Educating the Saints

By Hugh W. Nibley Brigham Young was the Prophet Joseph's most faithful disciple; their teachings are one as the minds of the Saints and prophets have always been one. Before he met Joseph Smith, Brigham recalls, "the secret feeling of my heart was that I would be willing to crawl around the earth on my hands and knees, to see such a man as was Peter, Jeremiah, Moses, or any man that could tell me anything about God and heaven." And then "when I saw Joseph Smith, he took heaven, figuratively speaking, and brought it down to earth; and he took the earth, brought it up, and opened up, in plainness and simplicity, the things of God; and that is the beauty of his mission." It was a mind-stretching religion: "Thy mind, O man!" said the Prophet Joseph Smith, "if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity." The promise he gave to those who took the gospel and the cause of Judah to heart was that "your minds will expand wider and wider, until you can circumscribe the earth and the heavens... and contemplate the mighty acts of Jehovah in all their variety and glory." What attests to him the divinity of the Bible is that it is "so much beyond the narrow-mindedness of men, that every man is constrained to exclaim: 'It came from God.'" The Holy Ghost, the ultimate teacher, "has no other effect than pure intelligence. It is more powerful in expanding the mind, enlightening the understanding, and storing the intellect with present knowledge... It is... the pure spirit of intelligence." Mind and heart must expand together, according to the Prophet: "You must enlarge your souls towards each other... Let your hearts expand, let them be enlarged towards others." For not only is "the mind or the intelligence which man possesses... co-equal with God himself" in time, but "all the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement... so that they... have one glory upon another." This was what Brigham Young learned from his beloved Joseph as he "continued to receive revelation upon revelation, ordinance upon ordinance, truth upon truth." It was all good news: "What are we here for? To learn to enjoy more, and to increase in knowledge and in experience." Learning is our proper calling: "We shall never cease to learn, unless we apostatize... Can you understand that?" "God has given us mental and physical powers to be improved," and along with them "our senses, if properly educated, are channels of endless felicity to us." All systems are "go" for the expanding mind: "Let us not narrow ourselves up; for the world, with all its variety of useful information and its rich hoard of hidden treasure, is before us; and eternity, with all its sparkling intelligence, lofty aspirations, and unspeakable glories, is before us." The news is all good -- forever: "And when we have passed into the sphere where Joseph is, there is still another department, and then another, and another, and so on to an eternal progression in exaltation and eternal lives. That is the exaltation I am looking for." "When we have lived millions of years in the presence of God and angels,...shall we then cease learning? No, or eternity ceases." First and last, the gospel is learning unlimited. *** President Young kept after his people all the time: "After suitable rest and relaxation there is not a day, hour or minute that we should spend in idleness, but every minute of every day of our lives we should strive to improve our minds and to increase in the faith of the holy Gospel." A year after the arrival in the valley, Brigham Young copied down in his journal a letter which Parley P. Pratt had written to his brother back east describing the new society: "All is quiet -- stillness. No elections, no police reports, no murders, no war nor little war... No policeman has been on duty to guard us from external or internal dangers... Here we can cultivate the mind, renew the spirit, invigorate the body, cheer the heart and ennoble the soul of man. Here we can cultivate every science and art calculated to enlarge the mind, accommodate the body, or polish and adorn our race; and here we can receive and extend that pure intelligence which is unmingled with the jargon of mystic Babylon." Wonderful to relate, for the ever-practical Brigham and the struggling pioneers the improvement of the mind always came first. Brigham laid it on the line: "All who do not want to sustain co-operation and fall into the ranks of improvement, and endeavor to improve themselves by every good book" were invited to leave the community. The challenge of nature was not the real issue -- "the greatest and most important labour we have to perform is to cultivate ourselves." *** For Brigham, the proper study of mankind is everything: "This is the belief and doctrine of the Latter-day Saints. Learn everything that the children of men know." It all comes under the heading of our religion: "Every true principle, every true science, every art, and all the knowledge that men possess or that they ever did or ever will possess, is from God. We should take pains and pride to... rear our children so that the learning and