EDUCATIONAL QUOTES
Learn what the inspired leaders have said about education and educating our children. Teach your family what education REALLY is!
– David O. McKay (BYU Address, 1937) Establish schools taught by those of our own faith, where being free from the trammels of State aid, they can unhesitatingly teach the doctrines of true religion combined with the various branches of general education. – John Taylor (Direction to the Idaho Saints, Messages of the First Presidency Vol. 3, 5)We should have schools wherein the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants can be used as textbooks, and where the principles of our religion may form a part of the teachings of the schools.
– George Q. Cannon (General Board of Education Minutes, April 1889) Although infidelity is not directly taught in the public schools, its spirit is fostered by the exclusion of religious education.
– Boyd K. Packer (BYU Symposium Oct., 1996) In many places it is literally not safe physically for youngsters to go to school. And in many schools – and its becoming almost generally true – it is spiritually unsafe to attend public schools.
– Brigham Young (JD 18:357) I am opposed to free education as much as I am opposed to taking property from one man and giving it to another . . . Would I encourage free schools by taxation? No!
– George Q. Cannon (Juv. Inst., Vol. 25, 243) It will be a great temptation to many people to send their children to the free school that will now be supported by our taxes, but of what value is learning if it is acquired at the expense of faith.
– George Q. Cannon (Juv. Inst, Vol. 25, 243, 1890) No system of education can be perfect which does not teach the principles of righteousness and faith in God. Learning has not saved the world. It is of utmost importance that our children should, in the first place, be taught faith in God. This cannot be left out of our system of education.
–Spencer W. Kimball (BYU Student Body Address, May 13, 1969) We must be willing to break with the educational establishment (not foolishly or cavalierly, but thoughtfully and for good reason) in order to find gospel ways to help mankind.
– Ezra Taft Benson (Come Unto Christ, 59) We should not assume that public schools always reinforce teachings given in the home concerning ethical and moral conduct. We have seen introduced into many school systems false ideas about the theory of man’s development from lower forms of life, teachings that there are no absolute values, attempts to repudiate beliefs regarded as supernatural, permissive attitudes toward sexual freedom that give sanction to immoral behavior and “alternative lifestyles” such as lesbianism, homosexuality, and other perverse practices.
– David O. McKay (BYU Address, 1937) It is evident, then, that true religious training must include instruction in relation to God and to his laws and government and also in relation to man’s duty to man. Such teaching is given effectively not necessarily in a formal theology class, but in literature, art, geology, biology, and other classes…Thus all facts may be viewed by the students not through the green glass of prejudice or doubt, but in the clear sunlight of truth.
– Brigham Young (Educating Zion, 10) Brother Maeser, I want you to remember that you ought not to teach even the alphabet or the multiplication tables without the spirit of God.
– Howard W. Hunter (The Teachings of Howard W. Hunter, Clyde J. Williams, Bookcraft, 1997, 181) As we grow in intelligence, we learn that secular education must be coupled with religious education if we are to become partakers of life eternal.
– Brigham Young (JD 14:220 – 21) Mothers…we will appoint you a mission to teach your children their duty; and instead of ruffles and fine dresses to adorn the body, teach them that which will adorn their minds.
(Discourses of Brigham Young, 250-251) “Will education feed and clothe you, keep you warm on a cold day, or enable you to build a house? Not at all. Should we cry down education on this account? No. What is it for? The improvement of the mind; to instruct us in all arts and sciences, in the history of the world, in laws of nations; to enable us to understand the laws and principles of life, and how to be useful while we live”
– John Taylor (JD 19:249) Well, shall we, after going to the ends of the earth to gather people to Zion, in order that they may learn more perfectly of His ways and walk in His paths, shall we then allow our children to be at the mercy of those who would lead them down to death again? God forbid! Let our teachers be men of God, men of honor and integrity, and let us afford our children such learning as will place our community in the front ranks of educational as well as religious matters.
