# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1938_S113
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Elementary Education 118

agencies for in-service training and the congregations which make
it possible for their teachers to do so. For all this let us rejoice and
thank God. .

However, the fact remains that the Christian education of chil-
dren is in many cases taken too lightly both in the church and
in the family. Children are unnecessarily deprived of a Christian
school, and no real effort is made otherwise to approximate as
nearly as possible the daily instruction and training of such a
school. About half of our congregations and preaching-stations
restrict themselves to the Sunday-school prior to confirmation in-
struction. Such practise is certainly a symptom of decline since
the days of our fathers and calls. for a change in our ways.

‘Since emphasis on Christian education is a distinctive feature
of our Lutheran Church and a glorious heritage of our fathers,
which God in His great mercy has preserved unto us,

We recommend that Synod, at this Centennial Convention, re-
dedicate itself to the principles of the fathers and earnestly en-
courage a more effective promotion of our educational endeavors,
especially through more direct and systematic participation of the
Visitors in their respective circuits in conjunction with the District
boards of Christian education.

The Board of Christian Education of Synod stands ready to
lend its assistance for a thoroughgoing, complete-coverage proce-
dure for promoting the educational work, congregation by congre-
gation and circuit by circuit, regardless of the kind of educational
agencies employed.

Particular attention by the circuit Visitors is to be given the
establishment of central, or union, schools, in rural as well:as in
urban communities, on the part of two or more congregations where
it is difficult for individual congregations to maintain schools alone.
They are also not to overlook the importance of keeping the present
schools in existence.

We recommend furthermore that also our other educational
agencies, the Sunday-school, the Saturday-school, summer-school,
week-day religious instruction, etc., be used to their best possible
advantage, also as missionary agencies.

Sunday-School Literature

Your Committee recognizes that improvements have been made
in late years in our Sunday-school literature. However, owing to
varying needs and continued requests for further improvement we
recommend that Synod adopt the suggestion of Memorial 203 that
the President of Synod appoint a committee to study the problem
of providing more adequate literature for Sunday-schools and other
part-fime agencies.

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