Men Who Lead

Men Who Lead By Lowry Nelson, Director Extension Division, BrigJwm Young University Nobody knows, perhaps, just what it is that places the magic stamp of leadership upon a man; but everyone recognizes the stamp. Each day the call of great needs and great oppor- tunities singles out one amongst us and places the garland of the leader upon his brow. Each day the conflict of forces within and without measures his strength. If he is genuine he will push forward to final conquest over evil. If he is honey-combed with insincerity he will go down in the strife. The call for leaders is not to the few; it is to all. In a great democracy such as the Church of Jesus Christ the door of opportunity stands open to everyone. But it is not a draft; it is a standing call for volunteers. He who will may serve; he who serves, leads. Not everyone will answer the call. "Many are called but few are chosen." In the final analysis leaders are not really "chosen." Thev choose themselves. They determine in their own souls whether they will answer the call. True, there are many who are chosen before they are born. They are innately endowed with the qualities of personality and body which set them apart from the rest and characterize them. But there are many who are en- dowed in this manner who are not leaders. Why? Because they have not prepared themselves. They have not spoken unto their own souls and said, "I will rise up out of this and go forth answering the call. I will make myself prepared for great things. I will grasp the opportunity today, be it ever so small, to serve my fellowmen. I will study and improve my mind, il will learn the lessons of success. Someday my great op- portunity will arrive." "Where is there a man who will do this piece of work?" asks the waiting world. The question is broadcasted every- where. It is not sent to a limited mailing list. But the re- sponses, like the answers to the average questionnaire, are very few. Why? Because men will not choose themselves. Most great leaders are really self-appointed in this sense. They have dared to take responsibility. They have had confidence in themselves; have prepared themselves for the doing of great things; and above all, they have had desire and will to serve. What is it that places the magic stamp of leadership upon a man? God and the man himself. Provo, Utah

Spiritual Development Needed in Education * Specific Purpose of the Church School System By President Heber J. Grant I am deeply interested and always have been so in our Church School System. Man is, as we all know, a triple being; there is the spirit first and foremost, then the mind or in- tellect, and lastly the body. Unless the spirit is properly edu- cated, our education is not complete and we have a lop-sided individual. When I was a young man, in reading some statistics, I was astonished to find that there was a higher percentage of edu- cation within the state penitentiary of Massachusetts than there was outside of it; that is, that the average was better in the penitentiary than in the remainder of the state. This made a very profound impression upon my mind. From that time until the present, I have seen nothing and read nothing but what has confirmed me in the conviction that the mere de- velopment and improvement of the body and the intellect by education, without developing the spirit, does not accomplish what education ought to do for a person. To my mind, and I have repeated it time and time again whenever I have spoken in our Church Schools and in private in regard to schools, the specific purpose of the Church School system is to make Lat- ter-day Saints — to educate the heart, so to speak. The heart is the engine and if it is alright, we can generally get along pretty well so far as the head and the other parts of the body are concerned; but unless the heart of a man is right, unless a man is determined to do good, unless he believes in God and in Jesus Christ, and believes in the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith, he cannot accomplish what he might achieve in this Church if he had that knowledge. It is to im- plant that knowledge in the hearts of the people that we have a school system, and if the Church school system fails to do this, it will not have accomplished the thing for which it was organized, that which is expected of it, and which we all hope and pray for it to do. I am very sorry indeed that a great many simply study and learn the words, so to speak, the letter of things, without get- ting the spirit of them. The spirit, we are told, gives life and animation and power, and it is to develop the spirit of man that we have established this Church school system. Last year, *Remarks at the Church School Convention, Oct. 18, 1922.

1092 IMPROVEMENT ERA counting what the good people paid for tuition, over one mil- lion dollars were expended in our Church school system. That is a tremendous amount of money; yet I think it was very well expended. I believe it was well worth it. I said once, that if the University at Provo, originally known as the Brig- ham Young Academy, had done no more than to have con- verted and made a thorough Latter-day Saint of Stephen L. Chipman, it was worth all it had cost up to the time that he graduated. I have often remarked that if all of our mission- aries who have gone to Germany had never accomplished any- thing more than the converting of one man, Karl G. Maeser, it was worth all of the expenditure, because one splendid worker for the Church of Christ here on the earth, a man devoting his life, thought, care and all the ability that he possesses for the advancement of God's kingdom, will assist in the salvation of very many souls; and a single soul saved is of more value thi<n the wealth or intelligence of the world, because without salva- tion our wealth or intelligence will be of no particular value to us. Every Latter-day Saint should have before his eyes the great prize, the pearl of great price — life eternal — the great- est thing in all the world that can be secured by the labor in which we are engaged, and we should never lose sight of that. I believe that the teacher who has a love of God and a knowl- edge of Him, a love of Jesus Christ and a testimony of His divinity, a testimony of the divine mission of the Prophet Jo- seph Smith; who implants these things in the hearts and very beings of the children he is teaching, that such a teacher is engaged in one of the noblest and most splendid and remark- able labors that any person can be engaged in. I have always had a splendid and high regard for teachers e^er since I myself once tried to teach. I taught penmanship and bookkeeping in the old Deseret University, now the Uni- versity of Utah. I never realized how difficult it was to con- vey one's ideas to somebody else until I engaged in teaching. I would borrow a half dollar from the boys and tell them to make an entry of it, and almost invariably, they would credit me with that half dollar, and when I made out a bill and re- quested them to pay the debts according to their own books, they would complain and say, "Why, you owe me the half dollar." I would say, "Your own book and your own hand- writing testify that you owe me a half dollar and I want you to pay your debts," and I had to adopt a great many methods of that kind to hammer such things into the heads, so to speak, of those whom I was trying to teach bookkeeping. It gave me a remarkable respect for those who are engaged in the occupa- tion of teaching.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDEED 1093 It has fallen to my lot to visit a great many of our Church schools, small and large, and frequently to meet with teachers and students of the Latter-day Saint University, and occasionally with those in Prove I regret that the charters of the Brigham Young College and of the Brigham Young University are of such a character that I have to stand at the head of these schools. I regret this because I do not believe as much can be accomplished by having an ex-officio person at the head of them, for my time is so occupied that practically I can give no personal attention to these institutions. Good would be accomplished if we could so arrange it that some individual who could be on the ground and take a more active part were the president. But that is getting away from my subject. The whole sum and substance of my subject is contained in the fact that there is one thing, and only one, that these schools ought to do, and that is to make Latter-day Saints; and, as the salvation of the children of God here on the earth is the purpose for which the Gospel has again been revealed, that is the reason for the establishment of these schools, and the specific reason. Unless these schools had been established, I believe that some of the strongest, best and most noble work- ers in the Church of Christ would not be such noble workers, would not have their faith, would have gone away for their education without a love of God in their hearts, and would not today be numbered in the membership of the Church. I believe that as a cold-blooded business proposition, we should try to discern and find out the spirit of men and women teach- ing in these schools, to see to it that we haven't somebody teaching there just because there is as good a salary as thev could get somewhere else or because they can do better fi- nancially, and who pay their tithing simply because they are working in the Church school system, as I know some have done, for the day they got another job they discontinued pay- ing their tithing. When we can get rid of every teacher who has not the love of God and the love of Jesus Christ and the love of this work and of implanting in the hearts of the chil- dren the testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and have only those who are determined to make Latter-day Saints, then this school system will grow more rapidly than it has in the past, and the specific object for which it was created will be more rapidly attained. May the Lord bless each and everyone of you in your labors is my prayer and desire, and I desire this and pray for it with all the strength I possess, and ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.