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Education Quotes

Birch, Jane. A Latter-day Saint Home Education: Passing on a Goodly Heritage. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 1994.

Abstract: Education is examined within the context of religious beliefs and values found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). Education is defined as the process of becoming like God. An investigation is conducted into the stewardship and responsibility parents have for the education of their children. This responsibility is determined to be a sacred stewardship that cannot simply be delegated to others in society.

All education is shown to be religious in nature. Conflicts between the beliefs and values of different members of society are found to be at the heart of many of the difficulties in education. The secularization of Western civilization and education is described. The history of public schooling in America is examined, and the current status of the public school system is analyzed. On the basis of this analysis, parents are urged to be more vigilant in attending to the responsibilities of educating their children. Several suggestions are made for how parents can become more responsible for the education of their children, and one of these options, home schooling, is explored in some depth.

Two Latter-day Saint home-schooling families are examined using qualitative research methods. Their philosophy of education is considered at length and described in detail. The methods they employ in the education of their children are investigated and described. A detailed account of a week in the life of each family is also included. The study closes with an examination of what it means for parents to pass a goodly heritage on to their children. Passing on a rich heritage is found to consist in seeking the Spirit of the Lord, following the counsel of Church leaders, and keeping the commandments of God.

Flinders, Neil J. Teach the Children: An Agency Approach to Education (Provo, Utah : Book of Mormon Research Foundation, 1990).

As of this writing . . . I am unaware of any serious, sustained attempt to collect, analyze, widely distribute, and formally study the words of the prophets, the teachers of Jesus Christ, on education. The Mormon intellect has yet to plumb the depths of this resource. Meanwhile, thousands of volumes have been written on history, doctrine, and biography. But with the exception of a few private collections and several informally bound volumes of photocopied articles, no library of books from this source is used by educators to write on education. There could be such a library, but most professional educators essentially ignore this literature as a serious resource. One can only imagine where we could be, educationally speaking, if we gave as much attention to sacred sources as we regularly spend on secular ones.

Consequently, Latter-day Saints possess a gold mine of information about education that is largely unworked. The invitation to extract and refine the richest of all ore has been extended repeatedly to the Saints and to others, but there has been little rush to accept this invitation. We stand more or less in the shadows, waiting and wondering, or wandering to and fro, seeking to strike it rich on or near somebody else's claim where the motives as well as the aims are linked to secular positions. We have long been encouraged to change this perspective. (pp. 18-19)

Gardner, David P. "Attitudes Toward Education." In Daniel H. Ludlow (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992).

The Articles of Faith underscore the deep and fundamental role that knowledge plays in the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things" (A of F 13). Speaking of the LDS commitment to learning and education, M. Lynn Bennion wrote: "It is doubtful if there is an organization in existence that more completely directs the educational development of its people than does the Mormon Church. The educational program of the Church today is a consistent expansion of the theories promulgated by its founders" (Bennion, p. 2).

The educational ideas and practices of the Church grew directly out of certain revelations received by Joseph Smith that emphasize the eternal nature of knowledge and the vital role learning plays in the spiritual, moral, and intellectual development of mankind. For example: "It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance" (D&C 131:6) of his eternal nature and role. "The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth" (D&C 93:36). "Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come" (D&C 130:18-19). "Knowledge saves a man, and in the world of spirits a man cannot be exalted but by knowledge" (TPJS, p. 357). An often-quoted statement from the Book of Mormon reads: "To be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God" (2 Ne. 9:29). . . .

The Church has been built on the conviction that eternal progress depends upon righteous living and growth in knowledge, religious and secular. "Indeed, the necessity of learning is probably the most frequently-repeated theme of modern-day revelations" (L. Arrington, "The Founding of the L.D.S. Institutes of Religion," Dialogue 2 [Summer 1967]:137).

Joseph Smith and many of the early Mormon pioneers came from a New England Puritan background, with its reverence for knowledge and learning (Salisbury, p. 258). The LDS outlook assumes the perfectibility of man and his ability to progress to ever-higher moral, spiritual, and intellectual levels. In this philosophy, moreover, knowledge of every kind is useful in man's attempt to realize himself in this world and the next. "It is the application of knowledge for the spiritual welfare of man that constitutes the Mormon ideal of education" (Bennion, p. 125). The early leaders of the Church, therefore, saw little ultimate division between correct secular and religious learning. Broad in scope and spiritual in intent, LDS educational philosophy tends to fuse the secular with the religious because, in the LDS context, the two are part of one seamless web (Bennion, pp. 120-23).