education of the world may be theirs." "Every accomplishment, every grace, every useful attainment in mathematics,...in all science and art belong 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." A favorite with LDS schoolmen has been Brigham Young's declaration that "every art and science known and studied by the children of men is comprised within the Gospel." But this does not mean, as is commonly assumed, that anything one chooses to teach is the gospel -- that would be as silly as arguing that since all things are made of electrons, protons, neutrons, etc., whenever anyone opens his mouth to speak he gives a lecture on physics. It means rather that all things may be studied and taught in the light of the gospel: "If an Elder shall give us a lecture upon astronomy, chemistry, or geology, our religion embraces it all. It matters not what the subject be, if it tends to improve the mind, exalt the feelings, and enlarge the capacity." It would be quite impossible to improve the mind, exalt the feelings and enlarge the capacity of any man without making him a better candidate for heaven -- "it matters not what the subject be." By the same token, the reading of the scriptures if not undertaken in that spirit does not belong to our religion: "'Shall I sit down and read the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Covenants all the time?' says one. Yes, if you please, and when you have done, you may be nothing but a sectarian after all. It is your duty to study... everything upon the face of the earth, in addition to reading those books." "Everything on the face of the earth" is a large order, and Brigham was no fool; he knew perfectly well that "the most learned men that have ever lived on the earth have only been able to obtain a small amount of knowledge," and that time, patience, and method are necessary to bring the Saints around: "As Saints in the last days we have much to learn; there is an eternity of knowledge before us; at most we receive but very little in this stage of our progression." There must be a priority of things to be learned, which is what curriculum is all about: "We wish to have our young boys and girls taught in the different branches of an English education, and in other languages, and in the various sciences, all of which... [will] eventually... [be] taught in this school." "We also wish them to understand the geography, habits, customs, and laws of nations and kingdoms, whether they be barbarians or civilized. This is recommended in the revelations... Let them become more informed in every department of true and useful learning than their fathers are." Immediately after arriving in the valley, President Young recommended "securing at least a copy of every valuable treatise on education -- every book, map, chart, or diagram that may contain interesting, useful, and attractive matter, to gain the attention of children, and cause them to love to learn to read"; this includes "every historical, mathematical, philosophical, geographical, geological, astronomical, scientific, practical, and all other variety of useful and interesting writings." To train "the whole man" was his object from the first: "Let us make mechanics of our boys, and educate them in every useful branch of science and in the history and laws of kingdoms and nations." *** But curriculum is a game for little minds; the important thing for Brigham is that the Saints use their new-found liberty and revel as he did in the things of the mind. The starving man eats thankfully what he can get and does not quibble for hours over the menu and etiquette. The decisive factor is a passion for the things of the mind : "We believe... that every man and woman should have the opportunity of developing themselves mentally as well as physically. In the present condition of the world this privilege is only accorded to a few." Learning is a privilege to be eagerly exploited: "If we can have the privilege, we will enrich our minds with knowledge, filling these mortal tenements with the rich treasures of heavenly wisdom." The proper priority of study is not as important as study itself: "If it would do any good, I would advise you to read books that are worth reading," but "I would rather that persons read novels than read nothing" -- reading nothing being the normal outcome of waiting on the curriculum committee. *** No matter where we begin, if we pursue knowledge diligently and honestly our quest will inevitably lead us from the things of earth to the things of heaven. All science is cosmology, says Karl Popper, and, we add, all cosmology is eschatology. For Brigham Young, since all knowledge can be encompassed in one whole, the spectrum of secular study blends imperceptibly with the knowledge of the eternities: "In our schools, all our educational pursuits are in the service of God, for all these labors are to establish truth on the earth, and that we may increase in knowledge, wisdom, understanding in the power of faith and in the wisdom of God, that we may become fit subjects to dwell in a higher state of existence and intelligence than we now enjoy." Note well