Observant readers may notice some changes in the wording of the professional cards in our advertising pages. In the December and January numbers there were some alterations from the advertising form in the earlier numbers. Where the advertisers offered their services as teachers of Mental Healing, their notices were then made uniformly to read, Students taught the Rudiments of Christian Science. These changes were not made, however, without the permission of advertisers.
Rudiments is a very comprehensive word. It means first principles, or foundations. Just as the best works on Rhetoric and Mathematics are called elements, so the foundation principles of instruction are called rudiments. That is, they lie at the root, and include the germ or seed. Says Webster: "It denotes whatever is taught," and perhaps comes from Saxon and Gothic words, which signify to speak and to read; or possibly from another word, which signifies to shoot, to spring, to grow. The origin of rudiment is somewhat uncertain, however, and may be wholly from the Latin rudimentum, which has a similar signification. In military use, to place the rudimenta was to complete one's beginnings, to pass the novitiate. Sometimes rudiment is used as a verb, and has this meaning, to ground, to settle in first principles. If anything is needed in our country it is what a house needs, good foundations; and no better work can be done by any teacher, whether in Christian Science or Grammar, than to thoroughly establish his pupils in the first principles.
Nevertheless, as some of our advertisers have a preference for the old wording, the publisher changes their cards back again to the form (in accordance with Mrs. Eddy's promises) which was in use previous to last December.
