Article October 18, 1947 Issue

Discipline

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.

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