2 THE SUN, STARS, AND PLANETS 



can learn from the things themselves. All of our knowl- 

 edge comes from experience with the actual things which 

 have been studied in the past by those who have written 

 books about them. The use of books, then, saves time 

 for we can read in a few minutes the results of years of 

 study. Our teachers also can help us very much because 

 they have learned from other books, from other teachers, 

 and from things. Wherever it is possible we should 

 study things. We may forget what the books say and 

 what the teacher has said, but we can easily remember 

 what we ourselves have done. W 7 henever we try to dis- 

 cover from the thing itself how it acts, we are perform- 

 ing an experiment. 



The best way in which to learn science is by means 

 of experiments, because science is a study of how every- 

 thing acts and why it acts as it does. We may not 

 have our books with us always, and if we can discover 

 from the things themselves what we want to know we 

 shall become independent, and learn without help from 

 books or from teachers. There are many studies which 

 must be learned from books but science is an exception. 

 The record which you are keeping of the time of sunrise 

 and sunset is an experiment. The value of experiments, 

 then, is that we can learn from the very thing what we 

 want to know. 



3. Direction. The North. 



Sometimes it is important to know in what direction 

 you should go in order to arrive at a certain place. In 

 cities and towns the direction can be easily learned from 

 the streets. We are directed to go a certain number of 

 blocks one way and then a certain number of blocks an- 



