From the Papers: A revised curriculum for the Massachusetts Metaphysical College

Mary Baker Eddy founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College to teach Christian Science, her theological and metaphysical system of healing. Drafted in 1880, its charter was formally issued on January 31, 1881. As the Mary Baker Eddy Papers team continues to publish Eddy’s correspondence, we’re learning more about the evolution of the college and its activities.

Eddy was president of the institution and initially the sole teacher. John Wilson and Son printed a college curriculum in 1884, which included a list of topics to be covered: Metaphysics, Mental Healing, Science of the Scriptures, and Obstetrics. These early classes ultimately became known as “Primary” classes. Based on the chapter “Recapitulation” in Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the classes were designed to equip students to become effective Christian Science healers. At that time  obstetrics was not included or taught as a separate class. 

In 1883 a few Christian Scientists in various parts of the United States began to teach Christian Science classes and wrote to Eddy with related questions. The results of their attempts were mixed, and Eddy felt they were not adequately prepared to teach. The subsequent introduction of Normal classes into the college curriculum indicates her desire to create a standardized process for properly training teachers of Christian Science. In a letter to her student Ellen Brown Linscott, she remarked that students of Normal class graduates “must not become teachers” until they themselves had “passed through the Normal course of instruction.”¹ 

A previously published “From the Papers” article covers aspects of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College and its students from the time of its inception through the 1884 publication of its curriculum. A revised curriculum was published two years later in a similar format, but specifically outlining each class then taught, the cost, and qualifications for attendance. The pamphlet also includes the constitution and by-laws of the Christian Scientist Association, as well as some brief information about Science and Health and the Journal of Christian Science. Information distinguishing Eddy’s teaching from the ideas and practices of magnetic healer Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, included in the 1884 version, was removed and a list of students added. 

The specificity in naming and describing the content of the classes brought the educational system of Christian Science a step further toward its current form. For ease in sending the curriculum to inquirers, it was printed on a single page of Massachusetts Metaphysical College stationery. The classes described in the revised curriculum included:

• The Collegiate Course (which was also called the Primary class)
• Normal class
• Obstetrics
• Theology

Eddy conceived this sequence of classes as a complete course of study offered by the College, although the theology class was apparently never taught, even though she received letters from Christian Scientists expressing interest in it.

People who lived at a distance from Boston and wanted to learn more about Christian Science sometimes found it more affordable or convenient to study with Eddy’s students, closer to home. Others still felt it was important to study in Boston, thinking that they could gain a deeper comprehension of Christian Science from Eddy herself. And some of these teachers also felt their students could gain more understanding from studying with her. They sometimes recommended them to her for entry into one of her Primary or Normal classes. 

Eddy shared this belief that students could gain the most by studying with her. For instance, on July 12, 1886, she wrote to Mary J. Lewis, a Los Angeles resident who bypassed studying with one of Eddy’s students:  “…I can do more for you than anyone else can and am thankful for the opportunity. Have booked your name and will give you due notice of Sept class”² 

Bradford Sherman, one of the respected Christian Science teachers based in Chicago, not only taught his own primary classes there but also traveled to Denver, where he had taught 90 people by the summer of 1886. And he encouraged some of his promising students to apply to Eddy for Primary or Normal class instruction, sometimes sending Eddy letters of recommendation. One of these was Minnie B. Hall, one of Sherman’s Denver students. Another was Elvira W. Spaulding, who had studied with him in Chicago. On April 18, 1886, Sherman wrote to Eddy: “I propose for your next Normal Class Miss Minnie B Hall of Denver and Mrs Elvira W Spaulding of Chicago. both Students of mine.”³ 

Correspondence between Minnie B. Hall and Eddy, following Hall’s instruction with Sherman, indicates she had been eager to study with Eddy herself: 

As you know Mama and I studied with B. Sherman  We have done wonderful work since our second lesson one or both of us are very anxious to come to you and study. It seems to me that Denver needs a teacher from your College. so many who scarcely know anything of this work are trying to teach here…Our house is crowded from early until late. We have over 60 regular patients beside our absent patients, but I feel that it is wrong for those to teach who have not proven to them-selves that All is in Christian Science  I know that you advise one year’s practice before the Normal Class, but I hoped you would make a little exception. I will have had six months practice, but they have been Fully put in  We have several noted cases in Denver. Those who have walked the streets for years lame blind & Idotic. Of course such cures cause the notice of everyone and they will put more confidence in the Metaphysician.⁴ 

Hall was accepted into Eddy’s Normal Class that began on May 3, 1886. She became a prominent Christian Science practitioner and teacher in Denver, active until her passing in 1952.

