As was common of the era, Joseph Smith did not much formal education but he was quite well read. From "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View."

* "Newspaper advertisements and library holdings prove access, even if they don't prove possession or page-turning"(p. 145).
* "Textual parallels involved books published as recently as the late 1700s and early 1800s. Some of these clearly were available to the Smiths" (p. 322).
* "During the 1820s bookstores near Joseph Smith's home were selling thousands of hardback books for 44 cents to a dollar each" (p. 182).
* "he later quoted from, referred to, and owned numerous books which were advertised in his neighborhood as a young man" (p. 192).
* "the Mormon prophet's knowledge of such literature is not a myth. The myth is LDS emphasis on Joseph Smith as an ill-read farmboy" (p. 218).
* "Of the books Joseph Smith donated shortly before his death, 75 percent of the pre-1830 titles can be verified as either directly available in the Palmyra area or as being promoted there" (p. 189).


Additional sources state:

"Joseph Smith did have limited formal education and that's often heralded as 'proof' that he could not have written the BOM. However most people do not know that Joseph's father, Joseph Smith, Sr., was a school teacher during the off season. Joseph's brother, Hyrum, worked as a school teacher during the off season also. One of his sisters may have also been a teacher at some point in her life. This wasn't a family of illiterates. Education was important to the Smith family, and although Joseph may have only had limited formal education in a typical classroom, his parents undoubtedly schooled him at home. Also Joseph was going to high school when he was 20 years old in Harmony PA with the Stowell children.

Joseph was able to read and ponder scriptures. His parents were literate. He had access to books and newspapers. He even held a position as "exhorter" at a local church. Joseph's mother wrote that they did not neglect the education of their children.

In the early 1800s few children were able to have a full education. Most children in rural America worked on farms and often had much of their education done at home. As Joseph Smith Sr. was an actual school teacher at various times in his life, he would be quite capable of teaching general education to his children, including Joseph. Joseph's mother, Lucy Smith, would undoubtedly help as well. Even Abraham Lincoln had a very limited formal education, and Benjamin Franklin had only one year of formal education."

http://www.mormonthink.com/josephweb.htm#education

I kind of think Smith just didn't have the discipline to sit through classes. His siblings went to school.

Last time this came up, someone pointed out that he would have been a scholar compared to the people that Mormons believe did write the BoM - Nephi and friends had a lot less education and their is no evidence they ever saw any other writing besides their own.

Heresy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Last time this came up, someone pointed out that
> he would have been a scholar compared to the
> people that Mormons believe did write the BoM -
> Nephi and friends had a lot less education and
> their is no evidence they ever saw any other
> writing besides their own.

I never thought of this - that is brilliant. I'm sticking in my mental file of snappy, unanswerable comebacks. Thanks!!!

at around the same time, as Abraham Lincoln. It's laughable how no "formal education" has become "uneducated".

Abraham Lincoln had one-third the formal education that Joseph Smith had.

Even when I was an active member, I always thought Smith must have had some kind of formal education; it shows in his letters, D&C and other writings.

People forget that the standard of English education, particularly when it comes to things like Grammar, Diction and other elements, was much higher that that of todays schools; at least amongst those that were educated and at 'elementary' level.

Case in point: Look at any comment on a popular Youtube video (for example) and you will see comments posted in the increasingly popular txt msg format. Illiteracy is increasing in todays world, I'm afraid.

But back to the topic: With Smith's education, He had the distinct advantage over his peers. Couple this with a wild imagination and the ability to lie without conscience, and you have the foundations of a cult leader.

Apologists some times put the idea forward that Joseph Smith didn't have access to much in the way of books. If my history is correct, in the early 1800's it was the responsibility of the teacher to supply the books and library materials and they were paid as contractors to teach. Many frontier teachers had fairly decent libraries available.

He was home-schooled.

