# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S152
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

150 Elementary Education

(The recommendations of Committee 4 concerning Point 9 also
covered the following committee report)

Sunday-School Teacher-Training
(Memorial 210)

In compliance with the authorization voted by Synod in 1938
the Sunday-school Teacher-training Committee continued its work
and published three additional text-books: Dr. W. Arndt’s New
Testament History, Prof. Theo. Kuehnert’s Directing the Learner,
and Dr. Ad. Haentzschel’s Learning to Know the Child, and an
Instructors Guide for each.

With gratitude to God the Sunday-school Teacher-training
Committee can report to Synod the Lord’s abundant blessing on
this humble effort. To date a total of 75,000 copies of the teacher-
training books have been sold, not counting thousands of In-
structors Guides. The sale of text-books alone averages almost
2% for every Sunday-school teacher in Synod.

Our training program has aroused a great deal of enthusiasm.
Pastors and teachers are eager to go on; requests for more courses
have come from groups that have already completed the study of
the text-books now available. A large number of teachers have
completed three, four, or five courses and are planning to continue
in training since they have profited by the studies already com-
pleted. Your Committee has been observing this favorable trend
and hopes to meet the demand for text-books. Manuscripts for
three other courses are now being prepared and will be placed
on the market in due time. Other courses will follow. Eventually
we hope to have a rich and varied program that will challenge
instructors and teachers alike and will render systematic and
progressive training a thankful task.

From the outset your Committee has tried to safeguard the
autonomy of the congregation and has had occasion at different
times to invoke the principles which secure such autonomy. As an
example the committee issues certificates to teachers who have
completed the six courses now available, but only upon the request
of the pastor who is responsible for the teachers in training.

Not all who take these courses take them for credit, however,
as the following figures show:

Sunday-Schools Teachers Credits
1938 214 1,844 2,270
1939 518 5,949 9,517
1940 683 8,761 16,043

This tabulation reveals a steady and healthy growth, although
we have not enlisted as many Sunday-schools during these years
as had been anticipated. We believe that systematic promotion of
our training program by the District boards will do more than any