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Foreword
From
its inception over a century ago, the goal of Brigham Young University
has been to offer "a new kind of education" for Zion, one based on precepts
"revealed by the Lord," as Karl G. Maeser once remarked. Today, BYU is
widely recognized for its deep commitments to inspired religious values
and rigorous intellectual learning.
An
environment that nurtures both spiritual and academic experience does
not emerge accidentally. This effort to educate Zion has been guided and
shaped by wise leaders who have spoken about learning not only with the
mind, but also with the spirit. This volume gathers several of those key
speeches delivered at BYU by Church and university authorities.
The
most famous foundational instruction was given by Brigham Young to Karl
G. Maeser not to teach even the multiplication tables without the Holy
Ghost. This counsel has offered guidance to BYU educators in many ways.
For example, the Holy Ghost softens hearts so that teaching can occur
in an atmosphere of human kindness and the love of Christ, with deep respect
for the divine potential in all human beings, along with frequent affirmations
of the truth and goodness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The
Holy Ghost also guides teachers in discerning between truth and error,
in choosing between good and evil, and in deciding what they should teach
or when and how they should say things. Moreover, revelations provide
axioms from which reason can derive useful and insightful implications.
Teaching with the Holy Ghost thus involves identifying those propositions,
examining them coherently, and determining their potential or inevitable
consequences. Overriding all of these intellectual activities is the witness
of the Holy Ghost that all religious and scholarly truths are to be woven
together into an integrated whole. Ultimately, BYU and Church leaders
desire the Holy Ghost to be felt in education in order to engender ethical
behavior and moral service that will improve conditions in society as
a whole and will bring praise to God and eternal life to all his children.
For
Latter-day Saints, the gospel of Jesus Christ offers the means to infuse
secular institutions with the Spirit of the Lord and thus to shape and
use worldly experience to achieve righteous purposes.
To
these ends, the priorities established by the Church for higher education
in Zion come through loud and clear in these speeches. First and foremost
is the goal of providing an education for eternity. Second is the spirit
of faith and confidence to pursue excellence and attract the best and
most moral minds of our age, both as scholars and as students. Third,
steady tendencies toward secularization, trendy extremes, academic vogues,
and religious dogmatism are to be avoided. Fourth, membership in the BYU
community assumes a sacred trust. These and many other fundamental characteristics
of education in Zion are consistently taught and reinforced in these selected
speeches.
We
hope this collection will keep these basic principles accessible to new
and old members of this house of learning and will help to instill those
values in the lives of all who might pass this way. Several of these speeches
are published here for the first time. These talks have been gathered
from among many in BYU Studies,
BYU Special Collections and Manuscripts, Brigham
Young Magazine, the annual University
Conference addresses, BYU Speeches
of the Year, and other similar sources
at BYU. We are grateful to Jennifer Hurlbut, Doris Dant, Nancy Lund, and
others on the BYU Studies staff who have labored to bring this publication
to light. Except for minor formatting, editing, and occasional ellipses,
these speeches are reproduced here in the form in which they were originally
delivered.
John W. Welch
Don E. Norton
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