Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/443

Rh icule the proceedings of an English Mechanics' Institute, or the compositions of an "Ed. Mechanics' Magazine." The names of their literary institutions are, it is true, somewhat pretentious and grandiloquent; but in these lands there is every where a leaning toward the grandiose. Humility does not pay. Modesty laudatur et alget.

As early as December, 1854, an act was approved enabling the Chancellor and Board of Regents of the University of the State of Deserét to appoint a superintendent of common schools for the Territory of Utah, and duly qualified trustees were elected to assess and collect for educational purposes a tax upon all taxable property. In the same year a pathetic memorial was dispatched to Congress, requesting that honorable body to appropriate the sum of $5000 to advance the interests of the University established by law in the City of Great Salt Lake. I know not whether it was granted. As yet there is no educational tax leviable throughout the Territory. Each district makes its own regulations. A city rate supports a school in each ward. The buildings are of plain adobe, thirty feet by twenty. They also serve as meeting-places on Sabbath evenings. There are tutoresses in three or four of the school-houses, who teach all the year round, whereas male education is usually limited by necessity to the three winter months. A certain difficulty exists in finding instructors. As in Australia, the pedagogue is cheaper than a porter, and "turning schoolmaster" is a proverbial phrase about equivalent to coming upon the parish.

The principal educational institutions in Great Salt Lake City have been the following:


 * 1) The Deserét Universal Scientific.
 * 2) The "Polysophical Society," a name given by Judge Phelps.
 * 3) The Seventies' Variety Club.
 * 4) The Council of Health, a medico-physiologio-clinical and matronly establishment, like the Dorcas Societies of the Eastern States.
 * 5) The Deserét Theological Institution, whose President was Mr. Brigham Young.
 * 6) The Deserét Library and Musical Society.
 * 7) The Phrenological and Horticultural Society.
 * 8) The Deserét Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, which has already been alluded to. It has many branch societies, whose members pay an annual subscription of $1.
 * 9) The Academy founded in April, 1860, with an appropriation by the local Legislature of Church money to the extent of $2500. Science and art are to be taught gratis to all who will pledge themselves to learn thoroughly and to benefit the Territory by their exertions. The superintendent is Mr. Orson Pratt; and his son, Mr. O. Pratt, junior, together with Mr. Cobb, a Gentile, acts as teacher. At present those educated are males; in