Priesthood Quorums’ Table: Explaining Reference in Doctrine and Covenants 135:4, Lesson VI: No Short Cuts to Knowledge

Priesthood Quorums' Table Explaining Reference in Doctrine and Covenants 135:4.— "Why is there a reference in section 135:4 of the Doctrine and Covenants to Ether 5th chapter, when the text is really in Ether 12:36-38?" The Book of Mormon had not been divided into chapters and verses with references, by Prof. Orson Pratt, when the reference in the Doctrine and Covenants to Ether 5 was written. Since the Book of Mormon was re-chaptered and versified there has been no change in the Doctrine and Covenants to agree with the new order of the Book of Mormon, and in the former book the original reference still remains, though the right reference, in brackets, it appears to us, should be made in the next edition. • Lesson VI. No Short Cuts to Knowledge. — We have tried in these lessons to give a few practical suggestions that would be of help, both to the teachers of the quorums and the members. In this lesson, I wish merely to impress upon the reader this one fact: There are no short cuts to knowledge. The key to knowledge is good, hard study In this day of practical methods in all lines of activity, we have even introduced into our advanced schools "methods" in this study, and "devices" in that. Many have forgotten, after all, that it is substance that is needed. And substance comes through the hardest kind of concentration a'nd patient work. In studying the Year Book, it is not expected that the brethren will master it in one reading. Each lesson is a great subject in and of itself, and requires much concentrated effort. I think I am safe in saying that Lesson XVII has been read by me some ten or twelve times, and in studying it, I have referred a number of times to books on the Life of Christ, both in English and German. The more I study it, that is, Lesson XVII, the better I like the Year Book. If you wish to become interested in any thing, especially a book, just feel that you are getting an understanding of it. Then you will be interested, and interest in a subject is the main spring of mental activity. Another good thing to remember in your studying is this: Try to have a fixed time every evening for study, if it is possible. You might take fifteen minutes some time between nine and ten o'clock. Or you might take only five or ten minutes. The point is, however, that to accomplish any thing, there is nothing like order and regular times in which subjects are studied. Five minutes each day at a certain fixed time is better than haphazzard study. Systematic study is better

856 IMPROVEMENT ERA. than an hour of study done here and there, when one is rushed for time. • Have a period, then, for study. Remember that the knowledge one gets comes through hard work. In teaching a lesson, one will be able to devise all sorts of methods to interest the class, if one is filled with a knowledge of his subject. — Levi Edgar Young.