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Education Among the Mormons: Brigham Young and the Schools of Utah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Frederick S. Buchanan
Frederick S. Buchanan*
Affiliation:
University of Utah
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Extract

In their 150-year history the Mormons have undergone a metamorphosis. From a position where they were considered moral pariahs, they have emerged as the very models of social decorum and moral respectability. In the nineteenth century their founder, Joseph Smith, was martyred in Illinois; they were driven from Missouri under a governor's extermination order; hundreds were jailed as “prisoners of conscience” in Utah for refusal to abandon polygamy; and their prophets were pursued by federal marshals as fugitives from justice. The popular attitudes towards these 19th-century “social outcasts” are a far cry from the image reflected by the activities of some prominent Mormons in the 20th-century: Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson; Michigan Governor, George Romney; Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall; Secretary of the Treasury, David Kennedy; U. S. Commissioner of Education, Sterling M. McMurrin; the current Secretary of Education, T. H. Bell; and Florida's Senator Paula Hawkins, the second woman ever elected to the U. S. Senate. Other Mormons who have caught the public eye (and ear) include television inventor, Philo Farnsworth; Harvey Fletcher, developer of stereophonic sound; Henry Eyring, recipient of the prestigious “Priestly Medal” in chemistry; and such heroes of middle America as the Osmonds and Merlin Olson, defense tackle for the Los Angeles Rams. The perception of the Mormon educational point-of-view has also shifted: once considered proponents of ignorance and gullibility, they are now seen as unalloyed supporters of educational advancement.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , Winter 1982 , pp. 435 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

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

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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

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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

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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

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

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

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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

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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

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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

47. Minutes, December 4. 1847, Brigham Young Papers, L.D.S. Archives. Note: The scribe who recorded these minutes originally did so by using word abbreviations and contractions.Google Scholar

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

54. Minutes, Deseret Theological School, American Fork, Utah, August 23; September 28, 1868. Manuscript, L.D.S. Archives.Google Scholar

55. “A Series of Instructions and Remarks by President Brigham Young at a Special Council, Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, March 24, 1858,” University of Utah Archives.Google Scholar

56. Sermon of April 6, 1877, Journal of Discourses 18:357.Google Scholar

57. Brigham Young Papers, February 17, 1850, L.D.S. Archives.Google Scholar

58. Sermon of August 31, 1862, Journal of Discourses 9:369.Google Scholar

59. Hirshson, Stanley P., The Lion of the Lord (New York, 1969), p. 322. Much of Hirshson's account is hostile and is based on limited documentation, but his assessment of the practical emphasis in Brigham Young's view of education seems warranted.Google Scholar

60. Anderson, Edward H., The Life of Brigham Young (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1893), pp. 166–7.Google Scholar

61. Young, Brigham to Young, Brigham Jr., August 6. 1862, cited in Jessee, Dean C., Ed., Letters of Brigham Young to His Sons (Salt Lake City, 1974), p. 25.Google Scholar

62. Young, Brigham to Young, Joseph, February 3. 1855, cited in Letters, p. 14.Google Scholar

63. Young, Brigham to Young, Willard, November 11. 1875, cited in Letters, p. 190.Google Scholar

64. Letters, p. 164.Google Scholar

65. Young, Brigham to Young, Alfales, October 20. 1875, cited in Letters, p. 224.Google Scholar

66. Young, Brigham to Young, Willard, October 19. 1876, cited in Letters, p. 199.Google Scholar

67. Young, Brigham to Young, Feramorz, August 23. 1877, cited in Letters, p. 314.Google Scholar

68. Deseret News, June 26. 1867.Google Scholar

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70. Cited in Mulder, William and Russell Mortensen, A., eds., Among the Mormons (New York, 1958), p. 384.Google Scholar

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74. Peterson, , “A New Community.” 311. See also Mormon leader, Roberts', B. H. address to the National Education Association convention in Salt Lake City in which he acknowledges the non-Mormon “spur” to Utah Education, Deseret News, July 6, 1913.Google Scholar

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78. McConkie, Bruce R., Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City, 1966), p. 354.Google Scholar

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

80. Arrington, Leonard J. and Bitton, Davis, The Mormon Experience (New York, 1979), pp. 304, 306.Google Scholar

81. Arrington, Leonard J., “The Latter-Day Saints and Public Education,” The Southwestern Journal of Social Education, 7(1977):9.Google Scholar

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