In the fall of 1912, 70 LDS teenagers began gathering for daily religious instruction in a small red brick building located near Granite High School in Salt Lake City.

At that time, the Church's first seminary students, members of the Granite Stake, couldn't have known that they were part of a historic event, marking the beginning of a religious education movement that would, by the end of the century, reach 144 nations of the world.

They also didn't know that the success of the seminary program would, by 1926, inspire the creation of the first institute of religion for college-age young adults at the University of Idaho in Moscow.

Today more than 379,000 youth attend seminary. Another 265,000 participate in institute. The programs — taught by more than 34,000 volunteer teachers and approximately 3,500 full- and part-time teachers — have become a necessity for the Church's young people, said Church Educational System administrator Stanley A. Peterson.

Referring to a 1977 address to religious educators by President Boyd K. Packer, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve, Brother Peterson said the Church's youth need religious education today more than at any other time in history.

"In the history of the Church there is no better illustration of the prophetic preparation of this people than the beginnings of the seminary and institute program," said President Packer. "These programs were started when they were nice but were not critically needed. They were granted a season to flourish and to grow into a bulwark for the Church. They now became a godsend for the salvation of modern Israel in a most challenging hour."

Back when seminary began, leaders of the Granite Stake started the program as "an experiment."

In 1911, according to A History of the Granite Seminary, published in May 1933, the stake leaders worried about LDS teenagers — who were making decisions that would affect their entire life and were left without religious instruction.

They immediately obtained permission from local school authorities to allow students "released time" to participate in seminary. They then began organizing a course of study, locating a teacher and obtaining funds to finance a building and a teacher's salary.

Granite Stake Pres. Frank Y. Taylor borrowed $2,500 on a note from Zion's Saving Banking to buy land and build a seminary building. When the building was opened for class work in 1912, it consisted of one large class room, furnished with blackboards; an office/library; a cloak room; and seats and a stove for heat. The building had no lights.

Thomas J. Yates was selected as the Church's first seminary teacher, agreeing to work for $100 a month. He fulfilled stake leaders' desires to find a man "young in his feelings, who loves young people, who delights in their company, who can sympathize strongly with them and who can command their respect and admiration and exercise a great influence over them."

Years later, Ada Hazel Capson Osguthorpe, one of the Church's first seminary students, recalled her seminary days and the respect she had for her teacher.

In a letter included in A History of Granite Seminary, detailing her seminary memories, she wrote of meeting Brother Yates while sun bathing on the banks of the Great Salt Lake. "I had on a bathing suit, as we all wore them then, short sleeves, entirely covered from knees to low neck. . . . He said, 'Hazel, you are beautiful to me, but I would much rather see you in your street [clothes]'. . . . I was one of the girls in his seminary class and he wanted us to be 'the very best.' We tried to live to that standard."

As a result of the efforts of Brother Yates, early Granite stake leaders and other early teachers, news of the success of the Granite Seminary program spread. By the 1918, seminaries had been established in Brigham City, Mt. Pleasant, American Fork, Lehi and Blanding, Utah; Mesa, Ariz.; and Star Valley, Wyo. In the spring of 1923, the first seminary graduation exercises were held throughout the system.

Three years later, in October 1926, Elder and Sister J. Wyley Sessions, were sent to Moscow, Idaho, with a charge to "take care of the LDS students registered at the university and to make studies and recommendations as to what the Church should do for its members registered at all state universities." The Sessions' efforts would culminate with the creation of the Church's first institute of religion.

According to a written history of the Church's institute program, the Sessions' first religious education class had an enrollment of 25 students.

The program at Moscow won high respect, "not only from University of Idaho officials and professors but from other colleges and universities in the Northwest," according to the history. "President Ernest O. Holland of Washington State College in Pullman visited the institute several times and told various gatherings of educators that the Mormon institute had come nearer to a solution of the problem of religious education for college students than had any other with which he was acquainted."

In the meantime, institutes were established at other colleges and universities where large numbers of LDS students attended. In 1928 an institute was established adjacent to Utah State Agricultural College in Logan, Utah; in 1929 at the southern branch of the University of Idaho in Pocatello, Idaho; and in 1934 in Salt Lake City adjacent to the University of Utah. Before World War II, other institutes were established in Los Angeles, Calif.; and other locations in Utah, Wyoming and Arizona.

