--- 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: 24 number: 9 published: 1921-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"Training Our Future Citizens,\" *Improvement Era* 24, no. 9 (July 1921): 783." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2409unse 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: improvementera2409unse start_page: 783 end_page: 783 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1921-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2409unse publication_year: 1921 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 1921, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Training Our Future Citizens GLIMPSES OF PIONEER LIFE 783 The simple record of this mission, occupying fifty-five pages, should be an inspiration to any boy in Zion looking forward himself to this kind of service in the Lord's vineyard. It will tell him of hardships and trials endured stoically and overcome; of faith tested to the quick and vindicated of experiences so full ; of the tang of life that no fiction can equal them for vividness; of dangers by sea and land, which only the daily watch care of a guardian angel could protect and rescue him from; and, through it all, the development of a fine physical manhood, and the rebirth and unfoldment of that greater spiritual man within. Elder Young filled a subsequent mission to the Sandwich Islands, also a mission to Great Britain; and while much of the narrative of these missions is of a character to be enjoyed mainly by those who have had similar experiences, it breaks out every little while in story, anecdote, description, and poem, on topics which only the missionary, with an eye to the unique, the pic- turesque, and the beautiful, would see or take time to record. During his long years in Zion, Elder Young's life was spent on the firing line of the frontier, and his book is full of the graphic happenings of field and flood. Savage Indians, deputy marshals, and of traveling, camping reunions, and business ventures. There is not a dull line in the book. Throughout its pages we have for a companion a man of keen insight, shrewd initiative, dauntless courage, and the tender sensibilities of a woman. That he is still hale and hearty bespeaks wonders for the frail boy that the prophet blessed, far back in Nauvoo. It is Elder Young's delight to travel throughout the stakes of Zion and impart the ripe wisdom and genial optimism which are the fruits of his life, and the Bishop who fails to get him for an evening with his ward is missing a privileged treat. What is still more to the point, when stories like those he has to tell, and which he tells with such instinlctive skill nay, — when a life of service such as his has been, shall cease to thrill the descendants of the Pioneers, that day will mark a decadence in our ideals; we shall have begun to lose the savor of the salt which represents the vitality of "Mormonism" in its mission for the regeneration of the world. Provo, Utah Training Our Future Citizens "Children trained to extend justice, kindness and mercy to animals just, kind and considerate toward each other. Character become more will result in their training along these lines when the children are young, being better men and women, with broader sympathies, more humane, law-abiding, and in every respect more valuable citizens."