Although Spaulding had received instruction from Sherman in Chicago, she apparently was acquainted with Hall and heard from her that Eddy had accepted Spaulding into her October 1886 Normal class. Spaulding wrote to Eddy, seeking confirmation:

Having been informed by Miss Minnie B. Hall, of Denver, that my name had been entered for your next Normal Class– and also that my husband, M. C. Spaulding, had been most kindly invited to attend– I write to ask that you send me a confirmatory “yes”, in order that we may arrange to be there when the Class-meeting notice is received…..⁵ 

Eddy responded with a penciled note, written on the 1886 curriculum printed on Massachusetts Metaphysical College stationery: “Shall be pleased to receive yourself and husband for pupils in my first class in Autumn… Miss Minnie is a child of my heart Many thanks for your kind thoughts of Science & Health”⁶ 

Three obstetric classes were taught in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, beginning in 1887. Reports of easy and painless childbirths resulting from the practice of Christian Science were consistently reported during Eddy’s time. And during the 1880s Eddy apparently believed that it was important for Christian Science practitioners taking childbirth cases to be knowledgeable about obstetrics from both a physiological and a spiritual standpoint, enabling them to understand the mechanics of delivery and to recognize abnormal conditions to be healed through metaphysical treatment. In 1887 two one-week classes in obstetrics were held at the college, followed by another in October 1888. In that class, Eddy taught the metaphysical aspects of obstetrics and Ebenezer J. Foster Eddy, a former physician, taught the anatomical/medical aspects. Eddy’s secretary, Calvin Frye was also in the class, and his notes of Foster Eddy’s teaching can be read in document A11560.⁷ 

Eddy’s first obstetrics class began on June 6, 1887. At its conclusion, Sue Ella Bradshaw was among the students she wrote to about the quality of the class and her students’ assessments of it:

I have just finished my Class in Obstetrics and all the students will tell you that it is the deepest and most uplifting class they ever entered I think I can do more for a student in this than in any other class of the entire Course

 You ought to have been here, I shall change my price to $200 It is the hardest class I have ever taught in the usual sense of things⁸ 

And to Caroline D. Noyes she remarked, “Shall hope to have you enter my next Obstetric Class it is the most uplifting and grandest you have been in…”⁹ 

Along these lines, the April 1888 Christian Science Journal published a letter from Elizabeth Webster. She and Mary M. W. Adams, Christian Science teachers known together as “the twins,” had studied in both of Eddy’s 1887 obstetrics classes: 

My Dear Teacher: We (the twins) have been thinking for some time we should write you how much we have been benefited by your classes in Obstetrics, especially the last one. Words can not express half our gratitude for the light that has been given us through your endeavors.¹⁰ 

Eddy closed the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1889.¹¹ Nine years later she formed the Board of Education of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. Under its auspices further obstetrics classes were held in 1899, 1900, and 1901, taught by Alfred Baker, a Christian Science teacher and former physician. In 1902 Eddy discontinued the teaching of obstetrics in the Board of Education. 

During Eddy’s lifetime, the Board of Education at first offered both Primary and Normal classes. The last Primary class was taught in 1903. From then until Eddy’s death in 1910, only Normal classes were taught under its auspices, and this has continued to the present day. Every three years these classes convene in the first week of December. Students are instructed from two sections of Science and Health: the chapter “Recapitulation” (pages 465–497) and the platform of Christian Science (see pages 330–340). Graduates are authorized to teach annually one Primary class in their respective locations.

The archival materials held in the collections of The Mary Baker Eddy Library provide a rich history of how Christian Science teaching has evolved since its introduction at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College.