Collection › LCMS Convention Proceedings (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1926 · 33rd Convention, Holy Cross Church › Page 74
LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1926, Page 74

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

74 Proceedings of Thirty-Third Regular Convention,

our institutions can grant a title of merit which is recognized any-
where in the world except in our own midst; and hence we send out
our men, after they have completed nine years of arduous work, with-
out a title, which means, practically, with the stamp of a lack of
education. And even the honorary titles which we are beginning to
bestow are losing their value outside of our own circles because they
are issued by institutions which cannot grant a valid title of any kind
for merit. As a result, any expression on our part with regard to
- questioris which are in reality questions of Bible truth, but which are
looked upon by some as being scientific questions (¢. g., evolution),
are a priori received as the expressions of men of insufficient edu-
cation and hence not meriting attention.

2. At least one of our States has a law prohibiting any person
from teaching in any public, private, or parochial school in the State
unless that person can produce the evidence of having acquired
a certain standard education. The very lack of recognition of our
institutions is there regarded as evidence of insufficient education.
And no graduate of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis ig permitted
to teach even the first grade of a country school in that State unless
he submits to an examination in prescribed branches. A simple title,

based in part upon a prescribed amount of work in education, from
any recognized institution would open the doors of the schools -to
such a one.

3. In order to meet the demand for postgraduate work on the
part of our St.Louis students, we are offering a postgraduate year
at that institution. However, it is a matter of common knowledge
that a decreasing number of students take advantage of that and
that the majority go to recognized schools. Our faculty in St. Louis
is trying to discourage that practise, but to no avail. If our grad-
uates want to have their work at St. Louis validated, they must go
elsewhere to receive recognition. Even then we have no knowledge
of any public institution which will accept their credits at their face
value. But the institutions to which they go are schools under more
or less direct control of other denominations.

-4, Graduates of our St. Louis Seminary are discouraged,
whenever possible, from going to other institutions to take up
postgraduate work, on the plea that they are likely to absorb dan-
gerous error. And we believe that that is correct. Yet, when pro- .
fessors are elected for our institutions, it is becoming an increasingly
common practise that, other things being equal, the preference is
given to such men as did go elsewhere and secure a title. We are
drifting toward the point where we advise students not to go else-
where; but if they. do go, they have a better chance of being made
professors in-our circles. ,