Educating the Saints—A Brigham Young Mosaic

Brigham Young was a prophet who passionately expressed his views that followers of God should seek education. He had an eye single to the glory of God and wanted the Mormons to use the material goods of the world as a means to serve God. Many converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Young’s day were uneducated, and he insisted that they had a duty to learn all they could of the sciences and arts, while not neglecting the study of godly matters. Young valued light from heaven above all else. Yet he was thoroughly practical and advised the Mormons to work in all sorts of endeavors. Nibley chastises Mormons today for failing to follow Young’s counsel and study diligently, thus failing to be able to combat sophistry and delusion.

Young people who discover the world of scholarship for the first time may accuse the Church of keeping them in darkness, and catalogue the defects and miscalculations of the prophets. But if we had heeded Brigham Young, the urge to study and criticize would be running in fruitful channels. We may fight it all the way, but in the end God will keep us after school until we learn our lesson to study things out in our own mind.