“The View from …” series is a collection of writings, usually without editorial comment from me, that showcase historic LDS teachings or assumptions about the roles of women. This one calls for some editorial comment to explain why I’m including it in this series.
After the first few paragraphs about women’s involvement as Sunday School teachers of the tiniest children, Pres. Smith shifts to a discussion of men’s involvement in Sunday School. This is not merely a simple outline of two different roles. Men’s involvement is discussed explicitly in contrast to what women are capable of doing or competent to teach – nearly everything he writes about men is therefore commentary on women.
The Priesthood in the Sunday School.
By Joseph F. Smith
I have some general thoughts and ideas in relation to the duties that belong to the priesthood.
It is easy for me to conceive of the Kindergarten class of our Sunday Schools being wholly, or almost wholly if not quite, under the supervision and direction of the sisters, and I think that it is proper to have sisters plentifully connected with all the branches of the Sunday School. I think it would be very inefficient work to conduct, or to attempt to conduct, a Sunday School without the assistance of our sisters, more or less, in all the different branches of the work done. I can see the absolute necessity of the Kindergarten Department being under the supervision of the sisters, and practically entirely so, and yet not altogether, for the reason that all the organizations of the church should be under the supervision and kind and fatherly care of those who hold the presiding authority.
Even the Kindergarten curse in the Sunday School should be supervised and looked after carefully by those holding the priesthood. And yet the work naturally belongs to the sisters, and especially young ladies who are free to give their attention particularly to the training of the little ones. As the mother is the proper custodian and teacher of the infant and from the infant on up to the child that would rank with the Kindergarten class, so it is proper for the sisters to teach this class in the Sunday School, and be associated with it.
But I can scarcely conceive that it would be good propriety to exclude all the influence and guiding power of the priesthood from any other department of the Sunday School, and especially from those classes where our boys are a little wayward sometimes, and hard to get along with and properly control, and especially very difficult for the sisters to control. All these classes should be directly under the general supervision and direction of those holding the priesthood.
One reason why this should be so is this: that our children should begin to learn from the beginning that there is Divine authority in the Church, and they should be taught to respect that authority, and if they are in a class in school where they suppose there is no authority or priesthood, they are liable to take greater liberties and become more unruly by far than they would if they were taught properly that under the guiding influences of the priesthood they should be decorous and well behaved.
I think that our Bishops and Sunday School superintendents, from the superintendency of the ward upward, should see to it that every Sunday School should be supplied with capable teachers who carry with them the authority and the rights of the holy priesthood. I think that our brethren should not exclude themselves for any reason from this meritorious work.
One of the greatest, one of the most important organization sin the Church is the Sunday School. It has to deal with that element amongst us that needs to be started out right; for if children are not brought under proper influences at home and in the Sunday School, and have not the privilege of being started out just right, they may get started off wrong, and when they do get started off wrong, it may be a very difficult thing to turn them around and get them to go right. No man, it seems to me, could be better qualified for this labor than one holding the priesthood, in connection with other needful qualifications.
A man holding the priesthood ought to be fully as well qualified, if not a little better, than one not holding the priesthood, in the management of children. There ought to be a sacredness connected with divine authority exercised in love and kindness, but in firmness and with dignity, and with all other appropriate means to impress the children with the sanctity of an authority that has been restored from the heavens to the earth, from God to man, in the dispensation of the fullness of times. The authority and right of presidency and of guiding, directing, counseling and advising belongs to the priesthood, and it should be exercised in our Sunday Schools for the benefit of the rising generation.
[paragraphs not reproduced here, about how Seventies, Elders, Priests and Teachers should make themselves available to the Sunday School, and how the Sunday School should prepare boys for becoming priesthood holders.]
All these little things that seem to be small ought to be instilled into the minds of our little boys from the time they begin to go to school, or as soon as they are able to go to school, and those ordained to the priesthood ought to take up these things and see to it that the youth of Zion, the children of the people of God, shall be taught in these principles of the gospel and of the holy priesthood, with all their bearings, meaning, influence and power for good among men.
So that I think we should not deprive our Sunday Schools of men who are clothed with the holy priesthood, and should be there actively engaged as teachers of our children. They should take up these questions and teach them to the children, in order that they may be brought to a proper conception of what they are, what they mean, how sacred they should be held, and that they should not be regarded lightly, but with great reverence. The priesthood is sacred. it is God’s power restored to man on earth. it is God’s authority delegated to man, and our children should be taught it from the very cradle up.
Now may the Lord bless the Sunday Schools and the teachers thereof, and I trust that the priesthood quorums and the presidents of stakes of Zion, members of High Councils and the Bishops of wards, the teachers, and those who act as teachers in the wards will take an interest, and those presiding will exercise an influence, in the way of supplying our Sabbath Schools bounteously with good teachers who themselves appreciate the value of the priesthood which has been conferred upon them and who hold it sacred themselves and are striving to honor it in their lives. May God help us to do it well.
When did the Primary and Sunday School separate?
They were separate from the beginning, HokieKate. It was only with the consolidated meeting schedule in 1970-whatever-it-was, when Primary was moved from a weekday to Sunday, that the Primary replaced Sunday School for the children.
Ardis — it was January 1980 that the consolidated meeting schedule came into effect, eliminating Junior Sunday School.
