It should be in mind that this Last Dispensation of the Fullness of Time was ushered in with a motif that stirred to action the young fourteen-year-old boy, Joseph Smith, earnestly seeking for truth. It was the motif of that intimately personal message of James: "If any of you"--not someone afar off, not merely the rich and the powerful, not only those in high places, but the humblest and the least of us . . . This great promise, in measure a command, has been repeated, over and over again, by the Lord to us of this day. He has never permitted us to forget it. It is basic to the whole plan of the restored gospel. It means that God still speaks to men in pulpits, before altars, in laboratories, in workshops, in plowed fields, in the bowels of the earth, on the mountain heights, in our secret chambers of prayer--wherever men move and work and search, there he speaks and reveals to them the eternal truths of the universe, the mysteries of God. (pp. 228-229, 230)
So fundamental is this gathering of knowledge that the Lord saw fit to direct us as to the kind of place in which knowledge should be gained. In that same great revelation, the Olive Leaf, the Lord said:
Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of glory, a house of God;
That your incomings may be in the name of the Lord; that your outgoings may be in the name of the Lord; that all your salutations may be in the name of the Lord, with uplifted hands unto the Most High. (D&C 88:119-120.)
Thus God made clear that the gaining of knowledge is not to be like the commonplace work of earning a living. He who invades the domain of knowledge must approach it as Moses came to the burning bush; he stands on holy ground; he would acquire things sacred; he seeks to make his own the attributes of Deity, the truth which Christ declared he was (John 14:6), and which shall make us free (John 8:32), free of the shackles of time and space, which shall be no more. We must come to this quest of truth--in all regions of human knowledge whatsoever--not only in reverence, but with a spirit of worship. (p. 231)
In all his promises and commandments about gaining knowledge, the Lord has never withheld from our quest any field of truth. Our knowledge is to be coterminous with the universe and is to reach out and to comprehend the laws and the workings of the deeps of the eternities. All domains of all knowledge belong to us. In no other way could the great law of eternal progression be satisfied.
We have established this university here, we have set up our whole Church educational system, we have encouraged and assisted in the establishment and maintenance of purely secular schools, all to the end that all knowledge--true knowledge--might be gained by us, by our posterity, and by all men, for knowledge is salvation. (pp. 231-232)
Thus the university has a dual function, a dual aim and purpose--secular learning, the lesser value, and spiritual development, the greater. These two values must be always together, neither would be perfect without the other, but the spiritual values, being basic and eternal, must always prevail, for the spiritual values are built upon absolute truth. (p. 234)
In the indenture creating the trust in accordance with the terms founded, the donor, Brigham Young, after setting forth the secular subjects that the educational standards of the times required to be taught, had this to say about the spiritual training and teaching that should be carried on in this school:
"The Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, shall be the standard text books, and shall be read and their doctrines inculcated in the Academy, and further no book shall be used therein that misrepresents, or speaks lightly of, the Divine mission of our Savior, or of the prophet Joseph Smith, or in any manner advances ideas antagonistic to the principles of the Gospel.
These, President McDonald, are your navigating orders. They are not sealed, they are open to the world. The world will expect you to follow them." (p. 237)