28 April 1978
The Role of the Patriarch (father) in Zion
A patriarch is a faithful servant of Jesus Christ, bearer of the Melchizedek Priesthood, who is yoked with a faithful spouse in the temple covenants of eternal marriage.
The primary goal of the patriarch is to endure to the end, which is life eternal.
The companion goal of the patriarch is then to so lead and inspire his wife and posterity that they also come to know the Savior.
The process of enduring to the end is mainly an educational process. One must be taught by others what to believe and what to do (we can be saved no faster than we gain the truth we need). And we must then learn to believe and to do all that we are taught. A righteous person is a disciple (learner) of Christ.
The educational role of the patriarch is to be sure that his wife and children are fully instructed in all they need to know to be faithful to Christ, to overcome the world, and to subdue the earth.
If the patriarch has fully learned all he needs to believe to be faithful to Christ, to overcome the world and to subdue the earth, and if he has learned to do and is doing all he should do, then he can fulfill his role, which has three principal parts:
1. To love purely, so that each person in his stewardship is enveloped in a spiritually oriented atmosphere of Christ-like love. Giving this emotional sustenance is by all odds the most important thing a patriarch ever does.
2. To instruct by example and precept in all that those in his stewardship need to know to do, in both spiritual and temporal matters.
3. To provide such spiritual, physical, social, economic protection and support as is necessary and appropriate.
Those persons thus blessed by a patriarch father have the maximum earthly opportunity to exercise agency to learn what to do, to become what they will. For it is only this patriarchal order which provides full agency to any person on this earth.
The Educational Ideal for Zion
Assuming that fully developed patriarchs exist in the Church, what kind of education will they foster for those in their stewardship? Six kinds of education are proposed as categories to answer that question as follows:
1. Family Education. The patriarch and his wife assume direct personal responsibility for instructing each of their children in each of the following areas:
- a. Personal disciple
- 1) emotional steadiness
- 2) intellectual honesty and acuity
- 3) physical orderliness
- 4) unselfishness
- b. Language Skills
- c. Spiritual matters
- 1) the gospel
- 2) how to receive and live by the gifts of the Spirit
- 3) the scriptures
- 4) the order of the Church
- 5) the order of the priesthood
- d. Work—learning to do and to love it
- e. Ability to cooperate
- f. Hygiene
- 1) cleanliness
- 2) body functions
- 3) nutrition
- 4) exercise
- 5) healing
- g. Sex Education
- h. Horticulture
- i. Family preparedness
- j. Citizenship—opportunities and responsibilities
- k. Service—rendered as appropriate
- l. Skills, basic
- 1) care of tools
- 2) safety
- 3) food preparation
- 4) household management
- 5) care of machinery
- 6) teaching
- m. Social graces
Parental influence in basic education has often done all it will do by the sixteenth year of each child’s life.
2. Basic Formal Education. The patriarch and his wife assume guidance and quality control in the educational opportunities which their children have in schooling outside of the family to learn:
- a. Literary skills
- b. Mathematical ability
- c. Sciences
- d. Countries and peoples
- e. Physical education
- f. Arts and crafts
Basic formal education is roughly what is received in the United States in K-12 education.
Parents should use whatever opportunities for this basic formal education which are available in their local area which do not put their children into a deadly emotional, spiritual, physical, or social environment.
3. Vocational Education. The patriarch and his wife assume the responsibility for instructing or arranging for instruction for each child in one or more manual skills by which that child could later support a family, such as:
- a. Secretarial skills
- b. Auto mechanics
- c. Farming/ranching
- d. Clothing construction
- e. Building trades
Ideally this education would be substantially complete by the end of the teenage years.
4. General Education. The patriarch and his wife assume the responsibility for instructing or seeing that each child is instructed in the basic intellectual matters which a person needs to have to cope with the world. Areas which especially need to be pursued are:
- a. History
- b. Politics
- c. Economics
- d. Philosophy
- e. Literature
This general education is intended to give a person the strength to be alive to the educational, political, and economic forces of the world and to be able to influence those forces for good, that the world might be a better place in which to live and to love purely.
This general education is roughly the equivalent to two years of college work, though many do not have it even after two years of college.
5. Missionary Service. It is contemplated that every young person in the Church would be fully prepared to go on a mission at age 19 having received a full-fledged family, basic, vocational, and general education, then capping those with a thorough understanding and ability to use honorable proselyting techniques.
Upon returning from missionary service, every young person would be ready to marry, and to enter full-time work or to enter professional school.
6. Professional Education. The patriarch and his wife should advise, encourage, and assist as is appropriate in the professional education of their children when and where such is desired by and feasible for the individual. Professional education is viewed as the last two years of college and whatever graduate training is appropriate, or entry into the job market to learn the many occupations which do not depend upon formal educational certification.