The Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded in 1881 by
Mary Baker Eddy
Mary Baker Eddy (July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was an American religious leader and author who founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879. She also founded ''The Christian Science Monitor'', a Pulitzer Prize-winning s ...
in Boston, Massachusetts, to teach her school of
Christian Science
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally know ...
metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
healing that she named
Christian Science
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally know ...
. Eddy records in the preface of ''
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures'', her chief work on Scientific Christian healing, p. xi, that the college was opened, "under the seal of the Commonwealth, of Massachusetts, a law relative to colleges having been passed which enabled her to get this institution chartered for medical purposes." and it was located at 571 Columbus Avenue, Boston. USA. After teaching for almost seven years, Eddy closed this college in 1889 in order to devote herself to the revision of her book, ''
Science and Health'', but retained her charter and reopened the College in 1899 as an auxiliary to her
Church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Chris ...
.
The Christian Science Textbook
The College's founder,
Mary Baker Eddy
Mary Baker Eddy (July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was an American religious leader and author who founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879. She also founded ''The Christian Science Monitor'', a Pulitzer Prize-winning s ...
, in the preface to her book,
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which is the fundamental doctrinal Textbook on Christian Science, outlines a short history of the College as follows:
In 1881, she (Mary Baker Eddy) opened the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston, under the seal of the Commonwealth, a law relative to colleges having been passed, which enabled her to get this institution chartered for medical purposes. No charters were granted to Christian Scientists for such institutions after 1883, and up to that date, hers was the only College of this character which had been established in the United States, where Christian Science was first introduced.
During seven years over four thousand students were taught by the author in this College. Meanwhile she was pastor of the first established Church of Christ, Scientist; President of the first Christian Scientist Association, convening monthly; publisher of her own works; and (for a portion of this time) sole editor and publisher of the Christian Science Journal, the first periodical issued by Christian Scientists. She closed her College, October 29, 1889, in the height of its prosperity with a deep-lying conviction that the next two years of her life should be given to the preparation of the revision of SCIENCE AND HEALTH, which was published in 1891. She retained her charter, and as its President, reopened the College in 1899 as auxiliary to her church.
Mark Twain in his book ''Christian Science''
Mark Twain, in his critical and humorous book ''Christian Science'', which was published in January, 1907, mentions an ad run in the ''
Christian Science Journal
''The Christian Science Journal'' is an official monthly publication of the Church of Christ, Scientist through the Christian Science Publishing Society, founded in 1883 by Mary Baker Eddy.[Septimus J. Hanna
Septimus James Hanna (July 29, 1845 – July 23, 1921), an United States, American American Civil War, Civil War war veteran, veteran and a judge in the Old West. He was a student of Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the Christian Science church. Givin ...]
who, with his wife, had been early students of Eddy and who occupied more positions of trust in the Christian Science Church than any other individual.
The Massachusetts Metaphysical College, 1882–1889
While Eddy stated that she taught over 4000 students at her college, she might have actually meant the sum total of all students taught under her authority as president as the college, including the thousands of students taught when the college was reopened as an auxiliary to her church in 1899 under the Church's ''Board of Education''. By that time, other teachers such as Eddy's adopted son, Ebenezer Foster-Eddy,
Edward A. Kimball and Judge
Septimus J. Hanna
Septimus James Hanna (July 29, 1845 – July 23, 1921), an United States, American American Civil War, Civil War war veteran, veteran and a judge in the Old West. He was a student of Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the Christian Science church. Givin ...
had taught many subsequent classes. Kimball, for example, himself, taught over 150 classes. Foster-Eddy, as well as Gen.
Erastus Newton Bates
Erastus Newton Bates (February 29, 1828 – May 29, 1898) was an American politician and general from Massachusetts. A graduate of Williams College, Bates was an early settler of Minnesota and participated in its first constitutional convention an ...
, had also taught during the period while the College was open.
Norman Beasley
Norman Beasley (April 6, 1887 – July 2, 1963) was an American journalist and author, best known for writing biographies. He also served in the United States Army as a colonel.
Career
Norman Beasley was born in Detroit, Michigan, where his pare ...
, ''The Cross and the Crown'', Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1952, p. 211. By 1889, her Normal (teachers class) students had also been teaching under her authority and under her signed certificates in the US and overseas. She could have also included in the number those who attended her public preaching at the time. In any case, John V. Dittimore, former director and clerk of her church and later Eddy critic, gives a far shorter list in his biography on Eddy published in 1932. His list is probably limited to those students, at the college, personally taught by Eddy alone in a classroom setting, until she turned over the teaching to others.
References
{{Christian Science
Christian Science in Massachusetts
19th century in Boston
South End, Boston