Karl G. Maeser was born in Miesen, Germany, in 1828. He later attended the prestigious Kreuzschule, a highly respected preparatory school that prepared students to attend a university. Attending a university would have significantly elevated Maeser’s social standing, but he decided instead to attend a teacher’s college in the nearby town of Dresden.
While this decision was a major drop in prestige, the educational philosophies he learned there laid the foundation for the ideologies he would later bring to BYU.
“They educated not only the brain, they educated the heart. They were very kind people and loved the children in a very new and unique way,” Francis Neugebauer, a board member at the School Museum of Dresden, said.
At the teacher’s college, Maeser learned the philosophies of Johan Pestalozzi, a Swiss education reformer who taught that children should be treated with love and warmth rather than punishment. In those days, it was common for teachers to hit children and inflict other corporal punishments in school. Pestalozzian theories resonated with Maeser, who also believed that children should be treated with kindness.
“Maser was a loving soul who saw potential in people and expected them to live up to it. And they did,” said A. LeGrand Richards, author of Maeser’s biography, titled “Called to Teach.”
Maeser often focused on children who went unnoticed, Richards said. For example, he once spoke to a group of teachers, imploring them to seek out and nurture children from less than ideal home lives.
“I just love that. The idea that the moment we take charge of a class, we are as messengers from our Heavenly Father, as His representatives, and we have a mission of an angel to perform,” Richards said.
Maeser first encountered The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through a pamphlet that ridiculed the teachings of the Church. Maeser felt that the spirit of the flyer was wrong and desired to learn the truth of what the Church believed.
The closest missionaries were located in Denmark, so Maeser wrote a letter to them, hoping to learn more about the doctrine of the Church. These missionaries then connected him with missionaries in London, and after exchanging multiple letters with them, Maeser gained a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and decided to be baptized.
But there was no religious freedom in Germany at the time, so when missionaries did eventually visit Germany, Maeser and his wife were secretly baptized in the Elbe River in Dresden at midnight to avoid persecution.
“Maeser was one of the first members of the Church in Germany and one of the first members in my entire family,” Hannah Gruse, a descendent of one of Maeser’s siblings, said. “To be part of that legacy … I'm pretty proud to be a member of that family.”
Maeser knew that joining the Church meant he could lose his job as an educator, as the laws of Saxony at the time allowed only those with certain religious affiliations to be teachers. Even in the face of persecution, Maeser chose to continue practicing his newfound religion.
“This is just so inspiring to me,” Richards said. “For me, what you see is a man who's got an independent spirit who is willing to do what the Lord wants him to do, and he does that his whole life.”
Eventually, Maeser and his family were forced to leave Germany when their Church membership was discovered. They fled to London, England and eventually to Provo, Utah.
“Even though leaving Germany was a great sacrifice, it ultimately enabled him to use his faith and education to become an instrument in the Lord’s hands and lay the foundation of what would become Brigham Young University,” Emma Moss, third-great-granddaughter of Maeser, said.
After living in Utah for some time, Brigham Young, the prophet of the Church at the time, called Maeser to found a university, which later became known as Brigham Young University.
Many thousands of students have been blessed by the academic and spiritual educations they have received there, which all began with Maeser’s commission, Manfred Heller, a Dresden native, believes.
Richards explained that Brigham Young told Maeser he “ought not to teach even the alphabet or the multiplication tables without the spirit of God.”
“In my experience at BYU, having the spirit with me as I learn and take these classes has been so important and monumental,” Noah Wilhite, a current BYU student, said.
Richards said Maeser saw people’s full potential and expected them to live up to it. Maeser didn’t believe in forcing people to learn things.
“Maser would say that the best, highest motive for learning is spirituality,” he said. “You do things because you have a sense of mission, and when you do that, that's much more powerful than anything else you could give them.”
Now, 150 years later, BYU has grown into a world-renowned university, still carrying on a legacy of spiritual and academic learning.
“Brigham Young University isn't about the buildings that you see all around here,” BYU President C. Shane Reese said. “It's about the people. It's about their commitment to our dual heritage of spiritually strengthening and intellectually enlarging.”
Reese said he strives to carry on Maeser’s legacy each day.
“If we're to remain unique as a university, as an institution of higher education in America, we absolutely have to stay laser-focused on our commitment, our focus on our students. Their experience is of paramount importance on this campus,” he said. “And it is absolutely clear to me that Karl G. Maeser’s legacy is what informs that on our campus today.”