# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S53
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Seminaries and Colleges. — Individual Institutions 53

A call for candidates to fill a vacancy in the chair for Natural
Sciences and Mathematics has been issued by the Board of Control
with the consent of the Board of Directors; also for nominees from
which to elect a president. But by order of Synod’s President,
Dr. J. W. Behnken, the election will not be held until after Synod’s

convention.
Requests

The enrolment shows a growing tendency of parents in the
congregations from which we have received students to have their
children procure their high-school education in the public high
school of their community and then have them enter the college
department of our Concordia at Seward to prepare for the teaching
service in our schools. Fifty per cent. of the students in the college
division this year have not attended our high school. The college
division comprises about sixty per cent, of the total enrolment.
The faculty and the Board of Control believe that the high-school
division is very desirable for the program of the school. What
causes this change in attendance? No doubt the crop failures the
last eight years in our State and the depression in general partly
accounts for it. But there is another factor to be considered in
this connection.

At the age when the boys and girls enter the high school,
they are in most cases not yet resolved to prepare for the teaching
profession in the parochial school. The parents also must con-
sider the possibility that during the high-school years of their
child it might become apparent that their boy or girl may not be
inclined or not able to make teaching his or her goal. In this case
they are expected to pay tuition for the years their child attended
our high-school department. For this reason they do not send
their child to Seward but to the public high school at home, where
tuition is free and after graduation there, if the child has decided
for the teaching profession, they send it to Seward. Because the
parents felt they could not afford to pay tuition charges for a
number of years if the child does not continue with the teachers’
course, they did not send it to Seward at once although their
intention was from the beginning to have their child prepared for
the teaching profession in the Church. If the teaching charges in
such cases could be dropped, this would not cause a loss of income
to Synod, since there is no income under the existing conditions.
But it would increase the high-school enrolment, aid in a better
preparation for the Christian teaching course, and help cut down
overhead expenses. The Board of Control therefore ventures the
petition that Synod authorize the Board to drop tuition charges in
the high-school department. ‘