The Massachusetts Metaphysical College, 1882–1889 In 1881,
Mary Baker Eddy founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College under a provision of a 1874 Massachusetts state law governing the establishment of degree-granting colleges. Degrees given out included
Bachelor of Christian Science, or C.S.B.; and
Doctor of Christian Science, or C.S.D. (sometimes listed in pamphlets as C.S. and D.C.S. respectively). Later, the C.S.D. degree was discontinued, and C.S.B. eventually came to refer to a teacher of Christian Science, while C.S. came to simply mean a class-taught student. Two medical doctors, Charles J. Eastman and Rufus King Noyes, helped Eddy set up the college but did not remain involved beyond a few months. Eddy was the college's president and principal teacher. Other teachers included her husband Asa G. Eddy, her adopted son Ebenezer Foster-Eddy, and her student General
Erastus Newton Bates. As time went on demand for instruction by Eddy at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College increased, with classes becoming larger and more frequent; however, in 1898 Eddy closed the college as she said because of "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." It was notable that Eddy accepted students to her college regardless of gender, as it was a rarity at the time for women to attend any type of college, especially together with men in the same classes, let alone to teach, preach, or own businesses. While Eddy stated that she taught over 4,000 students at her college, she might have included informal students or have actually been referring to the sum total of all students taught under her authority as president of 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, had taught many subsequent classes. Kimball himself, for example, taught over 150 classes. Foster-Eddy, as well as General
Erastus Newton Bates, had also taught during the period while the college was open. 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, which she could have considered teaching outside the official classroom setting. 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 students at the college whom Eddy personally taught in an official classroom setting before she turned over the teaching to others.
After 1889 In 1898, Eddy sent invitations to roughly 70 students to attend another class she would teach. Students in this class included
Calvin A. Frye,
Septimus J. Hanna,
Sue Harper Mims, and
Irving C. Tomlinson. == References ==