Today, there are more than 2,000 institutes of religion worldwide, serving single adults in the Church, age 18 to 30. Young adults who do not live near a college campus can participate in institute classes taught at local stake centers.

Brother Peterson said the Church's seminary and institute programs are indeed reaching out across the globe, where thousands of qualified teachers are "doing all in their power to fortify our young people against evil."

Students gather for seminary and institute classes under coconut trees on Tabiteauea North, a Pacific island in Kirbati, or in rented rooms without heat, even when temperatures reach below freezing, in Sofia, Bulgaria.

"We have built many beautiful institutes and seminary buildings," Brother Peterson said, calling seminary buildings "a haven from the world" and institutes a "gathering place" for the young adults.

Where it is offered in the United States and Canada, seminary students participate in released-time programs — making room in their high school schedules for one hour of seminary, taught at a Church building near their schools. Other young people participate in early-morning seminary programs, taught by volunteers from their stakes in Church meetinghouses before school begins.

In areas of the world where students are not able to participate in released-time or early-morning programs, classes are offered after school or on Saturdays. In areas where there are not enough young people to justify a seminary program, students can participate through home study on their own.

"We are not trying to take the place of the family, the priesthood or any of the other marvelous Church programs for our youth," Brother Peterson said of the seminary and institute programs. "There is a strength that comes [to young people] from being together."

Newspaper articles and letters to Church Educational System administrators detail some of the heartwarming things happening around the world as a result of seminary and institute.

For example, Ariel Arce, a 16-year-old seminary student from Santa Rosa, Argentina, rode his bike to seminary each morning. Without the bike, Ariel would not have enough time to get from seminary to school. When his bike was stolen, his seminary classmates held car washes and sold chickens and collected enough money to buy Ariel a new bicycle.

In another example, Church Educational System missionaries arrived 45 minutes early for the first-ever seminary/institute activity in the Odessa/Simferopol areas of Ukraine last year. To their surprise, all the young people were already there, excitedly waiting outside the rented room in the cold for their religious instruction to begin.

Brother Peterson noted that there are thousands of inspirational stories about the Church's young people who are involved in seminary and institute.

Church studies on the institute program also reveal positive results. In a 1998 study, out of those who graduate from institute, 96 percent receive temple endowments, 98 percent of those who were married had marriages performed in the temple and 96 percent of the men serve missions, he said.

President Gordon B. Hinckley has encouraged all young adults, ages 14 to 30, to participate in the Church's education programs. Speaking at the Vacaville/Santa Rosa California Regional Conference in 1995, he said: "I am grateful for the seminary system in the Church and for the institute program of the Church. I want to urge every high school student here to take advantage of the seminary program. Your lives will be blessed the greater if you do. Every college and university student should take advantage of the institute program. It is the best place in the world to find your eternal mate, and you will be grateful all your lives if you do."

In April 1984 general conference, President Hinckley noted: "Our great program of Church education moves forward. The work of training students through the seminary and institute program is constantly being enlarged. . . . You who have been the recipients of this program know of its tremendous value. We urge all for whom it is available to take advantage of it. We do not hesitate to promise that your knowledge of the gospel will be increased, your faith will be strengthened and you will develop wonderful associations and friendships."

Brother Peterson said that just as Church leaders today realize the vast advantages of religious education, so did organizers in 1912.

Many of the 70 students who participated in the Granite Seminary in 1912 went on to influence their own children to participate in the program.

Mildred Bennion Eyring, a member of the first Granite seminary class, and her husband, Henry Eyring, left Utah after they married in 1928. They returned to the state "at a considerable financial sacrifice in order that our [three] sons could attend seminaries and institutes," according to a 1933 letter included in A History of Granite Seminary. Today, one of their sons, Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve, serves as commissioner of Church Education.

Stanley W. Bawden, also a member of the first seminary class, wrote in a similar letter of his great appreciation for the education program. "The Church means much to me," he said, ". . . and that feeling was started in my [teenage years] when I attended seminary."