Aspects of this essay were delivered in a slightly different form to sessions of the Pacific Coast History of Education Society meeting at Honolulu, Hawaii in May 1979 and to the American Educational Studies Association meeting in Colorado Springs, Colorado in November 1980. The research has been supported in part by grants from the University of Utah Research Committee and the Department of Educational Studies, University of Utah.Google Scholar

1. Young, Levi Edgar, “Education in Utah,” and Brimhall, George H., “Evolution of Education in Utah,” Improvement Era, 16(1913):877–902.Google Scholar

2. Anderson, Edward H., A Short History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 4th ed. rev. (Independence, Missouri, 1928), pp. 147–8.Google Scholar

3. Smith, Henry A., “The Church and Education,” The Improvement Era, 38(1935):222. Joseph Smith quotations are taken from Roberts, Brigham H., Joseph Smith—The Prophet Teacher (1908; reprint edition, Princeton, New Jersey, 1967), p. 63. For a more recent account which attempts to examine the theological and philosophical roots of Mormon educational perspectives, see Wiscombe, Arthur C., “Eternalism: The Philosophical Basis of Mormon Education” (Ed.D. diss., University of Colorado, 1963). It is the point of of view of the present essay that ideology is less important than practical considerations as the source of Mormon educational perspectives.Google Scholar

4. Kerr, Clark, “New Areas for Leadership,” University of Utah Commencement Address, June 8. 1974.Google Scholar

5. Bagley, W. C., Determinism in Education (Baltimore, 1925), pp. 80–86.Google Scholar

6. Thorndike, E. L., “The Origin of Superior Men,” Scientific Monthly, 56(May 1943):424–433.Google Scholar

7. Knapp, R. H. and Goodrich, H. B., Origins of American Scientists (Chicago, 1952), p. 261. It should be noted that while Knapp and Goodrich in 1952 identify Mormon dominated institutions as high in production of scientists, a 1964 study by Knapp lists B.Y.U. as among institutions which make a relatively low contribution to scholarship in the humanities. This suggests that the traditional suspicion of the humanities may be operating among the Mormons and channels Mormon youth into “safer” scientific studies. See Knapp, , Origins of American Humanistic Scholars (New Jersey, 1964), pp. 12–13; Wm. Mulder, , “Problems of the Mormon Intellectual,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 3(1970):122.Google Scholar

8. Astin, A. W., “Productivity of Undergraduate Institutions,” Science, 136(1962):129.Google Scholar

9. Homer Durham, G., “Utah History: Some Dimensions for Further Study,” Utah Historical Quarterly, 29(1961):367.Google Scholar

10. Hardy, Kenneth R., “Social Origins of American Scientists and Scholars,” Science, 185(1974):496–506.Google Scholar

11. Kerr, , “New Areas for Leadership.” The materials regarding Utah “achievements” in education (i.e., the research of Bagley, Thorndike, , et al.) are cited here not as evidence that the claims are indeed accurate, but to illustrate the idea that the studies tend to validate Mormon perceptions of themselves as enthusiastic supporters of education and that this support is rooted in Mormon ideology.Google Scholar

12. See Mann's comments on the Scottish system in his Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Education (1844; reprint ed., Washington, D.C., 1950). For a comparative account of Scottish educational “achievements” see Bell, Robert and Grant, Nigel, Patterns of Education in the British Isles (London, 1977). These writers, however, caution about the “exaggerated and inaccurate notion of alleged Scottish superiority” which many English people have (p. 17).Google Scholar

13. The Mormon “ward” is the equivalent of a “parish.” For general accounts of the establishment of early Utah schools see Lynn Bennion, M., Mormonism and Education (Salt Lake City, 1939), pp. 38–75; Moffitt, John C., The History of Public Education in Utah (Salt Lake City, 1946), pp. 10–39; Ivins, Stanley S., “Free Schools Come to Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 22(1954):321–42; Clark, James R., “Church and State Relationships in Education in Utah” (Ed.D. diss., Utah State University, 1958). Contemporary accounts of the establishment of ward schools are found in the Mormon Deseret News in the early 1850's and in church and civic records. See, for example, “Manti City Council Minutes—1851–1865” in Historical Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, hereafter cited as L.D.S. Archives. Minutes such as these show clearly how church and school affairs were inextricably intertwined in pioneer Utah. A contemporary account of the curriculum and aims of a Mormon semi-public school is contained in “Twelfth Ward School,” Deseret News, April 1, 1857. This news item mentions the Book of Mormon as well as the Doctrine and Covenants (Joseph Smith's revelations) as texts used along with the Bible. In addition to literacy, the school's purpose was given by the Bishop as teaching “the principles of salvation to the rising generation.”Google Scholar

