The Leadership Style of Karl G. Maeser

Statue of Karl G. Maeser  on the Provo campus of BYU

In an address by George Sutherland entitled, A Message to the 1941 Graduating Class of Brigham Young University, we are told about some of the things that made Karl G. Maeser a unique and effective leader.

"Dr Maeser was not only a scholar of great and varied learning, with an exceptional ability to impart what he knew to others, but he was a man of such transparent and natural goodness that his students gained not only knowledge, but character, which is better than knowledge.  I have never known a man whose learning covered so wide a range of subjects, and was at the same time so thorough in all.  His ability to teach ran from the Kindergarten to the highest branches of pedagogy.  In all my acquaintance with him I never knew a question to be submitted upon any topic that he did not readily and fully answer.  In addition to all this he had a wonderful grasp of human nature and seemed to understand almost intuitively the moral and intellectual qualities of his students.  He saw the shortcomings as well as the excellences of his pupils, and while he never hesitated to point them out--sometimes in a genial, humorous way--it was always with such an undercurrent of kindly interest that no criticism ever left a sting.  He was, of course, an ardent believer in the doctrines of his Church, but with great tolerance for the views of those who differed with him in religious faith.  I came to the old Academy with religious opinions frankly at variance with those he entertained, but I was never made to feel that it made the slightest difference in his regard or attention." ( Wilkinson, Ernest L. Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years Vol.I.  Brigham Young University Press. 1975. pgs. 204-5