that secular learning is sanctified only if it is approached in a certain spirit. Only that knowledge belongs to the gospel which is viewed and taught as such -- as all knowledge should be. "God has created man with a mind capable of instruction," according to Joseph Smith, "and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect." There are three factors involved: intelligence, revelation, and hard work, and if the spirit may help in earthly learning, the mind is required to operate in celestial matters. The learning process begun in this life carries on into the next: "And when we pass through the veil, we expect still to continue to learn and increase our fund of information." The Saints must "first learn everything that the children of men know," and then go on and "improve upon this until we are prepared and permitted to enter the society of the blessed -- the holy angels." This is done by pursuing a steady course that leads from the earthly to the heavenly without a break: "We should not only learn the principles of education known to mankind, but we should reach out further than this, learning to live so that our minds will gather in information from the heavens and the earth until we can incorporate in our faith and understanding all knowledge." *** Such a concept has, of course, no conflict with science. The motto of the Royal Society, Nullus in verba -- "we take no man's word for anything" -- is even more strongly expressed in the first editorial to appear in the Times and Seasons , written by Brigham Young: Remember, Brethren, " no man's opinion is worth a straw." Brigham is a man who wants to know: "The object of this existence is to learn... How gladly would we understand every principle pertaining to science and art, and become thoroughly acquainted with every intricate operation of nature, and with all the chemical changes that are constantly going on around us! How delightful this would be, and what a boundless field of truth and power is open for us to explore! We are only just approaching the shores of the vast ocean of information that pertains to this physical world, to say nothing of that which pertains to the heavens." "Send the old children to school and the young ones also; there is nothing I would like better than to learn chemistry, botany, geology, and mineralogy." "In these respects we differ from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular. You may take geology, for instance, and it is a true science; not that I would say for a moment that all the conclusions and deductions of its professors are true [opinions are not facts!], but its leading principles are." *** We have felt no necessity in this brief and sketchy survey to point out to the reader how Brigham Young's educational concepts stand out in brilliant contrast against the background of everything that is practiced and preached in our higher schools today. But the moral of our story must not be overlooked: Brigham was right after all. As administrative problems have accumulated in a growing Church, the authorities have tended to delegate the business of learning to others, and those others have been only too glad to settle for the outward show, the easy and flattering forms, trappings and ceremonies of education. Worse still, they have chosen business-oriented, career-minded, degree-seeking programs in preference to the strenuous, critical, liberal, mind-stretching exercises that Brigham Young recommended. We have chosen the services of the hired image-maker in preference to unsparing self-criticism, and the first question the student is taught to ask today is John Dewey's golden question: "What is there in it for me?" *** It is perfectly natural for the young who discover the world of scholarship for the first time to strike in their sophomoric zeal an intellectual pose, rail in high terms against the Church that has kept them in darkness all these years, and catalogue the defects and miscalculations of the prophets in the light of their own scholarly elevation. That is perfectly natural, and if we had heeded Brigham Young, the urge to study and criticize would be running in fruitful channels. Whether we like it or not, we are going to have to return to Brigham Young's ideals of education; we may fight it all the way, but in the end God will keep us after school until we learn our lesson: "Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right" (D&C 9:7-8). This is an excerpt of "Educating the Saints -- A Brigham Young Mosaic," in Nibley on the Timely and Timeless (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 1978), 229-59; and in BYU Studies 11 (Autumn 1970): 61-87. The full text with academic references may be accessed at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Hugh Nibley was one of the most gifted scholars in the LDS Church. He graduated summa cum laude from UCLA and completed his Ph.D. as a University Fellow at UC Berkeley. He taught at Claremont College in California before serving in military intelligence in World War II. From 1946 until his death in 2005, he was associated with and taught at Brigham Young University.