– John Taylor (JD 24:168) Whatever you do, be choice in your selection of teachers. We do not want infidels to mold the minds of our children. They are a precious charge bestowed upon us by the Lord, and we cannot be too careful in rearing and training them. I would rather have my children taught the simple rudiments of a common education by men of God, and have them under their influence, than have them taught in the most abstruse sciences by men who have not the fear of God in their hearts. – John Taylor (JD 24:168)
– David O. McKay (Gospel Ideals p. 441, April Conference, 1932) The principle aim of 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 … True education does not assist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literature, or art, but in the development of character.
– Spencer W. Kimball (Oct Conference 1980) The time will come when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us…We genuinely welcome help, real help, from churches, schools, colleges, and universities, from thoughtful men and women of every race, creed, and culture who care about the family. But, as indicated earlier, if the supporting network of institutions does not function adequately, then we will do our part anyway. –
– John Taylor (JD 24:352) But if I had been living in Adam’s time and had had children, I do not think I should have sent them to be educated by Cain. Would you?
– David O. McKay (April Conference 1968) Any education is undoubtedly better than none, but a free people, to remain free, must ever strive for the highest and best.
– Alvin R. Dyer (Education: Moving Toward and Under The Law of Consecration 1969) I think that by the end of the millennium, for those who will occupy the celestial kingdom, the home will be the only media for teaching children. Teaching will be through the family…But I think there will be central places where instruction will go forth, directed to the family level.
– Spencer W. Kimball (BYU Convocation Oct. 1975) We must train statesmen, not demagogues; men of integrity, not weaklings who for a mess of pottage will sell their birthright. We must develop these precious youth to know the art of statesmanship, to know people and conditions, to know situations and problems, but men who will be trained so thoroughly in the arts of their future work and in the basic honesties and integrities and spiritual concepts that there will be no compromise of principle.
– Ezra Taft Benson (ETB, 298-299) In gearing the curricula to the middle of the class, our system too often has not provided sufficient challenge for the better student. Champions seldom become champions by competing only against mediocrity.
– Ezra Taft Benson (May Conference, 1986)With the abundance of books available today, it is a mark of a truly educated person to know what not to read.As a watchman on the tower, I feel to warn you that one of the chief means of misleading our youth and destroying the family unit is our educational institutions.
– Ezra Taft Benson (God, Family, Country; Our Three Great Loyalties, Deseret Book, 224) President Joseph F. Smith referred to false educational ideas as one of the three threatening dangers among our church members.
– George S. Benson (Thoughts on Virtue) Great ideals and principles do not live from generation to generation just because they are right, nor even because they have been carefully legislated. Ideals and principles continue from generation to generation only when they are built into the hearts of the children as they grow up.
– Boyd K. Packer (Ensign, Sept. 1973) If prayer is to leave the public schools, let the ridicule of prayer leave also.
– Boyd K. Packer, (General Conference, April 1994) Moral values are being neglected and prayer expelled from public schools on the pretext that moral teaching belongs to religion. At the same time, atheism, the secular religion, is admitted to class, and our youngsters are proselyted to a conduct without morality… we are caught in a current so strong that unless we correct our course, civilization as we know it will surely be wrecked to pieces…The distance between the church and a world set on a course which we cannot follow will steadily increase.
– Neal A. Maxwell (Seek Learning by Study and Also by Faith videocassette) My young brother and sisters, you live in a world, which, as prophesied, is often confusing and perplexing. By combining true education and true religion, you will be able to distinguish between what is merely today’s trends and the eternal truths, and between celestial sense and secular nonsense . . . . Those individuals who are illuminated, spiritually and educationally, will help to show the way in a world darkened by despair . . .. God bless you in these days, which are your days in the history of the kingdom of God. – Neal A. Maxwell (Seek Learning by Study and Also by Faith videocassette)
– Hugh Nibley (OAT, 130) No matter where we begin, if we pursue knowledge diligently and honestly, our quest will inevitably lead us from the things of the earth to the things of heaven.
– Boyd K. Packer (Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, Bookcraft, 1991, 171) Our garden has gone untended and the weeds have almost choked out any concern for values from our system of public education. Beginning in the teachers colleges in the universities, prospective teachers, bombarded with humanism and secularism and pragmatism and atheism, have been graduated with a noticeable breach in their preparation.
