Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, tells us (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 252): "The entire purpose of true education is to make one not only know the truth but live it —to make one enjoy doing right, make one not work in the sunshine and run away in the storm, but work midst clouds of wrong, injustice, envy, hate; and wait on God, the strong deliverer, who will reward righteousness and punish iniquity." With these words as our standard, it is plain that present educational methods must be improved.
We shall progress as we gain a clearer understanding of the true individuality of man in God's likeness and of the spiritual nature of creation. We need unselfishness, selfcontrol, freedom, justice, in order to cope with adverse conditions, to overcome obstacles to health, happiness, harmony, to rise above resentment and intolerance, to "enjoy doing right," to "work midst clouds of wrong, injustice, envy, hate," and this must be the result of education before it can be considered successful. Without Principle, true education is impossible.
Work in an educational institution requires study of material so-called laws, conditions, and elements, said to comprise human life. But the student of Christian Science need not sacrifice or relinquish his spiritual concept of Truth and Life in order to do his work creditably and successfully. Through applying in everyday experience the teachings of Christian Science, the student not only maintains his equanimity, his poise, his peace, his faith in and vision of man's life in Spirit, but draws ever closer to divine Mind. Material arts and sciences, philosophies, religions past or present, psychology, astrology, or any systems which deal with man as mortal, material, imperfect, and sinful, do not reveal the reality of life in Spirit, of man as God's son. Through the study of Christian Science we learn to distinguish between the true and the false, to accept the good and to reject the evil. In the demonstrating of Truth and Love, we find our real selfhood.
