Love for God is entirely natural to a child's true individuality. As a flower turns to the light, so the normal thought of the child is attracted to that which appeals to his higher nature. Given the opportunity, every child is capable of spiritual education. However, parents sometimes find that a child appears to be uninterested in Sunday School and resists all efforts to enforce attendance. So they query: "What is the solution? To what extent is it right to use disciplinary measures to keep the child in Sunday School?" Sometimes parents of a teen-age child are tempted to believe that he should no longer be urged to go to Sunday School, that he has reached the age where he should be permitted to make his own decision.

Now, no one questions whether children should be required to go to day school. Neither should there be any question regarding Sunday School attendance. But as Christian Scientists we need to be sure that we are viewing the situation in the right perspective. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and in her other writings, our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, emphasizes the child's natural receptivity to Truth. And in his book "Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy" Irving C. Tomlinson writes of her (p. 81), "She said she had never known a child who did not understand Christian Science if given to him in the right way."

Obviously the training of the child is the responsibility of those to whom he is entrusted. Mrs. Eddy is definite in her estimate of the great possibilities of a mother's influence through the study of Christian Science. (See Miscellaneous Writings by Mrs. Eddy, page 5: 7-10.) So in solving the problem of a child's resistance to Sunday School, parents and teachers need to be ever watchful of their own thinking.

Christ Jesus declared (John 12: 32), "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." Hence, one who is charged with the spiritual education of youth needs to lift his thought above the belief in a power that would separate the child from the truth which he so much needs and to recognize the supremacy, on earth as in heaven, of the attractive power of Truth and Love. Then as the Christlike qualities are uplifted in the thought of the instructor, the attraction will be natural to the child.

This natural attraction is illustrated in the case of a mother whose two young children had become very unruly. She reasoned that if the situation was not corrected, the results, as the children grew older, would be deplorable. On seeking help of a Christian Science practitioner, her thought was directed to the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy, Article VIII, which is under the heading "Discipline." As she studied Section 1, "A Rule for Motives and Acts," she began to cultivate Christlike qualities according to its provisions. Under the influence of the mother's self-discipline, the children at once became more tractable. She continued her efforts, and in a short while they no longer presented a special discipline problem.

It is the great privilege of the parent to co-operate with the Sunday School in behalf of the child. However, the parents of our pupils are in different states and stages of spiritual growth. Some are earnest and devout Christian Scientists; some are only favorably inclined to Science; some who are not church members attend the services; others attend seldom, if ever. So it is apparent that the teacher has a responsibility which is not to be regarded lightly. To meet this responsibility, he must be sure that his own thought is divinely disciplined.

If a pupil is uninterested in Sunday School, the teacher may well consider whether he is properly evaluating the child's inherent spiritual nature and its possibilities. Or is lie believing that here is a pupil whose thought he cannot reach because the child has not been taught obedience at home? Or in another case, because the parents are not sufficiently interested to encourage the child in the study of the lessons? Or is it thought that a child is unresponsive because of too many other interests—an overfull social calendar, burdensome school-work, or perhaps because of too much work outside of school hours? The teacher who looks to divine Love for guidance will not be stymied by any situation such as these.

One teacher had a pupil who became very irregular in his attendance and then finally ceased to come altogether. After repeated efforts to get in touch with him, at last she reached him on the telephone. He explained that he was earning money to apply on his college education, and because of long hours of work through the week he felt it necessary to rest on Sunday mornings. The teacher readily commended his desire for a higher education. She expressed a loving interest in his efforts and pointed out that Christian Science as taught in the Sunday School would help him more than anything else to accomplish his purpose. The next Sunday the lad was in his class and continued to attend regularly until he reached the withdrawal age of twenty. He became an earnest student of Christian Science.