– Elder Joseph F. Smith (Conference Report, April 1946, Second Day—Morning Meeting, 62.) That, it seems to me, is the key to true education. No man can receive a fullness of truth unless he keeps the commandments of our Father in heaven. Learning is not wisdom. We have been misled into thinking that learning is the ultimate in education. True education must result in wisdom.
– Joseph F. Smith (GD, 269) The mere stuffing of the mind with a knowledge of facts is not education. The mind must not only possess a knowledge of the truth, but the soul must revere it, cherish it, love it as a priceless gem; and this human life must be guided and shaped by it in order to fulfill its destiny.
– Neal A. Maxwell, (General Conference, April 1984) This rising generation is the first generation to be reared in a time when society’s other institutions, previously supportive of certain moral standards, have largely been neutralized, or worse, secularized. This rising generation, basically shorn of such external support systems, therefore must believe because of the word, and behave because they believe. As we all know, current film, music, art, and theater too often promote drugs, alcohol, pornography and promiscuity…this is not simply a temporary tidal wave, which ere long will pass. It is the wave-tossed secular sea itself, and it will not subside until He comes and all the winds and the waves once again obey his will. Hence this is not the time for busy or preoccupied parents to leave our youth unloved, unattended, or untaught.
– Joseph Fielding Smith (Church History and Modern Revelation, Vol.2, 135 – 136) Secular education may not be so important (in fact, may prove to be a detriment), but when accompanied with humble faith and knowledge of the principles of the Gospel and all that pertains to our salvation, then it is of great worth.
– David O. McKay (Gospel Ideals, 441, April Conf. 1932) True education does not assist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literature, or art, but in the development of character.
– David O. McKay (Teachings of Presidents of the Church, xix–xx, Ensign, Jan. 05) True education seeks to make men and women not only good mathematicians, proficient linguists, profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights, but also, honest men, with virtue, temperance, and brotherly love. It seeks to make men and women who prize truth, justice, wisdom, benevolence, and self-control as the choicest acquisitions of a successful life.
– Russell M. Nelson (Ensign, Nov. 1984) We must gain learning, but we must apply it wisely. Otherwise, we have politics without principle, industry without morality, knowledge without wisdom, science without humanity!
– J. Reuben Clark, Jr. (CES Address, August 8, 1938) We must say plainly what we mean, because the future of our youth, both here on earth and in the hereafter, as well as the welfare of the whole church is at stake. The youth of the church, your students, are in great majority sound in thought and spirit. The problem primarily is to keep them sound, not to convert them. – J. Reuben Clark, Jr. (CES Address, August 8, 1938)
– Gordon B. Hinckley (U.S. Mayors Conference, September 25, 1998) What has happened to our schools? There are still many that are excellent, but there are very many that are failing. What has become of the teaching of values? We are told that educators must be neutral in these matters. Neutrality in the teaching of values can only lead to an absence of values.
– Stephen L. Richards (The Church in War and Peace, Zion Printing, 1943, 102) I must ask one more question concerning our educational system. Do you think it justifiable, even if our schools do not assume any responsibility, for the inculcation of faith and the development of spiritual values, that they should permit any of their facilities, – teachers, text books, and what not to be utilized to tear down or in any wise militate against the faith of students acquired in their homes and churches?
– J. Reuben Clark, Jr. (CES Address, August 8, 1938) You are not to teach the philosophies of the world, ancient or modern, pagan or Christian, for this is the field of the public schools.
–Brigham Young, (JD, 9:369, Aug. 31, 1862) Let our teachers ask the Father, in the name of Jesus, to bestow upon them and upon their scholars the Spirit of wisdom and intelligence from heaven; ask for skill to control and ability to teach on the part of the teacher, and willingness to be controlled and adaptability to be taught on the part of the scholars.
– Ezra Taft Benson (BYU Speeches of the Year, 1966, 3-17) Now under the guise of academic freedom—which some apparently feel is freedom to destroy freedom—some teachers reserve to themselves the privilege of teaching error, destroying faith in God, debunking morality, and depreciating our free economic system. If questions reflecting the teacher’s false teachings appear on the exam, how will the student answer who believes in God and morality and our Constitution?
