The Educational Dilemma

The Educational Dilemma:
Public Schools, Private Schools, or Home Schools

by Jack Monnett

Frequently, parents who school their children at home or place their children in private schools are challenged by well-meaning Latter-day Saints who believe that Church policy favors education in the public schools. To the contrary, in recent years the Church has intentionally refrained from statements showing favoritism to one form of education over another; philosophically and historically, however, the Church has demonstrated strong opposition to public schools.

The acquisition of formal education is a hallmark of the Latter-day saints. Scriptural admonitions and statements from living prophets are continual reminders to seize a wide variety of educational opportunities. All educational offerings, however, are not of equal value--this has always been difficult for the Saints to grasp.

The equation of "school" to "education" is a natural link for parents. Although some may confuse the source of learning, LDS leaders have consistently--historically as well as presently--pointed out that all schooling is not profitable education. In fact, Latter-day Saint leadership has created a legacy of opposition to instruction and instructors that have countered revealed moral principles and doctrine.

Following the various pioneer settlements in the Utah Territory, educational issues were quick to be addressed. Initially, the situations were simple. Ward buildings doubled as schoolhouses and the bishop--with parental input--selected LDS teachers to teach subjects consistent with the doctrine and values of the Church. With increasing numbers of "Gentiles," and federal involvement, however, schools were forced to leave their Mormon moorings and take on more politically correct curricula with more diversified teaching staffs. By the late 1880's, Utah's schools and completely lost their insulation from non-Mormon influence.

Vying for the education of Zion's youth were public as well as private Protestant schools. Neither were acceptable to the First Presidency of the Church--the Protestant schools because of their ulterior motives (I.e. "to bend the plastic minds of the young . . . and mould them in nobler ways;") and the public schools because they were dependent on tax money and public input. Of the two schooling options, the Church's opposition to public schooling carries significant application to today's educational dilemma.

Church leaders determined that the primary problem with public education was that it was public--that the orientation of its controllers was from the public mainstream. Such a public or popular approach, they said, equated with worldliness.

Refusing to condone public education, the Church organized its own school system in 1888 and did all within its power to steer Zion's parents and youth from the public schools. Unfortunately, even with strong counsel to avoid public schools, Church members frequently decided in favor of public education. To those parents, President John Taylor warned of "teachers that will turn the infant minds of our children away from the principles of the gospel, and perhaps lead them to darkness and death." George Z. Cannon, also of the First Presidency, reflected on persecutions endured by the Saints and said concerning public school instruction, "How persons who have had these feelings concerning religion in their own case be so careless as to expose their children to infidelity seems a great mystery."

And a mystery it was that following President Wilford Woodruff's direction that LDS schools were "one of the most important factors in establishing the kingdom of God upon the earth," the majority of Latter-day Saints selected public schools for the education of their children. Although the Saints en masse rejected LDS schools in favor of tax supported public education, the First Presidency repeatedly gave clarion warning about the dangers of public control over education. They were concerned with (1) the caliber of instructors found in the public school systems, and (2) the curriculum taught. Obviously, in the realm of instruction, LDS leaders have always recommended solid Latter-day Saint teachers. In president John Taylor's words: "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."

Concerning curriculum, the Brethren have been equally vocal. They have taught that school curriculum and textbooks should be in harmony with truth; that truth was eternal and was recognized as it conformed to the revealed word of God. Scripture taught that "Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they are to come . . . and anything more or less than this" was from Satan. Truth, according to the Saints, was revealed knowledge; hence, the Holy Ghost was referred to as the Spirit of Truth. Relating to classroom truth, President Harold B. Lee taught:

"We must measure every teaching to be found in the world of book learning by the teachings of revealed truth, as contained in the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we find in a school text claims that contradict the word of the Lord as pertaining to the creation of the world, the origin of man, or the determination of right or wrong in the conduct of human souls, we may be certain that such teachings are but the theories of men."

The Church has always been concerned about subject matter in the classroom. A directive from the Millennial Star of Jun, 1832 recorded that, "the disciples should lose no time in preparing schools for their children, that they may be taught as is pleasing to the Lord, and brought up in the way of holiness.. Those appointed to select and prepare books for the use of schools will attend to that subject." According to Doctrine & Covenants , Section 55, Oliver Cowdery and William W. Phelps were given that stewardship. Later, Heber C. Kimball, then of the First Presidency, reminded the Saints that "of great importance to all who have families are school books printed for the education of our children which will not be according to the Gentile order." At the time President Wilford Woodruff initiated Latter-day Saint schools, he wrote:

Religious training is practically excluded from the (public) schools. The perusal of books that we value as divine records is forbidden. Our children, if left to the training they receive in these schools, will grow up entirely ignorant of those principles of salvation for which the Latter-day Saints have made so many sacrifices. To permit this condition of things to exist among us would be criminal. the desire in universally expressed by all thinking people in the Church that we should have schools where the Bible , the Book of Mormon and the book of Doctrine and Covenants can be used as text books, and where the principles of our religion may form a part of the teaching of the schools.

Fortunately for Latter-day Saints, the "whys" and "hows" of the education process have been well defined and laid out. Using the direction received, parents must now determine the best educational program for their children. In making that decision, a recent statement from Elder Boyd K. Packer seems particularly leading:

"In many places it is literally not safe physically for youngsters to go to school. And in many schools--and it is almost becoming generally true--it is spiritually unsafe for children to attend public schools. Looking back over the history of education to the turn of the century and the beginning of the educational philosophies; pragmatism and humanism were the early ones, and they branched out into a number of philosophies which have led us now into a circumstance where our schools are producing the problems that we face."
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References to the above citations may be found in the author's book: Revealed Educational Principles & the Public Schools, (1998) from LDS Archive Publishers.