PREFACE

The student using the following catalogue is generally referred to the eighth chapter of Deucalion for explanation of its method; but a few words are still needed to justify the broken form in which I permit its publication.

The object of all books used in St. George's schools will be simply educational, not scientific. That is to say, they will never be abstract statements of science generally known, but practically explanatory statements of the small portion of science which it is thought desirable that the pupil should know.

And these explanations will always be given in the way which I think likeliest to make the matter clear to a young reader; and not at all in the systematic way which would appear fittest to a person, acquainted with things of which the ordinary student is, and must for ever remain, ignorant.

But more especially, and pointedly, the books used in the schools of St. George will avoid any attempt at scientific classification, because, as I have already explained again and again, in my Oxford lectures, no existing scientific classification can possibly be permanent. The only systems yet of any real value, are those which, founded on easily visible phenomena, enable the young student with least pains to gather for himself the materials of future labour.