Learn all you can. Learn how to raise calves, chickens, lambs, and all kinds of useful fowls and animals; learn how to till the ground to the best advantage for raising all useful products of the soil; and learn how to manufacture molasses and sugar from the sugar-cane. Raise flax, husbands, and let your wives learn to manufacture fine linen. 9:173.
Let the boys from ten to twenty years of age get up schools to learn sword exercise, musket and rifle exercise, and, in short, every act of war. Shall we need this knowledge? No matter; it is good to be acquainted with this kind of exercise. 9:173.
If I could get my own feelings answered I would have law in our school books, and have our youth study law at school. Then lead their minds to study the decisions and counsels of the just and the wise, and not forever be studying how to get the advantage of their neighbor. This is wisdom. 16:9.
I have a few things to lay before the Conference, one of which is—and I think my brethren will agree with me that this is wise and practicable—for from one to five thousand of our young and middle-aged men to turn their attention to the study of law. I would not speak lightly in the least of law, we are sustained by it; but what is called the practice of law is not always the administration of justice, and would not be so considered in many courts. 16:9.
Every Elder should have at least one trade, and if possible more than one. 10:77.
I am happy to see our children engaged in the study and practice of music. Let them be educated in every useful branch of learning, for we, as a people, have in the future to excel the nations of the earth in religion, science and philosophy. Great advancement has been made in knowledge by the learned of this world, still there is yet much to learn. The hidden powers of nature which give life, growth, and existence to all things have not yet been approached by the wisdom of this world. There exists around us, in the works of God, an everlasting variety—no two leaves, no two blades of grass are alike. Natural philosophy, so far as known, marks these phenomena of nature, and reveals her wonders, but is incapable of revealing the modus operandi of the production.
Let the children in our schools be taught everything that is necessary with regard to doctrine and principle, and then how to live; and let mothers teach their daughters regarding themselves, and how they should live in their sphere of existence, that they may be good wives and good mothers. Let the sisters study economy in the labor and management of their homes. I am satisfied that more than one-half of the labor that is done in our houses can be saved by a judicious exercise of thought and good judgment Then be wise in these things, and we shall not need tea and coffee, or any other stimulant stronger than our natural food. 12:122-123.
Study to apply your labor to advantage, and you will accomplish much more, without wearing yourselves out so fast. If you have to roll a log, cut down a tree, etc., study how to take advantage of the work. Contrive to accomplish your work with the least expenditure of strength. 8:297.
I would advise you to read books that are worth reading; read reliable history, and search wisdom out of the best books you can procure. 9:173.
"Shall I sit down and read the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Covenants all the time?" says one. Yes, if you please, and when you have done, you may be nothing but a sectarian after all. It is your duty to study to know everything upon the face of the earth in addition to reading those books. We should not only study good, and its effects upon our race, but also evil, and its consequences. 2:93-94.