King, Arthur Henry. "Education in the Home," "Disciplines," "Mechanization," and "The Idea of a Mormon University." In The Abundance of the Heart (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1986).

The scriptures can be a complete education, as has been shown by those in the past who truly educated themselves from the scriptures when they had no other education--people like John Bunyan, George Fox, and Joseph Smith, who is the greatest example. Joseph Smith was, of course, a great genius; otherwise he could not have got out of the scriptures the education that he did; but all of us can get something if we will but read the scriptures. And, indeed, by reading the scriptures thoroughly, we can get a better education than we can in any other way. A self-educated man who has read the scriptures is better educated than someone who has been through BYU or Harvard or Berkeley or wherever, because he has been reading the word of the Lord and concentrating on it. (p. 221)
. . .
When we introduce schemata, when we introduce generalizations and abstractions, when we introduce hierarchies, archetypes, and so on, we are replacing what we are studying with something else. . . . There is a deep wish to simplify, and that deep wish to simplify manifests itself as a deep wish to reduce to law. There seems to be a pleasure in precision, a pleasure in reducing to law, which is extensive among natural scientists and usually creeps most effectively into those pseudo-sciences which are trying to follow the path of the natural sciences. But to endeavor to reduce the universe to human law and not recognize that we are just dealing with observations is a process of great arrogance. The tendency to generalize is, ultimately, an assertion of the personality of the generalizer and may be accompanied by some form of sado-masochism . . . what is ignored when this takes place is some profound effect on the total man and on his emotions and on his way of feeling about things. We need to remember that there is always something which we have not caught in our rational explanations, which the gospel has and which the Lord has and which the example of the Lord has, so that we are able to live with one another in that total way. We don't live with one another ultimately by reason. We live ultimately by faith. (pp. 257-258)
. . .
It seems to me that to try to reduce something to order, even though it is human order, is not a wrong process, provided that we recognize that what we are doing is playing games. And I suggest to you that outside the gospel, human endeavor does consist in playing games of that kind. We should reduce things to law if we can (and the expression "reduce to law" is significant: we don't raise or edify things into law, we reduce them to law), but remember that the cases in which we can do so are limited. We should order what we can, but we should not presume to order something else that we cannot by making it analogous to what we can. (pp. 257-258)
. . .
We in the Church know what is wrong with education today at all levels. Most people outside the Church don't know. But we know that education must be based on, trained in, grown from, and watered by religion. Education only has significance insofar as it is built upon the rock of a true and living religion. Spiritual development does not go hand in hand with intellectual development. The spiritual life must lead the intellectual life, and the intellectual life has to be a worthy partner to the spiritual life. It is within our own university that we have to look for the highest possible standards, and these, of course, are total standards. They are standards of spiritual and intellectual life together. (p. 270)

Maeser, Karl G. School and Fireside. ([Utah]: Skelton, 1898).

True educators . . . keep constantly before their eyes the ultimate aims of education. As an engineer in surveying a canal or a railroad must take his bearings in view of the terminus of his line of survey, so has the educator to keep before him constantly the ultimate aims of all education, which Christ points out to us in the words: "Be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." (p. 55)
. . .
With the removal of religion as the fundamental principles of education, our public school system has been deprived of the most effective motive power. . . .With the abandonment of religion, education has lost its safe anchorage, is drifting into the unknown currents of experimentalism, and is in danger of striking the shoals and banks of infidelity. And as to the last point, I do not hesitate in saying, that I would rather see my child exposed to the dangers of an infectious disease and trust to medical treatment, or better still, to the faith within me and to the ordinances of the Gospel, to rescue it from fatal consequences, than to have it exposed to the influence of an infidel teacher.

When Israel stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai, they put bounds around the mountain, allowing none but Moses to go up and speak with Jehovah. There is no fence around the mountain any more, and the road is open to all. Our youth need leaders in school and at the fireside, to go before them and show them the way, step by step, in usefulness, industry, intelligence, faith, obedience, each day higher and higher up; leaders among parents and teachers, that by their own daily walk and conduct will inscribe upon the hearts of their followers the words of Christ: "Come follow me!" Then, by and by, the generations of the youth of Zion will reach the top of the mountain and commune with Jehovah as Moses did of old. (pp. 56-58)

Nelson, William O. "Whither the Aim of Education Today? A Symposium of Thought." BYU Studies 28(3), Summer 1988, pp. 5-27.

