Items of Interest December 24, 1932 Issue

Items of Interest

The National Council of Women in the United States is to have an exhibition at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago next year, 1933. This exhibit is to include the names and portraits of twelve women who "have made the most valuable contribution to American progress during the past hundred years." In order to determine what women should be included, the question was thrown open to all of the women of America through the Ladies' Home Journal. The National Council of Women has been using on its letterheads the silhouettes of twelve women who have had a distinct influence upon the life of this country during the period named. The Ladies' Home Journal in giving this list publicity asks: "But are these the twelve most outstanding women leaders of the past hundred years? Could others be chosen who have still greater claim to recognition?"

In this connection it is interesting to recall that in the Christian Science Sentinel for March 6, 1909, when Mrs. Eddy was with us, was republished an article from the New York Herald entitled, "Includes Mrs. Eddy." We reproduce the following excerpts: "You have asked for answers to your question, 'Who are the ten greatest living Americans?' ... My list is as follows." Then follow the names of Mrs. Eddy, Julia Ward Howe, and nine men, the Wright brothers being listed as one. The commentator continues: "I place Mary Baker Eddy first in the list, for her accomplishment seems nothing short of miraculous. She threw down the gauge to the three sciences most inveterate in dogma and intrenched for centuries in the convictions of the human race, declaring to the physicist and materialist that there is no such thing as matter; declaring to the medical scientist that as sin and ignorance are the source of disease, so divine Principle, or Truth, fixed starlike in the understanding, is the one sufficient cure for both sin and sickness, and declaring to the theologian that his various 'schemes' of salvation, founded upon the letter and not the spirit of the Scriptures, dishonor every reasonable concept of the Deity. And through the ridicule, denunciation, and even persecution which she thereby encountered, she lives to behold her teachings accepted by hundreds of thousands in America, England, Germany, and France, while many of her ideas have been adopted by those whom she combated, henceforth to mold and modify their doctrines and curricula."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Lecture in The Mother Church