Editorial April 22, 1922 Issue

Education

Duncan Sinclair

Every Christian Scientist has the question of the children's education tremendously at heart. No sooner has he gained some understanding of spiritual being and of spiritual law, whereby sickness and sin are healed and health and morals established on a reliable and scientific basis, than he desires the children to learn the truth which makes humanity free. Parents are more than all others responsible for the well-being of their children; and it is their bounded duty to bring them up in the knowledge of Truth, which will establish them in the way of righteousness and secure to them the greatest measure of happiness.

Mrs. Eddy, as was to be expected from her love of humanity, let her heart go out to the children. She had great compassion for their tender years. Well she knew the temptations and pitfalls to which youth is subject; and, so, to protect them she established a complete course of education in Christian Science Sunday Schools, which could be continued until the pupil had reached the age of twenty years. This course, based upon the Scriptures, from first to last was intended to enable the pupils to obtain an understanding of divine Principle and its application to human problems, in accordance with the divine revelation contained in the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings, and more especially in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The lessons of the course, specifically detailed in Article XX of the Church Manual, comprise the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, with its spiritual interpretation from Science and Health (p. 16), the Sermon on the Mount, and the Bible Lessons contained in The Christian Science Quarterly. They are splendidly suited to their purpose; and the greatest wisdom has to be shown by the teachers in imparting such instruction as will accord with the children's "understanding or ability," as Mrs. Eddy says in the Church Manual (Article XX, Sect. 2), "to grasp the simpler meanings of the divine Principle that they are taught."

Such is the provision that has been made for the spiritual needs of children connected with Christian Science churches. Great, indeed, is the provision, but it does not by any means meet the demands of Christian Science with regard to education, generally. What are these demands? They are accurately states in Science and Health (p. 62). There Mrs. Eddy writies: "The entire education of children should be such as to form habits of obedience to the moral and spiritual law, with which the child can meet and master the belief in so-called physical laws, a belief which breeds disease." Not only should the education imparted in the Sunday schools inculcate obedience to moral and spiritual law, but "the entire education of children" should be toward this end. Why? In order that the child may be able to defeat the false beliefs which, masquerading as law, induce and propagate sin and disease. Education is thus defined as instruction in moral and spiritual law and obedience thereto.

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