– Karl G. Maeser (BYU Founder’s Day Speech, October 16, 1891) The necessity for the establishment of a new kind of educational institution for Zion had been revealed by the Lord to the Prophet Brigham Young. The lack of what element created that necessity? It has been said the Saints will be saviors upon Mount Zion, that they are destined to redeem the world. Redeem the world from what? From the thralldom of sin, ignorance, and degradation! In order to do this, Zion will take the lead in everything and consequently also in education.
– Ernest L. Wilkinson (BYU Faculty Address, September 18, 1962) Above all, we must remember that quality, not quantity, is the true yardstick of education. American schools, on all levels, must continue to stress training for citizenship and character because these qualities are the qualities essential to freedom.
– Ernest L. Wilkinson (BYU Faculty Workshop, September 18, 1962) American education is but a mirror for our culture. We cannot expect our educational system to be perfect when we ourselves tolerate a growing contempt for work, barbarous music and art, a sensual and sensational press, tawdry drama, and corrupted media of communication. We must fight constantly against the rising obscenity and growing vulgarity of our society.
– Bruce R. McConkie(The Millennial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man, Deseret Book, 1982, 360)Courses given in public schools encourage and approve immoral practices.
– Ezra Taft Benson (BYU Speeches of The Year, 1966, 3-17) As the world becomes more wicked, a possible way to attain worldly success may be to join the wicked. The time is fast approaching when it will require great courage for Latter-day Saints to stand up for their peculiar standards and doctrine – all of their doctrine, including the weighty principles such as the principle of freedom.
– Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses, 6:268.) Continuous education is our labor, our business and our calling.
– Ezra Taft Benson (BYU Speeches of the Year, 1966, 3-17) Don’t let the philosophies and falsehoods of men throw you. Hold on to the iron rod. Learn to sift. Learn to discern error through the promptings of the Spirit and your study of the truth.
– Ezra Taft Benson (BYU Speeches of the Year, 1966, 3-17) During the past several years many of our institutions of learning have been turning out an increasing number of students schooled in amorality, relativity, and atheism – students divested of a belief in God, without fixed moral principles or an understanding of our constitutional republic and our capitalistic, free enterprise economic system. This follows a pattern which was established years ago at some of our key colleges that produced many of the teachers and leaders in the educational field across the country today. The fruits of this kind of teaching have been tragic, not only to the souls of the individuals involved but also to the parents and even to our country.
– David O. McKay (Steppingstones to an Abundant Life, Deseret Book, 1971, 34) Eighty years ago Americans were still being reared in public schools that included religious instruction. …But from that time on, the book of books ceased to be an important factor in public instruction. …The sad, sickening consequence of this Godless education can be studied today in the juvenile delinquents who throng our courts and fill our prisons.
– Brigham Young (Discourses of Brigham Young, 252) Every accomplishment, every polished grace, every useful attainment in mathematics, music, and in all science and art belongs to the Saints, and they should avail themselves as expeditiously as possible of the wealth of knowledge the sciences offer to every diligent and persevering scholar.
– Howard W. Hunter’s charge to BYU-Hawaii’s new president (Profile Mag. Dec. 1994, 15) Finally, and most important, we charge you to build faith in God the Eternal Father, in his Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and in the great principles which lead to eternal life, which comes to us from prophets of God, both anciently and in our own time. We charge you to do that as a central part of your educational purpose, not as an addendum to it.
– John A. Widtsoe (Conference Report, April 1946, 130) Geography and arithmetic have been raised to the warmth and dignity of required disciplines of the mind, but ethics, not to speak of religion, which determine human behavior, and which always acts as restraints upon evil, stand, unwelcomed, shivering before the closed schoolroom door. Such a dangerous taboo was not intended when it was agreed that, in our land, sectarian religion should not be taught in public schools. By the present method, our schools are sending out generations of men of little faith, who are unmindful of their eternal obligations.
