# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1938_S71
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Action Regarding Individual Institutions 71

in excess of the synodical demands; rental of grounds and build-
ings; catering to various conventions, summer-school, ete. Our
problem in Milwaukee is aggravated by these facts: that nearly all
our students are preparing for the ministry, that little opportunity
for additional income presents itself, and that we have a large
number of ministerial students who do not board at the college and
therefore contribute very little proportionately to the main-
tenance funds.

Unless we increase the fees considerably and thus make it
increasingly difficult for worthy boys from humble homes to attend
our school, we must look to Synod for the help it formerly gave us.
We respectfully urge that Synod again assume the payment for
janitor service and supplies, office supplies, telephone, gas, light,
and water.

3. New Building. — When in 1934 fire damaged our Kilbourn
Hall so badly that it had to be razed, we were deprived not only of
nine dormitory-rooms but also of our only laboratory, the science
lecture-room, and the quarters occupied by the students’ library.
During the summer of 1934 we moved the laboratory, the science
lecture-room, and the college office into the Administration
Building. This meant the sacrifice of three classrooms and the
necessity of providing makeshift ones in the basement of the
Administration Building. The students’ library was moved into
the low, dark, and damp basement of the Refectory Building.
All this, we hoped, would be a brief emergency arrangement, which
would terminate in 1935, when we planned to request Synod for
a new building. But the financial hurdles were already too high
for Synod to raise them, and our makeshift is still with us.

The temporary decrease in enrolment has eased the dormitory
crisis, but the need for classroom space is still a crying one. Equally
serious is our library problem. The new curriculum emphasizes the
need for independent work and, by reducing the number of class-
room periods, requires much supervised work in the library. On
the matter of our library needs there can be no argument. The
present quarters are altogether inadequate: the room is too small,
too dark, too low. To have more than ten boys in the room at one
time crowds the place. The cramped and crowded condition of the
room makes utility impossible; the narrow stairway at the entrance
is but the passageway to what was intended to be a laundry.
Nothing invites; everything repels.

We therefore respectfully request the Hon. Synod to grant us
a new building to be erected as an addition to our Administration
Building. The entire lower floor is to serve as a library in which
the former students’ and professors’ libraries are to be combined.
The second floor will furnish four classrooms. The abandoned