Letter from Benjamin Cluff Jr., 5 December 1894
Provo, Utah,
Prest. Wilford Woodruff,
Salt Lake City, Utah.
Dear Brother:
At the Stake Conference of the Young Men's Mutual
Improvement Associations of this Stake, held last Sunday in
Provo, and whcich was attended by about four hundred of our
students, Apostle Heber J. Grant took ocassion to criticise
severely the present management of the Academy comparing it
adversely with the times when Brother Maeser was Principal. I
felel that Brother Grant, even though he is right, has done me and
the Faculty an injustice and the school an injury, in that he has
published our supposed faults or mistakes to our students and
the public before speaking to us about them. We are ready at
all times to receive counsel and advice and corrections from
the authorities over us, and had Brother Grant come to us or
sent for us to come to him, his advice and counsel would have
been gladly received, but when he, without saying a word to us
publishes before the students and the people our mistakes, or
our supposed mistakes, I for one feel to object. I do not believe
it is right neither do I like it, and I have so informed him.
I should be very pleased, if you see fit to have this
matter thoroughly investigated, and if the present members of
the faculty are not able to do justice to their work position,
and if they have not the confidence of the Presidency and the
Twelve, they will be ready at any time to resign their positions
and allow others to take their places. Speaking for myself I
will say, that I have in my weak way endeavored to do what I
thought was my duty to the school and to the youth of Zion. I
have taken, and am ready to take, counsel and advice and correc-
tions from those in authority, but I am not ready to be publicly
critticised or corrected from the stand before my pupils without
due investigation.
I desire to say that if the Presidency and the Twelve
have not confidence in my ability or my integrity, and cannot
give me their full support (for with the best of support the task
of training the youth now-a-days is hard enough) I shall be
ready at any time to withdraw from my psosition in favor of some
