Envisioning BYU: BYU Speeches BYU Speeches

This address was delivered at Brigham Young Academy’s first Founders Day exercises. President Maeser recounted how Brigham Young Academy began with the revelation to Brigham Young of “the necessity for the establishment of a new kind of educational institution for Zion” (page 19). The new educational system was not merely to dupli- cate existing models, for “following . . . in the old

grooves would simply lead to the same results” (page 20). Brigham Young Academy was to be unique. At BYA “neither the alphabet nor the multiplication tables should be taught without the Spirit of God” (page 20). “The spirit of the latter-day work” was to go through the academy “like a golden thread” (page 21). Karl G. Maeser served as president of Brigham Young Academy from 1876 to 1892. This speech was originally printed in Karl G. Maeser: A Biography by His Son by Reinhard Maeser (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1928), 128–32.
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Brigham Young’s famous founding charge to Karl G. Maeser—that he “ought not to teach even the alphabet or the multiplication tables without the Spirit of God”—is well known. It is BYU’s prime directive. Maeser himself referred to the charge as the “one thing constant” and “the mainspring of all her labors” (“History of the Academy,” page 21).

The version here has been excerpted from Reinhard Maeser, Karl G. Maeser: A Biography by His Son (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1928), 76–80; the text has been modernized.
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Excerpts from Doctrine and Covenants 88, 90, and 93, 1832–1833
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The purpose of this preface is to explain the primary scriptural injunctions for education. It thus provides an introduction to this first volume of Envisioning BYU. It is also a personal credo, outlining views that have animated me over the years. This preface was originally delivered as a talk, titled “A Gospel Ground for Education: An Academic Credo,” to BYU graduate students at the Faith and Scholarship Symposium on February 16, 2005.

The Lord commands us to love Him with all our minds, giving us the gospel duty to seek and love learning and truth.
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