In one ward I lived in, I was the Primary teacher for a class of four boys and three girls. Five of those children did not have a father in the home, one of them had a father who did not bear the priesthood, and then there was my son, who both had a father and a priesthood bearer in the home. The Primary president told me, when I was called, that she deliberately called men to teach that class that could be an example of a worthy priesthood bearer to both the boys and the girls. (No pressure!) All I can say is I did my best, and I went through a lot of spiritual growth always ensuring I was a good example of the priesthood. They “moved me up” each year with that class; I ended up teaching those children for four years. Through the years (these kids are in their 30’s now) I have received letters announcing missions and church callings, while thanking me for the example I set. I think, when all is said and done, the example a man teacher can set as a priesthood bearer is one of the reasons to keep a few men teachers around. I in no way discount the sisters who have taught me all my life and set equally positive examples of Womanhood, but I’m equally grateful for the men who have also taught me. I think all children can benefit from both.
My question stemmed from confusion as to why/when the Sunday School was even involved at all in the religious education of children. The word “Primary” doesn’t appear in this article. I guess I never realized that the children’s Sunday School wasn’t run by the Primary organization. Today the Sunday School runs classes for ages 12 and older. The Sunday School presidency has no authority over callings and teachings in the Primary classes.
Ah, that gives context to your question, certainly.
LDS Sunday Schools in Utah began in 1849 (they existed earlier in Britain, where Sunday School was a widespread Christian institution) — and they were only for children. It took quite a while for adults and even teens to be brought into the Sunday Schools. It was a male-run program, for the most part, with women, especially very young ones, teaching the younger classes.
Primary began in 1878, for boys and girls up to the age welcomed by the newly organized Mutual Improvement Associations. Primary was a weekday activity, and from the beginning was entirely female led, both in presidency and teachers. Primary was completely separate from Sunday School — its own program, goals, activities, etc.
There was another religious education auxiliary for Mormon kids, as central to Mormon instruction as either the Primary or Sunday School, that existed for years on either side of 1900 (I’ll have to google to pin down the dates). This was “Religion Class,” which at least in Mormon dominated areas met on a weekday after the close of the regular school day, once a week, for 30 or 60 minutes depending on age, for all LDS children up through 8th grade. They usually met in the same schoolrooms where the children had spent the whole day, and classes were often — but sometimes not — taught by the same school teachers who had spent the rest of the day teaching the same kids their ABCs. Religion Class was almost always run by men in the presidencies but taught as often by women as by men since women dominated elementary school teaching.
So there were three Church auxiliaries running at the same time to teach religion to LDS kids: Sunday School, Primary, and Religion Class. Religion Class went away first, because of the kinds of political concerns you might imagine, and Primary and Sunday School ran concurrently until the consolidated meeting schedule, which, as Bruce notes, occurred in 1980. Before 1980, Sunday School swept in all Mormons from 3 or 4 (depending on the era we’re talking about) up to adult — the smallest children were usually segregated in a “Junior Sunday School” when a ward was large enough to divide the children that way.
Now, of course, it’s Primary for just the little kids, and Sunday School for just 12 and up. Sunday School is still run by men, so far as it is run at all by anybody but the teachers; Primary is run by women, with men now teaching some classes. You know all that — what might be not so well known is that in the first year or two after the meeting schedule change, a lot of wards started putting in male Primary presidencies, until the Church stopped that by saying that Primary had always been and would continue to be led by women. I’ve heard some people complain that this devalues the men — I don’t buy that; men preside virtually everywhere else, and I think men would have driven women out of Primary leadership entirely had the Church not made that decision.
Thanks, Ardis! Since all my church experience is post-correlation I really appreciate learning how things used to work.
I had no idea about Religion Class!
Handbook 1 still directs bishops that only women can be called to the Primary presidency. In my experience, men are often called to teach the 10-11 year old boys, partially because they double as scout leaders, and partially because they are still match JFS description as
Since the directive about 5 years back that all male primary teachers must teach in pairs, we’ve had very, very few men called, mostly because the ward can’t spare the manpower.
The other item that stood out to me is JFS’s use of “priesthood” as a synonym for “men of the church.” Elder Oaks would be appalled.
This is kind of like Religion Class. My fourth grade school teacher was also my Sunday school teacher. Fortunately she was one of those wonderful, life-influencing super teachers. We knew that we were the luckiest kids in the world. She was also my neighbor and we got to spend time at her house too. I still love Mrs. Gooch.
I’ve heard rumor of men serving as RS president when needed. Was this ever an actual thing?
I know of some early 20th century circumstances in Scandinavia where the men took over the Relief Society — literally took it over, installing themselves as presidencies and allowing the women to attend if they sat in the back and didn’t take part — but that was an anomaly of overreaching and misunderstanding rather than need, and was one of the several things that John A. Widtsoe set right when he toured the missions as European Mission President.
I have a hard time imagining men serving as RS presidents beyond, perhaps, the limited direction of a missionary in some mission where it was all brand new. If there are women to form a RS, then there would be no reason not to have one of those women serve as president. I’m unaware of any such thing, beyond the weirdness I mentioned above.
When we were stationed at the Pentagon in the 1990’s, an old man in our ward, named Bob Jones, told us about serving as the YW president in an English-speaking LDS church group (five families) in Cairo, Egypt, that was made up of families from the Diplomatic Corps. He even earned his YW medallion; had the certificate framed and hanging in his home library. Such a thing is very, very much an exception and would probably only happen in a situation such as he found himself in while he was stationed at the Embassy there.
One difference between having a man lead YW and a man lead RS is that YW leaders are usually if not always adults leading youth, while RS leaders are drawn from the women who are served by their own organization. While in rare circumstances like yours it might be necessary to draw on a male leader if there is to be any adult leadership at all, I can’t conceive of a situation where there are women to form a Relief Society where it would be necessary to call someone from outside that group to lead the group. That would be something like calling a priest as president of the Laurels class.
I agree 100% I cannot conceive of any reason that a man would be called to lead the RS. That would totally defeat the entire reason for the organization! That would be completely counter to the Lord’s plan for his daughters.