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Life Among the Early Saints
The Saints in Kirtland lived in an agrarian society. Not all of their time, however, was spent in plowing, planting, harvesting, cutting wood, making clothes, preparing foods for the winter, and constructing buildings. During the 1830s they also found time for study, attending school, worship, and prayerful meditation. Their daily lives were generally centered around the family, and families enjoyed long evenings together.
In some respects life in the 1830s was very different from that of individuals in the twentieth century, but in other respects the pattern of living was similar to that encountered by later generations. Like people of today, the early Saints experienced sorrow and suffering, faced constant challenges, and felt joy in working, worshiping, learning, relaxing, and partaking of the beauties of the world in which they lived.
Educational Opportunities
During the 1830s, Kirtland became an educational center, providing schools for missionaries, members in general, and nonmembers, for men and women, young and old alike. Educational opportunities for many persons in the early nineteenth century were meager. Joseph Smith wrote that while he was living in Manchester, New York, he was unable to attend school as often as most teenagers because of the poverty of his family. His early formal education was limited, he said, to a study of the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Many of the revelations Joseph Smith received in Ohio not only commanded Church leaders and missionaries to study various subjects, but also emphasized the importance of education for all members. In June 1831, William W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery were commanded by revelation to select and write books that could be used in the schools established to provide a general education for the Latter-day Saints.