Report on Church Schools, Education, and Manual Training

I have enjoyed very much the spirit and instructions of this Conference, and I trust that I may have your interest while I report the work that has been placed in my charge. We have an organization which we call the Church schools. Twenty of these institutions are located in Utah, Arizona, Idaho and Old Mexico. They are attended by about 5,000 of our young people, and the increase of late has been quite marked. Last year we had 940 students more than the preceding year. ¶

I was very gratified yesterday to hear President Smith speak upon some matters of education to the people at large, and manifest to them the same desire that he has manifested to the Church board of education and the board of examiners. I am very pleased to say that we are making special efforts to introduce manual training into these schools. In Salt Lake City — and what is true of this city is true of other places— we have hundreds of young men who leave the schoolroom during the summer season, and for three or four months are without employment, left to pastime that leads them into idleness and frequently into frivolous lives. The question arose as to what should be done with these young people during these long summer vacations. If we had in the City of Salt Lake a manual training school, hundreds of our boys within a very few summers might learn much that goes to make up a trade. Looking to these particular needs. President Smith appointed a committee to make investigation and report to the General Church Board of Education the status of affairs in this respect, and also what, in the judgment of the committee, could be done to remedy the evils that are so apparent among us. A report has not been made, and therefore I cannot give you the findings of that body. But I desire to call your attention to one item of their investigation. After a careful computation of the industrial situation in this state, from the standpoint of the tradesman, it was found, reckoning on a conservative basis, that we are paying out every year something like eight millions of dollars to tradesmen; that our own people are diminishing in numbers in this class ; that many of the older ones are, so to speak, out of date, not having kept up with the demands of the times; that we are gathering few from foreign countries who learn trades in their native land, and that we are having few or no apprentices among us. One of this committee (several of which are at the head of industrial concerns in this city) made the remark that during the 30 years he had been in charge of a building firm they had not educated one single apprentice. We feel the necessity of this training. We feel that the people should give it their support. I am perfectly free to say to you this afternoon that many of the Latter-day Saints are overly-anxious that their sons should become bookkeepers. We have 10 young men anxious to become bookkeepers where we have a place for one of them when they are educated. We do not have one 'young man learning a trade where there is and will be a demand for 50 of them within the next few years. So they are preparing in great numbers for that which they are not likely to need, and neglecting that which they ought to have in the course of their education. One of the reasons for this is the sentiment which the parents inculcate in the hearts of their children by encouraging them to pursue some branch of study that is called culture. I would like to relate an anecdote that explains much of our educational culture in these times. Some few years ago, when I was at Harvard, the dean of the scientific school said to me that our educational culture was so empty and so worthless that he never used the word "culture" when he could possibly avoid it. Then he related an anecdote of two farmers who were cultivating their land near the town of Cambridge, where the Harvard university is situated. These two farmers came to the partition fence one day, and one of them said to the other, "John, what is culture " 'Why," John says, "don't you know what culture is?" "No," said he; "I hear these school teachers that come by here on to Arlington Heights in the summer time, talking about culture. They say, he is cultured, or she is cultured, or they are cultured, and 'Oh, my, how I do love culture!' Now, what are they talking about?" "Why," said John, "you know what potato culture is?" "Yes, I know that." "And you know what wheat culture is?" "Yes, I know that." "Well, you take out the wheat, and take out the potatoes, and then you have the culture." ¶

Our education has been provided in a large measure by the state, and it has made its demands upon us, and that education has been almost exclusively confined to books. In some of the eastern states wealthy men are contributing their means for the establishment of technical institutions, where young men can learn mechanism; and these institutions are most interesting. In some of the states the government itself is establishing schools of technical training, in order that the citizens may be more useful. 1 expect to see the day in Utah when the men that are possessed of means will contribute likewise for the establishment of similar institutions in the state and in the Church, that our young people may become more useful in building up the country. For mechanism has in it something that is stable. It educates the judgment, and it gives wisdom to the men and women who are trained to use their hands along with their brains. Its importance to us cannot be overestimated. ¶

