v iii INTRODUCTION 



These faults have tended to make first year science 

 courses inadequate, unfair, and likely to dull the edge 

 of interest. 



Surely the youth on the borderland of the New World, 

 standing on the pinnacle of his fresh enthusiasm, has the 

 right to a "look over" of the field, a general survey, 

 before he takes up chain and transit for a detailed sur- 

 vey, has a right to a "bird's eye view" before he begins 

 confining his attention to a "toad's eye view" in some 

 particular section of the garden of nature. 



The course here presented is the outcome of the desire 

 suggested above, and of continued experimentation 

 extending over more than fifteen years, to realize a course 

 for first year pupils that should fill the following 

 conditions : 



1. A course that should introduce the pupil to the 

 observing of natural phenomena and the recognizing of 

 natural laws in a manner adapted to the stage of his 

 maturity, and likely to hold and maintain his interest 

 and stimulate his growth. 



2. A course that should serve the purpose of training 

 him, not only to observe with accuracy, but to think to 

 just conclusion from the data thus gathered. 



3. A course that should furnish him, in this process, 

 with information which he is likely to find useful in his 

 daily life and which he may thus have stored in his 

 memory, or which he may thus be trained, as he needs 

 it, to go and get, with pleasure and ease and success, 

 by further study or by consulting references. 



