A Splendid University

A SPLENDID UNIVERSITY. BY MAJOR RICHARD W. YOUNG, PRESIDENT ENSIGN STAKE OF ZION. I have in mind an educational institution, which, every year, graduates nearly one thousand students. Its curriculum, though differing widely from, covers subjects no less important than, those of the typical college course. Rather, might I say, that the course of instruction is, in some respects, infinitely more vital. We scan in vain its schedule of studies for mathematics, Latin, Greek, civil engineering, and the greater part of the studies usually incorporated in a college course. In lieu thereof, we find a superior course in theoretical and practical theology, a thorough training in practical morality and self-sacrifice, and the advantages of extended travel. These branches of education have no place in the customary college course— their unusual character may demand a word of explanation. After all, is it not the true purpose of education to equip us for life's struggle and for life eternal? We study reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and all of the common branches, and to them we add our professional studies, that we may the better be able to surmount the difliculties that lie in our paths. Morals and theology receive but scant attention in the schools; while the invaluable lessons that come from travel are left to be acquired, as chance may permit. And yet the subjects last mentioned are of the highest educational value. To know something of God, and understand in part his purposes; to make a profound study of Christian morals, and to school one's self in moral conduct of the highest and most self-sacrificing nature; to travel, not at railroad

360 IMPROVEMENT ERA. speed through a country, but to live among foreign peoples for months, perhaps for years, and thus to free one's self from the narrowness of the untraveled, and to become acquainted with the manners and customs and modes of thought of other intelligent peoples; — these, though neglected or omitted in the schools, are essential to the completely educated man, supplementary, if you please, to the ordinary education, but none the less vital to our earthly and eternal happiness. The institution to which I refer is one which takes the young man from his farm, workshop, or office, usually at the formative period in his life, when his ideals will be selected and his course of life mapped out, and sends him away, perhaps to Germany, perhaps to England, possibly to far distant Australia, and asks him to devote two or three or four years of his life to a thorough study of that great monument of literature and theology, the Holy Scriptures, to the promulgation and defense of its great truths, to prayer and to supplication. To sow righteousness rather than wild oats; to live and labor for others rather than to strive unceasingly for self; to learn that worldly wealth is evanescent and that eternal riches are imperishable; courageously to face a hostile world in defense of truth, as he views it; manfully to breast the tide rather than to float supinely with it; to be polished by the friction of opposition; to think logically and to speak accurately and fluently; to ponder deeply; to weigh carefully; to come in contact with the people and face to face with their problems, free from the distortions of caste or sectionalism — these are to broaden, deepen, and strengthen, and should lead, as they surely do lead, to a higher type of manhood. Foolish the Latter-day Saint who does not desire for a son, and foolish that son, who does not desire for himself, the inestimable experiences of a "Mormon" mission. Salt Lake City, Utah.