page_title: Karl G. Maeser
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Karl G. Maeser / Career
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Denkmal für Karl Gottfried Mäser im Garten der Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage in der Tiergartenstr. 42 in Dresden
context_page_description: Karl Gottfried Maeser was a prominent Utah educator and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served 16 years as principal of Brigham Young Academy. Although he was not the first principal of the Academy, he is considered its founder. The Academy later became Brigham Young University in 1903.
  Before teaching at the Academy, Maeser taught at several different schools in Germany and in Utah. He tutored Brigham Young's children. Maeser incorporated the Monitorial System into his teaching philosophies and believed that students should each have responsibilities. Maeser was influenced by Pestalozzian educational theory, but also advocated that schools should include religion.
  Maeser served as a missionary for the LDS Church in four nations and held many leadership positions in the church, including serving as the head of the Church Educational System and in the central leadership of the Sunday School. His educational philosophies shaped Brigham Young Academy and other church academies throughout Utah. He represented the church at the Mid-Winter Fair in San Francisco, distributing information about Utah and the church's schools.
context_section_description: Maeser accepted his first teaching position in the First District School in Dresden from 1852 to 1853, and he taught at the Budich Institute beginning in 1854. Maeser continued his teaching career when he arrived in Utah. He taught at the Deseret Lyceum, an academy established in Salt Lake City in November 1860. The teachers at the Lyceum constructed school slates and performed janitor duties because conditions were so poor. When students' families could not afford to pay tuition, Maeser often collected payments of produce via wheelbarrow.
  In the spring of 1861, Maeser left the Lyceum and was offered a position at the Union Academy, established by Brigham Young. This academy was intended for students above elementary grades. Young appointed Maeser head of the school in February 1861. Maeser was concerned about the school systems meeting the needs and interests of its students, and he left the Union Academy to teach in other schools and seminaries, including the Twentieth Ward Seminary, which he founded in 1862. The school became a well-known training school for teachers.
  Maeser was elected as the regent of the University of Deseret in 1860, 1863 and in 1865. In 1865, he began to privately tutor Young's fifty-six children and also instructed other children who came to the Young household including Ellis Reynolds Shipp. During this time, he also kept books for Leonard H. Hardy to supplement his income. He was teaching at Young's family school when he was called on a mission to Germany in 1867. He left for Europe in May 1867, leaving his family in a poor financial state.
  Maeser returned to Salt Lake City in 1870 and became a professor of German. However, he resigned from this position to return to the Twentieth Ward Seminary. In 1870, he also taught at the University of Deseret, helping to develop their teacher training program. Maeser wrote articles in the Beehive Series of the Juvenile Instructor during 1870. In 1871, he was elected the president of the Salt Lake Teacher's Association. For a short period of time he was also an assistant organist for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
caption: Statue of Karl Maeser in Dresden, Germany
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