Excerpt from First Course in General Science
This book is written in the belief that science instruction in the first high-school year should not aim primarily to survey the entire field of nature and present scattered bits and choice morsels from every special science in order that the pupil may decide which of the special sciences he likes best and which he will omit. Nor should first-year general science be regarded primarily as an introduction to, or a foundation for, the special science he may later study. While it should, in a large measure, accomplish both these results it has a vastly more important function to perform. The primary function of first-year general science is to give, as far as possible, a rational, orderly, scientific understanding of the pupil's environment to the end that he may, to some extent, correctly interpret that environment and be master of it. It must be justified by its own intrinsic value as a training for life's work.
General science has been accused of being a hodgepodge, an incoherent mass of science materials without form, or continuity, or order of development. In this course a conscious effort has been made to select a straight and solid track and to proceed in a well-ordered, common sense manner along it. The train of thought, as it were, runs upon, and is guided by two parallel rails, the one physical, Energy, the other sociological, Human Welfare. These two supporting and guiding rails are everywhere strongly bound together.
The topics presented have chiefly to do with the school life and home life of the pupil; they are essentially projects to be solved. Being topics with which the pupil is already more or less familiar, they have real significance and meaning to him. Only such matters as have vital relation to our experiences can have real significance to any of us.
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