I personally would like to see teachers help students to recognize, within guidelines, that we live today in a world of competing values. One set of values affirms a God-centered universe that makes us accountable to moral imperatives and the other set of values denies it. But the likelihood of that happening, I admit, is remote because teachers are neither prepared to do it, nor do they have the inclination to do it. They're content to teach the facts of their discipline and ignore spiritual considerations. The end results will be that we continue to serve students an educational menu that caters to their rational and material appetite, but ignores their spiritual hunger. (p. 20)
. . .
One cannot become a truly effective teacher, regardless of academic credentials, unless one has a clear sense of moral judgment, a clear understanding of right and wrong and good and evil. Choosing good over evil is the crowning achievement of life, and this is not done without educating toward that end. Education in its truest sense must lead a student to good choices. (p. 20)

Nibley, Hugh. Approaching Zion. (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1989).

The penalty we pay for starving our minds is a phenomenon that is only too conspicuous at Brigham Young University. Aristotle pointed out long ago that a shortage of knowledge is an intolerable state, and so the mind will do anything to escape it; in particular, it will invent knowledge if it has to. Experimenters have found that lack of information quickly breeds insecurity in a situation where any information is regarded as better than none. In that atmosphere, false information flourishes; and subjects in tests are "eager to listen to and believe any sort of preposterous nonsense." Why so? We repeat, because the very nature of man requires him to use his mind to capacity: "The mind or the intelligence which man possesses," says Joseph Smith, "is co-equal with God himself." What greater crime than the minimizing of such capacity? The Prophet continues, "All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement. . . . God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge." Expansion is the theme, and we cannot expand the boundaries unless we first reach those boundaries, which means exerting ourselves to the absolute limit. (p. 67)
. . .
Some years ago, when it was pointed out that BYU graduates were the lowest in the nation in all categories of the Graduate Record Examination, the institution characteristically met the challenge by abolishing the examination. It was done on the grounds that the test did not sufficiently measure our unique "spirituality." We talked extensively about "the education of the whole man" and deplored that educational imbalance that comes when students' heads are merely stuffed with facts--as if there was any danger of that here! But actually, serious imbalance is impossible if one plays the game honestly: true zeal feeds on knowledge, true knowledge cannot exist without zeal. Both are "spiritual" qualities. All knowledge is the gospel, but there must be a priority, "proper degrees," as the Prophet says, in the timing and emphasis of our learning, lest like the doctors of the Jews, we "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel" (Matthew 23:24). (p. 72)
. . .
I bluntly tell my students today that they are not in my class to prepare for life but to prepare for eternal life. That sounds like a shocker. It surprises me when I say anything as radical as that, because it is perfectly true. Incidentally, Allan Bloom argues, "The real motive of education [is] the search for a good life." Oh, no, it isn't. See, he is limited to this world, and that makes the whole thing very sad. (p. 536)

Pinnegar, Stefinee, Nancy Wentworth, and Brian Kerr. "David O. McKay: Spiritual Development." Proceedings of the Third Annual Laying the Foundations Symposium (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1993), pp. 47-53.

President McKay speaks of the importance of good character in a teacher, because character provides a radiating influence on students and this leads them to have confidence in the teacher. At Brigham Young University, teacher educators realize that the source of this radiance, or influence is the light of the Spirit which is increasingly evident in a person as they live a life continually more in concert with God's will. The purpose of noble character in the teacher is to lead students to develop such character themselves. (p. 49)

Richards, A. LeGrand. "Academic Secularization and Education." Rassegna Di Pedagogia, 42(12), pp. 31-44.

The secularization of the academic world-view was not an arbitrary process; it developed as a necessary reaction to the suppression of knowledge. . . . With the accommodation of Greek philosophy and science into Church dogma and the structure of the church organization mimicking the political system of Rome, the state became the "secular arm" of the church. Heresy became synonymous with treason (the most serious of Roman crimes). The methods used to coerce compliance to Roman law were employed to guarantee religious orthodoxy. Unable to distinguish between heresy and treason, the church-state felt obliged to control knowledge. Academic inquiry, therefore came under the stern control and censure of the government. In time, this came to mean that disagreement with Aristotelian science or Ptolemaic astronomy could lead to political as well as religious persecution. Those who wanted to disagree with the traditional science, without being accused of heresy or impiety, sought rational grounds for separating the right to inquire from the jurisdiction of the government. This was accomplished by compartmentalizing the realm of knowledge into two almost autonomous spheres: one over which the Church would preside and another over which the scientists could preside. (p. 31)

Roberts, B. H. "The Mormon Point of View in Education." The Improvement Era 2 (December 1898), pp. 119-26.