EDUCATION in the early 1800s

In this first decade of the new century, American schools changed little from the schools in the late eighteenth century. Education was still considered mainly a family or local responsibility, not an obligation of the state. In the Land Ordinance of 1785, Congress decreed that a section of every township surveyed in the public lands in the western territories be set aside for the maintenance of public schools. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided land for education in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions. However, neither ordinance was fully implemented. Some leaders were already calling out for educating the citizenry of the new nation. Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be." He tried three times between 1779 and 1817 to gain approval from the Virginia legislature for his "Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge". Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster were two more voices of the time advocating an educated populace for the republic. It would be quite awhile before their ideas would be put into action. Schooling was conducted in the home or in small, one-room school houses. In more urban areas, Lancastrian methods of teaching might be used, where the more advanced students taught those who were less advanced. The curriculum centered on the "3 r's" along with moral and religious training. The purpose of learning to read was to be able to read the Bible for oneself. Dame schools, provided for a fee by women in their homes, taught the alphabet on a "hornbook" . Sometimes citizens of a local community would band together to hire a teacher to instruct their children. The teacher, usually a man, would be paid little, often have only a rudimentary education himself, and be boarded at a home in the community. Washington Irving's Ichabod Crane of headless horseman fame is an example of such a school teacher. On the isolated farms of the frontier, no formal education was available and the children were taught by their parents, if at all. Teaching the skills of farming for the boys and homemaking for the girls was considered the main priority. Wealthy families hired tutors for their young children and sent the older ones to private schools and then on to college. Massachusetts led the way in public financing for education. In 1800 its legislature gave local school districts the power to levy taxes. In 1805 the New York Free School Society was founded by Mayor DeWitt Clinton for the purpose of establishing "a free school for the education of poor children who do not belong to, or are not provided for, by any religious society." The society had the novel idea of training its teachers and instituted a six to eight week training program for them. Within this decade the first state university, the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia opened in 1801. In the same decade Ohio University, the University of Tennessee, and Miami University of Ohio were founded.

Joseph Smith, Sr., was a school teacher during the off season.

Oliver Cowdery, Smith's second cousin, was a school teacher as well.

I seriously doubt that the environment around JS Jr was void of books and education.

IRCC Joseph did continued schooling when rooming with and working for Josiah Stowel in 1825-26.

In 1834 he attended a high school taught by William E. McClellan.

McLellan wrote:
"He attended my high school during the winter of 1834. He attended and learned science all winter. I learned the strength of his mind as to the study and principles of science. Hence I think I knew him. And I here say that he had one of the strongest, well-balanced, penetrating and retentive minds of any man with whom I ever formed an acquaintance, among the thousands of my observation."

Evidence shows Joseph Smith Jr. was extremely bright naturally— and he certainly was not unschooled as the faithful like to say.

I remember hearing somewhere that following the surgery on his leg at age seven Joseph was in bed for an extended time period recuperating and then on crutches for a good while after that.

It's speculation but I think it's likely during those times that Joseph found ways to entertain himself and that books were likely a part of that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2011 02:27PM by badseed.

Not a very good advertisment for home-schooling, eh? *joke! joke!*

He was an exhorter at the Methodist church for a bit AFTER the First Vision where he was told not to join any church. Hmmm. I guess exhorting technically isn't joining, acccording to apologist world.

..... who is responsible for all the grammatical & spelling errors in the first edition of the BOM?

A 14 year old boy from upsate New York with little formal education.
This is the basic storyline from the church. I can't recall ever hearing any reference to the Erie Canal which connected Buffalo New York to New York City. It was completed to Palmyra New York in 1822 and completed to Buffalo by 1825. It was the most modern and successful transportation rout of the time in the United States.
At the completion of the Erie Canal dignitaries from New York State traveled from Buffalo to New York City in 10 days in 1825.
The Smith home is about two miles from the Erie Canal. Check out this site.

http://www.softseattravel.com/Palmyra-NY-Erie-Canal-History-Joseph-Smith.html

Books, news papers, and traveling lecturers were the internet of the day and were readily available in Palmyra a port on the Erie Canal.