ов, ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN THE VAPIOUS DEPARTMENTS LITERATURE AND SCIENCE; WITH Practical Rules FOR STUDYING EACH BRANCH OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. BY THE REV. W. SHEPHERD, AND THE REV. LANT CARPENTER, LL.D. SECOND EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. London: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME; AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOY AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS BARNARD AND FARLEY, ADVERTISEMENT. THE important period of human life which commences when young persons are freed from the restraint of school discipline is often ill spent for want of some useful object of mental pursuit. The living instructor is, perhaps, not at hand to point out a course of study; and many an ingenuous youth falls into the habits of desultory and baneful reading, who, with proper guidance, might have formed a decided taste for the acquisition of wholesome knowledge, in the prosecution of which he might have improved his mind, and have been preserved from frivolity and vice. Influenced by these considerations, the Authors of "Systematic Education" have had it in view to supply those, who are between sixteen and twenty-five years of age, with such guidance. They have endeavoured to offer such elementary instruction as may afford a good preparative for future reading, and to point out the best sources of farther information on the subjects of which they treat. It has been their aim to compress within a narrow compass, a great fund of important knowledge, which could only be obtained by the perusal of a multitude of volumes, and they flatter themselves that, on some topics, their Elements will supply materials for instruction not unworthy the attention of the Preceptor, who may be engaged in conducting the studies of pupils somewhat advanced in scholastic attain ments. As they have endeavoured to give a correct and familiar introduction to the principal departments of scientific and literary inquiry, they are not without hopes that their work will be found an useful text-book in those schools where instruction comprehends other objects besides the Classics; and that it will be of eminent service to those young persons in the process of whose early education the Classics have been almost the exclusive subject of attention. This exposition of the design of the work now offered to the public would be abundantly sufficient, if it fell into the hands only of the uninitiated, and of those who are engaged in the business of instructing others. For the former, it is believed, it may be reckoned a safe, if not an ample guide to useful and important knowledge: the latter require no apology; they know the difficulties of compressing into a small compass, even a syllabus, of a great variety of subjects. From both these classes, therefore, the authors of "Systematic Education" hope for a candid reception. To the learned and the critic they have nothing to offer their aim was to supply a work, which, as far as they know, has hitherto been unattempted, that might assist the unskilful, not only as a |