Mormons realize the value of early instruction in religion. Forty thousand children are under regular instruction in Mormon religion classes held in the public schools at least once a week, immediately following the day-school sessions. The regular school teachers (if Mormons) instruct these classes. "I recently made a circuit of two score towns in eastern and southern Idaho (Mormon territory) in quest of students. It was a strenuous piece of work and required traveling by rail, on horseback and foot. "Perhaps the most fruitful work of the summer consisted in personal, intimate talks with the younger professional and business men. They do most certainly betray dissatisfaction with the old order. A few are diligently working to liberalize their church against the inertia of the membership and the alert opposition of the crafty leaders. One of these _leaders_ I recently heard openly disparaging education as 'not quick with the Spirit,' and deploring the tendency to question the authority and validity of the priesthood. By far the larger number of younger dissatisfied men are leaving religion out of their accounts, living for personal gain, and when pressed, avowing hostility to all religion. "The need of cultural advantages is most apparent throughout rural Utah. The work, therefore, of our academies not only fills a great need educationally, but responds effectively to the appeal for good home environment. Christian education is the leaven that Utah needs. "The graduating classes of the New Jersey Academy for the past three years have all become Christian girls and members of the little Presbyterian church. "I am confident that a new era is dawning--an era marked by intellectual development and religious awakening, an era of questioning, an era of intelligence. This cannot fail to be effective in breaking up the crust of dogmatism and superstition which has retarded the independent religious thinking of these people for many years." [Footnote: Rev. Mr. Wittenberger--Presbyterian.] Probably nowhere in our country is there greater eagerness for "book learning" than among the mountain people of the South. The passionately desired schooling in the mountains is often secured only at the expense of great hardship. Booker Washington has said that the measure of attainment is not the result accomplished, but the obstacles overcome in attaining it. There is much illiteracy among the older people, but through the Mission schools and the improved educational system of the states, comparatively few children now are lacking the opportunity of some elementary education. The training received in the district school is often very meager and the term of a few months' work much too short. Through the many months when the schools are closed, the young people are thrown upon their own resources. They are without stimulating and helpful outside interests, and deterioration is the inevitable result.