When one considers the numerous Christian Science Sunday Schools throughout the world and the growth which has been manifested in this activity, one sometimes forgets that when Mary Baker Eddy established the Sunday School there was only one pupil. An account of the founding of the Sunday School in "Mary Baker Eddy: A Life Size Portrait" by Lyman P. Powell gives valuable historical details and is important as an illustration of the manner in which Mrs. Eddy taught a small child. Little Warren Choate, the only Sunday School pupil, was chosen by our Leader to speak to her students. Although he was to speak only a four-line stanza, Mrs. Eddy rehearsed it with much care. Through her instruction he learned to express joy, orderliness, courtesy, poise, and perfection in the slightest detail. He was not in any sense a "discipline problem," but because he was responsive to her love for him he enjoyed learning to discipline himself. Through her patience he learned to express right activity. Her tender, cheerful manner with him can well serve as an example for every Sunday School teacher.
Today mankind is rightly concerned with the many problems seemingly embodied in the word discipline. Doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and educators have all attempted to control human behavior from a personal basis. Yet juvenile delinquency, moral laxity, and corruption continue to show the inability of mortal mind to discipline itself.
Christian Science advances the reassuring truth that any individual, no matter how seemingly depraved he may be, can learn to control his thoughts and acts by identifying himself correctly as the image and likeness of God. Christian Science replaces the old theory of restrictive control with scientific self-discipline. Where progressive education and psychology have sometimes floundered on the shoals of "permissive" behavior and uncontrolled "self-expression," Christian Science liberates the individual by revealing a correct view of him as the expression of God.
