Astronomy by Observation

Автор: Eliza A. Bowen
Издательство: American Book Company
Страниц: 120
Год: 1890
Размер: 4,95 МБ

PREFACE

This book has grown out of actual school-work, in which it was the teacher's object to make pupils studying elementary astronomy observe and think.

The following are its chief peculiarities:

1. An efficient, easy, well-tried plan for teaching the constellations is described. Its use will obviate the necessity of a teacher doing work out of school-hours, by enabling students to become independent observers.

2. Careful directions are given when, how, and where to find the heavenly bodies. Their motions are described in the order in which they can be seen by an observer, and in familiar language. Thus, the text- book may be a guide to the observation of beginners.

3. The student is excited to thought. Facts are stated first ; theory afterward, as a deduction from the facts. The selection of subjects for the student's thinking is a little different from that of other school astronomies. The general principle governing this selection is to make the student understand what he can see. The author has also desired in some degree to separate the work of the elementary teacher from that of the college professor. To observe the facts from which Copernicus argued ; to discuss them ; to perceive how they prove his conclusions ; to use in this the simpler geometrical conceptions, seem to the author suitable elementary work. It would be excellent elementary work if it could be combined with some practical angular measurements of a simple kind on the heavens.