A Modern Introduction to Science

THERE is something arresting in the title which Dr. Wightman and Mr. Chesters, of the Edinburgh Academy, have given to this series of books. "An Introduction to Modern Science"might mean many things, but "A Modern Introduction to Science"suggests that the authors have a new method of approach ; and so, in fact, they have. They have shared the dissatisfaction of many teachers with the traditional ways of teaching elementary science, and their main aim is to guide a young reader towards "reasoned answers to questions to which his own curiosity naturally leads him". Accordingly, each topic is presented as a problem to be attacked in a spirit of discovery and "not as a verification of something already known". In elucidating problems, the authors often follow historical lines and usually they have done so with admirable discretion. In general, it may be said that they present science as a matter of personal concern to the young students, who are enabled to pluck the fruits of knowledge from all the main branches of the subject.