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The Light of Learning
A SPIRIT OF LEARNING actuated the early leaders of the colony and from the leaders passed on to every townsmember.
A rapid influx of settlers and constant expansion made possible the rapid growth of an educational system, and a forward looking board of trustees who carefully chose the teachers was responsible for the phenomenal advancement.
With men like Apostle George Teasdale to preside over an energetic and alert bishopric-George W. Sevey, Miles P. Romney, and Ernest L. Taylor-, and to be wholeheartedly supported by Henry Eyring, Helaman Pratt, A. F. MacDonald and others, it was inevitable that provisions for learning be made accessible to their children before steps were taken to provide shelters for themselves. All were veterans in the promotion of schools and learning. Some had served on school boards in other localities and were acquainted with problems besetting pioneer settlements and versed in ways of overcoming them. All had ideas on how previous operations could be repeated here in a foreign land. All accepted without reservations the doctrine that the "Glory of God is Intelligence"; that a man cannot be saved in ignorance, nor can be saved faster than he gains knowledge; and that whatever knowledge and intelligence we gain in this life will go with us to the next. Such beliefs were a moving power that took no stock of handicaps and allowed no barrier to shift their vision from the goal that "as man now is God once was, and as God is man may become."
Colonia Juarez was fortunate in that the majority of its men were determined not to allow primitive conditions to delay the beginning of a school system.
Annie W. Romney by unanimous choice was placed in charge of teaching. During the fifty-four days from the time of arrival to the completion of the stockade meetinghouse she took boys and girls into her dugout for a few hours of class work each day. January 30th, when the stockade building was completed, she moved into it, took her place behind the handmade table, seated her students on split log seats, and began a system of drill on the fundamentals of learning. She had no blackboard, no pen, ink, or paper, and nothing but laps to hold the slates some of the children were fortunate enough to possess. Only an odd assortment of textbooks carried into the country by herself and other parents constituted her teaching tools. But from her geography book with its maps, charts, and pictures, she widened the horizons and led her classes in fancy to all parts of the world to become acquainted with climates, children and living conditions of other lands and peoples. From her arithmetic book she taught basic rules for computation of figures, drilled on the multiplication table, and by repetition and use of rules made her students apt in the use of numbers. From her weekly spelling matches, preceded by oral drill on the words in her book, she produced accurate spellers. From her minimum of school readers she led her classes in concert oral reading, giving every pupil equal chance to enunciate and pronounce vocally every word in the lesson. Reading the whole lesson aloud made them all fluent readers. From the storehouse of her mind she dispensed vital information, from nature she taught the facts of life and the wonders of the world about her, and from the Bible, Church doctrine and by her own upright life she instilled moral and ethical teachings. Without a formal understanding of the laws of learning, without being versed in the principles of pedagogy and methodology, she set up a system of learning that completely mastered fundamentals. Her interest in the boys and girls opened their hearts to her, and the basic principles she drilled into them served as touchstones to desires to motivate proper use of knowledge and learning. One basic truth she put into simple terms by saying, "Be good, do good, and you will be happy."