Educational Aspects of Christian Science
The Psychological Clinic Copyright, 1911, by Lightner Witmer, Editor. Vol. V, No. 2. April 15, 1911. :Author: Charles Keen Taylor, Philadelphia, Pa.
A few years ago, in my capacity of school-teacher, I endeavored to become acquainted with as many kinds of schools as possible. Eive years were spent in this work, and during that time I taught in quite a number of schools in widely separated places, the object being to obtain a knowledge of boy-school problems, as well as boy problems, at first hand. Among the opportunities that presented themselves was one to teach in a boarding school in New England, owned and managed by Christian Scientists. At that time I knew very little about this sect or its beliefs, and although fairly unbiased, thought the chance too good to be neglected. I therefore became a member of the faculty of this school, remaining there for a full scholastic year.
A brief description of the institution may not be without interest. Although the fees charged by the school were but six hundred dollars per annum, the equipment was superior to that of other schools whose fees are far larger. The dormitories were comfortable and excellent in every way, the table was beyond reproach, and the school building containing the class rooms, although an inexpensive affar, was entirely adequate. As for the actual teaching, the writer has found no better anywhere. The school gave quite a little time to athletics, and possessed a fine gymnasium in which basket-ball was played all winter. There was no effort made at regular or systematic physical training, however, and there was no attempt to remedy by corrective gymnastics such physical faults as the boys possessed. There were no physical examinations of any kind whatsoever. In fact, there was little care of the physical life of the boys except as regards the elemental needs of sleep, food, warmth, and to some degree at least, bodily cleanliness.
The school was beautifully situated on a high promontory which was nearly surrounded by water. It was just far enough away from a fair sized town to be convenient for the faculty, and a little too convenient for the boys.
The faculty seemed to be an exceptionally able group of men. Of these, three were Christian Scientists,?the headmaster, the senior master, and the master in charge of the juniors. That only three members were representatives of the faith of the school seems surprising, but the fact is that college graduates were rather scarce among the Christian Scientists, especially college graduates who were able to teach any scientific subject, such as mathematics, physics, or chemistry. The other members of the faculty represented a variety of religious beliefs, but in spite of this it was a remarkably congenial body of men. They were all fond of their work and obviously fond of boys, taking great personal interest in their charges.
The method of management again was above reproach. The custom in many well-known schools is to make the teachers feel that they are employees, whose advice or criticism is neither requested nor desired. In this school, however, the headmaster placed much power in the hands of the faculty members. They met every week as a committee, of which the headmaster acted as chairman, and any point concerning the boys could be discussed and settled by a faculty vote, irrespective of the personal opinion of the headmaster. He possessed the veto power, to be sure, but I never knew him to use it. This policy gave each member an extraordinarily personal interest in all that concerned the welfare of the school, with the result that everything was admirably managed and the actual work of the teachers most effective and successful.
The boys themselves, strange as it may at first appear, represented one class of society. They were all supposed to be “scientists” with but one exception (and he was expelled for smoking!). Very few of the boys were sons of college men, and they were nearly all representatives of the class which has recently come into money and is not quite sure what to do about it. The boys were mostly rough diamonds; they had money, sometimes a considerable amount of it, but it was evident that it had not been in the family for any great length of time. They were of ages ranging from ten to twenty years, and of all grades of mentality from the mentally brilliant and morally excellent, to the imbecile and moral pervert. “But what,” you ask, “are moral perverts and imbeciles doing in a private boarding school which charges six hundred dollars per annum?” Well, you see, this is in keeping with the other fact mentioned a while ago,?the fact of there being no physical examinations. The pure Christian Scientist can not recognize any physical deficiency. Physical deficiencies are “illusions of mortal mind.” How impossible it would be, then, for a Christian Scientist to point out to a boy the latter^ physical deficiencies!Imbecility and moral perversion, of course, relate to physical infirmities,?or at least so the Philistines think,?but no true Christian Scientist could honestly and consistently think so, much less bar a boy from a school on account of them. The management may have had its doubts, when it thought of some of the characteristics of several of the boys, but if these doubts existed, they were never expressed. That these defectives did a vast amount of damage among the other boys there can be no question, but of that later.
