An eager Sunday School teacher sometimes makes a reluctant superintendent. From a distance administrative responsibilities can seem a poor exchange for the challenge and reward of teaching—until, that is, the special joys, opportunities, and unique perspective on church activity of the office unfold to the new superintendent. In a letter to the Superintendent and Teachers of The Mother Church Sunday School, our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, wrote, "It is a joy to know that they who are faithful over foundational trusts, such as the Christian education of the dear children, will reap the reward of rightness, rise in the scale of being, and realize at last their Master's promise, 'And they shall be all taught of God.'"The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 230;
Sunday School work is indeed foundational to the sturdy development of each young Christian Scientist, to the expanding movement of Christian Science throughout the world, and to branch church work. It is an integral part of the educational system of Christian Science, governed and protected by the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy. The vitality of each branch church, its ability to bless the neighborhood it serves, is thus directly related to the strength and prosperity of its Sunday School.
Our Leader's work as Founder of Christian Science takes on an extra dimension as the completeness and self-perpetuating nature of the educational system of the Church of Christ, Scientist, begins to appear. For what makes a school successful? Surely the results it brings out in the lives of its pupils. How does it achieve these results? Through what and how the pupils are taught; through the caliber and example of the teachers, their attitude toward their pupils.
