"The Church University," Messenger, Vol. 11, Brigham Young University, October 1937. Full Text.
Dr. Maeser's ability to teach covered the entire field of learning, including that of teaching others to teach. Far more important than anything else, he was a teacher of goodness and a builder of character. He believed that scholastic attainments were better than riches, but that better than either were faith, love, charity, clean living, clean thinking, loyalty, tolerance and all the other attributes that combine to constitute that most precious of all possessions--good character.
Good character does not consist in the mere ability to store away in the memory a collection of moral aphorisms that run loosely off the tongue. Seneca gave the world a book of beautiful, fully written moral maxims, but he stood in the Roman senate and shamelessly justified Nero's murder of his own mother.
Character to be good must be stable, must have taken root. It is an acquisition of thought and conduct which have become habitual, an acquisition of real substance so firmly fixed in the conscience and, indeed, in the body itself as to insure unhesitating rejection of an impulse to do wrong. (p. 8)
"Eternal Verities." Baccalaureate Address. Brigham Young University. Provo, Utah, June 3, 1951.
This institution [BYU], unhampered by politics, without fear of criticism from others, can teach in every class the existence of God, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the divinity of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness, and waken a desire to spend their lives in the service of their fellow men . . . God bless you teachers of this faculty, you students, that you may lift this school . . . to that height wherein it may be an example to all higher institutions in the world. (p. 7)
"The Greeting." Addresses delivered at the inauguration of Ernest Wilkinson, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, October 8, 1951, pp. 6-7. In BYU Inaugural Speeches and Responses, Brigham Young University Archives.
The most potent influence in training our youth to cherish life, to keep their word of honor, to have increased respect for human kind and love of justice, is the life and personality of the teacher. (p. 431)
Gospel Ideals (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret News Press, 1953).
The aim of education is to develop resources in the child that will contribute to his well-being as long as life endures; to develop power of self-mastery that he may never be a slave to indulgence or other weaknesses, to develop virile manhood, beautiful womanhood that in every child and every youth may be found at least the promise of a friend, a companion, one who later may be fit for husband or wife, an exemplary father or a loving intelligent mother, one who can face life with courage, meet disaster with fortitude, and face death without fear. (p. 436)
Gaining knowledge is one thing and applying it, quite another. Wisdom is the right application of knowledge; and true education -- the education for which the Church stands -- is the application of knowledge to the development of a noble and Godlike character. (p. 440)
Character is the aim of true education; and science, history, and literature are but means used to accomplish the desired end. Character is not the result of chance work but of continuous right thinking and right acting. . . . True education seeks, then, to make men and women not only good mathematicians, proficient linguists, profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights, but also honest men, combined with virtue, temperance, and brotherly love -- men and women who prize truth, justice, wisdom, benevolence, and self-control as the choicest acquisitions of a successful life. . . . It is regrettable, not to say deplorable, that modern education so little emphasizes these fundamental elements of true character. The principal aim of many of our schools and colleges seems to be to give the students purely intellectual attainments and to give but passing regard to the nobler and more necessary development along moral lines. (pp. 440-441)
True education does not consist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literature, or art, but in the development of character. True education awakens a desire to conserve health by keeping the body clean and undefiled. True education trains in self-denial and self-mastery. True education regulates the temper, subdues passion, and makes obedience to social laws and moral order a guiding principle of life. It develops reason and inculcates faith in the living God as the eternal, loving Father of all. (p. 442)
I need not take time today to show how moral and spiritual truths may be taught in literature, science, art; indeed, in every subject in the curriculum.
If teachers are truly sincere in their desire to make character a true aim of education, to awaken faith in God and a desire to maintain the standards of the Church, they will manifest that faith and sincerity in daily action. They will be what they expect their students to become. Otherwise, their teaching becomes hollow and meaningless, their words as but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. (pp. 4, 9)
"Faculty Workshop Address." Brigham Young University, September 28, 1953. Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year. (Provo, Utah: Adult Education and Extension Services).
Because of its combination of revealed and secular learning, Brigham Young University is destined to become, if not the largest, at least the most proficient institution of learning in the world, producing scholars with testimonies of the truth who will become leaders in science, industry, art, education, letters, and government.
The First Presidency to all stake presidents, 4 November 1957, Wilkinson Presidential Papers. [Quoted in Ernest Wilkinson, Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years, Vol. 4, p. 393.]
Another element, and more important, contributing to spiritual growth, is the mental attitude of the students themselves. It is fundamental for a student to realize that his success in the Seminary depends upon himself . . . But, whatever the outward influence be that led him to the Seminary, it must ever remain an exterior factor to the moral and the spiritual growth of the student himself. The source of the spring of spirituality lies in the mind, the spirit itself.
The very first step, therefore, toward the growth of spirituality in a student is the realization that the ultimate purpose of life is the perfecting of the individual; that the purpose of our Father in heaven is to make men and women like himself, and that even the Lord could not do this without making men free. (pp. 277-288)
Pathways to Happiness (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1957).
I think that the noblest aim is character, notwithstanding what some leading professors say about the special work of a university. What other conceivable purpose is there in making discoveries in science, in delving into marvelous powers hitherto hidden by nature, except for the development of the human soul? What good are they if they are separated from the individual and from the groups? What possible good would salten seas, molten lava, the mountains, the prairies be without humanity? What good are all inventions and discoveries without their application to human beings? So the paramount purpose of all education, particularly in a republican form of government such as we have here in the United States, is to make good citizens and to enrich the human soul. (p. 349)
But gaining knowledge is one thing, and applying it is another. Wisdom is the right application of knowledge to the development of a noble and Godlike character. A man may possess a profound knowledge of history and of mathematics; he may be an authority in physiology, biology, or astronomy. He may know all about whatever has been discovered pertaining to general and natural science, but if he has not, with this knowledge, that nobility of soul which prompts him to deal justly with his fellow men, to practice virtue and honesty in personal life, he is not a truly educated man. (p. 471)
Treasures of Life (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1962).
Letter from President David O. McKay to Ernest L. Wilkinson and the BYU Faculty. Full Text