The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State . . . .

Source: U.S. Supreme Court
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 1925

Topics: Uncategorized

Whoever fairly faces the question must admit that the same set of arguments which condemns a national religion also condemns a national system of education. It is hard to pronounce sentence on the one and absolve the other. Does a national church compel some to support a system to which they are opposed? So does a national system of education. Does the one exalt the principle of majorities over the individual conscience? So does the other. Does a national church imply a distrust of the people, of their willingness to make sacrifices, of their capacity to manage their own affairs? So does a national system of education. Does the one chill and repress higher meanings and produce formalism? So does the other.

Source: Auberon Herbert

Topics: Uncategorized

Let our teachers be men of God, imbued with the Spirit of God that they may lead them forth in the paths of life, and warn them against the various evils and iniquities that prevail in the world, that they may bear off this kingdom when we get through, and be valiant in the truths of God. Teach them how to approach God, that they may call upon him and he will hear them, and by their means we will build up and establish Zion, and roll forth that kingdom which God has designed shall rule and reign over the nations of the earth. We want to prepare them for these things; and to study from the best books as well as by faith, and become acquainted with the laws of nations, and of kingdoms and governments, and with everything calculated to exalt, ennoble, and dignify the human family. We should build good commodious school-houses, and furnish them well; and then secure the services of the best teachers you can, and thus “train up your children in the way they should go.” Solomon said, if you do, “when they are old they will not depart from it.”

Source: President John Taylor
Journal of Discourses 20:60

Topics: Uncategorized

We feel that the time has arrived when the proper education of our children should be taken in hand by us as a people. Religious training is practically excluded from the District Schools. The perusal of books that we value as divine records is forbidden. Our children, if left to the training they receive in these schools, will grow up entirely ignorant of these principles of salvation for which the Latter-day Saints have made so many sacrifices. To permit this condition of things to exist among us would be criminal. The desire is universally expressed by all thinking people in the Church that we should have schools where the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants can be used as text books, and where the principles of our religion may form a part of the teaching of the schools.

Source: President Wilford Woodruff
Revealed Educational Principles and the Public Schools, p.238

Topics: Education

The institution of public education is so universally accepted today that many readers are apt to scoff at the idea that the control of education by government and the use of public funds for its support is contrary to moral law. Before rejecting the idea as absurd, one might ponder these facts...

1) Point number ten of the Communist Manifesto contains the following proposal: Free education for all children in public schools.

2) When public education was first proposed in the state of Utah, the leadership of the Church was unalterably opposed to it.

Source: Elder H. Verlan Andersen
The Book of Mormon and the Constitution, p. 181

Topics: Education

Education, human education, is the leading out and lifting up of the soul into the ripe, full enjoyment of all its powers potential. To educate men and women is to put them in full command of themselves, to completely possess them of their faculties, which are only half possessed until they are educated. Education imparts nothing but discipline and development. It does not increase the number of man’s original talents; it adds nothing to the sum of his inherent capabilities, but it improves those talents, it develops and strengthens those capabilities, brightening what is dull, making the crude fine, the clumsy skillful, the small great, and the great still greater. Education supplements creation, and moves next to it in the order of infinite progression.

Source: Orson F. Whitney
“The School of Life,” Millennial Star 67, no. 32 (10 August 1905): 499.

Topics: Education

What is education? ... It is the expansion of the soul—the body and the spirit—to the fulness of its capacity. It is the cultivation and the highest possible development of the natural faculties; the bringing forth and perfecting of all the inherent powers of the individual. This is the definition of a perfect education, and it is the limit and index of its capabilities. . . .

Perfect education . . . is the full and uniform development of the mental, the physical, the moral and the spiritual faculties. The cultivation of the intellect, as said, is but one phase of the subject, and not by any means the most important one. Useful and valuable though it [may] be as a branch of education, it is of secondary consideration compared with other departments of that vast system of development by means of which, as an entirety, it is alone possible for the human mind and soul to be perfectly educated. This may not be a popular view, but I am satisfied it is the correct one. Those persons who bestow every care and attention upon their minds, and who seem to have but one thought, How shall I shine in society, or make a financial success in the world? are egregiously in error if they think they are gaining the best part of life’s experience, or securing the education of which they have most reason to be proud.

Many of them, if they were wise enough to see it, are not doing justice even to their mental faculties. No one who reads a book simply to be able to chatter about its contents; who witnesses a play, or inspects a work of art, for the mere purpose of saying he has seen it; who journeys to foreign lands with no object in view but to boast of having been there; who lives in fact for show and glitter and not for usefulness and truth, can truly be said to be educated, even intellectually. The magpie and the parrot have an almost equal claim.

Source: Orson F. Whitney
“What Is Education?” Contributor 6 (June 1885): 345, 349-50.

Topics: Education

We are not only to teach purely gospel subjects by the power of the Spirit. We are also to teach secular subjects by the power of the Spirit, and we are obligated to interpret the content of secular subjects in the light of revealed truth. This purpose is the only sufficient justification for spending Church money to maintain this institution [BYU].

Source: Elder Marion G. Romney
“Temples of Learning,” BYU annual university conference, September 1966

Topics: Uncategorized

Many of you may have heard what certain journalists have had to say about Brigham Young being opposed to free schools. I am opposed to free education as much as I am apposed to taking away property from one man and giving it to another who knows not how to take care of it. But when you come to the fact, I will venture to say that I school ten children to every one that those do who complain so much of me. I now pay the school fees of a number of children who are either orphans or sons and daughters of poor people. But in aiding and blessing the poor I do not believe in allowing my charities to go through the hands of a set of robbers who pocket nine-tenths themselves, and give one-tenth to the poor. Therein is the difference between us; I am for the real act of doing and not saying. Would I encourage free schools by taxation? No! That is not in keeping with the nature of our work; we should be as one family, our hearts and hands united in the bonds of everlasting covenant; our interests alike, our children receiving equal opportunities in the school-room and the college. We have to-day, more children between the ages of 5 and 20 years, who can read and write, then any State or Territory of the Union of a corresponding number of inhabitants.

Source: Brigham Young
Journal of Discourses, Vol.18, p.357, April 6, 1877

Topics: Education

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