November 1996 Blazer

Methodists helped to transform Utah schools

THE HISTORY BLAZER I A'EII'S OF UTAH * S PAST FROM THE I I Utah State Historical Society 1 300 Rio Grade Salt Lake Citj: LTT 84101 ( 801) 333- 3500 FAX ( 801) 533- 3503 Methodists Helped to Transform Utah Schools THE MORMONS LEFT ILLINOIS to escape hostility and violence encountered in the Midwest fiom governments and other Christian sects. After only two years of relative isolation came a horde of gold- seekers heading for the California mines. The 49ers were followed in the 1850s by several hundred thousand West Coast- bound immigrants, a quarter of whom veered fa. enough south from the Oregon Trail to pass through Salt Lake City. The discovery of valuable minerals in several locations in Utah, plus the 1869 completion of the transcontinental railroad, ended any remaining hope for Mormon isolation as many outsiders came to Utah to trade, mine, preach, teach, and govern as federally appointed officials. It is not surprising that conflicts arose from this confrontation of cultures. Mormon domination of territorial and local institutions was all the more irritating to newcomers who saw the sect's practices of polygamy, theocracy, and exclusive trade as un- American. With the fervor of do- gooders, some set out to & to civilize the Mormons." Among the civilizers were Methodists. Apparently the fvst known Methodist to enter the Great Basin was Jedediah S. Smith, the mountain man. Decades later, in the 1860s, a string of itinerant Methodist ministers passed through the temtory , some preaching in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. But a lasting Methodist influence did not begin to be felt until 1870 when a church was established in Corime, Box Elder County. Within two years Methodists had arrived in numbers in Salt Lake City, 80 miles south. They, along with some newly arrived Mormon converts, were disappointed with Utah's inferior system of ward schools. Most of the schools lacked well- trained teachers, met only three months a year, and used Mormon scriptures in place of costly textbooks. Thus began a Methodist educational effort that would culminate in the establishment of free, standardized public schools throughout Utah. The campaign was two- pronged. One vanguard was the Utah Mission run by the central church's Home Mission Board. During the 1870s a succession of ministers and missionaries built up churches and congregations with attached schools in Corinne, Salt Lake City, Ogden, Tooele, and Provo. The second vanguard was the national church's Women's Home Mission Society ( WHMS). Between 1882 and 1895 a small corps of women missionaries, teachers, and nurses came to Utah to work with ordained ministers in setting up schools in northern Utah's mining camps, central Utah's small agricultural villages, and along the entire Wasatch comdor. Between the Utah Mission and the WHMS, 42 Methodist schools were created from 1870 I ( more) to 1900. Sixteen schools would continue long enough to exert a profound influence on their communities. In fact, in 1890, 67 percent of Utah students were attending non- Mormon schools, many of them run by the Methodists. In 26 Methodist schools surveyed that year, 1,467 pupils were enrolled including 544 Mormons, 673 apostate Mormons, and 250 Protestants. The cumculum varied. Most Methodist schoo1s taught only basic reading and writing for children and non- English- speaking immigrants. But the Rocky Mountain Seminary in Salt Lake City boasted three departments- grade, intermediate, and academic ( or high school). Throughout the 1870s any Salt Lake family that prized education sent its children there, where courses were available in assayinglmining, oil painting, pencil and crayon sketching, rhetoric, literature, civics, vocal and organ music, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, elocution, moral science, French, German, Greek, and Latin. Many Methodist grade schools closed in 1890 when the Utah Territorial Legislature passed a bill requiring each township to provide free, compulsory education. But the quality and loyalty the Methodist schools had attained ensured the survival for another quarter- century of schools in Ogden, Salt Lake, Murray, Grantsville, Stockton, Payson, Santaquin, Nephi, Moroni, Spring City, and Elsinore. The last Methodist attempts to found schools in Utah were the Beaver and Price academies. Both had closed by 1917, unable to pay debts. The Price school building, however, continued to serve after being sold to the Carbon County School Board. The demise of Utah's Methodist sch001s did not signal failure. After 50 years they had accomplished their purpose: Utahns were " Americanized," and a state school system greatly indebted to the Methodist schools had come into being. Source: 37te First Century of the Methodist Church in Utah ( Salt Lake City: Utah Methodism Centennial Committee, 1970). THE HISTORYB LAZERis produced by the Utah State Historical Society and funded in part by a grant from the Utah Statehood Centennial Commission. For more information about the Historical Society telephone [phone] ( BB)