Primary (LDS Church)

Primary

The official seal of the Primary adopted in 1940.
Formation	11 August 1878
Type	Non-profit
Purpose	religious instruction; personal standards and development; child/family support
Headquarters	Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
Membership	1.1 million children aged 3–11
General President	Joy D. Jones
Main organ	General presidency and general board
Parent organization	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Affiliations	Members join the Young Men or Young Women at age 12
Website	lds.org

The Primary (formerly the Primary Association) is a children's organization and an official auxiliary within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). It acts as a Sunday school organization for the church's children under the age of 12.

The official purpose of Primary is to help parents in teaching their children to learn and live the gospel of Jesus Christ. The official objectives of Primary are to:

The Primary theme is "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children".

Primary was first organized in 1878 by Aurelia Spencer Rogers in Farmington, Utah, and adopted church-wide in 1880 under the direction of Louie B. Felt, who served as the president of the organization through 1925. Rogers was concerned because younger Latter-day Saint children had too much unsupervised time due to the long hours that fathers and older sons kept on the farms and mothers and older daughters in the home. In particular, Rogers felt that the younger boys in the community were becoming unruly and mischievous. With permission from church leaders and under the initial direction of General Relief Society President Eliza R. Snow, Rogers organized a Primary Association for her local Farmington congregation on August 11, 1878. Two weeks later, the first meeting was held on August 28, with 215 children in attendance. That day, boys were specifically taught not to steal fruit from orchards and girls were taught not to hang on wagons. In addition, they were given lessons on faith, manners, obedience, and other principles.

May Anderson, the second general president of the Primary Association from 1925 to 1939, initiated what became Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City (now part of Intermountain Healthcare). Anderson also helped establish kindergartens in Utah. In the 1970s, as a result of the Priesthood Correlation Program, the Primary Association was renamed "Primary".