--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Osmond, Alfred collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 17 number: 3 published: 1914-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Alfred Osmond, "Joseph Smith as Educator," *Improvement Era* 17, no. 3 (January 1914): 259–262.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1703unse 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: improvementera1703unse start_page: 259 end_page: 262 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1703unse publication_year: 1914 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 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Joseph Smith as Educator Joseph Smith as Educator BY PROF. ALFRED OSMOND, HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF THE BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY While the world still clings tenaciously to the notion that Joseph Smith was an imposter, it is becoming more and more difficult to account for the man and his works on this presupposition. This is especially true in the field of education. Imposters do not establish great educational systems. The theories of such men usually lack internal harmony and external comprehensiveness. One cogent reason for this must be obvious to all. An imposter is insincere, and there is no adequate substitution for the lack of sincerity in the character of any man. Inglorious failure seems to be the normal penalty for the sin of insincerity. The admission that Joseph Smith was sincere is a step toward rationalizing one's notions of the life and works of this remarkable man. Sincerity, however, is not synonymous with greatness. It is true that the world has not yet produced a great man who was insincere, but its production of sincere failures are simply enourmous. Joseph Smith should be given a prominent position in the front rank of the world's great educators. In this paper I shall present a few of his many claims to this exalted position. We all recognize the fact that this is an intellectual age. Educational theories are springing up on every hand. Never in the history of the world has there been such a general demand for education. Our schools are crowded with throngs of enthusiastic students. Vast sums of monery are placed at the disposal of educational corporations. Public lecturers are eloquent and persistent in their plea for education. In educational matters the voice of the emotionalists is so clear and strong that the vast throngs of educational enthusiasts have neither time nor inclination to listen to the unmusical voice of the prosaic conservative. Was there ever a time when there were so many fads and fancies in our educational life? We try to console ourselves with the thought that we have given up speculative idealism. We have so intellectualized religion that superstition has all been squeezed out of it, and in this preserved state, it is handed over to the special scientist to be labeled as a product of natural or scientific law. The motive, of course, is to make the religious principle practical and scientific. The worth of an education must now be 260 IMPROVEMENT ERA measured in terms of commercial value. I admit that we sometimes make a show of measuring education in terms of rationalistic values. But I still insist that in the last analysis there is a strong tendency to reduce even rational values to utilitarian commodities. In the midst of all this confusion, I present a few of the claims of Joseph Smith to a prominent position in the front rank of the world's great educators. I do not present these claims in the interests of Joseph Smith or his people, but in the interests of education itself. 1. In order to measure the value of these claims, I. shall first define the ideal of education. The purpose of education is to teach one to live the very best life that he is capable by nature of living. If one cultivates a field properly, one has a right to expect the soil to yield its maximum product, both as to quantity and quality. If a horse is properly trained, he will exhibit his maximum strength or speed at the time when he is required to do so. Are we to expect more of a field or of a horse than we expect of a man? The uneducated man is under the dominion of the law of life that demands him to become educated, but I have a right to demand the scholar (that is, the educated man) to live the best life that he is capable by nature of living. I hold that there is no adequate substitution for the ideal of education that I here define. In other words, this is the only worthy ideal of education or of life. I test Joseph Smith, as I would test any other man, in the light of his ideal. Man cannot live his best life without help. It is incumbent upon the educator to give his student a worthy ideal of education. He is never able to give him such helpful service as this. An unworthy ideal will ruin any man, any society, any nation. By the standard that I have adopted, I can now measure the value of service rendered, and the student can measure the greatness of any man. In the first place, the best help that a student can get from a teacher is that help which enables him to understand and accept the ideal that I have defined. After this has been received, the one who points out the safest and most direct path that leads to the ideal, and gives the student the most encouragement on his journey is the greatest teacher. The greatness of the teacher must thus be measured by his capacity for service, and the intensity of his desire to perform the work. The greatest man in th° world is the one who has the greatest capacity for service, together with the strongest desire to give the needed help. In an educational system one must recognize the fact that a technical analysis of human life cannot be made. The educator. JOSEPH SMITH AS EDUCATOR 261 however, must understand, in a general way, the nature of this life in order to conduct it to the goal of its maximum capabilities. The most important fact of human life is that it survives the shock of physical death. The number of great men who have believed that life is a tender plant that is withered and killed by the frosts of death is very small. The human soul seems conscious of its own immortality ; the educator must take advantage of this bias in the human soul. If the soul is immortal, how can one live the best life that he is capable, by nature, of living without believing this significant truth? The doctrine that the soul can never die is a central truth of Joseph Smith's educational system. He understood that the ideal life involved this knowledge. He emphasized the fact that knowledge is eternal. He boldly declared that "the glory of God is intelligence." "It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance." "A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge." Prophets and poets have sung the glory of God from the dawn of creation to the present time, but where is there in all literature a sentence more inspiring and sublime than, "The glory of God is intelligence" ? Perhaps there is no longing in the human soul that is more fundamental than the longing for salvation. The soul shrinks back with inexpressible horror at the mere thought of final destruction. When it feels the glow of immortal life, it knows that the extreme disaster of the opposite must be eternal death. The conflict of these two conceptions finds expression in the earnest cry : "What shall we do to be saved?" The commissioned agents of Jesus Christ in their haste and anxiety have enumerated and explained some of the elementary conditions of salvation : Believe in God and in His Son Jesus Christ. Repent of your sins and be baptized, etc. These instructions were simply intended to turn men's faces in the right direction. They do not explain the character of the process involved in reaching the goal. But these instructions, simple as they are, have been corrupted. Jesus Christ declares : "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." Tense forms are properties of verbs that mark distinctive intervals of time, but if "shall be" can mean "is," these various tense forms should all be abolished. We are told, however, in modern Christianity, that to be converted is to be saved. If we compare the notion that man is saved when he is converted with the doctrine that man is saved no faster than he gains intelligence, we find that the former flatly contradicts the teaching- of Christ, while the latter describes the only possible process ofbecoming saved. A man cannot be saved in his ignorance, because progress is involved in passing from the ignorant to the intellectual state. Intelligence is a potent instrument of prog- 262 IMPROVEMENT ERA ress. The unsaved man improves his condition physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually, by means of this instrument. This improvement is nothing more nor less than becoming saved. This being true, how can a man be saved faster than he improves his condition, and how can he improve his condition faster than he gains intelligence? (TO BE CONCLUDED IN FEBRUARY NUMBER) Elder John W. Mcintosh, St. Johns, Kansas: "The elders and Saints are well and doing all in their power to teach the gospel to the people of Kansas by word and example. We have been able to hold schoolhouse meetings in the country every week during the past two months, and have succeeded in obtaining many friends and investigators. Elders, left to right, top row: Glen Allen, Hyrum; John W. Mcintosh, Burlington, Wyo. ; Marion S. McRae, Independence, Mo.; William Nives, Burlington, Wyo.; Edward Berrett, Ogden, Utah; middle row: Ray S. Harding, Provo; J. E. Manwaring, Farmington : George Bradshaw, Wellsville, Utah; Charles Cardon, Driggs, Idaho; bottom row: Horace Holley, Slaterville, Utah; Joseph W. Greenhalgh, Safford, Ariz., conference president; John O. Bankhead, Paradise, Utah. We pray for the success and the spread of the gospel in the valleys of the mountains as well as in Kansas."