# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1900_S37
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1900. 37

[One] holds it in many cases sufficient if the children learn of God's Word just enough that they can at least be confirmed and regarded as congregation members. One believes one renders them the greatest service if they only possess as extensive a secular knowledge as possible. And because the interest in the Christian congregational school thus fades, greed has an easy game closing the hand when sacrifices become necessary for its advancement and support. The sermon must therefore constantly take account of this. In regular school sermons, perhaps annually, the holy duty of all parents to lead their children to Christ should be set forth in detail. And that must then also be impressed upon the individual in the given case convincingly and with a heart full of compassion for parents and children.

Another cause is probably this, that the fathers of the children who ought now to fill our schools learned little in their youth in the congregational school, because at that time it was still very poorly provided. This they blame on the system instead of on the circumstances and still think little today of the achievements of our congregational schools. It is therefore of the highest importance to set up the congregational school so that it satisfies all fair demands. The teachers must be well trained and must keep improving through private study. Pastors who keep school should increasingly disappear in our congregations and schoolteachers take their place. Congregations and pastors must see to it that the school deserves the full confidence of the parents.

To this are added causes lying in another field, e.g. that in the cities the schools are no longer mission schools to the extent that they used to be. A sad social condition also bears blame for the smaller growth of the schools, namely the shrinking of the families, the "two-and-three-children system." And so still many other causes could be named.

Let us take well to heart the admonition which this thesis lays on our hearts! Let us apply every lever to cherish, raise and promote our congregational schools, lest our Lutheran church suffer a setback from which it does not recover!

5.

Since only a Christian education offers the true foundation of all civic and social virtue, the duty toward our whole people requires that we cherish and promote our congregational schools.

This thesis shows that the Christian congregational school is also an arrangement necessary for the welfare of the state. Here too we have again to prove that the state school is not the arrangement