PREFACE V 



with their varied needs, without special teachers par- 

 ticularly prepared for this subject and without expensive 

 equipment for laboratory work?" The answer is certainly 

 "Yes." To give the answer in expanded form is the 

 purpose of this book. 



The " First Year of Science" is written to meet the 

 need of General Science instruction. It consists of three 

 parts: the text proper, the laboratory manual, and the 

 Teacher's Handbook. The text and laboratory manual 

 may be had either bound together or in separate volumes. 

 If the writer were asked to characterize the book in a 

 phrase or two, he would say that it is intended to stimu- 

 late uncommon thinking about common things, to produce 

 a scientific attitude toward everyday problems, to give 

 scientific knowledge to as large a body of our people as 

 possible in order that modern inventions may be the 

 tools and not merely the toys of the men and women into 

 whose hands they are placed. 



The text proper consists of descriptive matter, of 

 exercises, and of chapter summaries. There are twenty 

 chapters. As the Table of Contents shows, about half 

 of these consist of elementary Physics and Chemistry. 

 The chapters on Physics contain no formulas and only a 

 few simple calculations; there are no symbols or equations 

 in the chapters on Chemistry. The author's plan is to 

 give only the primary notions of matter, force, and chem- 

 ical action. These are needed for all subsequent work 

 in pure or applied science, as well as for that general 

 knowledge of common things which every person ought 

 to carry away from a High School course. 



In the latter half of the text are chapters on " Water, 