– George S. Benson (Thoughts on Virtue) Great ideals and principles do not live from generation to generation just because they are right, nor even because they have been carefully legislated. Ideals and principles continue from generation to generation only when they are built into the hearts of the children as they grow up.
– Joseph Fielding Smith (Conference Report, October 1921, 185) I regret exceedingly that courses in study in the public schools, in the colleges and places of learning throughout the land, are in conflict with fundamental truths of the Christian faith; and, for one, I desire to express my feelings, and to declare that I consider it an outrage against the liberties of the people, when we are denied the privilege of teaching principles of eternal truths, in the realm of religion; when we are denied the privilege of praying to our Heavenly Father in the schools, or referring to a Supreme Being, for fear that, we will offend someone; and at the same time instructors are permitted to advocate that in the schools which the teachers themselves profess and declare to be in conflict with the fundamentals of the faith which I believe, and which thousands of others accept throughout this nation and other nations of the world as divine truth.
– Ezra Taft Benson, (BYU Speeches of the Year, 1966, 3-17) I fear some of us are getting too much like the world. Rather than continue a peculiar people, some are priding themselves on how much they are like everybody else, when the world is getting more wicked.
– Henry B. Eyring (Profile Magazine, December, 1994, 15) It is the light from heaven, which will make students better learners. It is the light from heaven, which will make them better people – more loving, more tolerant, more productive, more honest, and thus better citizens of a community.
– Mark E. Peterson (Ensign, Nov. 1975) In our church we teach that “the glory of God is intelligence.” We believe also that the glory of man is likewise intelligence. With this in mind, we are strong advocates of education.
– Boyd K. Packer (Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, Bookcraft, 171) In the separation of church and state we ought to demand more protection from the agnostic, from the atheist, from the Communist, from the skeptic, from the humanist, from the amoral and the immoral, than we have yet been given. The atheist has no more right to teach the fundamentals of his sect in public schools than does the theist. Any system of schools in our society that protects the destruction of faith and in turn forbids the defense of it must ultimately destroy the moral fiber of a people.
– Joseph Fielding Smith (Conference Report, April 1955, 51) It is far more important to know that Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, that he has given unto us the principles of eternal life, than it is to know all that can be obtained in secular education.
– Pres. Ezra Taft Benson (The Red Carpet, 177) Let us never lose sight of the fact that education is a preparation for life-and that preparing for life is far more than knowing how to make a living or how to land on the moon. Preparing for life means building personal integrity, developing a sound sense of values, increasing the capacity and willingness to serve. Education must have its roots in moral principles. If we lose sight of that fact in our attempt to match our educational system against that of the materialists, we shall have lost far more than we could possibly gain.
– A. LeGrand Richards (BYU Speeches, 1996-97)…if we stopped reading section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants at this point, we might misinterpret the reason for such a curriculum. We are not to study these vast frontiers in order to be smarter than the rest of the world or to compete better in the marketplace or to win some national ranking or monetary reward. We aren’t even to learn it for its own sake. The next verse reads: “that ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you.” (v.80) …The purpose of education, then, is to assist us as we discover, prepare for, and freely fulfill our divinely ordained missions.
– Russell M. Ballard (Oct. Conference Report, 2003)Let me say again that the family is the main target of evil’s attack and must therefore be the main point of our protection and defense. As I said once before, when you stop and think about it from a diabolically tactical point of view, fighting the family makes sense to Satan. When he wants to disrupt the work of the Lord, he doesn’t poison the world’s peanut butter supply, thus bringing the Church’s missionary system to its collective knees. He doesn’t send a plague of laryngitis to afflict the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He doesn’t legislate against green Jell-O and casseroles. When evil wants to strike out and disrupt the essence of God’s work, it attacks the family. It does so by attempting to disregard the law of chastity, to confuse gender, to desensitize violence, to make crude and blasphemous language the norm, and to make immoral and deviant behavior seem like the rule rather than the exception.
– Boyd K. Packer, (General Conference, April 1994) Moral values are being neglected and prayer expelled from public schools on the pretext that moral teaching belongs to religion. At the same time, atheism, the secular religion, is admitted to class, and our youngsters are proselyted to a conduct without morality… we are caught in a current so strong that unless we correct our course, civilization as we know it will surely be wrecked to pieces…The distance between the church and a world set on a course which we cannot follow will steadily increase.