The first boy with whom I became acquainted was at that time not quite fifteen years old, and attracted my attention about the second week of the school year. I noticed that he seemed lonely and melancholy, that he was thin and hollow-chested, and that he seemed physically unable to take part in the play of boys of his own age. The boy’s friendship was gained mainly through taking him for a walk to town and back. On the way he became quite confidential, asking me how it was that he had no endurance, could not run more than a few steps without nearly falling, and the like. I told him that, if he wished it, I would give him a looking-over in an endeavor to find out what the trouble was, and what to do about it. The boy was the son of a Christian Science healer, but for the time being, at least, he seemed to think that there was more in the purely physical side of the human make-up than he had been taught to believe, and he declared his willingness to do anything that would make him as strong as the other boys. This talk was followed by a physical examination, which showed the boy to be in wretched shape. For instance, his chest expansion was a scant inch, whereas for his height and age it might well have been four inches. He was given certain simple exercises and directions as to his day-to-day programme, and he left the room encouraged and resolved to carry out my instructions to the letter.
That night, after the boys’ bed-time, there was a knock on my door, and the same boy came in. It seems that his confidence had been fully gained, and that he wanted to tell something more, but found it very difficult. After a while be plucked up courage and told me tbe story of tbe last three years of bis life, and it was one that haunted me for many days afterward, accustomed though I was to such stories. The boy had never received the smallest hint or warning concerning his body. No moral topic that would have aided him had ever been touched upon, the result being that when he came to know unclean boys, as all boys do at some period of their lives, he fell an easy victim to their habits, and by the time he was fourteen he had become acquainted with the worst forms of vice by actual experience. Now he was nearly fifteen, and already a physical wreck, all of which he was beginning to realize. He cried bitterly, and the burden of his cry was, “If somebody had only told me!” But of course no one of his faith would have told him. After he had fallen they might have done a little, in a vague, impractical manner, but to have warned him beforehand would have been to acknowledge a physical side of life which has only an illusory- existence! The illusion nearly ended this boy’s career before it had well begun. Yet he had strength of character remaining, and summoning this to his aid and with the help of constant praise and encouragement he managed not only to break entirely with his ruinous ways, but to become a strong boy physically and one of the best students in the school.
When this boy found that he was winning his battle, he passed the good word around to others who were in a similar state, for there is a confederacy among boys so close that most of them know the secrets of the others. As a result of this news-spreading, perhaps a dozen boys in all came to me to talk over their failings, physical and moral. The first one to come was a big fellow of seventeen, whose mentality was of such a grade that he was classed with eleven-year-old boys, for whom, by the way, ho was no match. Some years before, he had ranked much higher, but lately had been losing a grade a year. What was the underlying cause ? Nothing of which a “scientist” would take cognizance. He had merely wrecked his mind through immorality, and besides being a moral pervert had become little more than an imbecile. Ho had his fits of despair, in which he seemed to realize what he was and what was ahead of him, and it was in one of these moments of realization that he came to me for help. Like the first boy, lie cried like a ten-year-old, and moaned, “No one ever told me anything when I was a kid.” This case was the more terrible because I not only felt impotent to help him, but there was the further knowledge that this boy’s presence in the sehool was a serious menace to the other boys who were, as yet, uncorruptecL His momentary awakening passed, although other moments came and went, in which the lad realized that the asylum was staring him in the face. It was not pleasant to know that there were four other moral imbeciles in that school, the youngest being fourteen years of age, and the oldest twenty. This boy was the worst of the lot, but to all intents and purposes there could not be any hope for a single one of them outside of a special institution, and not a great deal of hope even there. Meanwhile this pleasant five associated freely with the other boys, large and small, with effects not to be described or even imagined. I had some talk with all but one of the five, and it was only the same story over and over,?they had been given no knowledge, either at home or elsewhere, concerning the temptations they were bound to meet, and of course no warning of the consequences of giving way to these temptations. Before Christmas several boys had come for help, and some seemed to have begun life over again, but it was after the Christmas holidays that the climax came. A day or two after the beginning of school a fine, tall, handsome boy of fourteen, who had evidently heard that I had some knowledge of things physical, came to me in great trouble. One can not detail the story: it is enough to say that in the holidays some college freshmen had taken the boy to a house of ill fame. It was a hard story for the boy to tell, but it was harder to discover that the worst venereal disease had made its appearance. And only fourteen years old! Not such an exceptional case, however, as one might suppose. Up to this time, knowing the feeling of the management upon such subjects, I had made no mention to the headmaster of the conditions I had discovered, but with this boy the limit of endurance had been reached. The headmaster was called and informed of the presence of the much-dreaded disease. There is a comic side to even serious things. The poor man evidently clean forgot that disease is an illusion of mortal mind, for tlio youngster was bundled out bag and baggage in a very short time, and all things made clean after him. Then immortal “Science” resumed her sway, and all went on as before, on the surface at least, although doubtless there began to bo inward questionings, for I had given some rather strong hints as to conditions among the other boys. Shortly afterwards the whole thing came to a focus. I was certain that there was a great deal of surreptitious drinking among the older boys. Nothing was said, however, until one evening when I was convinced that at least two older boys were in their room, partly if not entirely intoxicated. The unfortunate headmaster was informed of the fact, and a speedy examination followed, in which the matter was proved beyond a doubt. Moreover, words muttered by one of the boys who was the worse for wear, indicated that they were not the only ones in the institution who indulged now and then.
