If the Lord will grant me utterance, I desire to outline a basic required
curriculum for the gospel-centered family of which President Kimball has
spoken today.
When the family is in trouble, the world is disturbed. As the prophet has
said, a major purpose of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is
to strengthen the home. Home and family are the most important, the most
influential institutions of society, educational as well as religious.
Teachers, universities, and schools are important. But more important are
the homes from which professional teachers come. Classmates are influential.
But more influential are the homes from which the classmates come. The
restored Church proclaims that the family may be an eternal family.
Gospel-centered family living helps us to reach these goals.
The education received by children in their first two years is vital. The
attitudes, the sounds, the quality of speech, the expression experienced,
the reverence, kindness, the cruelty demonstrated in these critical years
influence the future. The home may not be expert in plasma physics. We leave
that to the universities. But it should be expert in teaching true
self-identity as a child of God. The hymn declares, “Prayer is the simplest
form of speech / That infant lips can try” (Hymns, no. 220). Such lips may
later reap the blessings set forth in the book of Proverbs:
“Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles” (Prov.
21:23).
The educational testimony set forth in the opening lines of the Book of
Mormon is challenging and instructive:
“I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught
somewhat in all the learning of my father; …
“… which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the
Egyptians” (1 Ne. 1:1–2; italics added).
“Therefore I was taught. …” Can our children record such a fact? The
learning of the Jews included effort to engrave on the minds and hearts of
children Moses’ prophetic instructions from the book of Deuteronomy:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy might.
“And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of
them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way.”
(Deut. 6:5–7.)
In 1775 John Adams, designing a new nation in Philadelphia, wrote his wife
Abigail of his concern for the nation’s future leadership. She replied, “If
we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, … we should have learned
women” (Quoted in Page Smith, John Adams, New York: Doubleday, 1962, vol. 1,
pp. 221–22).
Which reminds me of the lines written by Clara Horne Park of Draper, Utah,
at the age of ninety-three:
I’ve heard a lot of good things said
About what the Pilgrim fathers did. …
I wonder who fed them and brought them a drink,
Kept the children away when they wanted to think.
It must have been strange with so many others,
Not to have had any Pilgrim mothers.
What shall we teach our children? The Lord has outlined the basic
curriculum, as the prophet quoted to us this morning, in section 68, verses
25 to 30. [D&C 68:25–30] Let us examine this somewhat.
First, teach “the doctrine of repentance.” To some the word may sound
ominous, but none need shrink from it. It is the road to progress. The most
glorious opportunities for true joy and happiness are found in this
doctrine.
Second, teach “faith in Christ the Son of the living God.” Children taught
to have faith in him can follow his example in doing good to all. Such will
serve well their fellow beings.
In his ten-volume study of history, Professor Arnold Toynbee has written
that when a society begins to disintegrate, the following ways of behavior
appear: people feel that the world is ruled by chance; vulgarity and
barbarism in manners appear; traditional values are replaced by iconoclasm.
People turn to various remedies: to the so-called creative genius, the
sword, archaism, futurism, or to Plato’s philosopher king. All these fail,
says the record of history as read by Toynbee. And “a single figure arises
from the flood and … fills the whole horizon” (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1947, abridgement of vols. 1–4, p. 547; see also abridgement of vols.
8–10, pp. 376–77). That figure is the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The first lines written by Christopher Columbus in the journal of his first
voyage are these: “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Bjorn Landstrom,
Columbus, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1967, p. 54). Thus begins that
historic record. When Bartolome Las Casas, with the help of Columbus’s son
Ferdinand, abridged the journal, he recorded that when they landed on
October 12, 1492, the admiral kneeled and then rose and named the first
landfall San Salvador, holy Savior—the first land named by the Europeans.
(See Landstrom, p. 68.)
We proclaim faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the saving principle for
mankind. That salvation begins with the instruction to children.
Third, teach “baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of
hands, when eight years old.” This provides entrance to the Church itself, a
large family circle. The gift of the Holy Ghost follows as the means of
leading us into all truth.
Section 68, verses 25 to 28, [D&C 68:25–28] outlines required courses in the
family curriculum. For “inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any
of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand” these
things, the Lord has said “the sin be upon the heads of the parents.”
Fourth, to make such teaching effective, the Lord has said in this same
section: “Parents shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk
uprightly before the Lord.
“And the inhabitants of Zion shall also observe the Sabbath day to keep it
holy.” (D&C 68:28–29.)
Fifth and finally, diligent, intelligent industry must be taught as the key
to all this and to all achievement. All inhabitants of Zion are counseled in
this section “to labor in all faithfulness” (D&C 68:30). Work habits are
best taught at home.
I pray that fathers will magnify their callings as true priesthood leaders
and by example teach love for these principles in their families. Mothers,
cherish, love, encourage, teach respect, and inspire your children as only
mothers can do. Joseph Smith was and remains a prophet. The Lord Jesus
Christ lives as the Son of the Eternal Father and is the head of this, his
restored church. President Spencer W. Kimball presides today as the Lord’s
living prophet. I so testify in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.