– A. LeGrand Richards (BYU Speeches, 1996-97) I’m not completely comfortable with describing our effort at BYU as trying to combine the sacred with the secular. I would feel better describing it as an effort to learn the temporal in the context of the eternal. Spiritual experiences cannot be secular, but I know of no “secular” subject that cannot and should not be spiritual. Tell Abraham, for example, that astronomy is a secular subject. The Lord has told us that he never gives temporal commandments because all things are spiritual unto him – and I believe that they ought to be for us as well.
– Hugh Nibley (OAT, 130) No matter where we begin, if we pursue knowledge diligently and honestly, our quest will inevitably lead us from the things of the earth to the things of heaven.
– A. LeGrand Richards (BYU Speeches, 1996-97) When I was a student I wish I had believed that the standards of the world were not sufficient for a consecrated people. I believed this phrase as it pertained to religion, but I suppose that it didn’t have much to do with my education: “Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom” (D&C 105:5). It isn’t enough to go beyond the standards of the world. We must build upon a different foundation “According to the pattern” the Lord has given (D&C 94:2).
– Elder Levi Edgar Young (Conference Report, April 1940, 129) The minute education assumes an attitude that religion is for a special class of thinkers, then our schools miss that quality in human life that make for the happiness of mankind.
George F. Richards (Conference Report, April 1910, 80-81) The public schools, maintained as they are by public taxation, are by law forbidden teaching religion in those schools. The result is an exclusively secular education, an education godless in its character; and such an education is most imperfect. –
– Joseph F. Smith (IE, 14:548.) The religion of the Latter-day Saints is not hostile to any truth, not to scientific search for truth…A good motto for young people to adopt, who are determined to delve into philosophic theories, is to search all things, but be careful to hold onto only that which is true.
– David A. Bednar (Ensign, Sept. 2007, 68) The responsibility to seek learning by faith rests upon each of us individually, and this obligation will become increasingly important as the world in which we live grows more confused and troubled.
– Boyd K. Packer (April Conference, 1995, 8) The shield of faith is not produced in a factory …(it) is made at home…Our Father’s plan requires that, like the generation of life itself, the shield of faith is to be made and fitted in the family. No two can be exactly alike. Each must be handcrafted to individual specifications. The plan designed by the Father contemplates that man and woman, husband and wife, working together, fit each child individually with a shield of faith made to buckle on so firmly that it can neither be pulled off nor penetrated by those fiery darts. It takes the steady strength of a father to hammer out the metal of it and the tender hands of a mother to polish and fit it on. Sometimes one parent is left to do it alone. It is difficult, but it can be done. In the church we teach about the materials from which the shield of faith is made: reverence, courage, chastity, repentance, forgiveness, compassion. In church we can learn how to assemble and fit them together. But the actual making of and fitting on of the shield of faith belongs in the family circle.
– Boyd K. Packer (The Edge of Light, BYU 18-stake address, March 4, 1990) There should be no reticence in relating secular truths to revealed truths.
– Wilford Woodruff (G. Homer Durham, Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, 269) There is one thing I wish particularly to impress upon your minds, and that is, the importance of improving your time while young in treasuring up knowledge and learning those things which will be useful to you in after life . . . Do not be discouraged because you cannot learn all at once; learn one thing at a time, learn it well, and treasure it up, then learn another truth and treasure that up, and in a few years you will have a great store of useful knowledge which will not only be a great blessing to yourselves and your children, but to your fellow men.
–Spencer W. Kimball (Educating Zion, BYU Studies) Your double heritage and dual concerns with the secular and the spiritual require you to be bilingual.
– Wilford Woodruff (The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, 266) Therefore neither you nor your parents can be too careful to see that your young and fruitful minds are fed and stored with good principles. You want to learn that which is true– -when you learn anything about God, Jesus Christ, the angels, the Holy Ghost, the gospel, the way to be saved, your duty to your parents, brethren, sisters, or to any of your fellow men, or any history, art or science, I say when you learn any of those things you want to learn that which is true, so that when you get those things riveted in your mind and planted in your heart, and you trust to it in future life and lean upon it for support, that it may not fail you like a broken reed.
