A FAMILIAR INTRODUCTION TO THE ARTS AND SCIENCES, WITH ORIGINAL INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS UPON THE SUBJECT OF EACH LESSON. FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND YOUNG PERSONS. CONTAINING A GENERAL EXPLICATION OF THE Fundamental Principles and Facts of the Sciences, DIVIDED INTO LESSONS, WITH QUESTIONS SUBJOINED TO EACH, FOR THE EXAMINATION OF PUPILS. REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED WITH FOUR ADDITIONAL LESSONS. LONDON: HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. HARVARD PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SON, LONDON GAZETTE OFFICE, ST. MARTIN'S LANE; AND ORCHARD STREET, WESTMINSTER. PREFACE. THE ingenious AUTHOR gives the following recommendatory description of this work. "The object and design of this little work will be obvious, from a very cursory view of its contents. It is intended as introductory to the knowledge of the Arts and Sciences, and it is hoped that it will be found calculated to inform the mind in regard to many of the most important topics with which young persons of both sexes ought to be acquainted. "In most of our larger schools the study of the sciences is neglected, because the method of teaching them has been so different from that which is resorted to in their other exercises. Children are required to learn by rote the rules of grammar, and the application of these rules is left for future reading. This Introduction is drawn up to facilitate the acquisition of natural and experimental knowledge upon a similar plan. The lessons consist of a series of short sentences to be committed to memory: they all contain facts not only necessary to be known by every well-educated youth, but will be found applicable and of obvious utility in their advanced and more mature studies: and in cases that require them, illustrations of the subject, and figures adapted to it, are subjoined. "The questions at the end of each lesson, which are numbered, to correspond with the facts to be learned by heart, will afford the instructor an easy method of examination, as well for classes in schools, as for individuals educated under the domestic roof." The editor of the present improved edition needs to say but little if any thing more: except that to this edition have been added FOUR ORIGINAL LESSONS ON ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY, which it is hoped, will not only render the work more complete, but will afford the youthful reader just ideas concerning the structure of the human body, and the science of life. He can confidently recommend the work to parents, pupils, and instructors, as containing much useful matter, in a cheap and convenient form: and can conscientiously affirm, that it will be found one of the most useful and satisfactory epitomes of human knowledge which has ever yet been published. Those who are familiar with the labours and difficulties of instruction, will agree with him, that it is not so easy a matter as might at first be supposed, for one intimately acquainted with an art or a science, to introduce another even to the elements of it. He may begin at the beginning, define terms, lay down general principles, deduce particular truths, and go on regularly clearing as he goes, and leaving nothing for an after parenthesis; and yet, only overwhelm the memory, perplex the reason, and ultimately disgust his pupil with the subject. Such a plan is no doubt the most natural to the tutor, and the most proper for any one who, in some degree already acquainted with the subject, would yet wish to refresh his memory upon it. He knows how the terms defined are to come into play and whither the general principles tend; and, therefore, what he is about. He sees that the arrangement is, perhaps, the best that can be adapted for the science abstractedly considered, the one that will most concisely develope truth, and is least liable to lead to repetition; and he has that satisfaction which arises from the contemplation of order. A mind totally unacquainted with the subject knows nothing of all this. With such an one the editor will |