FOREWORD TO THE TEACHER 7 



acquiring information than a dogmatic statement, made per- 

 haps with proof but dimly comprehended and soon forgotten. 



The textbook in introductory science. Any book in intro- 

 ductory science should be based on the facts we have just men- 

 tioned. It must contain an adequate amount of the basic 

 material from which the interpretation of the common things 

 of interest in life may be gained, and it must also be adapted 

 to start the individual boy or girl whose interest has been awak- 

 ened along the line of the project in which this developing in- 

 terest would naturally flow. Most of all a textbook should 

 interpret to the child the part played by the various natural 

 factors in his environment. It should conceive the child as 

 the center, and all the world of the child revolving around this 

 center. In this conception boys and girls would first become 

 aware of the vital part played by air, water, light, heat, and 

 food on them as individuals within their homes. This much is 

 common to all the application of certain of the general facts 

 learned could then be carried out as special projects by various 

 pupils interested. After the child has learned the meaning of 

 these central factors in the home, the next step would logically be 

 the application of the forces of nature by man in communal life. 

 In short, Civic Science plans to lead the child in a manner which 

 is both logical and psychological from the simple factors which 

 make up his environment as a living thing to the complex com- 

 binations and interactions which have arisen through what we 

 call civilization. It is the interpretation of this complex that 

 Civic Science undertakes with the belief that children, if given a 

 rational point of view, will have enough varied interests to build 

 on the outline which follows. They will thus work toward the 

 solution of those things in science which seem most worth while 

 to them as individuals and most worthy of them as future 

 citizens. 



Acknowledgments. For an incentive to undertake this 

 work, the authors are indebted to those educators who have 



