# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1922_S29
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1922. 29

is God's Word, of which the apostle says that it makes wise unto salvation, that it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Only quite rarely does it happen that parents make the request that their children be excused from religious instruction. As a rule the children join in gladly. When the writer of this, on his official visits, asks the children what is probably the best thing they learn in the Lutheran school, the answer is: "The Catechism" — "Bible History" — "God's Word." Only once a very small urchin said: "De Fu'st Readah." The teacher explained this answer to me by saying that the little boy had just been promoted into the First Reader. At Plaquemine, La., our mission school had been opened only four months before when I visited it. Two boys carried my luggage as I went to the railroad station. We passed the city school for Negro children. It was an imposing building, while our school had its home in an old, dilapidated plantation house at the edge of town. Three teachers taught about a hundred children, while we had only one teacher for a hundred pupils. And yet the two boys, as they passed that school, said: The Lutheran school is the best in the town. There we learn God's Word.

[Printed in English: the quoted sayings of the children and the hymn line, as given in the German text.]

The school is opened and closed with singing and prayer. By means of the Word of God the pupils are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And whoever would like to see a school in which quite excellent Christian discipline prevails, let him visit the class of Teacher Seeberry in St. Paul's School at New Orleans. Precisely through their good discipline and order our mission schools have gained a good reputation. In spite of the tuition fee, many parents therefore let their children pass by the public free school to go to the Lutheran school.

What a blessing these children bring with them into the houses and families when they sing their Lutheran hymns, learn their catechism and their Bible history aloud and recite them! How many a seed of the divine Word falls there into the hearts of the parents and other members of the household! The children must learn the Catechism exactly and be able to recite it fluently. New pupils naturally make mistakes at first. Thus, for example, a new pupil, a big boy, recited the explanation of the first article this way: "I believe that God has made me and all — preachers." Some years ago I met in one of our country schools in North Carolina a little seven-year-old girl who could recite all six chief parts and even the Christian Questions finely and fluently. Naturally they also learn our lovely Lutheran hymns and like to sing them at home and in the street at play and at work. When down there in Dixie a black Lutheran bootblack comes along the street and cheerfully sings one hymn after another: "Come, Follow Me, the Savior Spake",