Editorial September 18, 1978 Issue

Schoolteachers and church Readers—their morals

Nathan A. Talbot

We have witnessed in recent years a growing insistence that more honesty and morality be practiced by those who serve the public. Politicians—perhaps because they are some of the most visible people in society—often take a good share of the spotlight when wrongdoing is uncovered and people begin to demand higher standards.

All of us, regardless of the position we fill, ought to recognize the need to develop in our own lives the standards we are requiring of others. Each of us is obliged to raise his level of obedience to the moral and spiritual precepts spelled out in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. But there are two positions of public service that merit special and specific attention when we are considering the importance of upgrading standards of conduct. They are the posts of teachers in our school systems and Readers in Churches of Christ, Scientist.

People filling these important positions ought to be as firmly grounded in their moral qualifications as they are in any particular talent they possess. The reason is that these two key activities are strongly positioned to nourish the growth and development of individual character—church reading, uniquely so. In reference to this subject Mary Baker Eddy mentions "nurseries of character." She writes: "The teachers of schools and the readers in churches should be selected with as direct reference to their morals as to their learning or their correct reading. Nurseries of character should be strongly garrisoned with virtue."^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 235;}