---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 6
number: 4
published: 1903-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Secretaries of General Board Y. M. M. I. A.," *Improvement Era* 6, no. 4 (February 1903): 313.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0604unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera0604unse
start_page: 313
end_page: 313
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0604unse
  publication_year: 1903
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Secretaries of General Board Y. M. M. I. A.

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EDITOR'S TABLE. 313
bishop unless he is a high priest in the Melchizedek priesthood.
(Doc. & Cov. section 106: 69, 71.) The office of elder is an appen-
dage to the high priesthood in the same way that teachers and
deacons are appendages to the Aaronic priesthood (Doc. & Cov.
section 34: 30;) and as all other authorities or offices in the
Church are appendages to the Melchizedek priesthood (Doc. &
Cov. section 107: 5); or as the Aaronic priesthood as a whole is
an appendage to the Melchizedek priesthood. (Doc. & Cov. section
107: 14.)
SECRETARIES OF GENERAL BOARD Y. M. M.   I. A.
The Improvement Era begins the publication of portraits
and sketches of the General Secretaries of the Y. M. M. I. A. in
this number, by presenting a good likeness of Dr. Milton H. Hardy,
to whom the cause of mutual improvement is greatly indebted
for many good ideas, and many years of careful and conscientious
labor. When the organizations were first effected, in 1875, there
wag no thought of a general board. The persons chosen to
organize the associations worked separately, and by consent Dr.
Hardy acted as their secretary. It soon became apparent, however,
that a general body was necessary to most effectively accomplish
the best results; and, as a step towards the organization of a
General Board, Dr. Hardy, who was among the organizers of our
associations, was chosen Territorial Secretary. This was done at
a conference held in Salt Lake City, on April 8, 1876. When the
board (or central committee then called) was finally organized,
on the eighth of December, 1876, Dr. Hardy was chosen as first
assistant or counselor to Superintendent or President Junius F.
Wells, with Rodney C. Badger as second assistant, Mathoni W.
Pratt, treasurer; and John Nicholson, secretary, with Richard W.
Young and George F. Gibbs, assistant secretaries. While Dr.
Hardy can not, therefore, be called the first General Secretary of
the Board, he deserves place in this series as first general or terri-
torial Secretary of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associa-
tions.    Dr. Hardy has continued to work vigorously in the cause,