vi Preface 



effect that reasonably may be hoped for is the training of boys 

 and girls to rise above the merely local and temporary aspects 

 of common things through the discovery and understanding of 

 principles that are scientifically assured, that are independent 

 of personal prejudice or habit, and that make for .a better 

 understanding and wiser use of the forces and resources of the 

 larger environment of which the local and temporary is a part. 

 The following features are mentioned as significant in rela- 

 tion to the method of the book. 



(1) Experimentation, an integral part of the whole study, is 

 used to test, emphasize, clarify, or illustrate ordinary observa- 

 tions or beliefs, and to show the why and the how much in a 

 given situation. Experiments are described not to foreclose, 

 but to stimulate the students' ingenuity in devising different 

 ways and means of dealing with a project. The aim is to make 

 the students feel the need of experimentation, not to force 

 a set experiment upon them as a task, which is both irksome 

 and profitless. Experimentation is just a controlled method 

 of observation ; as such it is more than a mere manipulation of 

 materials and apparatus. To experiment involves an end or aim 

 and with this the choice of ways and means of reaching the 

 desired end. To help young students to understand the need 

 of controlled observation and to train them in choosing intelli- 

 gently the means and materials by which ends may be realized 

 is one of the most important aims of any introductory course 

 in the scientific study of the things of common experience. 



(2) Scientific ideas and facts which emerge in course of study 

 are used in discovering and interpreting new significant aspects 

 of' the environment. It is the use, not the acquisition, of 

 knowledge which is educationally worth while. This use it is 

 the aim of the book everywhere to emphasize. 



(3) No effort is made to force the adult divisions of scientific 

 knowledge upon the beginner in scientific study. In dealing 

 in a scientific way with familiar subjects of the household, the 

 garden, the community, the farm, the factory, and the great 



