PREFACE. 



This book, the first of a series of four, is written 

 upon the basis that all science must rest upon the broad 

 foundations of general knowledge. Many of the difficul- 

 ties which have beset science teaching in the grades 

 have been due to the fact that only a small field of science 

 has been taught, and that the field has been too minutely 

 studied. To confine the child of a lower grade to a study 

 of a single group of phenomena, just because he is young, 

 is to deprive him of natural opportunities of learning. 

 There is no reason why all branches of science cannot be 

 learned by children, if the beginnings are but presented 

 according to their way of thinking. General knowledge 

 is not necessarily superficial. 



The science which is most valuable to the child is 

 that which explains the phenomena of the environment 

 the science of common things the science of everyday 

 life. No one branch of science can do this, nor can any 

 one branch of science be properly taught without doing it. 

 A blending of all branches of science, as a means for the 

 best teaching of it in the grades, is inevitable. 



The teaching of science in the grades has been handi- 

 capped by the supposed necessity for elaborate and cost- 

 ly apparatus. Few of the experiments in this text require 

 even the cheaper apparatus, while most of them do not 

 require anything which really should be called apparatus. 

 The use of common things to illustrate scientific truths 



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