Things began to wake up. The entire faculty got together. Boys were called in one at a time and put through a grilling examination, which resulted in showing that nearly all of the older boys had partaken of alcoholics while at the school, some doing this habitually. The intense feeling aroused in the faculty over this disclosure seemed to offer the psychological moment for further revelations. So the non-“scientific” members, who had been informed concerning other conditions, drew up and presented a paper on the amount of immorality then flourishing in the school, and pointed out the fact that the boys were not altogether at fault, because they had never received defensive education of any kind. The lack of such training in the school was made the subject of severe criticism, and there was a demand for a definite plan of action, the carrying out of which would tend to help the boys who had already become addicted to immoral practices, and pievent from falling those who were yet clean,?by this time only a minority of the scholastic body.
The senior master, really a very capable man, but an ardent and consistent “scientist,” made a terrible to-do over that paper, but the need of some special work among the boys was so evident and so firmly insisted upon, that the faculty finally came to an unanimous agreement. The result was that the boys were separated into small groups, and a group was assigned to each master. The fifteen-year-old boys fell to me. To these boys, carefully and effectively, were given the elements of moral education which long before they should have received from their parents. Searchlights were turned upon all dark corners. Never was there such a housecleaning! Indeed, this work was so organized that it became a part of the regular school work, and with splendid results, for with the exception of the imbeciles already mentioned, from whom little could be expected, there remained by the following spring hardly a boy who had not returned to good moral habits. Little more need be said, for I feel that my point has been made clear. X offer no comment upon many obvious good points contained in the Christian Science doctrines. I make no criticism concerning this church or its general theories and beliefs, but I have endeavored to show that, with children at least, the ignoring of the physical side of life may have very serious results, for however adults may be able to theorize themselves into any state of mind they please, such things are beyond the capabilities of children, whose characteristics are primarily physical, and who will be certain to give way to the physical temptations inherent in all men, unless these same natural impulses are trained and educated. Science tells us that natural impulses unrestrained lead to license, that suppressed, they lead to perversions, and that educated and trained, they become necessary virtues. Christian Science says otherwise, and for this reason, if for no other, severe condemnation should be given to those Christian Science theories which are so absolutely opposed to the simple, natural laws known to every psychologist and every student of children.
Before closing, I am unable to resist relating a little incident which occurred one afternoon and evening. Disease or illness, remember, is an illusion of mortal mind, an imaginary idea to be abolished by the mind itself. That grippe came into the school and put a dozen boys and two healers,?who were faculty members,?on their backs, seemed to take nothing away from this belief.
It seems that one small boy of eleven had purchased a cocoanut. His mother was paying the school a visit at the time. “Mrs. Martin,” I said, “are you aware that Tommy has just eaten an entire cocoanut?” “Yes, aren’t they nutritious!” said Mrs. Martin cheerfully. She, of course, was a “scientist.” Tommy’s room was right opposite mine, and a door or two below was the room of the master,?a “scientist” and a healer, as well as a reader in their church,?who had charge of the juniors. At about eleven o’clock that night, Tommy’s door was heard to open, and Tommy’s feet went pattering to the door of Mr. Brown, the healer. Tommy rapped on the door.
“Who’s there ?” cried Mr. Brown, in a muffled voice. “Me? Tommy?cocoanut!” came the incoherent reply. Mr. Brown was a healer, and a reader, but ho was also a man experienced with children. “Don’t come in here, Tommy!” cried he, “don’t come in here!” But woe, alas! Tommy did go in and rushed in his agony to the bedside of the unfortunate Brown. What went on beggars description. Finally they got the lights on, and voices in evident anguish were dolefully upraised.
After a while Mr. Brown said, with tears in his voice, “But where was your Science, Tommy, where was your Science ?” But the Science wasn’t any match for that cocoanut!
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