HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY Mrs. William H. Tillinghast HARVARD Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1952. BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY, fa the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York PREFACE. "THE CHILD'S GUIDE TO KNOWLEDGE" is an elementary book which has been much used in England for many years; but, beyond its general scope and details, nationality is a leading feature in the original work. Matters of fact purely local may be useful to be known in that country, which are of no importance whatever in this; while whatever is peculiar to this continent, or to these States, in the economy of nature, or the results of industry, is entirely disregarded in England as subject of instruction to the young. A book of the character of this should give all the information its bulk admits of concerning the productions and arts of the country we inhabit. "That which before us Lies in daily life is the prime wisdom." I have therefore endeavored to fit a very useful design to the position and wants of the children of the United States, adding to matter of general concern such notices of our natural productions, and their uses, as may be serviceable in popular education, and to the end of life. A right Initiation is the true access to valuable ultimate acquirements. I recommend this book to teachers for its manifest utility. In the German schools, a little compend of cyclopedic design is always used. Such a book, well written, indicates sciences else never heard of by multi tudes of children, assists their observation, and furnishes to them a vocabulary they are not likely to acquire without it. I would commend to teachers to postpone the endless compends of Geography and Grammar till something of the external world, and of the labors of mankind, has been taught to their pupils. All that meets our senses belongs to the world we live in, and has relations of some sort to those who dwell in it-therefore, geography is inseparable from every substance and every law of the material universe; divided from these, it is a dead letter. Geography having been taught in its first definitions, should be constantly referred to in the use of this Guide to Knowledge. The proper questions to a child are not, Where does cinnamon grow? or, Where is Australian gold found? -expecting an answer solely derived from maps; but, Where, on the earth we inhabit-where, in relation to the spot on which we are—is the island of Ceylon? the continent of New Holland? or any other point on the earth's surface. The pupil so inquired of must stand with his face to the north, and must know the points of the compass. Then his map will tell him which way he would go for the whale of the Arctic Ocean, or to the Spice islands, the land of tea, or to that of the mahoganytree; he will point to the place in question, and tell what land or water intervenes. Any other mode of teaching geography teaches words only, and no geography, nor any matter of fact, in reality. The geographical use of this book is more than half its use. I hope every learner who may study it will be required to indicate every place mentioned in it, after the intimation just given. He or she will then practise beforehand, with the aid of school maps, the exercise demanded by the lesson to be recited. I have made no use of italics in these lessons-I have never found them significant to children; therefore, after the example of Mr. Carlyle, I have employed capital letters in all words of peculiar sense, in order to distinguish such words from the rest of the text. Every article of this compend has been referred to high authority—to the Penny Cyclopedia; to that excellent book, Mr. Edward Youman's Elements of Chemistry; to Mr. Emerson's work on Trees; and to Mrs. Loudon's Naturalist. These works are presumed to afford the latest and the most accurate information on the multifarious subjects which the book treats of. So much care and labor can only be compensated by knowing or believing that it must render important aid to the cause of general knowledge, and also to sound morality; that it may become a portion of the foundations of that noble edifice which every reader of good books may build up for the palace of his mind. ELIZA ROBBINS NEW YORK, August, 1852. |