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. . . I have seen books made of things neither studied nor even understood. . . . 
—Montaigne. Essays 

“There is no book so bad,” said the bachelor, ” but something good may be found in it.” 
—Cervantes. Don Quixote. 

Continuing our bibliographical coverage of Mormon material, we turn our attention in this issue to dissertations and theses written to fulfill requirements for graduate degrees. It should be noted that with a few exceptions most of the authors included are new to the world of scholarship. Whether the quality of work is due to this newness to scholarly pursuits or to the limitations of doctoral studies in general, reading the abstracts available has been a discouraging affair – and this is particularly true of dissertations in the field of education. I do not intend to single out any particular short coming or author, but rather to join with others who have long recognized that the overall quality of doctoral dissertations leaves much to be desired. Furthermore, I do not intend to document this contention, which would be a rather formidable task; let me rather refer the skeptical to Dissertation Abstracts for an hour of incredulity and mirth. 

That marvelous compendium of numbers, the Statistical Abstract of the United States, in its 1965 edition reported that students of American collegiate institutions earned 14,490 doctorates and 101,122 master’s degrees in 1964. As far as I have been able to determine, twenty of the doctoral dissertations accepted during the academic year 1963-64 (as reported in Dissertation Abstracts and other sources) were concerned with subjects relevant to Mormonism or Utah. (This does not include dissertations written in the physical sciences.) Education provided the largest number of topics, with music a distant second. These select twenty are not be construed as representative of Mormon scholarship. There is no easy way of determining how many of the twenty authors are Latter-day Saints, and one can assume that some Mormons wrote dissertations on subjects not related to Utah or Mormonism. Our interest is in the subject, not the man. 

Information on master’s theses, other than selected subject indexes, is almost non-existent. Since there is no service similar to Dissertation Abstracts for them, we are obligated to limit our efforts to listing titles of theses reported to us by various readers. Therefore we trust that Ronald Quayle Frederickson’s “Maud May Babcock and the Department of Elocution at the University of Utah” (University of Utah, 1965) was not the only master’s thesis with a somewhat relevant subject, but rather the only one which has come to the attention of Dialogue.

At least one of the dissertations listed has been published as a book, thus making it available to a much wider audience. Dr. Robert B. Flander’s “Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi” (University of Wisconsin, 1964) claims this distinction deservedly. Another product of Wisconsin is “The Mormons and the Law: The Polygamy Cases” by Orma Linford, who has published much of her research in two recent articles in the Utah Law Review * 

Mormon theology is the concern of two of the twenty dissertations considered in this report. Robert C. Patch of the Brigham Young University Department of Religious Instruction wrote “The Spiritual Connotation in the Scriptural Concept of Witness” for his dissertation. This quote from Dr. Patch’s abstract succinctly sets forth his thesis: 

One of the distinctive teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is that each person may know for himself whether Jesus’ doctrine is true or whether Jesus spoke only for Himself. The concept of testimony includes a general concept of the religious theme of Christianity, and what is more important, a personal conviction of its truth. Whether this conviction rises from the cultural milieu of a person, whether it is engendered by a hypersensitive emotion, whether it comes from a hardminded intellectualism, or whether it may be the counsel of an inspired conscience, this conviction constitutes one of the most fundamental religious problems. This study explores the scriptural evidence which may indicate a definite answer. 

From the Iliff School of Theology, Denver, Colorado, comes word of a dissertation by William Richard Persons, “An Analysis of Changes in the Interpretation and Utilization of Revelation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Unfortunately Iliff does not participate in the cooperative venture, Dissertation Abstracts, and we are unable to make a content note. 

Except in significantly wealthy or exceptionally forward-looking institutions, libraries have failed to keep pace with the demands of present day educational needs. It would appear from the findings of Kenneth T. Slack, in “A Survey of Centralized and Cooperative Library Activities Looking to the Development of a Centralized or Cooperative Library Program for the Unified School System of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” that services in the existing libraries in the Latter-day Saints Church schools are “below American Library Association standards.” One can only hope that Dr. Slack’s dissertation will promote some reform measures. 

Calvin D. Lowe in his dissertation, “The Need for and Ability to Support a Program of Cooperative Vocational Business Education in the Salt Lake City High Schools,” finds that “nearly 45 percent, or about 67,000 workers, in Metropolitan Salt Lake area were engaged in distributive and clerical occupations.” On the other hand, “less than one percent of [Salt Lake’s] high school students were enrolled in distributive education classes during the school year 1961-62.” Would it be too much to assume that Salt Lake’s students are receiving a good liberal arts background so that they may find the key to a fruitful life as well as a satisfying vocation? 

Speaking of values, I should report that Thomas H. Metos of the University of Utah describes the values of Salt Lake City high school students in a dissertation aptly titled, “A Study of the Values of Salt Lake City High School Students.” Dr. Metos’s emphasis is on changes in value patterns between sophomore and senior years. One of Dr. Metos’s corollary findings was “that the Salt Lake City group’s value patterns indicated strong elements of conservatism, as well as being quite stable by high school entrance. . . Utah is indeed the home of a peculiar people. 

Ph.D. Dissertations

Alexander, Thomas Glen. The Federal Frontiers: Interior Department Financial Policy in Idaho, Utah and Arizona. Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley.1 

Anderson, Grant Forsgren. Evaluation of the Music Preparation of Secondary School Music Teachers in Utah and Eastern Idaho. Ed.D. University of California, Los Angeles, 1964. #64-8564.[1]

Bluhm, Harry Pollei. Educational and Occupational Aspirations on the Mor mon Educational Ethic.[1]

Carver, Julia. A Study of the Influence of the Philosophy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Physical Education in Church Schools. University of Oregon, 1964. 

