“A College for Teaching Christian Science”

Mary Baker Eddy Library, The. “A College for Teaching Christian Science.” Released 6 May 2022.

For this article, the Mary Baker Eddy Library examined all of Eddy’s correspondence and documents related to the 1881 chartering, development and fruition of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. Eddy’s intent was for her students to take back to their communities what they learned at the College. The purpose of the College was to “teach Pathology, Therapeutics, Obstetrics, Ontology, Moral Science and the adaptation of Metaphysics to the treatment of disease.” Unusual for its day, the College accepted both sexes as students, and they attended classes together. It was the quality of Eddy’s teaching, not the gender, that determined the student’s healing capabilities. Nor did a mature age, or the possession of a so-called special gift for healing, qualify or disqualify a student for admission. Eddy would write: “The best time to do good is now.”

View this resource on the Mary Baker Eddy Library website.

See also annotations:

“Pioneering Women Entrepreneurs” by Gina R. M. Armer

“Mary Baker Eddy’s ‘Church of 1879’ Boisterous Prelude to The Mother Church” by Rolf Swensen

“Mary Baker Eddy’s Contribution to Adult Education: An Historical Biography” by Gina R. M. Armer