--- 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: 21 number: 3 published: 1918-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "E. G. Peterson, “The Meaning of Education: VII—Education and War,” *Improvement Era* 21, no. 3 (January 1918): 201–202." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2103unse 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: improvementera2103unse start_page: 201 end_page: 202 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2103unse publication_year: 1918 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 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Meaning of Education: VII—Education and War The Meaning of Education By E. G. Peterson, A. M., Ph. D., President Utah Agricultural College VIII — Education and War Education has assumed a new meaning since the beginning of the world war. War in by-gone days was a certain governmental activity in which a group of men, called the army or navy, fought another similar group of the enemy. The remainder of the people were in the nature of onlookers whose support was largely emotional or inspirational and financial. War now is an occupation of practically all the people. The complexity of the present conflict, involving as it does manufacturing of muni- tions and other supplies on a scale undreamed of previously, and involving the issue of supremacy in the air, on land, on the sea and under the sea, and involving also in a very critical way the question of agricultural production and transportation, the com- plexity of this conflict has drawn upon the whole citizenship of the nations at war and especially upon the learning of the na- tions. There must be, if we are to win the war, a plentiful supply of skilled agriculturists, engineers, chemists, physicists, doctors, mechanics, builders, transportation experts, experts on sanitation and economists who can guide the financial issues. I would say with great emphasis that high morality, devotion and sacrifice, will be necessary to win, even granting excellence of all our other equipment of men and money and talent. Indeed this war may be decided by the mothers — by the degree of true mother- hood and the degree of sanctity and reverence which surrounds the vital and beautiful attributes of family life. But this is a subject by itself which will be treated separately. Now we are particularly concerned with the question of the educational necessities of the conflict. We must recognize the fact that Germany, our enemy, is a nation highly developed in the sciences and the arts. Her edu- cational system surpassed that of anv other nation in the world in the estimation of many. Her scholars were scholars of the first water. It has often been strikingly said that the German in his research and his educational endeavor went down deeper and came up muddier than the scholar of any other nation. Be that as it may, German education was thorough. Science was 202 IMPROVEMENT ERA honored, scholarship was honored, and learning was honored, with the result that German manufacturing, German agriculture, German finance and civic control were eminent. The nation was excellent by power of mind. There are those who believe that with this power of mind there was a lack of vision, of spirituality, which brutalized in a way the whole thought of the nation. Be that also as it may, German thought was powerful and the defensive strength of the central powers is in large measure attributable to the downright learning of the Germans. This is the world issue — not only the question of military superiority, but, in the competition which will follow the war, of educational and mental superiority. We must be worthy if we are to achieve in the gruelling processes which from now on will draw all of us to the test. Science has brought us all to- gether— land transportation, aerial navigation, wireless, the gaso- line engine — these have united the world so that no longer may we as in the past be shielded from the competition of a more worthy workman, no longer can we be denied the full reward for our virtues. We can speak and sell to the whole world, therefore our thought and our commercial product must be superior. Great Utah which has the germ of peaceful world dominion in its being, has now an opportunity to excel. Let us know science and the arts as no other people on God's earth have known them. Let us lead our clean-souled young to the very summit of achievement in human thought. And while we do this let us not sacrifice one whit of the supremacy of spirit, the religious exaltation, which already is a source of inquiry by all the peoples of the earth. Logan, Utah