Chugg, Melburne David. A Study of the Classroom Music Program in the Elementary Schools of Utah. Ed.D. University of Oregon, 1964. #64-12,151.

Flanders, Robert Bruce. Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi. Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, 1964. #64-13,874. 

Holm, Floyd. Factors That Relate to Student Choice of a College in the Utah State University System. Ed.D. University of Southern California, 1965. #65-3108. 

Hyatt, Norman F. Public School Expenditures Related to Selected Sociological and Economic Characteristics of Utah School Districts. Ed.D. University of Oregon, 1964. #65-2469. 

Leavitt, Stanley A. Value Differences of Selected Groups of Junior High School Students in Utah County, Utah. Brigham Young University, 1964.[2]

Linford, Orma. The Mormons and the Law: The Polygamy Cases. Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, 1964. #65-1271. 

Lowe, Calvin Dean. The Need for and Ability to Support a Program of Co operative Vocational Business Education in the Salt Lake City High Schools. Ed.D. Utah State University, 1963. #64-13,746. 

Metos, Thomas H. A Study of the Values of Salt Lake City High School Students. Ph.D. University of Utah, 1963. #64-3462. 

Patch, Robert C. The Spiritual Connotation in the Scriptural Concept of Witness. Ph.D. Brigham Young University, 1964. #65-10,083.

Persons, William Richard. An Analysis of Changes in the Interpretation and Utilization of Revelation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Iliff School of Theology.[3]

Prpich, Mike. An Analysis of the Teaching of Current Events in the Social Studies Curriculum in the High Schools of Salt Lake City, Utah, 1962-63. Ph.D. University of Utah, 1964. #64-10,535. 

Slack, Kenneth Thurston. A Survey of Centralized and Cooperative Library Activities Looking to the Development of a Centralized or Cooperative Library Program for the Unified School System of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ed.D. University of Utah, 1964. #65-1784. 

Slaughter, Jay Leon. The Role of Music in the Mormon Church, School and Life. Music Ed.D. Indiana, 1965. #65-423. 

Smith, Duane Allan. Mining Camps and the Settlement of the Trans-Mississippi Frontier, 1860-1890. Ph.D. University of Colorado, 1964. #65-4272.

Tucker, Melvm LeRoy. A Study of the Salary-supplementing Activities of Utah Public School Teachers.[1]

Vorkink, Joseph Paul. Graduation Requirements for the Public High Schools in Utah, Arizona and Idaho. Ed.D. University of California, Los Ange les, 1964. #65-10,485. 

Master’s Thesis

Frederickson, Ronald Quayle. Maud May Babcock and the Department of Elocution at the University of Utah. University of Utah, 1965. 

Recently Received

As a regular feature of this column we will print short notices of various publications of a somewhat miscellaneous nature which we receive in the mail or otherwise have brought to our attention.

Marcellus S. Snow, Comp. An English-German L.D.S. Dictionary. Privately printed by the compiler. 1966. Written by a returned missionary, this volume attempts to bridge the gap between common terms found in the regular English-German dictionary and the needs of Mormon missionaries in German speaking lands and converts wishing to comprehend L.D.S. literature. Already in use at the Language Training Mission at Brigham Young University, this successful work will hopefully be followed by similar efforts in other languages. There will be more understanding on Sunday when the German Saints gather at die Priesterschaftsverersammlung with Brother Snow’s dictionary in hand. 

The California Star, Vol. I. 1847-1848. Howell-North Books, 1050 Parker Street, Berkeley, Calif. 94710. $20.00. Sam Brennan’s contributions to the development of California are legion. Not the least of these contributions was the publication of California’s first newspaper, The California Star. Orignal copies of the Star are difficult to locate, but this reprint edition of Vol. 1 with an introduction by Fred Blackburn Rogers rectifies this lacuna. Although the Star was not Church oriented, Mr. Blackburn’s introduction relates the events surrounding the paper’s establishment to the Mormon migration on the ship Brooklyn under Brannan’s leadership. 

Norma Baldwin Ricketts. Mormons and the Discovery of Gold. The Pioneer Press, Placerville, Calif. 1966. 2nd Edition. 43 pp. $1.50. Available from the author at 2398 Fair Oaks Blvd., Sacramento, Calif. 95825. This pamphlet was prepared for the 118th Anniversary celebration of the discovery of gold; the author’s intention is to give further recognition to the role of members of the Mormon Battalion who were with Marshall when gold was discovered and in other ways contributed to the early development of California. The second edition, which was received at press time, contains an interesting short treatise on “What happened to Henry Bigler’s diary?” 

Hymns at Home, 33 1/3, 12″ L.P. Hi-Fidelity. Available from Hymns at Home, 1574 24th Avenue, San Francisco, California. $3.25. Standard L. D. S. hymns sung by the Morningside Park Ward Choir, Inglewood, California, Stake. From the blurb this record is described as having “special appeal . . . to children learning L.D.S. songs, [and] filling lonely hours of the elderly and shut in. . . .” Large quantities are available at discount rates for fund raising purposes.

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[1] Not yet listed in Dissertation Abstracts. Information listed as obtained from the bibliography Mormon Americana. See this column in the first issue of Dialogue for a fuller description of Mormon Americana. 

[2] University Microfilm order number. 

[3] Iliff School of Theology does not participate in Dissertation Abstracts.