| Description |
Weber Stake Academy first opened its doors for instruction at the LDS Second Ward Meeting House on the corner of 26th Street and Grant Avenue on January 7, 1889. The academy's two teachers, Louis F. Moench and Edwin Cutler, welcomed nearly one hundred students on the first day, and, by the end of its first term, 195 students in all had registered for the school. This monograph depicts the role the LDS church and its leaders played in founding the school, the background of its first educators and administrators and the financial challenges they confronted in operating the school from 1889 through 1894. Letters of appreciation for Louis F. Moench and a bibliography of primary sources are also provided. |
| OCR Text |
Show 31 Chapter IX The Academy was naturally crowded due to the steady increase in enrollment. The Executive Committee met on January 4, 1890 to consider such things as lack of room to accommodate all students seeking admission, the purchase of a cyclopedia, subscriptions for school journals for the Normal class and the appropriation of $5.00 for this purpose, together with the practicability of holding concerts which might interfere with the studies of the pupils. The new year, 1890, began for the school on January 6, after a two weeks vacation. The school was thinly attended, many having left in consequence of the long vacation.1 There was a little better attendance by January 14, and by January 21 the enrollment was 142. January 20, 1890 was a very important date in the history of the Weber Stake Academy. On this day the Board of Trustees met: --with the members of the Ecclesiastical Board of the Weber Stake to petition the said Board for the use of the Tabernacle for the Academy. Privilege was at once granted without any difficulty and instructions were at once given to get the building ready.2 The second term of the second year of the Academy began on January 21, 1890, with an enrollment of 142 the first day. There was singing and prayers, hand shaking and friendly greetings. Registration continued to increase. One place only seemed large enough for the school, and that was the Stake Tabernacle on Second and Main Streets (now Twenty-second Street and Washington Boulevard). Classes were so crowded and some of the teachers so interested in their subjects that the principal put into effect a plan sometimes used in the mid-twentieth century, to force teachers to hand in their grades on time. The object, however, in 1890, of the plan was to secure promptness in dismissing classes. Professor Moench writes: The plan of docking teachers for disorder in dismissing classes worked like a charm.3 During the school year 1889-90 the Ogden Second Ward Meeting House and a small building at the rear connected with it soon became inadequate to the demands of the Academy, and --at a Priesthood meeting held February 1, 1890, steps were taken to fit up the Tabernacle to be used by them until a suitable building could be erected.4 1. Historical Journal of Louis F. Moench, p. 205. 2. Idem., p. 208. 3. Idem., pp. 207-208. 4. The History of the Weber Stake of Zion, L.D.S. Church Library. |
