![]() ![]() My presidential belief-the only one that seemed to me to justify BYU’s existence-was that we could have it both ways, that superb scholarship and rock-solid faith were as inextricable in our future as they were essential to it. In fact, we would accomplish the one because of the other, never in spite of it. That cardinal supposition, that consuming vision, was that we could be an excellent university, indeed a truly great university, an “educational Mt. Everest,” 2 if you will, and still be absolutely, unequivocally, forever faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to his restored Church that sponsors us. 1 I said then that I was gambling everything I had, in whatever the Holland administrative years would be, on one single and preeminent principle. I sat there that night thinking of what I said on August 26, 1980, when you were kind enough to sit through the very first of these nine messages from me. ![]() Should the Church, I wondered, continue to fund BYU if resources are limited, if an increasing number of students cannot attend, and if individuals at the university-or in any way the university collectively-could not measure up to the expectations that so many generations have had for us? That led to a question I found myself asking late one night in the darkened study of the President’s Home: “Should the Church even have a university at all?” Did it justify the effort, the expense, the toil, the tithing-and was it worth the pain? After all, the Church had disengaged from a number of operations, which included not only hospitals and hotels but, of far more interest to us, schools. As is so often the case with such monumental matters, I don’t even remember now what it was-but whatever it was, it made those winter days a bit darker than usual. ![]() Late last winter I was feeling pretty blue about something or other that didn’t seem quite right at the university and found myself wondering if all the effort was really worth it. ![]()
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