This postBack in the 1840s, the Saints established the University of Nauvoo. Joseph Smith said that it was to “enable us to teach our children wisdom — to instruct them in all knowledge, and learning, in the Arts, Sciences and Learned Professions. We hope to make this institution one of the great lights of the world, and by and through it, to diffuse that kind of knowledge which will be of practical utility, and for the public good, and also for private and individual happiness.” It lasted only six years before closing its doors in 1846.
Turns out it wasn’t actually dead, though — it was just hibernating. It’s reopening in fall 2009 as the newly reorganized Nauvoo University. (Thanks to Donna for the heads up.) It’ll be small at first, of course, but hopefully it’ll really take off.
Pres. Eyring talked a little about the university back in a 2001 CES fireside, Education for Real Life:
“In 1840, Joseph Smith sought the incorporation of the City of Nauvoo, Illinois, and along with it authority to establish a university. The Nauvoo charter included authority to ‘establish and organize an institution of learning within the limits of the city, for the teaching of the arts, sciences and learned professions, to be called the “University of the City of Nauvoo”‘ (quoted in Salisbury, p. 269).
“The first academic year in Nauvoo was that of 1841–42. The university probably was among the first municipal universities in the United States (Rich, p. 10)…. The curriculum included languages (German, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew), mathematics, chemistry and geology, literature, and history…. ‘The faculty represented considerable scholarship [compared with what you would expect to find in a frontier city in those early days]’ (Bennion, p. 25).
“… The charter of the University of the City of Nauvoo served as the foundation for the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah), established by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City in 1850. ‘Education,’ he once told that school’s Board of Regents, ‘is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life’ (Bennion, p. 115). He advised: ‘A good school teacher is one of the most essential members in society’ (JD 10:225)” (in Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 5 vols. [1992], 2:442–43).
When the Saints in Utah were still struggling to produce enough food to live, they started schools. They felt driven to lift their children toward light and to greater usefulness by education. That drive is more than a cultural tradition passed on through the generations. It is the natural fruit of living the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I love that — growing towards light through education is the natural fruit of the gospel. Mmm.
