In one of the larger airports a passenger once observed a group of grade-school children, perhaps twenty-five in number, listening attentively to a stewardess who was telling them about the airplanes and their flights. The many interesting features of this busy airport, under ordinary circumstances, might easily have attracted the attention of such wide-awake youngsters in various directions; but there was not the slightest distraction. The children, orderly and quiet, saw nothing and heard nothing except the stewardess and her comments. She held the children's interest, and there was therefore no discipline problem.

In any school the question of discipline resolves itself into one of interesting the children in the lessons. The sole purpose of our Sunday School lessons is to teach Christian Science to the children. Our subject, Christian Science, is defined by its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, in her book "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 1), "as the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony." Since God's law can only be discerned spiritually, the teacher needs first of all to know that there is in every child a spiritual sense that responds to divine law. When, through the spiritualized thought of the teacher, the spiritual sense of the child is reached, the pupil is found to be interested and receptive.

To teach divine law so that the truth will unfold in the pupil's thought, we do not look to the methods of the secular schools. We do not need the audio-visual aids of modern educational systems. Even in the primary classes we do not resort to kindergarten devices. But in order to understand and to realize the pupils' receptivity to divine law and their interest in the lessons, we do need a right concept of children. According to our Leader's definition, given in the Glossary of out textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 583), children, in their true being, are "the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love." The material definition is also given and reads, in part, "counterfeits of creation, whose better originals are God's thoughts, not in embryo, but in maturity; material suppositions of life, substance, and intelligence, opposed to the Science of being." It is important that the teacher accept and hold to the true concept of children as "the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love." Failing to do this, he accepts that concept which is "opposed to the Science of being," and it should not be surprising if, from this erroneous premise, opposition should express itself in lack of interest or inattention, possibly even in discourtesy and other disturbing factors.

It might be said then that the solution to the discipline problem begins in the teacher's own thought before he comes to the class. Luke tells us that Christ Jesus, on the occasion of his delivering that immortal discourse which our Leader calls "the diamond sermon" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 91), spent the preceding night on the mountain in prayer. When the day came, and he went down to the plain, there met him what might be called a very large class—a multitude from "all Judæa and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon." They were interested, waiting to hear him and ready to be healed.

Sometimes a teacher is inclined to feel that if the home environment of a pupil were different, if the parents required more obedience and encouraged attention to the lessons, the Sunday School could accomplish so much more. A child needs no urging to obtain that which interests him. Reports of public libraries indicate that today even the younger children are calling for books on such subjects as radar and atomic enemy. How much more interesting than atomic energy is the great truth which our Leader sets forth on page 412 of the textbook, "The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent." And what convincing evidence is to be found in the Bible —the dividing of the Red Sea, the razing of the walls of Jericho, the loosening of the chains and opening of the prison doors for Peter's release, and the calling of Lazarus from the tomb.

While parental co-operation is highly to be desired, the teacher need not feel dependent upon it. If by self-discipline, by prayer and fasting, he makes his own thought a transparency for the truth, he can trust divine Love for the awakening to this truth and the unfoldment of it in the child's thought. Christ Jesus, in behalf of his followers, prayed, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (John 17:17). He looked to the truth alone to sanctify his followers, but his part in their spiritual progress was clearly shown when he added, "For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." So the Sunday School teacher finds that as his thought becomes a transparency for the truth presented in the lessons he commands the situation, for truth then meets with a natural response in the pupil, and divine law itself does the disciplining.