# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S145
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Elementary Education 143

‘high schools and colleges and are threatening the faith and morals
of the young, our adolescents need to be fortified by the study of
the inerrant.Word of God. A hopeful sign is the rapidly increasing
circulation of the Concordia Bible Student.

. The Child’s Companion, our only juvenile weekly, edited by
G. L. Wind, has gained a circulation of 42,000 and is very popular
_ with the children.

Other Part-Time Agencies
1939 Statistics

716 Saturday-schools. Enrolment —2-...2-2.---.2--20-0---seceeceeeceseeeeteneenneeeeet
766 summer-schools. Enrolment .._.........-..-2---2--+--1---1---eeee _
233 week~day classes. Enrolment —......2------------e e+

1,715 total number of classes. Enrolment

In some cases these part-time agencies are the only agencies
for religious instruction. Generally they supplement the Sunday-
school where no parochial school is possible. But only 45,733 out
of 162,574 children in our Synod not attending the Christian day-
school are enrolled in part-time agencies. The number is actually
lower because many children attend more than one such agency
and are counted more than once. Statistics also indicate that these
agencies are usually not maintained for all the children of the
congregation but serve the purpose of confirmation instruction only.

‘Two things are evident from the figures:

1) A large number of congregations without schools have
* failed to establish these agencies.

2) Most congregations that have them succeed in enrolling
only a small percentage of their children in them.

It is generally conceded that the Sunday~school cannot possibly
furnish sufficient religious instruction for the child. Where a
parochial school does not exist, an attempt should be made to
approach the standard of the school at least with respect to the
number of hours set aside for instruction. A Saturday-school
maintained throughout the school-year offers unusual opportunities
for supplementing the instruction of the Sunday-school. In case
the Saturday-school cannot be carried on successfully owing to
circumstances, week-day religious instruction and summer-schools
offer another solution. Directions for the organization and ad-
ministration of these part-time agencies will be found in the
Saturday-school Manual; materials now available may be intro-
duced and used until other courses have been published under the
auspices of the Board. Not only should one or more of these part~
time agencies be introduced, but they should be planned for all
the children of the congregation. It is a serious mistake to neglect
the religious instruction of children not yet old enough to be
enrolled in the class for catechumens.