# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1876_S49
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 49 —

[…]ities arose was probably chiefly a consequence of [illegible]
Church [being divided] into so many separate territorial chur[illegible]

Our intention is for the present not to found a university, to [illegible]
only a theological but also a philosophical, medical, and juristic faculty. We leave that to the future. So that it may be practicable later, however, as much land as possible should be bought, on which, in the future, one building after another could be erected. For the present, however, we provide only for a theological faculty.

c. It speaks also for the establishment of a joint seminary that in the training of the students much more can be achieved and accomplished when more teaching strength is united. Many little seminaries can accomplish only little. And finally, what a blessing can grow from it, with God's help, when all the preachers of our orthodox American-Lutheran Church, brought up and trained in one spirit, get to know one another in one institution! Had that been so earlier, many prejudices would certainly not prevail and many struggles would never have occurred. Through several seminaries conducted separately, a certain partition wall forms only too easily.

That all state synods, even the smallest, can have a claim on such a joint seminary is of no small importance to them. They can then see to it and control that not only the firm [i.e. the name] of the institution is orthodox, but also the doctrine taught in it, and whether, by the method in use, what can and should be attained is really attained. This too is well to be considered: as long as among the many synods to which the seminary is subject, even only a few still hold firmly to the pure doctrine of our Church, no apostasy can take place in an institution so important for the whole without the Church as a whole learning of it. Apart from all this, the unity of the teaching institutions is finally also an exceedingly important basis for the establishment of state synods.

2. To place the already existing teachers' seminary [*Schullehrerſeminar*] under the same control.

Here, namely, a giving up of seminaries is not necessary, since only a single institution of this kind exists and is well located. Yet by this the establishment of a second teachers' seminary, say in the East, is by no means forbidden. Most necessary at present is, however, a preparatory school [*Proſeminar*].

3. Until the dissolution of the larger synodical bodies has taken place, to leave it to the state synods concerned whether they wish to join any general synod and which of the existing general synods they wish to join.

This point has been added because it is to be assumed as highly probable that not at the same time in all states the members of the