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

Communism should be taught in the schools but it should be taught with a moral directive. It should not be taught as an alternative economic philosophy but as a system of tyranny. The object of the teaching should be to protect the students against the deceptive subleties of Communist dialectics and to promote within them a greater devotion to freedom. It should be taught as a medical school teaches cancer or tuberculosis—as an aid to its elimination.

Teaching that merely compares and contrasts certain features of Capitalist and Communist economics is dangerous indeed. In a free society, the students continuously enjoy the privileges of freedom and it is difficult for them to conceive of a system where these values do not prevail. Isolated aspects of Communist economics assume a glittering luster when illuminated by the radiance of the star of liberty. In the environment of Communist tyranny, they are tawdry and repulsive . . . . At an early age, each student should be taught that the issue is clear cut—freedom versus slavery. They then should be taught the techniques by which Communism seeks to deceive, conquer, and enslave.

Source: Fred Schwarz
You Can Trust the Communists, p. 176

Topics: Uncategorized

If education is only to develop a man’s faculties, without regard to giving human nature any special civil character, there is no need for the State’s interference. Among men who are really free, every form of industry becomes more rapidly improved—all the arts flourish more gracefully—all the sciences extend their range. In such a community, too, family ties become closer; parents are more eagerly devoted to the care of their children, and, in a state of greater well-being, are better able to carry out their wishes with regard to them . . . . There would, therefore, be no want of careful family training, nor of those private educational establishments which are so useful and indispensable.

Source: Wilhelm von Humboldt
German liberal and author of the influential book /The Limits of State
Action/, written in 1792.

Topics: Education; Family

We do not want outside folks to teach our children, do we? I think no. We do not want them to teach us how to get to heaven, do we? If we did, it would be of no use, for they do not know the way. Well, then, we do not want them to tamper with the minds of our little ones. You will see the day that Zion will be as far ahead of the outside world in everything pertaining to learning of every kind as we are today in regard to religious matters. You mark my words, and write them down, and see if they do not come to pass. We are not dependent upon them, but we are upon the Lord. We did not get our priesthood nor our information in regard to his law from them; it came from God. The world profess to know a little about what they call science, literature and the arts. Where did they get their knowledge of these things from? And what is it they really do know? They know something about the laws of Nature. Who made those laws? God made them; and it is by his almighty power that they are governed.

Source: President John Taylor
Journal of Discourses 21:100

Topics: Uncategorized

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.

Source: John Stuart Mill
On Liberty, V

Topics: Education

I cannot say that I would recommend the reading of all books, for it is not all books which are good. Read good books, and extract from them wisdom and understanding as much as you possibly can aided by the Spirit of God.

Source: Brigham Young
Life of Brigham Young, p. 218

Topics: Education

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