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

During the past several years many of our institutions of learning have been turning out an increasing number of students schooled in amorality, relativity, and atheism — students divested of a belief in God, without fixed moral principles or an understanding of our constitutional republic and our capitalistic, free enterprise economic system. This follows a pattern which was established years ago at some of our key colleges that produced many of the teachers and leaders in the educational field across the country today. The fruits of this kind of teaching have been tragic, not only to the souls of the individuals involved, but also to the parents, and even to our country. . . . The whole process can be quite insidious. Young people know that the best jobs are available to college graduates. They want to do well at school. When exam time comes, they must give back to the teacher what the teacher wants. Now under the guise of academic freedom — which some apparently feel is freedom to destroy freedom — some teachers reserve to themselves the privilege of teaching error, destroying faith in God, debunking morality, and depreciating our free economic system. If questions reflecting the teacher’s false teachings appear on the exam, how will the student answer who believes in God and morality and our Constitution? ...The problem arises when under the pressure of a heavy course of study and the necessity of parroting back what certain professors have said, the student does not have the time or take the time to learn the truth. If he does not learn the truth, someday he will suffer the consequences. Many an honest student, after graduation, has had to do some unlearning and then fresh learning of basic principles which never change and which he should have been taught initially. . . .

Source: Ezra Taft Benson
Conference Report, Oct 1964 p. 56-59)

Topics: Uncategorized

One of the greatest threats to the work of the Lord today comes from false educational ideas. There is a growing tendency of teachers within and without the church to make academic interpretations of gospel teachings - to read, as a prophet leader has said, ‘by the lamp of their own conceit.’ Unfortunately, much in the sciences, the arts, politics and the entertainment field, as has been well said by an eminent scholar, ‘all dominated by this humanistic approach which ignores God and his word as revealed through the prophets.’ This kind of worldly system apparently hopes to draw men away from God by making man the ‘measure of all things’ as some worldly philosophers have said.

Source: President Harold B. Lee
Conference Report 10/68 p. 59.

Topics: Education

We had to pay our own schoolteachers, raise our own bread and earn our own clothing, or go without; there was no other choice. We did it then, and we are able to do the same to-day. I want to enlist the sympathies of the ladies among the Latter-day Saints, to see what we can do for ourselves with regard to schooling our children. Do not say you cannot school them, for you can... I understand that the other night there was a school meeting in one of the wards of this city, and a part there—a poor miserable apostate—said, “We want a free school, and we want to have the name of establishing the first free school in Utah.” To call a person a poor miserable apostate may seem like a harsh word; but what shall we call a man who talks about free schools and who would have all the people taxed to support them, and yet would take his rifle and threaten to shoot the man who had the collection of the ordinary light taxes levied in this Territory—taxes which are lighter than any levied in any other portion of the country?

Source: Brigham Young
Journal of Discourses, Vol.16, p.19 - p.20

Topics: Uncategorized

I give it as my opinion that you may go to any part of the United States or the world, where parents are not obliged by law to send their children to school, and you will find more schools in the midst of this people, notwithstanding their poverty, their drivings, sufferings, and persecutions, and more persons that can read and write, in proportion to our population, than in any other place on this earth. You may select any community of the same number, and in this particular we will favourably compare with the best of them, and I think we are ahead of them.

Source: Brigham Young
Journal of Discourses, Vol.8, p.40, April 8, 1860

Topics: Uncategorized

It does seem to me that we parents have not only lost all control as to what our own flesh and blood—I use that term instead of children because I should like to make the ugly fact as poignant as possible—I say we have lost all control as to what our own are taught and to be taught, but further and also we are not even consulted about these matters.

Now as a matter of principle, surely we who pay the costs and furnish the students might with propriety have some voice in what they whom we pay shall teach to those students.

I quite appreciate I am now moving close to this much-clamored question of academic freedom. But I am not frightened. No one holds higher the sacred rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of conscience, than I hold them. I am willing that every man shall believe what he wishes, print what he wishes, and say what he wishes within his Constitutional rights, but I am not willing that he shall exploit all his idiosyncracies in teaching my flesh and blood while I pay the bill.

I insist that he shall have all the personal freedom he can carry, but I am not willing to extend that full and complete freedom into a gross license and then pay him to abuse that license to distort and debase the minds and hearts and bodies of those who belong to me and who are dearer to me than life itself.

Source: Elder J. Reuben Clark
Prophets, Principles and National Survival, p. 188.

Topics: Uncategorized

The world in which our students choose spiritual life or death is changing rapidly. When their older brothers and sisters return to visit the same schools and campuses they attended, they find a radically different moral climate. The language in the hallways and the locker rooms has coarsened. Clothing is less modest. Pornography has moved into the open. Tolerance for wickedness has not only increased, but much of what was called wrong is no longer condemned at all and may, even by our students, be admired. Parents and administrators have in many cases bent to the pressures coming from a shifting world to retreat from moral standards once widely accepted. The spiritual strength sufficient for our youth to stand firm just a few years ago will soon not be enough. Many of them are remarkable in their spiritual maturity and in their faith. But even the best of them are sorely tested. And the testing will become more severe.

Source: Elder Henry B. Eyring
“We Must Raise Our Sights,” CES Address, August 14, 2001

Topics: Uncategorized

It is clear that our first priority should go to spiritual learning. Reading the scriptures would come for us before reading history books. Prayer would come before memorizing those Spanish verbs. A temple recommend would be worth more to us than standing first in our graduating class. But it is also clear that spiritual learning would not replace our drive for secular learning. The Lord clearly values what you will find in that history book and in a text on political theory. Remember His words. He wants you to know “things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations” (D&C 88:79). And He favors not only Spanish verbs but the study of geography and demography. You remember that His educational charter requires that we have “a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms” (v. 79). There is also an endorsement for questions we study in the sciences. It is clear that putting spiritual learning first does not relieve us from learning secular things. On the contrary, it gives our secular learning purpose and motivates us to work harder at it. If we will keep spiritual learning in its proper place, we will have to make some hard choices of how we use our time.

Source: Elder Henry B. Eyring
CES Satellite Broadcast Fireside address delivered in
Moscow, Idaho, May 6, 2001

Topics: Uncategorized

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