Collection › LCMS Convention Proceedings (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1935 · 36th Convention, Cleveland › Page 86
LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1935, Page 86

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

86 co Proceedings of Thirty-Sixth Regular Convention,

To insure success of the whole, the provisions must be carefully observed,
and close cooperation among the several departments must be maintained in
order to avoid duplication and to preserve the coherence of the program. Such
a unified and integrated curriculum should prove stimulating and effective,
lead to jntellectual maturity, and ‘develop a scholarly attitude.

Concerning the eurriculum which was submitted to the Professors’ Con-
ference and which is intended as & guide for the proposed “eontinuation
committee,” compare the Report of the Committee on Higher Education,
June, 1934, p. 9 ff.

THE SEMINARY CURRICULUM.

Your Committee did not make a detailed and analytical study of the cur-
riculum in the upper level of the Seminary, since it believed that the content
of the courses should remain about the same as at present. — The lower level,
including the pretheological and the present Beginners’ years will be definitely
integrated with the preparatory training, since virtually all the courses will
be carried forward and also upward. The cultural training will be terminated |
with the junior college, but the courses will now be focused from the theolo- -
gian’s viewpoint, hence the designation pretheological. This applies especially §
to the languages and the social sciences. The student has acquired the neces- —

sary tools and the proper study habits, so that he can proceed from survey
courses to professional study. In the languages he will now approach the
gacred text and read the Church Fathers in both Latin and Greek; he will |
read the Bible in German and in English and gelected portions from the writ-
ings of Luther. In the social sciences his high-school course gave him a view
of social institutions in all ages. During his junior-college years he was given
a more detailed survey of social questions jn a specific period. The lower level
of the Seminary will then offer him a course showing contacts with, and con-
trasts between, sacred and secular history, between the Church and social
institutions, while in the upper level the student will confine himself exclu-
sively to the study of church history, Christian ethics, and certain phases of
pastoral theology, such a3 church law, moral delinquency, and maladjustments
as they confront the pastor. ‘aie :

The program is to be so constructed that the student will be able to view

the entire course as 4 unit, the individual details of which will unfold them- §
selves as progress js made from level to level. There is to be-no Jost motion ¥
nor needless duplication, but each course and each part of. the respective 4
courses must have a very definite place ix the unified prograxa: of ministerial
education. Such a program will require careful planning and whole-hearted
cooperation.

2) Selection of Students. — The Church should insist upon, and the pro-
posed curriculum requires, @ careful selection of students. The ministry and
the parochial school require men of strong Christian character, physical sound-
ness, good intelligence, and the promise of ability of leadership.

The following outline summarizes your Committee’s thought on an intel- J
ligent procedure for. the selection of students. :

a) Selection of prospective gtudents shall be based on character recom-
mendation by applicant’s pastor; transcript from previous school; intelli- |
gence and achievement tests; self-rating aptitude tests. (These tests have

been so universally employed that they have been satisfactorily standarized.)