ADVERTISEMENT. \ll 



view required me to disregard attention to originality, 

 whenever either facts or opinions derivable from 

 sources already before the public were calculated to 

 assist me in attaining that object; but I have a< 

 knowledged my authorities throughout, except in 

 cases in which the facts related might be regarded as 

 having become the general property of science. The 

 greater number of the illustrations employed, however, 

 will I apprehend be novel to many readers ; while some 

 of them, I believe, will be found so, even by the culti- 

 vators of science and literature. 



It will perhaps excite surprise in the minds of sci- 

 entific readers, that I should have confined my illus- 

 trations of the utility of scientific knowledge, almost 

 exclusively, to Physics, disregarding the many striking 

 and important facts which might have been adduced 

 from the history of the Mathematical Sciences. Those 

 facts, however, I have purposely omitted : the object 

 before me was to explain the importance of the Phy- 

 sical Sciences, considered in themselves, and with re- 

 spect to their forming part of the liberal education 

 of Boys ; the importance of pure Mathematics, in 

 School-Education, is already fully appreciated, and 

 they have always constituted a principal department 

 of instruction at Hazelwood and Bruce Castle. 



The subject just adverted-to leads me to mention 

 another, which is connected with the view I have 

 taken of the importance of uniting the knowledge 

 of Physics with that of Mathematics. On reconsi- 

 dering what I have observed, in p. 55, on the rela- 

 tive value of the scientific investigations which have 

 been pursued, in this country, and on the Continent, 



