[A principle] which cannot be too strenuously insisted upon, is, that in education the process of self-development should be encouraged to the fullest extent. Children should be led to make their own investigations, and to draw their own inferences. They should be told as little as possible, and induced to discover as much as possible. Humanity has progressed solely by self-instruction . . . . Those who have been brought up under the ordinary school-drill, and have carried away with them the idea that education is practicable only in that style, will think it hopeless to make children their own teachers. If, however, they will call to mind that the all-important knowledge of surrounding objects which a child gets in its early years is got without help—if they will remember that the child is self-taught in the use of its mother tongue—if they will estimate the amount of that experience of life, that out-of-school wisdom, which every boy gathers for himself . . . they will find it a not unreasonable conclusion, that if the subjects be put before him in right order and right form, any pupil of ordinary capacity will surmount his successive difficulties with but little assistance . . . . This need for perpetual telling is the result of our stupidity, not of the child’s.

Source: Herbert Spencer
Written between 1854 and 1859.
Education, Intellectual, Moral and Physical. See pp. 124-28.

Topics: Education

Family-based learning—homeschooling is a misnomer because it wrongly suggests isolation—provides the best environment for self-teaching. No one knows a child better or cares more about him than his parents. No one is in a better position to accommodate a child’s unique needs and abilities. The one-to-one “student-teacher ratio” permits instant feedback and immediate adjustment. In other words, the efficiency, as well as the efficacy, of such learning is nonpareil. That explains why family-based learners outperform schooled children in every study.24 Moreover, family-based learning is the best—probably the only—way to fully respect how learning is embedded in everyday living. This is not to deny the value of formal instruction. Homeschoolers routinely patronize piano teachers, French instructors, dance studios, and Tae Kwon Do dojangs. That does not violate the principles we are discussing. They do so by choice and with the understanding that learning some things requires the help of people with specialized knowledge or skills. The so-called basics, however, are not among those things.

Family-based learning provides the opportunity for parents and children to declare their independence from the state’s educational system. They need not wait for any reforms. They can do it at once. Of course, the abolition of school taxes and a major reduction in the general burden of government would make it easier for families to turn to that form of education. The government’s monetary inflation of the 1970s forced many unwilling mothers to leave home in search of a paycheck. They and their children have suffered for it. That’s another government policy to thank for the decline of the family. In an economy unburdened by government, rising productivity would enable one earner to support a family. If needed, supplemental income could be produced from within the home; such opportunities have been greatly expanded by new technologies, such as home computers and desktop publishing, which in turn have made “telecommuting”—working at home—possible. In other words, family-based learning is not as difficult or as financially costly as people might think. As its practitioners can attest, the rewards are immense. It’s a matter of priorities.

Source: Sheldon Richman
Separating School & State, p94-95.

Topics: Education

Our educational system must be based on freedom—never force. But we can and should place special emphasis on developing in our youth constructive incentives—a love of science, engineering, and math, so that they will want to take advanced scientific courses and thereby help meet the needs of our times, just as a musician has a love of music which drives him to become outstanding in that field, so we must inculcate in some of our qualified young people such an interest in science that they will turn to it of themselves.

Source: Ezra T. Benson
The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson

Topics: Education

I have always contended that while secular education was laudable, desirable and necessary; that it adds to the sum of human happiness and human enjoyment and usefulness to be acquainted with the arts and sciences, enabling man to cope with the world, and often brings him success in the battle of life, yet it is all of this life, and is not to be compared with the importance of gaining knowledge of God, and of that science which as immortal beings we can take with us beyond the veil.

The knowledge of God, and of his son Jesus Christ is the first and last lesson of life, and this has always been my opinion. It is very desirable to understand the principles of civil government, the sciences and arts, and be filled with the wisdom of men, but after all it is but the tools by which we earn our bread and butter. There is a certain degree of ambition in it, love of power, and opportunity to exert influence and enables us to move in goodly appearance, but when it is all summed up, worldly gain is the incentive.

I greatly commend even this secular education, and the benefits which its right use bestows in the human family, and the delight which a moral and educated people must be to holy beings, but if we learned everything which human knowledge can compass, and it enabled us to grasp the riches of the world we could only embrace their delight, and enjoy their possession for a short time. Then comes death, and we leave the result of the labors of our lives to others, taking nothing with us. If we only have hope in this world, and the things of this world, then, indeed, are we the most miserable of all God’s creatures.

Source: Joseph F. Smith
“A Prize beyond Computation,”
address delivered before the Mutual Improvement
Normal class at the Brigham Young Academy
Saturday, 30 January 1892.

Topics: Education

We cannot safely substitute anything for the Gospel. We have no right to take the theories of men, however scholarly, however learned, and set them up as a standard, and try to make the Gospel bow down to them; making of them an iron bedstead upon which God’s truth, if not long enough, must be stretched out, or if too long, must be chopped off—anything to make it fit into the system of men’s thoughts and theories! On the contrary, we should hold up the Gospel as the standard of truth, and measure thereby the theories and opinions of men.

Source: Orson F. Whitney
General Conference, April 1915

Topics: Uncategorized

After and above all, as was stated in the financial report, while the Church Welfare aims, of course, to help those in need, its real purpose is not merely to substitute Church gratuities for others furnished by charitable or governmental agencies but to rebuild the characters of its members and to promote and to foster the patriotic, civic, and spiritual qualities of the people.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1938

Topics: Uncategorized

The loftiest ambition of any person is not to receive the plaudits of the world but to be honest, honorable and patriotic in every act of life. A truly religious man cannot help but become a better citizen, no matter in what country he may reside. “In faith, nothing wavering,” is and has been a fundamental principle of our Heavenly Father’s Church in every dispensation of the world’s history.

Source: Elder Reed Smoot
General Conference, October 1933

Topics: Uncategorized

We are living in trying times—international struggles are imminent—“Nation rising against Nation” for supremacy and existence. Civilized governments are threatened by internal and destructive agencies in the form of Communism. This secret organization assumes different names and forms. It is Communism in France, Socialism in Germany, Internationalism in Spain and Italy, Nihilism in Russia, and similar sentiments and principles are cloaked under a variety of titles in America and Great Britain. All these organizations are opposed in spirit to all the restraints of law and order.

Source: Elder Reed Smoot
General Conference, April 1933

Topics: Uncategorized

Fears Paternal Government

I fear this, that under existing conditions we are gradually drifting toward a paternal government, a government which will so intrench itself that the people will become powerless to disrupt it, in which the lives and liberty of the people at large may be jeopardized. They are pouring millions of dollars in this time of need into sources for the benefit of the people and it is a great benefit and perhaps salvation, but it is going to result in this—I am going to make this statement—that if the present policy is continued it will not be long until the government will be in the banking business, it will be in the farming business, it will be in the cattle and sheep business, for many of these debts will never be paid. That will mean the appointment of innumerable agencies. The government now is overloaded with commissions and agencies, some of them administering the very laws that Congress itself has enacted. Someone else should be administering those laws. If you want to save yourselves from the bondage of debt and political influences which are not of your own choosing I ask you to think of what I have said.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1932

Topics: Uncategorized

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