Through Christian Science we can look beneath the surface of things to see the essential significance of events and institutions. University departments encompass, in concentrated form, some highly important human thinking. The human mind's aim to understand and analyze itself is the substance of psychology. The attempt of the human mind to record and interpret its past—and to gain a more clearly defined analysis of its present and future—constitutes history. The human mind's endeavor to systematize its sense of a physical environment is the substance of physics. And human consciousness tries to find an underlying pattern, and the relationship between the above—and other modes of thought—in philosophy.
The university is a place where the human intellect is trying to discover its boundaries and break its bonds. There, just about every assumption and sense appearance is questioned and analyzed at one time or another. A multitude of concepts and frames of reference are juxtaposed and in competition. It is a place, too, where youth are forming ideals that may influence the rest of their lives and future society. It is a place, moreover, where— according to its own ideals—the truth is sought at any cost to dogma. Far from seeing the university as inhospitable to Christian Science, we might well view it as an area in which Science must be represented.
With tremendous foresight, Mrs. Eddy has made provision in the Manual of The Mother ChurchSee Man., Art. XXIII, Sect. 8; for Christian Science organizations at universities and colleges. Perhaps we are only just beginning to glimpse the extent of Mrs. Eddy's perception in making this provision.
