Every weekday of the school year, Karen Bryner's students wake
up before dawn. As the sun rises, they leave their homes for a
walk to the Mormon church in Harlem for religious classes. They
sing hymns, study verses, and share their spiritual journeys
together. Bryner, a volunteer who leads the Harlem educational
program, is a fifth generation Mormon from Utah with the
church’s scriptures in her blood. Her ancestors are intertwined
with the development of Mormon doctrine and education from
almost the beginning. She is a soft spoken woman with salt and
pepper brown hair and thick rimmed glasses. While she is not
married, she experiences her classroom of youngsters as a large
Mormon family under her wing. Year after year, Bryner and
thousands of other volunteer teachers across the world lead the
way for over a million Mormon youths. Historically, faith-based
education has been the vanguard of cultural development and
scholarship in the United States. In 19th Century towns the
local learned person was usually the