14. Deseret News, June 26. 1852.Google Scholar

15. “Laws of the Territory of Utah, 1865,” cited in Moffitt, . History, p. 119.Google Scholar

16. Moffitt, , History, pp. 120–1.Google Scholar

17. Dwyer, Robert J., The Gentile Comes to Utah: A Study in Religious and Social Conflict (Washington, D.C., 1941) pp. 159–60, 165–66; Edgar Lyon, T., “Evangelical Protestant Missionary Activities in Mormon Dominated Areas, 1865–1900.” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Utah, 1962), pp. 253–4. According to Tuttle, Daniel, Episcopal Bishop and founder of Utah's first non-Mormon school, St. Marks Episcopal School attracted children from gentiles, apostate Mormons and “even some of the orthodox Mormons.” These parents considered St. Marks “the best place in the territory to get a good education” See Tuttle, Daniel, The Reminiscences of a Missionary Bishop (New York, 1906), p. 373.Google Scholar

18. Salt Lake Tribune, July 29. 1877.Google Scholar

19. Salt Lake Tribune, August 12. 1877.Google Scholar

20. “The American Mormon Problem,” Christian Educators in Council (n.p., 1883), p. 131. See my discussion of this phase of Utah school history in “Faith in Schooling: Solving the Mormon Problem,” Review Journal of Philosophy and Social Science, 3(1978):154–167.Google Scholar

21. Lyon, , “Evangelical Protestant Missionary Activities:” 248–251. Lyon cites Colonel Hammond, organizer of the New West Education Commission, as saying that the Christian schools in Utah succeeded only in preparing Mormon children for leadership in the Mormon Church: “They take our proffered education, but not our religion, and use it to strengthen their own institutions.”Google Scholar

22. Arrington, Leonard J., Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-Day Saints. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1958), p. 360.Google Scholar

23. U. S., Statutes at Large, Vol. 24, pp. 638, 640–41.Google Scholar

24. “Governor's Message,” Journal of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, 1890. Cited in Moffitt, , History, p. 121.Google Scholar

25. “Enabling Act;” “Utah State Constitution,” Article X, Section 1, 2, Laws of the State of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1896), pp. 17, 19.Google Scholar

26. Peterson, Wallace B., “Brigham Young as Pioneer,” Improvement Era, 15(1912):827; see also Clark, Bruce B., Brigham Young on Education (Salt Lake City, 1970) which presents Brigham Young as an ardent devote of education at all levels.Google Scholar

27. Sermon of 2 August 1857, Journal of Discourses (26 Volumes, Liverpool, 1854–1886), 5:97. The Journal of Discourses contains the sermons and speeches of Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders and is an important source on Mormon educational thought. Jones, Ruth, Pioneer Thoughts on Education (Salt Lake City, 1955) is a useful index to the education content of these sermons.Google Scholar

28. For an example of Brigham Young's unease with lack of schooling see the P.S. in a letter to his wife Mary A. Young, 24 March 1837 in the Blair Collection, University of Utah Special Collections. In this, he says: “Plese read this and keep it to yourself not expose my poore righting and speling.”Google Scholar

29. Cited in Gates, Susa Young, The Life of Brigham Young (London, 1929), p. 215.Google Scholar

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31. Burton, Richard F., City of the Saints (London, 1861), p. 239.Google Scholar

32. Sermon of 28 July 1861, Journal of Discourses 9:140–1.Google Scholar

33. “Life of Brigham Young” in Mormonism Unveiled (St. Louis, Missouri, 1892), p. 392.Google Scholar

34. Letter of instruction to Elder Orson Spencer, 1 July 1854, in Brigham Young's Letterpress Book, L.D.S. Archives.Google Scholar

35. Gates, , Brigham Young, p. 217. See also Brigham Young's comments on education in sermons delivered in 1852, 1863 and 1873: Journal of Discourses 1:66–71; 10:224–5; 16:17–19.Google Scholar

36. Mann, Horace, An Oration Delivered Before the Authorities of the City of Boston, 4 July 1842, (1842: reprint ed., Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1930), p. 57. A British commentator on Mormonism in the 1850's claimed that “nothing demonstrated more clearly the deficiencies” of the ecclesiastical system in Britain “than the fact that a religion adapted to the most grossly ignorant should have found 50,000 recipients.” A copy of this tract can be found in Ballantyne, Richard, “Journal, Vol. 3,” 10 November 1853. Manuscript in L.D.S. Archives.Google Scholar

37. Manuscript History of Brigham Young 1846–47. Edited by Watson, E. J. (Salt Lake City, 1958), pp. 268, 474.Google Scholar

38. Deseret News, November 16. 1850.Google Scholar

39. Hunter, Milton H., Utah in Her Western Setting (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1944), p. 201.Google Scholar

