# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S54
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 54 —

possibility not be cut off of joining one of the existing general synods, so that these retain their independence and autonomy; and 2. that the existing theological institutions of the general synods that combine to form state synods be united into one common seminary.

Resolved, that the Delegate Synod of the General Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States welcomes with joy the founding of a joint seminary projected by the Synodical Conference and is ready to take up this so important work with all earnestness and zeal and without delay, and indeed first with all those synods of the Synodical Conference which lend their hand to the carrying out of this work.

Resolved, that a committee consisting of the Reverend Messrs. C. F. W. Walther, Professor and Doctor of Theology, H. C. Schwan, President of the General Synod, and J. P. Beyer, President of the Eastern District Synod, together with Messrs. C. Römer of St. Louis, L. Brauns of Chicago and C. Eißfeldt of Milwaukee, be appointed and charged to confer with committees of other synods belonging to the Synodical Conference on the matter of establishing a joint seminary.

Resolved, that the aforementioned committee enter into negotiation on the basis of the following instruction:

1. It shall be able to reach a valid agreement only when its authority has been confirmed by the congregations to which the matter is to be submitted.

2. It shall call upon the other synods belonging to the Synodical Conference, or respectively their officers, to appoint committees which, if possible before the convention of the Reverend Ohio Synod, are to confer with it on the establishment of a joint seminary.

3. In the conference to be convened it shall discharge the following commissions:

a. It shall vote for a healthy, high-lying, easily accessible point in the United States. It shall, however, if necessary, be permitted to agree if it is demanded that the place to be chosen lie neither south nor east of Chicago.

b. It shall see to it that the costs for the purchase of the land to be acquired — about 40 to 80 acres —, as well as for the erection of the necessary buildings, be distributed among the synods concerned pro rata, insofar as these are not covered by any gifts of land and endowments.

c. It shall move that a Board of Trustees be appointed.

d. It shall move that in the joint seminary three departments (Departements) be set up, a German, an English and a Norwegian, and that for each department a separate building be erected, but that for the lecture halls of all