Article March 11, 1950 Issue

"TRAIN UP A CHILD"

EMMA N. CARR

"It is related," writes Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 556, 557), "that a father plunged his infant babe, only a few hours old, into the water for several minutes, and repeated this operation daily, until the child could remain under water twenty minutes, moving and playing without harm, like a fish." And she adds, "Parents should remember this, and learn how to develop their children properly on dry land." Does not our wise Leader here express the need of beginning at the very earliest period to lay the foundation of self-government in children, a prerequisite to true independence? And what is true independence but complete dependence on God!

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it," we read in Proverbs (22:6). Mrs. Eddy loved little children and has given valuable instruction throughout her writings as to the need of obedience to spiritual law, and she makes plain the baneful effect of insubordination.

The child who is early taught that the human will must be subordinated to the divine soon learns to demonstrate his God-given dominion over all suggestions that would divert him from the right path. Habits of obedience to moral and spiritual law should not be incidental in a child's training. He needs to be as carefully and systematically fed with "the sincere milk of the word, that [he] may grow thereby" (I Pet. 2:2), as he is with wholesome food. Parents who inculcate a love of Truth, a love of service, a love for humanity, and a desire to serve all that is good, are teaching their offspring to be honest, to acknowledge duty, to reverence spiritual sense, and always to put righteousness above personal desire.

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