The Progress of Our Young Folks

KATHERINE TRABAND

CHILDREN , as well as men and women, are striving for success. From the very beginning, human experience is a struggle for achievement; and fortunate, indeed, is that one who learns among his early lessons something of the true meaning of success. Every normal child wants to succeed. He wants to succeed in the games which he plays; he wants to succeed in his studies; he wants to succeed in all that he undertakes. And he likes to think that in later years he will succeed in bigger things.

Those who are charged with the responsibility of educating the child need to watch very closely that they themselves are not misled. Parents uninstructed in Christian Science too often inclined to measure the success of the child by the extent to which he excels other children; and children sometimes begin at a very early age to think more about excelling their playmates and their schoolmates than they do about self-improvement. Obviously, if children or adults are to practice the Golden Rule, they will desire for others the good which they themselves are striving to attain. Children are naturally loving and unselfish; and parents and teachers can do much toward protecting these childlike qualities, that they be not lost through contact with the world.

The wise parent and the wise teacher will impress upon the child that his success is not to be measured by the achievements of others, but by his own continued progress. Let the child understand that he is not called upon to make the highest score or to stand at the head of his class, but that he may at all times endeavor to express perfection. Then he will be learning a lesson of inestimable value. Let him be told that he who accomplished more than any other, before or since his time, cared nothing for worldly distinction or the approbation of men. When addressed as "Good Master," Christ Jesus replied, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."

Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians reminded them that "they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize;" and he added, "So run, that ye may obtain." Father on in the same chapter we read, "Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." Paul well knew that he who would love his neighbor as himself labors not to excel others, but to obtain that incorruptible crown of self-mastery without which no real sucess is possible. Every contestant may not reach the highest score and win the highest place, but all may make of every contest an opportunity to develop more of the qualities which lead to true manhood and true womanhood. Real success does not necessarily involve the defeat of another, for the very basis of true success is love. It was his great love for God and all mankind which made Christ Jesus the most successful man who ever lived; and it was the same spirit of unselfed love which enabled Mary Baker Eddy to follow so closely in his footsteps that she was able not only to rediscover the Science of Christianity which Jesus taught and demonstrated, but to establish it for the salvation of all mankind, despite the opposition of a resisting world.

It is sometimes said of one who has seemed to fail in some particular endeavor, but who cheerfully and confidently continues his efforts, that he is a good loser. Now a good loser learns from defeat the secret of victory. He maintains a sense of mastery over self and circumstances, and thereby scores a point which tends to ultimate success in every direction of human endeavor.

Every honest undertaking affords opportunity for some measure of success. If the child by relying on the omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience of God for strength, freedom, and capacity, is able to do something better than he ever did it before, and thus exceeds his own past record, regardless of what another may or may not have accomplished, he has succeeded in overcoming somewhat his own sense of limitation. If, through his application of the law of Love, he has established in his consciousness an increasing sense of love for his playmate or his fellow-student, who may or may not have won a higher place, then he has succeeded in overcoming in some degree the claims of selfishness. If, by abiding in that consciousness of love, he is able to rejoice in the success of another, who perhaps has attained what he has not, the child has won a victory over the claims of envy and jealousy that can never be compared with the mere winning of worldly honors. At the same time, he has established a barrier against disappointment and discouragement, for evils which are the outcome of self-centered thinking cannot dwell in an unselfish heart. Furthermore, if his righteous efforts have enabled him to accomplish what his so-called opponents have not, it is his privilege to win a still greater victory,—a victory over self-love and self-exaltation.

Better is "he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city;" and doubly successful is that one who, having achieved success, is able to say, as did Christ Jesus, "I can of mine own self do nothing," recognizing that only in the proportion that he honors and obeys his heavenly Father is he able to continue in well-doing. On page 14 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 our Leader says: "I suggest as a motto for every Christian Scientist,—a living and life-giving spiritual shield against the powers of darkness,—

'Great not like Caesar, stained with blood,
But only great as I am good.'

The only genuine success possible for any Christian—and the only success I have ever achieved—has been accomplished on this solid basis."

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