– John Taylor (Teachings of Presidents of the Church, 90) Train your children to be intelligent and industrious. First teach them the value of healthful bodies, and how to preserve them in soundness and vigor; teach them to entertain the highest regard for virtue and chastity and likewise encourage them to develop the intellectual faculties with which they are endowed. They should also be taught regarding the earth on which they live, its properties, and the laws that govern it; and they ought to be instructed concerning God who made the earth, and His designs and purposes in its creation and the placing of man upon it. . . It is highly necessary that we should learn to read and write and speak in our own language correctly . . . We ought to take more pains than we do in the training and education of our youth”
– Boyd K. Packer (Teach Ye Diligently, Deseret Book, 1975, 224)We are very particular to forbid anyone from preaching Catholicism, or Protestantism, or Mormonism, or Judaism in a public school classroom, but for some reason we are very patient with those who teach the negative expression of religion. I claim that the atheist has no more right to teach the fundamentals of his sect in the public school than does the theist. Any system in the schools or in society that protects the destruction of faith, and forbids, in turn, the defense of it, must ultimately destroy the moral fiber of society.
– Boyd K. Packer (Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, Bookcraft, 171)We are very particular to forbid anyone from preaching sectarian religion in a public school in the classroom, and to define any decent standard of morality as sectarian; but for some reasons we are very patient with those who teach negative religion and the degrading standards that accompany it.
– Stephen L. Richards (Where is Wisdom?, 160 – 161)We want our youth to be educated. We want them to understand the history of the world and the laws of nature. We want them to be able to enjoy all of the best that the Lord in his providence has permitted man to develop. We want them, with a background of education, to be able to make intelligent appraisals and wise choices, so that they may lead lives of usefulness and happiness. If their ideals are right, they can achieve these lofty goals. The Lord help them. God help us to help them.
– Stephen L. Richards (The Church in War and Peace, Zion Printing 1943, 102)While I am thoroughly sympathetic with the separation of church and state, I cannot feel that we shall ever have a Godly nation with Godless education.
– Spencer W. Kimball (Educating Zion, BYU Studies) It is proper that every professor and teacher at this institution would keep his subject bathed in the light and color of the restored gospel. And his subject matter perfumed lightly with the spirit of the gospel.
– David O. McKay (Instructor, August 1961)What, then, is true education? It is awakening a love for truth, a just sense of duty, opening the eyes of the soul to the great purpose and end of life.
– Ezra Taft Benson (BYU Speeches of the Year, 1966, 3-17) When under the pressure of a heavy course of study and the necessity of parroting back what certain professors have said, the student does not have the time or take the time to learn the truth. If he does not learn the truth, someday he will suffer the consequences.
– Heber J. Grant (Conference Report, April 1922, 167) Why should my money be used to employ a man to teach my children infidelity and a lack of faith in God? …I consider it an outrage that the money of people who believe in the Lord God Almighty can be spent to teach our children that kind of “rot”.
– Gordon B. Hinckley (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, 715-716) Don’t stand around complaining. “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.” That is a message for us in our day and time. This is the great day of opportunity for you young people, this marvelous time to be upon the earth. You stand at the summit of all of the past ages. You are exposed to all of the learning of all who have walked the earth, that learning being distilled down into courses where you can acquire knowledge in a relatively short time, that knowledge which men stumbled over in learning through all of the centuries past. Don’t sell yourselves short. Don’t miss your great opportunity. Get at it, work at it, study hard. The Lord has laid upon you a mandate, you young men and women of this Church, to acquire secular knowledge as well as spiritual knowledge, and that is defined very clearly and openly in the 88th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants. Take advantage of the opportunities that are yours; even if it entails sacrifice, take advantage. Be not faithless, but believing, in your capacity as a son or daughter of God to learn so that you may go forth to serve and make a contribution to the society of which you will become a part. Look up and go forward.
