I just found a priesthood manual from 1954. Here is what was taught.

8 weeks on the philosophy of St Augustine.

2 weeks on Pelagius

2 weeks on Monasticism

4 weeks on changes to early Christian worship, liturgy and "the reorganization of church in rome"

3 weeks on the development and birth of the papacy

8 weeks on the reformation including 3 weeks on Martin Luther

4 weeks on the restoration

Here is an interesting tidbit from page 154

(The church) had deprived the people of the right to investigate and to think, and had substituted for personal responsibility, the responsibility of the Church. All needed only to accept blindly what the Church formulated.

Interesting, shows how far things have dumbed down.

Yes!

If you look at Relief Society manuals and programs from the 1950s and 1960s, they too were expansive and stimulating. That was back during the period when the church was confident enough to encourage the studying of the "best books," etc. It was the era of Lowell Bennion and Hugh Brown.

Correlation killed all that; the big changes came in the 1970s. Today's church is radically different, radically narrower and more parochial than before.

Oh that's a score, please don't get rid of it.

Yes, back then they used to be actually a bit scholarly. Now
they are pseudo-scholarly with very carefully cherry-picked
quotes to make some propaganda point. They have also become
masters of plausible-deniability. They know how to insinuate
something without actually saying so.

About 13 years ago I attended Church for a few weeks as a favor
to a friend who had been a missionary in the area. He wanted
to know what the ward was like there and if his old
acquaintances were still active. This was back when there was
push for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as
between one man and one woman. In the State where I was there
was a ballot initiative associated with this. The First
Presidency had sent a message to be read over the pulpit. I
listened carefully to it. It basically said something generic
about defending the sanctity of marriage and that all citizens
should exercise their right to vote. But they didn't actually
say how they wanted anyone to vote.

Later in priesthood meeting the leader remarked that the First
Presidency has asked us to vote for the anti-gay-marriage
amendment. No one corrected him. The sheep take orders from
the leaders on how to vote, and the leaders cheerfully tell the
media that "we don't tell the members how to vote."

Incidentally, the Mormon history buff in me was amused by the
Church's push for the amendment. Dallin (I don't hate the evil
gays) Oaks was sent to Washington to lobby for the amendment.
However, a century previously (almost to the year) there was
another constitutional amendment that was being considered
which defined marriage as between one man and one woman. In
that case the Church sent an apostle to Washington to lobby
AGAINST the amendment. Back then they objected to the "ONE
woman" part.

Funny how it goes.

I remember on my mission (Utah mission) myself and other missionaries would scour used bookstores and DI's for old church study manuals because they were so much more in-depth and intellectually stimulating than the simple, dumbed down newer versions.

I thought you were going to say that you bought up the books and destroyed them. The parents of my son's roommate in Provo were on a senior mission in the valley, and their mission was to hit all the used book stores and buy up any old manuals, old LDS books, and anything "anti-Mormon," and then destroy them. Naturally, the cost was all on them.

In about 1998, they were introducing the new presidents of the church manuals, and at that time, the branch president told us that the church had instructed us to turn in or destroy any previous lesson manuals that might be in our possession, and not use them for talks or preparing lessons. I had always used old manuals to prepare lessons or talks, so I kept mine. Besides, the request was creepy. Much later, my wife found them, and like a mother who discovers porn magazines under a kid's bed, she threw them all in the wheelie bin. Thus it is in Mormonism, where one leader's truths become another leader's untrue doctrines.

I can confirm that the lessons have been dumbed down by several orders of magnitude.

I sat through a SS lesson with my relatives and it was all I could do to keep from smacking my head repeatedly as people took turns reading pages from the manual and then having pseudo-discussions based on question prompts written in the manual.

It was literally at the level of the "Dick and Jane" readers from elementary school. "Can you see spot run? Spot is a dog. Why do you think he is named Spot? If Spot was your dog, would you like that?"

Mormon version: "Can you think of any revelation that has blessed your life? The Word of Wisdom is a revelation from Heavenly Father that has blessed many lives. Why do you think it is called the Word of Wisdom? Do you believe that it is wise to avoid substances that would be harmful to our health? Can you stop banging your head against the wall during the Sunday School lesson? The Brethren have counseled that repetitive banging of one's head against the wall is not conducive to enjoying the companionship of the Holy Ghost."