# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S115
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Report of Board for Higher Education 118

Ill. Additional Reports and Recommendations
(Continuation of report of Board for Higher Education)

In the foregoing sections of this report your Board for Higher
Education has described its work on those matters with which the
last synodical convention specifically commissioned your Board
to deal. In addition to these matters your Board also gave special
consideration to several matters of broad and fundamental im-
portance which were suggested in part by the more general state-
ments of its duties and functions, in part by the nature of the
implications of the specific problems previously discussed, in part
by suggestions of Synod’s Board of Directors.

Realinement of Institutional Service

Your Board has given careful consideration to the many influ-
ences both within and without Synod which have directly affected
the historical purposes and functions of its educational institu-
tions. While awaiting the results of the proposed comprehensive
survey, there are certain adjustments which appear to be desirable
and necessary on the basis of facts sufficiently evident. Thus it is
impossible to avoid concern over the substantial amount of unused
capacity in Synod’s institutions. A thorough analysis of the exist-
ing situation leads to the conclusion that an amalgamation of some
institutions is worthy of serious consideration in the interest of
Synod and of the educational system itself,

A. Proposed Consolidation Involving Concordia, Winfield, and Seward

Historically, St. Paul’s College at Concordia, Mo., established
in 1883, was intended to supply Lutheran pastors and teachers for
the frontier West. In 1885 St.Paul’s was taken over by the
Western District and in 1905 by the Missouri Synod, which added
the junior college to the high-school department. Concordia is
now a pretheological school for ministerial students only. St. John’s
College, in Winfield, Kans., originally operated by the English
Synod of Missouri, was placed under the care of the Missouri
Synod in 1908. It is coeducational and offers pretheological,
parish-workers’, predeaconess, liberal-arts, teacher-training, and
commercial curricula. Concordia Teachers’ College at Seward,
Nebr., founded in 1894 to train teachers for the parish-schools of
the expanding West, is now a coeducational institution with four
college years.

The locations of Concordia, Winfield, and Seward form a
triangle (straight-line distance — Concordia to Winfield, 245 miles;
Concordia to Seward, 255 miles; Winfield to Seward, 250 miles).

The three institutions together have a constituency approx-
imately equal to that of Milwaukee alone, although the territory
covered is greater.

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