It is of first importance, from the Mormon point of view in education, that the student be taught the truth about himself, his own origin, nature, and destiny; his relationship to the past, to the present, to the future; his relationship to Deity, to his fellow-men and to the universe. And then from this vantage ground of ascertained relationships he is in a position to go forth conquering and to conquer until all things are subdued under his feet--except, as it is said of Christ, Except him which doth put all things under man. (p. 120)

I would not have my readers think that the Mormon point of view in education emphasizes the spiritual education of man to the neglect of his intellectual and physical education. Nor do Mormons regard intellectual and physical education in less esteem than other people do. It is not a case of esteeming intellectual and physical education less, but of esteeming spiritual education more. (pp. 122-123)

Undoubtedly one of the distinctive features in the Mormon point of view in education is to regard the spiritual, including the moral, education of man as of first importance . . . in the Mormon point of view in education all departments in education, intellectual and physical alike, should be sanctified by being overshadowed by the spiritual. . . . All educational effort should be undertaken and pursued with reference to their effect upon man, not as a being whose existence terminates with the grave, but who is to live forever and who may, if he will, become a conjoint heir with Jesus Christ to all the thrones, principalities, powers, and dominions that the Father hath. (pp. 125-126)

Warner, C. Terry, Introduction to A. H. King, The Abundance of the Heart (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1986), pp. 1-5.

Learning the truth is a moral endeavor. It is a process of becoming truer, more faithful, and more responsive. Just as the light radiates from the Lord as it "proceedeth forth . . . to fill the immensity of space," so, I think, we do irradiate our situations with this same light to the extent that we are resonating with it. . . . In this context we can reflect again on our contemporary conception of the truth as mere information. This conception is not only false; it is dangerous. It leads us to suppose that we can pass bits of the truth conveniently to one another, as if they were coins. We are encouraged to regard the mind as a kind of purse in which we can collect and even hoard these coins. We believe we can buy, sell, and barter for them; we treat them as if they have exchange value. As far as we are concerned, evil people can get hold of them, as well as good people. Sinister men can control the world by acquiring these truths and withholding them from others. All of this is false. The idea that truth is information is, ultimately, a menacing economic metaphor.

Just how menacing this idea is can be seen in our approach to education. Because we have taken the economic metaphor seriously, we have come to think that learning is completely independent of morality. We have made it competitive rather than cooperative. We have turned our universities into vocational schools. Certain kinds of training have become not just occupationally but socially advantageous. We have made the most successful information-mongers among us into snobs. Learning, so called, has become a divisive social instrument that reinforces class distinctions. It is not possible to calculate the devastating effects of these disasters. (pp. 3-4)
. . .
Teaching is not a form of commerce. It is more like the radiance or influence of a resonant soul as it is felt by other souls. The teacher of the truth does not convey to the student valuable bits of anything, but by his presence and commitment he points away from himself to something higher than himself, to which the student can have independent access. "And also trust no one to be your teacher . . . , except he be a man of God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments" (Mosiah 23:14). (p. 4)

Wilcox, Bradley R. "What Manner of Educators Ought We to Be?" Proceedings of the Laying the Foundations Symposium (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1991), pp. 101-106.

"What manner of men ought ye to be?" is the question that the Savior asked anciently in the Americas (3 Ne. 27:27). The answer, given by Christ, was clear: "Even as I am." Now let us ask, "What manner of educators ought we to be?" The question is altered slightly from the one found in the Book of Mormon. However, the answer is exactly the same. The goal of every LDS educator should be to teach as the Savior teachers. . . . Let us focus on two principles that LDS educators must understand . . . first, learning by study is secondary to learning by faith, and second, the offerings of any teacher are secondary to the offerings of the Spirit. (p. 101)
. . .
As Latter-day Saint educators, WHO we are is not nearly as important as WHOSE we are. The name we make for ourselves is not nearly as important as the name we have taken upon ourselves. What manner of educators are we to be? Even as Jesus Christ. As we build a foundation of learning by faith and teaching with the Spirit, may we come to know what he knows, do what he does and be as he is. (p. 106)