Article February 7, 1948 Issue

ON TAKING EXAMINATIONS

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

ELINOR NICHOLL CARTER

From time to time throughout their academic careers students are confronted with examinations, which range from class tests to those upon which their future appears largely to depend. One uninstructed in Christian Science may regard these as attempts by one set of human minds (the examiners) to discover by searching questions how much ability and knowledge is manifested by another set of human minds (the candidates). So-called scientific methods for testing have been developed and are employed much as one would use physical and chemical methods to investigate the depth and quality of water in a tank, with the difference that fear and apprehension on the part of those being tested seem natural, if not inevitable.

To the Christian Scientist, examinations are not so much tests of his store of human knowledge as opportunities to demonstrate man's oneness with divine Mind, the unlimited source of wisdom. Knowing that there is but one Mind governing all reflection, he no longer fears the standpoint of the examiner, nor does he mistrust his own ability. In the degree that he recognizes his true selfhood to be the expression of Mind, divine intelligence, he is freed from the limitations of human intellect and thinking. "Now are we the sons of God," says the apostle (I John 3:2)—we are not so many human minds, clever or stupid, ignorant or well-informed.

The foregoing truths in no way remove the desirability of systematic study in preparation for examinations. This human footstep is essential; but the primary need is for a fuller understanding of God and of man's relationship to Him, that one may be freed mentally from the false sense of depending upon a limited, so-called personal mind. Spiritual understanding increasingly releases the student from the limitations of human sense and renders his work correspondingly free from strain and fear of failure.

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