Landmark talk by President J. Reuben Clark set standard for church education

After working for a year as a substitute, Brad Howell was hired as a full-time LDS seminary teacher in 1987. During summer training, he was introduced to President J. Reuben Clark’s classic 1938 address, “The Charted Course of the Church in Education,” which charged teachers to take students into the scriptures every day.

Initially, Howell balked. It sounded good on paper, but he had his doubts.

“I remember reading it for the first time and checking the date. When I saw 1938, I said, ‘This is out of date. This has no relevancy. These aren’t the kids in my classes,’” a smiling Howell said. “I just didn’t believe that the students would really want to involve themselves in the scriptures every day. I thought, ‘You don’t understand kids.’”

To prove his theory, Howell obtained permission to survey nearly 400 students at Layton High to find out if they were really hungry for the things of the spirit. When the results came back, not only was the young teacher proved wrong, but he was utterly flabbergasted.

While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints commemorates 100 years of seminary, it’s also been almost 75 years since President J. Reuben Clark, then a member of the LDS Church’s First Presidency, delivered an address that became the standard blueprint for education in the church. The talk came at a time when the church needed a definitive battle plan for religious education. Over the decades, prophets and apostles have quoted from "The Charted Course” again and again. All seminary and institute teachers are advised to study the document each year and incorporate its principles in the classroom.

“Though he gave this message before I was born, it is still fresh, powerful and profound today,” said President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the First Presidency in his January 2011 talk, "A Teacher of God's Children" (LDS account required). “We should regularly recheck our position on that charted course and make sure that we are not slowly drifting off course.”

The backstory

What sparked such a significant address in religious education?