The Perpetual Education Fund, announced in April and further explained in the priesthood session of conference, is patterned after the Perpetual Emigration Fund. Here are some historical facts provided by the Church Public Affairs Department about the Perpetual Emigration Fund.
The Perpetual Emigration Fund provided financial assistance for more than 30,000 needy Latter-day Saints from the United States and Europe who were emigrating to Utah between 1849 and 1887.
Latter-day Saints who financed their own expenses also benefited from a well-organized emigration system. During the system's 38 years of operation, Perpetual Emigration Fund officers aided more than 100,000 people by chartering ships, helping emigrants pass through inspection, organizing wagon trains and purchasing provisions. Of these emigrants, 87,000 came from England and northern Europe.
Church President Brigham Young announced the fund on Oct. 12, 1849. He promised Latter-day Saints that the Church would "never desert the poor and worthy." That promise became the founding principle for the Perpetual Emigration Fund.
The Perpetual Emigrating Fund provided Church members with loans to finance their journeys to Utah. The loans were not a handout. Emigrants signed promissory notes pledging to repay the loans once they were in a position to do so. As loans were repaid, funds were made available to other Church members. In this way the fund became a revolving resource.
Church members in the United States and Europe donated money, wagons, oxen, food and clothing to the Perpetual Emigration Fund.
Emigrants from many countries joined an increasingly diverse society in Utah. United States census takers noted in 1880 that more than 40,000 people living in the Utah territory were foreign-born — a dramatic increase from the less than 2,000 foreign-born individuals who resided in Utah in 1850.
By 1849 — when the fund was established — only around 6,000 Church members resided in the Salt Lake Valley. In England, however, Church membership totaled around 30,000 in 250 congregations. The emigration of these foreign-born Latter-day Saints strengthened the Church in Utah by increasing membership. It also brought to the Salt Lake Valley people with needed skills, including blacksmiths, cabinetmakers, miners, stonecutters and shoe repairmen.
For the most part, Latter-day Saint emigrants traveled as families — bringing their elderly and very young — and became United States citizens. Other emigrant groups were mostly single adults who did not always stay.
When the Church was still in its infancy, Church leaders counseled members to gather to "Zion," a name which refers to an ideal community — the Utah territory in this early instance. Church leaders later counseled Latter-day Saints to remain in their native lands and create Zion by strengthening the Church in their own countries.
