The children of Adam, except for four years’ attendance at the western schools, lived and worked in the “east of Eden.” They were trained intellectually until they were sixteen in accordance with the methods of the Jerusem schools. From sixteen to twenty they were taught in the Urantia schools at the other end of the Garden, serving there also as teachers in the lower grades.
The entire purpose of the western school system of the Garden was socialization. The forenoon periods of recess were devoted to practical horticulture and agriculture, the afternoon periods to competitive play. The evenings were employed in social intercourse and the cultivation of personal friendships. Religious and sexual training were regarded as the province of the home, the duty of parents.
The teaching in these schools included instruction regarding:
1. Health and the care of the body.
2. The golden rule, the standard of social intercourse.
3. The relation of individual rights to group rights and community obligations.
4. History and culture of the various earth races.
5. Methods of advancing and improving world trade.
6. Co-ordination of conflicting duties and emotions.
7. The cultivation of play, humor, and competitive substitutes for physical fighting.
The schools, in fact every activity of the Garden, were always open to visitors. Unarmed observers were freely admitted to Eden for short visits. To sojourn in the Garden a Urantian had to be “adopted.” He received instructions in the plan and purpose of the Adamic bestowal, signified his intention to adhere to this mission, and then made declaration of loyalty to the social rule of Adam and the spiritual sovereignty of the Universal Father.
The laws of the Garden were based on the older codes of Dalamatia and were promulgated under seven heads:
1. The laws of health and sanitation.
2. The social regulations of the Garden.
3. The code of trade and commerce.
4. The laws of fair play and competition.
5. The laws of home life.
6. The civil codes of the golden rule.
7. The seven commands of supreme moral rule.
The moral law of Eden was little different from the seven commandments of Dalamatia. But the Adamites taught many additional reasons for these commands; for instance, regarding the injunction against murder, the indwelling of the Thought Adjuster was presented as an additional reason for not destroying human life. They taught that “whoso sheds man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.”
The public worship hour of Eden was noon; sunset was the hour of family worship. Adam did his best to discourage the use of set prayers, teaching that effective prayer must be wholly individual, that it must be the “desire of the soul”; but the Edenites continued to use the prayers and forms handed down from the times of Dalamatia. Adam also endeavored to substitute the offerings of the fruit of the land for the blood sacrifices in the religious ceremonies but had made little progress before the disruption of the Garden.
Adam endeavored to teach the races sex equality. The way Eve worked by the side of her husband made a profound impression upon all dwellers in the Garden. Adam definitely taught them that the woman, equally with the man, contributes those life factors which unite to form a new being. Theretofore, mankind had presumed that all procreation resided in the “loins of the father.” They had looked upon the mother as being merely a provision for nurturing the unborn and nursing the newborn.
Adam taught his contemporaries all they could comprehend, but that was not very much, comparatively speaking. Nevertheless, the more intelligent of the races of earth looked forward eagerly to the time when they would be permitted to intermarry with the superior children of the violet race. And what a different world Urantia would have become if this great plan of uplifting the races had been carried out! Even as it was, tremendous gains resulted from the small amount of the blood of this imported race which the evolutionary peoples incidentally secured.
And thus did Adam work for the welfare and uplift of the world of his sojourn. But it was a difficult task to lead these mixed and mongrel peoples in the better way.