A few months ago I had the opportunity of traveling through Canada and some of the cities of the east. I found in many of those large cities schools of technical training. I found they had a very beneficial influence upon the morals of the people. For example, these schools were kept up from morning until ten o'clock at night. During the middle of the day you would see the bootblack, after his work was over in the morning, wend his way into the school; and the newsboy, after he had sold his morning edition, was going into this technical school, that he might learn him a trade. I am told that some of those boys have already graduated from these schools and that instead of blacking boots or selling newspapers they are now mechanics, earning good wages and are valuable citizens in the communities where they live. I remember very well when visiting one of these polytechnic schools in Brooklyn, the man took us into a room and said, "These benches and this work are all ready for the men who come here at night." I asked him who these men were. He replied, "They are mostly clerks from the stores and men that are driving teams. After their work is over at six o'clock in the evening, they go home at once to supper, and they are here by seven o'clock. It is only a question of two or three years until their services are demanded in some of the best workshops of the city, and some of them now are earning large salaries." Many of our young men find themselves compelled to take up vocations in life for which they are not suited. They are clerking in stores when they have that mechanical talent that would make them most useful in that line. ¶

"We are encouraging some of our young men to go east and work up in these technical schools. One or two are now at work, and it is hoped that others will go as soon as they possibly can, and fit themselves for the demands that must be made upon them in the near future. We not only desire that these schools should be organized in the Church, but it is only a question of time when they will be organized in the state and our Legislature will be as anxious to appropriate money to teach men to be artisans as they are to teach them Latin and Greek and foreign languages that they have no use for; but we can hardly make some of our legislators today realize that manual training and that the artisan is as important to our state as the student of Greek and Latin. I desire to say that we shall respond as far and as rapidly as we can to the instructions which our President has given us. We realize only too well the truth of his remarks in this respect. ¶

One thing more. We have organized in this state an agricultural experiment station. It has given out very valuable information that will make our people scientific and technical farmers; aye, and teach them how to cultivate the soil, how to raise stock; and our housewives how to produce in this state a million dollars a year more than they do from their poultry. When I was in Canada I was told of the great value to the farmers of that country the bulletins issued by Dr. Widtsoe, of the Agricultural college, had been to them; how many thousands of dollars those bulletins had been in wealth to the people away off in eastern Canada. I asked myself the question, How much value have these bulletins been to the people in the state where they are issued? Dr. Truman Allen, of the Agricultural station at Washington, says of them that they are the highest authority in the world on the subjects that they treat of. And Dr. Widtsoe is one of our home boys, and is giving out to the world this information that is doing so many hundreds of thousands of dollars' good to the world, while many of us at home have scarcely gained any value from them whatever! I was very glad when the Legislature set apart something like $12,000 for experimental work in the dry farms of this state; and if you will watch the work of this eminent scientist, if you will read something of his bulletins, you will gain great advantage, and you may become professional farmers and stockraisers. He is just now finishing a bulletin on irrigation. I understand it will be out of the press soon. I hope that he will issue a popular edition of it— that is, strip it of its scientific and technical terms; for I am sure that when we come to find out something more about irrigation we shall discover that after all in many places it is not more water that we need, but a more scientific and accurate use of the water that we have already. So I am pleased to make these statements to you here, because I feel that by a little attention on our own part, by following the investigations and experiments of eminent men in our midst, and especially by following the work of our scientist, Dr. Widtsoe, we may gain a great deal that is valuable and that will increase the wealth and prosperity of the people. ¶

Our schools, above all things, aim to inculcate the Spirit of God in our young people, and fit and qualify them for the mission of disseminating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations of the earth. I need not say to you that these schools have accomplished a vast amount of good in this respect, and there is hardly a family in the Church that has not felt, directly or indirectly, the spiritual blessings that have come to their homes from these institutions of learning. ¶

God bless you. God bless the schools, and all the departments and organizations of Zion, that there may be a harmonious effort through all our labors for the accomplishment of a common good. God bless the man that stands at the head of them all; for I want to testify to you today that I have great encouragement in this work from the interest that is felt by our President, and the Church Board of Education. The students feel it also, and his interest in their lives has been so exceptional and great that they are enthusiastic when he meets them in their schools and takes part with them in their exercises. God bless you all. Amen. ¶