:..:, / PREFACE 



tinuously relating them to phenomena about him which 

 are of vital interest to him and also will be gaining the 

 correct ideas of science study. He will be studying those 

 phenomena which relate his daily existence to the funda- 

 mental principles of science. 



As science the treatments in this book are not intended 

 to be exhaustive. They are however intended to be sci- 

 entifically correct as far as they go and there are no facts 

 which will need to be unlearned as the pupil progresses 

 in his scientific study. The subjects treated are those 

 which are vitally connected with our daily life and which 

 are also worthy of study as organized scientific material. 

 The questions asked are not intended to be exhaustive. 

 They are merely suggestive and should be supplemented 

 with many others by the teacher. 



The object in such a course of study as in all other 

 courses of study should be to teach the pupil to live, regard- 

 less of whether he withdraws from school at an early date 

 or whether he continues his education through the high 

 school and college. We should always be teaching a 

 pupil "what he needs and what he can use" and a general 

 science course well taught fulfils this ideal admirably. 



There should not be a great deal of laboratory work 

 done by beginning students in science. Some of the sug- 

 gested experiments in the text should be performed by 

 the teacher while others are quite simple and may well be 

 performed by the pupils at home. By so doing they will 

 develop self-reliance and the varied experiences of the 

 members of the class will bring out many practical relation- 

 ships between the experiments and the life around them. 

 Experiments are not ends in themselves and no experi- 

 ments should be performed unless some emphasis is 

 placed on the use of the principles involved. 



