Prophetic Statements
Spencer W. Kimball
To slow down this ever increasing rate of juvenile delinquency, there is a growing cry: “We must have more detention homes and reformatories. We need more public money appropriated for better facilities, more highly trained specialists, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists. We need larger jails, more police.” Certainly, it must be apparent that all this is but an attempted control of a malady of epidemic proportions. Have the experts failed? Isn’t it time to come back to fundamentals? “We need more money,” they say, but we have spent in the last decade $78 billion on elementary and high schools for the children, yet delinquency increases; $110 billion on cars; $127 billion for recreation, and still immorality, hoodlumism, sadism, and vandalism grow apace, and to make it worse, $180 billion in cosmetics, tobacco, and alcohol. No — money is not the answer! Surely we must realize that an ounce of prevention is worth tons of cure.1
Supporting Statements
Neil J. Flinders
The common response to problems in contemporary education is to complain about a lack of dollars, materials, and facilities. But the most fundamental issues we face cannot be resolved simply by allocating more money, newer books and technology, and better facilities. The need is evident to free ourselves from following conflicting value structures–believing that right and wrong are different at home, at school, at work, and at play. The current doctrine that all value choices are correct–depending on the period, place and people–must be replaced with principles of right and wrong that transcend personal desires or social norms.2
