Editorial November 13, 1971 Issue

Are Children Equal?

Naomi Price

A teacher facing a mixed class of young school children may wonder: boys, girls, black, white, tall, short, European, Asiatic—they appear very different. Are they unequal in talent as well as in looks? Are some of them intelligent and some unintelligent? Do some possess greater capacities than others for inventiveness, reasoning, concentration, artistic creativity? Will some be hostile and some friendly? Some well behaved, some not?

If the teacher thinks of the children as mortal beings, and compares them with each other, he will probably maintain that there is a big difference between their characters and abilities—a difference that current human theories attribute largely to genetic and environmental factors. But if he thinks of them as the Bible describes them, as the offspring of God, he will know that although they are distinctly individual they are not unequal. In truth there is not one of them who is better or more effective than any other. The teacher will know that they each reflect the same qualities of the one divine Father, and express the same intelligence of infinite Mind, but that their individualities remain exclusively their own, distinct and eternally maintained by the divine Principle that formed them.

The Bible says, "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?"^{Mal. 2:10;} And Christ Jesus taught the impartiality of God's love for each of His children. His disciple Paul wrote, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."^{Gal. 3:28;}