pain sets in
soon after they take up their office; the work becomes burdensome, and
full effectiveness at least becomes impossible. Some of those so
afflicted manage to administer their office, if only barely; but how
difficult the work becomes, how cares weigh upon the heart, how often
sleep flees the eyes! Out of a modest salary, doctor and medicine
claim no small share. Then there is often an involuntary furlough, and
scarcely is the harness put on again before, as a rule, the old sore
spot becomes inflamed once more. The voice generally loses its full
resonance, becomes unpleasant, no longer responds. Not a few are
eventually, or soon, forced to hang up the choir robe, to lay down the
schoolmaster's scepter, and to seek a living and a livelihood in a
secular occupation. The rule then is that such a man, when he later
believes he has found healing, has difficulty obtaining a call back
into office, because congregations fear expense or, in the better
case, still inadequate performance of duty.

It is true that among us, too, there are professors, preachers, and
teachers whose throat does not seem to be the weakest part of their
body. Whether such a preacher proclaims the Word once or twice on a
Sunday, with a ringing or with a husky voice, also performs other
official acts, does not spare himself on weekdays either, and perhaps
even stands in the classroom besides, he feels no throat trouble, or
only very slight trouble. But rara avis! There are teachers whose
voice in the classroom, when one walks past the schoolhouse, can be
heard quite well outside, and is likewise not spared any further,