40. See reports of Brigham Young's speeches in Deseret News, December 14, 1854, December 11, 1855. For other Mormon criticism, see Orson Pratt's remarks about the meagerness of appropriations for education, Deseret News, May 14, 1856. Also “W's” complaint that “intellectual instruction” was being overlooked in favor of spiritual instruction in Deseret News, January 25, 1860. This writer claims that free common schools are necessary “to preserve the equilibrium of society” as much among the Mormons as among the people of the Eastern States.Google Scholar

41. Neff, Andrew L., History of Utah—1847 to 1869. Edited and annotated by Creer, L. H. (Salt Lake City, 1940), p. 358. Elias Smith, Utah's first Territorial Superintendent of Common Schools, and cousin of the Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, appealed to the legislature in an editorial in Deseret News, December 26, 1855.Google Scholar

42. February 14. 1859, Regency Meeting Minutes, Brigham Young Papers, L.D.S. Archives. See also Deseret News, December 25, 1852; Sermon of April 8, 1860, Journal of Discourses 8:40, and Sermon of February 20, 1870, Journal of Discourses 13:239. For a sympathetic, though less rhetorical, view of Utah pioneer schooling see Burton, , City of the Saints, pp. 345, 425. Burton comments that “the state of life in Utah renders manual labour more honoured and profitable” than teaching.Google Scholar

43. Knecht, W. L. and Crawley, P. L. (Eds.), History of Brigham Young (Berkeley, California, 1966), p. 51. Because this essay has focused upon the question of general Mormon commitment to education in pioneer Utah, no attempt has been made to examine the actual curriculum of the schools or the extent of enrollment and attendance. For an overview of these issues see Chapter 1 of Bane, L. C., “The Development of Education in Utah (1870 to 1896),” Ed.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1940. First hand accounts of pioneer classrooms are found in Home, Richard S., “Journals, 1867–1920” and “Essay Book, 1867–1890,” Manuscripts, L.D.S. Archives; Cox, Martha James, “Reminicences,” Manuscript, L.D.S. Archives. For extended discussions of Utah school issues in the 1860's and 1870's see Campbell, Robert L., Annual Report of the Territorial Superintendent of Common Schools (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1862–1872). The first of Campbell's Annual Reports was published in the Deseret News, January 28, 1863, and gives the average daily attendance in Utah for 1862 as 31.5%. Not until 1893 did it reach 50%!Google Scholar

44. Deseret News, August 3. 1850.Google Scholar

45. Deseret News, August 10. 1850.Google Scholar

46. O'Dea, Thomas, The Mormons (Chicago, 1958), p. 148; see also Bitton, Davis, “Anti-Intellectualism in Mormon History,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 1(1966):113–115.Google Scholar

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48. Minutes, February 17. 1850, Brigham Young Papers, L.D.S. Archives. I am indebted to Ronald Esplin, Research Associate at the L.D.S. Archives in Salt Lake City for bringing these and other quotations from Brigham Young's papers to my attention.Google Scholar

49. Deseret News, February 22. 1851.Google Scholar

50. Sermon of March 3, 1869, Journal of Discourses 12:104.Google Scholar

51. Moffitt, John C., John Rocky Park in Utah's Frontier Culture (n.p., 1947), p. 23. See also Hough, Merrill, “Two School Systems in Conflict,” Utah Historical Quarterly, 28(1960):113–128. Hough suggests that Mormon concern for schools was stimulated “by external pressures which did not become intense until the late sixties,” p. 115.Google Scholar

52. Salt Lake Tribune, July 29. 1877; Lyon, , “Evangelical Protestant Missionary Activities:” 71–74.Google Scholar

53. Minutes of the School of the Prophets, Provo, Utah, June 1868. Typescript copy, Utah State Historical Society.Google Scholar

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79. Packer, Boyd K., “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect,” Brigham Young University Studies 21(1981):259–278 (Provo, 1981). One Mormon historian's critical response to the foregoing is Michael Quinn, D., “On Being a Mormon Historian,” a lecture given at Brigham Young University, October 1981. Copy in possession of writer. A summary of issues raised by Quinn can be found in Woodward, Kenneth L., “Apostles vs. Historians,” Newsweek (February 15, 1982):77. For two insightful, non-Mormon commentaries on the writing of Mormon history, see Shipps, Jan, “The Mormon Past: Revealed or Revisited?”, Sunstone 6(1981):55–57 and Foster, Lawrence, “New Perspectives on the Mormon Past,” Sunstone 7(1982): 41–45.Google Scholar

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82. This quotation was used at the entrance to the Utah educational exhibit at the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in California. Cited in Improvement Era 18(1915):947.Google Scholar