O CLASS-BOOK OF ELEMENTARY MECHANICS. An Entroduction to Natural Philosophy. ADAPTED TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE REVISED NEW CODE. BY WILLIAM HEWITT, B.Sc., SCIENCE DEMONSTRATOR FOR THE LIVERPOOL SCHOOL BOARD. LONDON: GEORGE PHILIP & SON, 32 FLEET STREET; LIVERPOOL: CAXTON BUILDINGS, SOUTH JOHN STREET, AND 49 & 51 SOUTH CASTLE STREET. 1882. PREFACE. SOME three years ago the Liverpool School Board resolved to introduce experimental science teaching into their schools, and the writer was appointed to organise a scheme of demonstrations in accordance with this resolution. The subject selected for demonstration in the boys' schools was elementary Natural Philosophy, or Mechanics as defined in Schedule IV. of the Revised Code. The experience gained in the practical carrying out of that scheme has led to the production of the present work. It is primarily intended as a lesson book to be used by the scholars in the intervals between the experimental demonstrations. The difficulty hitherto has been to get the children to express, in anything like precise language, the ideas which the experiments have suggested to their minds. It is hoped that a careful reading of the following lessons week by week, supplemented by the comments and explanations of the teacher, may go a long way towards removing this difficulty The exercises at the end of each lesson are believed to constitute a valuable feature of the book if properly used. They deal for the most part with practical applications of the principles set forth in the preceding lesson, and have been specially designed to stimulate the observing and reasoning faculties of the scholars. Each exercise, in fact, might furnish a theme for conversation between a teacher and his class. It is universally acknowledged that education of this kind, where the scholars themselves are made to do the main part of the work, the teacher guiding their efforts and occasionally assisting them, is the best education in the true sense of the word. Although the book has been arranged to accompany a special series of demonstrations, it is also adapted for use as a classbook in any school where the subject is taught. It would be a very easy matter for an intelligent teacher to devise numerous simple experiments, in addition to those incidentally referred to in the book, to illustrate each lesson. A very small outlay would provide all that was really necessary in the way of apparatus, and indeed a vast number of illustrations and experiments might be shown by the aid of such simple objects as are to be found in any house or schoolroom. The present part deals with MATTER, and embraces the subjects of the first stage of Mechanics as defined by the Revised Code. A second part, dealing with FORCE, and embracing the second and third stages of the subject, is in preparation. W. H. |