IT may not be generally known that the probable origin of our present public school system of education in the United States is a statute which dates back to 1642 when the General Court of the State of Massachusetts ordered that children should be brought up to learning and labor, and imposed fines upon parents and others who neglected their duty in these particulars. Of greater significance, however, was the statute of 1647, in which the statement is made that "in order to thwart the designs of that old deluder, Satan, every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read." The clergymen, or "comforters of the sick" as they were called, were frequently the schoolmasters, for they combined the highest intellectual, moral, and religious training in the community.
The Puritan pioneers evidently believed that ignorance was the cause of evil and crime, and that by education all evil, or the designs of Satan, could be frustrated. Two hundred and fifty years have elapsed since that statute became effective, and much good has resulted; yet the hoped for end is not reached. Crime is prevalent, and not by any means the invariable accompaniment of ignorance; neither does ordinary education give assurance of goodness. It is not infrequently remarked that a thief who is educated is the most difficult to catch and reform. If ignorance is the cause of crime, so-called education fails to destroy it, for often the educated are found guilty of unspeakable evils. We must conclude, therefore, that education, in part at least, fails either in its aim or its method, or in both.
To search out the cause of these conditions has been, and is, the endeavor of many earnest and thoughtful men and women. The great Teacher, Jesus, offered a solution in that remarkable statement, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." It is to this philosophy and order of education that Christian Science is today directing the world's attention. By way of illustration of Jesus' method of thwarting the delusions of evil, we may consider his temptation in the wilderness. The first design of the deluder was to try to make Jesus a slave to so-called physical appetites by asking him, when hungry, to make bread out of stones. His answer was, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
