Editorial July 19, 1913 Issue

WE MUST TRY TO FLY

John B. Willis

In the case of their young, as in other things, the robins are governed by that unacquired impulse and ability which we call instince, but they act very much as the wisdom of experience would impel human parents to act under kindred circumstances. When the time has come for the nestlings to enter upon a self-dependent life, they often exhibit the reserve of a needless fear; it is then that the interested observer notes how they are coaxed or compelled to essay those first little flights which have directly to do with the triumphs of a tireless wing.

This disposition to try has, for the most part, to be cultivated in boys as well as in birds, and the art of the wise parent or teacher resides not only in his discernment of aptitudes and his adjustment of tasks thereto, but in the patient positiveness of his requirement of effort toward the solution of problems which lie beyond the present's perfect mastery. Easy mastery demands technique, and technique in human experience demands capacity plus intelligent and continuous effort, and there is no other way. To act accordingly is the youngster's first need, and it is ours as well. Says our Leader, "The longing to be better and holier, expressed in daily watchfulness and in striving to assimilate more of the divine character, will mold and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness" (Science and Health, p. 4).

Christian Science has come not only to shed a great light upon the way of the spiritual life, but to stimulate and educate the practise of its expert performance, and no one can be a true Christian Scientist who is not awake to the fact that sometime he must work out his own problem with God's help alone; that Christ Jesus came not to do our work for us, but to show us how to do it for ourselves; that teachers and practitioners are doing a needed and legitimate work when they help us, upon occasion, to stand and to walk, but that they would hinder rather than help did they not insist that we learn to walk without their aid.

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