The spread of Christian Science, the scientific knowledge of God and the real man, is revealing the disastrous effects of false education. These can be seen on every side. To the observer there is an appalling mass of evidence showing irrefutably that the human race is the victim of its own mistaken apprehension of what constitutes true education. And yet this is not surprising when we remember that many leaders of thought have been misled in the same way.

Matthew Arnold, for instance, in his "Thoughts on Education" denied that the aim and office of education was to make "a man a good citizen or a good Christian." Its prime, direct aim, he said, "is to enable a man to know himself and the world." Arnold of course was writing from the purely materialistic or naturalistic standpoint; and that is just where his pronouncement lacked vital force. Spiritual consciousness would have impelled him to recognize that education in its highest sense relates to the true nature of God as Spirit and of man as spiritual. Once that is conceded, then for a man to know himself is to know his spiritual capacities and powers, his real status in the universe, his eternal unity with his divine source, his rightful place in the kingdom of heaven.

In every civilized community perfectly legitimate stress is laid on the education of children, but in the light of Christian Science it is beginning to be seen that there is right and wrong education. Pedagogy is often nothing more or less than an effort to cram into the minds of the young a mass of useless information. Now "information itself," as Bishop Butler once said, "is really the least part" of education. True education is the unfoldment as well as the impartation of truth; it is the dispersal of ignorance, especially the ignorance which presents itself in the concrete form of incrustated false beliefs to which mortals cling with such tenacity. A knowledge of the world may and frequently does mean merely that race beliefs about supposititious laws of matter and mortal mind are more securely held until of course the awakening comes and the whole educative structure topples over because it was a mass of erroneous concepts. It is now very generally admitted that the most highly honored material theories are usually given up within a decade, displaced by other material theories which in their turn are rejected for those that are less cumbersome and have at least a greater promise of good for mankind.

It is here that one turns with relief to the clear light thrown upon this momentous question by Mrs. Eddy. On page 62 of the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she says: "The entire education of children should be such as to form habits of obedience to the moral and spiritual law, with which the child can meet and master the belief in so-called physical laws, a belief which breeds disease." If all down the centuries such education had been practised, the wonderfully purifying, uplifting, and redemptive effect upon humanity would have been immeasurably greater than we can conceive. A grave responsibility rests upon Christian Scientists everywhere to see that this Science—this knowledge and understanding of Truth—which they love so well shall in this respect be "given free course, and be glorified" in its beneficent administration.

Are we not all "children of a larger growth"? What Christian Scientist has not had to become like a little child before he gained even a glimpse of Life as God? Has he not realized the awful bondage of entirely wrong concepts about God and man and the laws of unerring, infinite Mind? Does he not know that nine tenths of what he has been taught had to be discarded before he could know the truth that made him free? He has had to unlearn before he could learn, and reject before he could receive. Have we not all been expected to master or memorize a whole curriculum of alleged facts relating directly or indirectly to religion, theology, heaven and earth, the present and the future, which we have been glad to jettison as soon as the light of the knowledge of the gospel of Christ Jesus, when interpreted aright, streamed into the consciousness?

Knowing, therefore, what error is and what its demoralizing influences are, the way for education in right beliefs is now open. And here let it be remembered that erroneous hypotheses, or wrong concepts, or ignorance of the truth, are anachronisms. They do not belong to nor have they any connection with the real, spiritual man. He, as the immortal idea of God, possesses all true knowledge, and is never misled, nor does he suffer from false education. The education which blesses and comforts, sustains and enlightens, is the unfoldment to the human mind of this true knowledge—that which apprehends God as Life, Truth, and Love, as divine Principle, and therefore that which effectually destroys any belief in the reality of sin, sickness, and death.

But is not that beyond mortal apprehensions? some one may ask. Mortal thought is the foundation and the precursor of all evil; mortal knowledge leads to discord and decay. In Christian Science human sense is educated out of its false beliefs and man is governed by divine Mind, which comprehends all infinity and embraces all truth. It is in this way that sickness and sorrow are overcome. The physical sufferer, bowed down with pain, and with only the prospect of death before him, learns in Christian Science that his condition is abnormal, because God never intended that he should be sick, nor did He send sickness to him. The physical condition is simply the product of wrong education. So long as mortal mind is allowed to rule, so long will the sufferer remain in ignorance of the healing power of Truth, and be burdened with that most flagrant educated falsity, the belief of life in matter. To all such the Christ appeal, "Learn of me, ... and ye shall find rest," is of profound significance.

Human sense may thus be instructed, and the errors which constitute much experience made to disappear before the omnipotence of Truth. The process may be slow, but it is certain. Mrs. Eddy says, "Mortal thought does not at once catch the higher meaning, and can do so only as thought is educated up to spiritual apprehension" (Science and Health, p. 349); but yield it will, and the result is what we know as salvation. "And they shall be all taught of God," Jesus said, quoting the prophets. "Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me." It is thus that God, who is Love, leads into all truth. It is thus that Spirit quickens, enlightens, teaches, imparting that spiritual understanding which as true Science (knowledge) is the activity of divine Mind, and the redeemer of every one who flees for refuge to God.

Copyright, 1916, by The Christian Science Publishing Society