ithin our congregations are in a very poor state, since able
and faithful teachers are rare, salaries utterly insufficient, the
members too widely scattered and in most cases poor, roads too bad in
winter, and the children too urgently needed on the farms in summer."
(G., 496.) According to the report of the Synod held in 1762 there were
parochial schools in New Providence, one main school and several smaller
ones; in New Hanover; in Philadelphia, where a public examination during
the sessions of Synod exhibited the efficiency of the school; in Vincent
Township, a school with a good teacher and 60 children; in Reading, a
school with more than 80 children; in Tulpehocken, a school of 40
children; in Heidelberg, a school of 30 children; in Northkeel, 30
children, taught by Pastor Kurtz; in Lancaster, a school of 60 children
in summer and 90 in winter, etc. (495.)

57. Dearth of Pastors and Schoolteachers.--From the very beginning one
of the greatest obstacles to the spread and healthy growth of the
Lutheran Church in America was the dearth of well-trained, able, and
truly Lutheran pastors and schoolteachers. And the greatest of all
mistakes of the early builders of the American Zion was the failure to
provide for the crying need of laborers by the only proper and effectual
means--the establishment of American seminaries for the training of
truly Lutheran pastors and teachers qualified to serve in American
surroundings. The growing indifferentism and deterioration of the
Lutheran ministry as well as of the Lutheran congregations was a
necessary consequence of this neglect, which resulted in an inadequate
service, rendered, to a large extent, by incompetent or heterodox
ministers. Dr. Mann was right when he maintained in his _Plea for the
Augsburg Confession_ of 1856, that the doctrinal aberrations of the
Definite Platform theologians were due, in part, to the fact that S. S.
Schmucker and other ministers had received their theological education
at Princeton and other non-Lutheran schools. The constantly increasing
need, coupled with the insufficient preparation of the men willing to
serve, led to the pernicious system of licensing, which for many decades
became a permanent institution in Pennsylvania and other States. In 1857
the General Synod adopted the following report: "The committee on the
Licensure System respectfully report that the action of this body
requesting the several District Synods to take into consideration