– Joseph F. Smith (Improvement Era, March 1914) There are at least three dangers that threaten the church within, and the authorities need to awaken to the fact that the people should be warned unceasingly about them…They are the flattery of prominent men in the world, false educational ideas, and sexual impurity.
– Thomas S. Monson (“Standards of Strength,” New Era, October 2008)Young people, you live in tumultuous times. You have choices to make—choices with eternal consequences. But you are not left unaided in your decisions, however small or however large they may be. . . . Precious young people, make every decision you contemplate pass this test: What does it do to me? What does it do for me? And let your code of conduct emphasize not “What will others think?” but rather “What will I think of myself?” Be influenced by that still, small voice. Remember that one with authority placed his hands on your head at the time of your confirmation and said, “Receive the Holy Ghost.” Open your hearts, even your very souls, to the sound of that special voice that testifies of truth. As the prophet Isaiah promised, “Thine ears shall hear a word … saying, This is the way, walk ye in it” (Isaiah 30:21).
– David O. McKay (Pathways to Happiness, 1957, 15) As with companions so with books. We may choose those which will make us better, more intelligent, more appreciative of the good and the beautiful in the world, or we may choose the trashy, the vulgar, the obscene, which will make us feel we’ve been ‘wallowing in the mire’.
– Gordon B. Hinckley (Ensign, Dec. 07, 5) It is so obvious that the great good and the terrible evil in the world today are the sweet and the bitter fruits of the rearing of yesterday’s children. As we train a new generation, so will the world be in a few years. If you are worried about the future, then look to the upbringing of your children.
-Gordon B. Hinckley (Ensign, Dec. 07, 9) Behold your little ones. Pray with them. Pray for them and bless them. The world into which they are moving is a complex and difficult world. They will run into heavy seas of adversity. They will need all the strength and all the faith you can give them while they are yet near you. And they will also need a greater strength, which comes of a higher power. They must do more than go along with what they find. They must lift the world, and the only levers they will have are the example of their own lives and the powers of persuasion that will come of their testimonies and their knowledge of the things of God.
– Joseph L. Wirthlin (Oct. Conference 1946, 34) Oh, I am fearful that in our schools little consideration is given to the Constitution! I am fearful that our young men and our young women are not learning very much about this great republic . . .
– L. Tom Perry (Nov. Ensign, 2010) Parents are entrusted with the education of their children and, ultimately, parents must ensure that their children are being taught what their Heavenly Father would have them learn.
– Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley, (No Doubt About It, Deseret Book Co., 2002, Ch. 14) Satan knows exactly what he is doing. But do we? Are we sleeping, or are we creating places of security where we may insulate ourselves from his advances? If there ever were a time when the Lord needed righteous, determined women who can distinguish between the adversary’s deceptions and the voice of the Lord, it is now…If there were ever a time when the Lord needed His daughters to be alert to what is happening in society and to defend the sanctity of the home and family, it is now…If there were ever a time when the Lord needed us to have a clear vision of who we are, where we are, and what is important, it is now.
– Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses 16:19-20)We had to pay our own schoolteachers, raise our own bread and earn our own clothing, or go without; there was no other choice. We did it then, and we are able to do the same to-day. I want to enlist the sympathies of the ladies among the Latter-day Saints, to see what we can do for ourselves with regard to schooling our children. Do not say you cannot school them, for you can… I understand that the other night there was a school meeting in one of the wards of this city, and a part there– a poor miserable apostate– said, “We want a free school, and we want to have the name of establishing the first free school in Utah.” To call a person a poor miserable apostate may seem like a harsh word; but what shall we call a man who talks about free schools and who would have all the people taxed to support them . . .
(Relief Society Mag. Dec. 1962) After the tragic Supreme Court prayer decision, President Davis O. McKay said, “ The Supreme Court of the United States severs the connecting cord between the public schools of the United States and the source of divine intelligence, the Creator himself.”
– A. LeGrand Richards (BYU Speeches 1996 – 97) My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: (Hosea 4:6) An education built upon the world’s foundation will not adequately serve the purposes of Zion.
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