Education among the Mormons: Brigham Young and the Schools of Utah
1982; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 22; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/368068
ISSN1748-5959
Autores Tópico(s)Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies
ResumoIN THEIR 150-year history the Mormons have undergone a metamorphosis. From a position where they were considered moral pariahs, they have emerged as the very models of decorum and moral respectability. In the nineteenth century their founder, Joseph Smith, was martyred in Illinois; they were driven from Missouri under a governor's extermination order; hundreds were jailed as prisoners of conscience in Utah for refusal to abandon polygamy; and their prophets were pursued by federal marshals as fugitives from justice. The popular attitudes towards these 19th-century social outcasts are a far cry from the image reflected by the activities of some prominent Mormons in the 20th-century: Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson; Michigan Governor, George Romney; Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall; Secretary of the Treasury, David Kennedy; U. S. Commissioner of Education, Sterling M. McMurrin; the current Secretary of Education, T. H. Bell; and Florida's Senator Paula Hawkins, the second woman ever elected to the U. S. Senate. Other Mormons who have caught the public eye (and ear) include television inventor, Philo Farnsworth; Harvey Fletcher, developer of stereophonic sound; Henry Eyring, recipient of the prestigious Priestly Medal in chemistry; and such heroes of middle America as the Osmonds and Merlin Olson, defense tackle for the Los Angeles Rams. The perception of the Mormon educational point-of-view has also shifted: once considered proponents of ignorance and gullibility, they are now seen as unalloyed supporters of educational advancement. Given the current interest in the relationship between public education and an emerging private school movement with strong religious underpinnings, it may be instructive to examine how the Mormons responded historically to schooling-private and public-in Utah during the 19th-century. To this end, this essay will examine the Mormon response to education by (1) briefly describing some 20th-century claims made about the Mormon commitment to education, (2) examining the historic development of public schooling in Utah, and its relationship to the thinking of Brigham Young, and (3)
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