Questions asked the Directors of The Mother Church from time to time in regard to the conduct of The Mother Church Reading Rooms furnish a reason for the following statement of procedure in the three Reading Rooms of The Mother Church, in Boston.

Each Reading Room has a librarian elected by the Board of Directors, who qualifies according to Article XXI, Section 2, of the Manual of The Mother Church.

The Reading Rooms at 60 Norway Street and in the Statler Office Building remain open during the evening hours, and the former on Sundays and holidays also. An assistant librarian is assigned during these hours. Two or more substitutes are available to each of the three Reading Rooms to serve during the noon hour and during any other necessary absences of the librarians in charge, and also during vacations. Voluntary assistants are not used in The Mother Church Reading Rooms, although they are frequently suited to the needs of branch churches. The activity of the Reading Rooms in Boston is so great that those who serve as librarians need to be experienced in handling the variety of work, including keeping of stock and inventories, accurately. Having too many assistants or substitutes is apt to bring diffusion of responsibility and less efficient handling of the Reading Room work. Their experience being regarded as valuable, the librarians of The Mother Church Reading Rooms are not rotated, but are continued in office for an indefinite period, although they are appointed from year to year.

Questions of policy are determined by the Board of Directors, but the responsibility for the conduct of the Reading Rooms rests, for the most part, upon the librarians.

Some Christian Science Reading Rooms of branch churches make a practice of referring inquirers for practitioners to The Christian Science Journal directory; others post a list of local practitioners which includes those listed in the Journal, as well as members who are giving part of their time successfully to the healing work. The directors of the branch church decide whether such a list shall be posted in the Reading Room of that church, and what names shall be included there.

The librarians of The Mother Church Reading Rooms are accustomed to refer inquirers to the Journal directory, but in rare instances it is necessary to help an inquirer to obtain a practitioner's services. In such cases the names of several in the required district are given. It is the practice of librarians generally not to select a single practitioner from the list, for this, if done frequently, might be misconstrued. Recently, word came from an inquirer at a Reading Room who understood the librarian to say to him that she could not recommend any of the practitioners listed in the Journal directory. The thought she really intended to convey to him was that she could not choose any of these practitioners for him. This illustrates the care which needs to be taken that inquirers receive no misapprehensions of this kind. When it is explained to them that the entire list of practitioners has the endorsement of The Mother Church, they usually understand the reason for leaving the selection to themselves.

There have been six showings of the motion pictures of the new Publishing House in the original Mother Church to interested audiences comprised of local members and their friends. Other showings of the pictures were given at The Christian Science Benevolent Association Sanatorium at Chestnut Hill, and at The Christian Science Pleasant View Home, at Concord, New Hampshire. In addition, a special showing was arranged for the Sunday school pupils and their parents and friends. The program on this occasion differed slightly from that described in this column on February 11, as it was intended particularly for the young people. As the program was given in the late afternoon, it was necessary to wait until darkness had fallen before the pictures could be thrown on the screen, and meanwhile an informal talk was given to those present regarding some of the processes of building.

Because of particular interest previously evidenced in the dewatering system which has been mentioned in this column, information was given at this meeting as to the results obtained from it which enabled men to work twenty-five feet below the surface of the ground as easily as they could at street level. The fact that in the Back Bay there is a stratum of water several feet below the surface, and that many buildings in this section of Boston are built on wooden piles driven down beneath the strata of sand, water, and clay, the piles being completely covered by water, was stated. Although the new Publishing House is not built upon wooden piles, but upon concrete foundations sunk down to bearing gravel, the condition of piles in the Back Bay is a subject of interest. This offers an occasion to say that shortly after the dewatering pumping system was removed from the Publishing House site when the basement walls had been constructed and waterproofed, the ground water returned to a height slightly above its previous line, as was shown by test wells located at several different points throughout The Mother Church property.

From among many letters received by the Directors expressing gratitude for the provision of the motion pictures showing the building of the new Publishing House, we quote the following excerpts—the first from a branch Church of Christ, Scientist:

"With hearts overflowing with gratitude, we watched the building of the new Publishing House unfold before our eyes a week ago in the moving pictures which you sent to us. Words are inadequate to express what we felt as we viewed these films. The information given in the Sentinel each week prepared our thought to some extent, but these pictures brought so close to us who live far away from this activity, as nothing else could have done, a realization of the vastness of this undertaking, and the rapidity with which this remarkable building is being completed. More than that, it brought to us a stronger desire to support it—to help to spread abroad through this beautiful structure 'the Science that operates unspent' (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353). It gave us a deeper reverence for the revelation of our Leader, whose loyal followers are helping to prove, in this grand achievement, the availability and universality of Truth."

An individual writes:

"Last Saturday evening, at a building meeting at Fifteenth Church, it was my privilege to assist in the showing of the motion picture which tells of the progress which you are making with that marvelous memorial to Mrs. Eddy in the erection of the new Publishing House.

"This method of making the membership of the churches, as well as others, cognizant of progress is commendable and should result in a more intimate creation of interest within ourselves to aid in the projection far into the future of this, our Cause."

One who saw the pictures at the Benevolent Association at Chestnut Hill writes:

"The evening the picture was shown of our new Publishing Society building in construction, when I looked on the screen I never saw anything so beautiful as The Mother Church as it rose up in its majestic beauty in that picture. I have had a vision of the real Church before and know there is one congregation. I was filled with gratitude to God for our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, and to the Board of Directors of The Mother Church for their unswerving loyalty to the Cause of Christian Science."