THE USE OF A TEXT-BOOK

The dictionary defines a text-book as "a standard work in any branch or course of study." It is well to bear in mind, therefore, that when one takes up a text-book on any given subject, he is not taking up a book which was written for purposes of entertainment, or of easy assimilation by indifferent perusal, or of uncertain purpose, or of indirect aim, but one which drives straight to a given point by the shortest route and in the most vigorous scientific terms, like a well-constructed tunnel through huge mountains of loose language, that the reader may be undeviatingly led to the clear and open country. A novel may lead one to some pleasant, temporary mental experience, and, if the writer is moved by a high purpose, it may leave in the thought of the reader some helpful suggestion, but one must wade through a hundred or more pages to learn a general proposition concerning a state of facts which have no immediate bearing on the problem of the hour. A text-book, on the other hand, is full of explanation and rules of instruction, is written with no thought of being entertaining, and is not in sympathy with the thought that seeks mere entertainment. A text-book is not merely a dandy's cane with which to flick the tops off the daisies and clover as one walks the country lanes, but rather a stout staff on which we may lean in moments of mental discord; and it must be so used to get the good of it.

When one is in doubt concerning a mathematical proposition, he does not pick up a novel hoping to find somewhere in its pages a thought that will clear the mental atmosphere, nor does he pick up a mathematical text-book and open it at random expecting to find haphazardly the solution of his problem. He takes up his text-book with a definite inquiry in mind, and perhaps by the aid of a table of contents or an index he turns to that part of his book which deals with the subject in hand, and seeks such instruction on that particular point as will enable him by proper mental activity to solve his problem and arrive at the proper conclusion. When one has a mathematical problem to solve, one does not read indiscriminately in a text-book on mathematics trusting that somehow, somewhere, in the course of an hour's reading, he will find himself generally better informed in the science and better equipped therefore to meet the specific problem on which he is engaged; rather, if he is wise, he seeks to find specific instruction on his specific problem, a rule which he can instantly apply. Having found it, he applies it to the matter in hand, intelligently securing for his immediate use the axioms of his text-book as they were intended to be applied.

For the student of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy has provided a standard book of instruction in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which must be intelligently used as a book of instruction, together with a concordance, and should be frequently consulted if it is to yield its riches for the mental and spiritual and physical uplift of the individual. One must know what he wants to find, why he wants to find it, and the benefit he expects to get from the discovery. Students of our text-book have all had moments in which they needed specific instruction upon a specific point, and yet how frequently have they failed to read the text-book with the definite purpose of securing help upon that one point, searching as the woman of whom Jesus spoke searched for the lost coin, lighting a candle and sweeping the house and seeking diligently till she found it. How often does the student go over the Lesson with the pointless thought that by so doing he will secure the help he needs, without first analyzing his specific trouble, digging out the error which has caused it, and then (and only then) going to the Lesson or to the text-book for specific help in a direct and undeviating line? The Bible and our text-book are intended for wide-spread individual good. Of five hundred persons in a congregation on Sunday, listening to the reading of the Lesson-Sermon for the day, there are presented five hundred different human problems to which that Lesson will apply, provided the five hundred individuals are awake and seeking the truth as it applies to their individual problems. In the six days intervening between the reading of the Lesson on one Sunday morning and the reading of the next Lesson on the succeeding Sunday, these five hundred individuals have been confronted perhaps with a different problem for each day, and a proper appreciation of the office of our text-book as a book of instruction will have led to its specific application by those five hundred individuals to three thousand human problems during that week, the harvest from those varied demonstrations being brought to the following Sunday morning service as proof and uplift, forming a cloud of witness to the efficacy of Christian Science. Thus should our text-book be used, and for this use it was written by our revered Leader. Upon such definite use as this rests its power to do good and contribute to the uplift of the individual student, and thus to the betterment of all humanity, for in the uplift of humanity divine Mind must be expressed by individuals. Until it is so expressed, it cannot be expressed by collections of individuals, either as a church, society, or community.