---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - E. G. Peterson
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 19
number: 8
published: 1916-06
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'E. G. Peterson, "The Meaning of Education," *Improvement Era* 19, no. 8 (June 1916): 705.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1908unse
  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: improvementera1908unse
start_page: 705
end_page: 705
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1916-06)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1908unse
  publication_year: 1916
  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 1916, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Meaning of Education

<!-- page:705 -->

THE MEANING OF EDUCATION                          705

those thousands of clean-browed women who preside in the homes
of Utah, the mothers who have reared this race of strong men.
Here you will find culture sometimes without great learning, and
sometimes with sound learning, culture which shows itself in a
fine regard for the rights of others, patience, purposeful devotion,
industry well applied, reverence for sacred things, sacrifice in the
interest of the generations to come, and through it all out-
standing faith. Such culture has. come from the rough experi-
ences of life, toil that the children may be served, conquered
heartaches because life has been hard and the future slow to
unfold, shattered hopes only to be built again, cruelties of a some-
times heartless human system of life which crushes those who
unknowingly impede, and even from the pain which is the price
paid for the privilege of parenthood.
      All this human experience enriches the mind and the soul, if
it is met in proper spirit, and if it is interpreted soundly.   To be
 sure, if life means only the material thing of living it, such ex-
 periences only harrass and embitter.       If life means a stage of
preparation, a testing fire in which the gold and the dross are
 separated, such experiences only add meaning to existence.
      So, a college is only a thing which in its idea and its embodi-
 ment many wise generations have built, and with which we boun-
 teously are blessed, to hasten human experiences.          A college
 should be a concentration of life's experiences. Here in shorter
 time than elsewhere we should learn the fine things the world has
 done in the past, the rich store of science which thousands of
 generations have accumulated, the arts which man has developed
 from the art of tilling the soil to the art of painting a picture.
 It may take you ten years out of school to learn what you could
 learn in two years in school.       If a college does not give the
 young this better opportunity, it fails.
     We    sometimes encounter the being who enquires "What col-
 lege have you been graduated from?" and disdainfully refuses
 to admit your standing unless you can name an institution of
 learning.    How much more sound the question "What rough
                                                    :

experiences have you battled, and was your mind calm and your
faith undaunted at the end?"      Bless the men and the women
whose experiences reach back in the rough places of our early life,
the canal diggers, the range riders, the desert reclaimers, the
home builders, and the ones who made possible the fuller oppor-
tunities of this age.
     There are more educated men out of college than in college.
College is only a help, an improved modern institution toward
culture, and as such is one of the great blessings of modern life,
to be carefully guarded and nurtured that it may serve the thou-
 sands who deserve.
I.OGAN, UTAH