Article January 31, 1925 Issue

The Progress of Our Young Folks

KATHERINE TRABAND

CHILDREN , as well as men and women, are striving for success. From the very beginning, human experience is a struggle for achievement; and fortunate, indeed, is that one who learns among his early lessons something of the true meaning of success. Every normal child wants to succeed. He wants to succeed in the games which he plays; he wants to succeed in his studies; he wants to succeed in all that he undertakes. And he likes to think that in later years he will succeed in bigger things.

Those who are charged with the responsibility of educating the child need to watch very closely that they themselves are not misled. Parents uninstructed in Christian Science too often inclined to measure the success of the child by the extent to which he excels other children; and children sometimes begin at a very early age to think more about excelling their playmates and their schoolmates than they do about self-improvement. Obviously, if children or adults are to practice the Golden Rule, they will desire for others the good which they themselves are striving to attain. Children are naturally loving and unselfish; and parents and teachers can do much toward protecting these childlike qualities, that they be not lost through contact with the world.

The wise parent and the wise teacher will impress upon the child that his success is not to be measured by the achievements of others, but by his own continued progress. Let the child understand that he is not called upon to make the highest score or to stand at the head of his class, but that he may at all times endeavor to express perfection. Then he will be learning a lesson of inestimable value. Let him be told that he who accomplished more than any other, before or since his time, cared nothing for worldly distinction or the approbation of men. When addressed as "Good Master," Christ Jesus replied, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."

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