INTRODUCTION 



Many sincere and intelligent persons have criticized the 

 public school as an institution that clings too closely to 

 obsolete aims and outworn methods. 



Some text books, instead of ignoring this criticism or 

 indignantly resenting it, have attempted to meet it and 

 to correct such tendencies as are really faults. 



This publication by Mr. Thalman and Miss Weckel 

 seems to the writer to be one of the most earnest and 

 carefully prepared of the books made with that aim. This 

 fact, as being distinctly related to the most far-reaching 

 administrative problems, may justify the preparation of 

 this introduction by one who is not a scientist. 



Among the faults that have been observed in high- 

 school science teaching, two have seemed conspicuous and 

 at the same time possible to remedy. The writer is there- 

 fore glad to commend what appears to him to be a 

 thoroughgoing and workable plan for eliminating those 

 faults. 



First, the material presented to beginners was too diffi- 

 cult for them and was not well adapted to their need 

 and their stage of development. Second, the attention 

 of the beginners was for a year confined to the narrow 

 limits of one or another of the fields into which scientific 

 phenomena are for many purposes very properly 

 grouped. 



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