Show EDUCATION IN UTAH A JARGE LA number of eastern journals have been misleading the public for several weeks in regard to education in utah this to IS nothing new in itself but it is a new spurt in an old direction the public are led to believe that mormon doctrines are taught in the public schools and that the legislature of utah composed largely of mormons cormons Mor mons persistently refuse to make aj adequate equate provision for the support of public schools in which mormon doctrines are not taught to t the children P we quote from the new york independent and the bos BOB ton the former a prominent religious paper and the latter an a influential secular paper which at both copied from extensively by smaller sheets and their utterance 8 dished up in editorial form by a host hoe of scissor editors the impression is conveyed that tb while some of the public schools here are supported by territorial funds because mormon doctori doc tri others to t are taught in them to receive that support mormon o doctrines we are not taught therein all this is false and inlow injury ous to utah we would not be bur su if the new york D has intentionally kisr misrepresented vr this matter because its bigotry aud bitterness in reference to monao ten ISM have warped its judgment and influenced its veracity the boston herald and its echoes have probably been deceived by the partisan report of the anti and mormon commissioner of schools resigned from which the language of the second of the above quotations was taken by these papers there are sentences in that report which are calculated to carry the impression they have effected and yet they cannot be denounced as literally untrue while they were evidently intended to mislead everybody who is acquainted with the school laws and the school system of this territory knows that they are n and further that no religious doctrines of any kind are taught in them also that the legislature has not persisted in refus 1119 to make adequate provision the support of the public schools i f provision is made and has existed for many years by which the district schools may be adequately sustained the territorial tax for the ae payment of teachers it is true is sot not of sufficient amount to establish schools entirely free to all com coin ells but supplemented by the local tax lax in each school district to be determined ter mined by the resident taxpayers therein funds can be raised to cover sll the expenses of maintaining free public schools including the build iua and furnishing of schoolhouses school houses tile the payment of teachers the supply of f books and all the appurtenances the option is with the people chiefly interested the taxpayers if free schools in the common acceptance of the term are not established the fault is with the people not with their elected representatives in the legislature it is not true that free schools are utterly unknown in utah as heatedly peat edly stated by the press such buch schools chmels have been opened and kept up u by taxation in different parts of the territory and the plan could be 8 made universal under existing territorial laws today if the public chose to have it so but the con census of public opinion here has hae been in favor of the present system which supports schools partly by taxation and partly by tuition fees no reng religious ious tenets are taught in the district schools and the text books an 14 use are selected as the best to be 3 in the united stats states stat s by a con coin authorized by law there has been an occasional and MOdle outcry for free schools in utah but when it has come to the i teat of taxation the pretended champions of the free system have been the first to vote down any proposition leading to its establishment if it was to take money out of their pockets and the greatest cry against the che present system has been from those who had no wool persons who had nothing to tax wanted the taxpayers to bear all the burden of school expenses as well as other public costs that there is room for improvement in the educational system of this territory no one has denied but that the statements which have been made to the country in regard to it are false we most emphatically maintain and in many of the states whose papers are declaiming against school affairs there are far greater imperfections 0 tio ns tha than n I 1 in n ours less school accommodations a lower educational standard and in some of them the very same local option law which they are finding fault with in utah improvements have been in gradual progress here for many years they will continue the true friends of education instead of misrepresenting existing conditions will endeavor to introduce reforms and encourage those which have been commenced the people here in the mass are in favor of educational progress none of them however are greater friends to general and thorough education than the cc mormon leaders and the cunning and malicious official misrepresentation of the facts and of their intentions and doings by which the press and the public have been deceived concerning them has not arisen from any friendship to the cause of school improvement in this territory but from a spirit of intense hostility and hatred against men and a system infinitely super jkr for to their malig ners we assure our contemporaries throughout the county who have been led to believe that mormon nl doctrines are taught in the district schools of utah that they are greatly mistaken and also in their statement that the utah legislature has refused to make provision for the public schools we do not expect many papers to correct the errors which they have been instrumental in disseminating for there is very ery v little disposition among them to take back any mistaken statement about the mormons cormons Mor mons but we feel it our duty to tell the truth and expose the falsehood and place the blame for the deception where it justly belongs |