Page 21 - English

The theory that intuitive truths are discovered by the light of nature
originated from St. John’s interpretation of a passage in the Gospel
of Plato.
The weight of the earth is found by comparing a mass of known lead
with that of a mass of unknown lead.
To find the weight of the earth take the length of a degree on a meridian
and multiply by 62½ pounds.
The spheres are to each other as the squares of their homologous sides.
A body will go just as far in the first second as the body will go plus
the force of gravity and that’s equal to twice what the body will go.
Specific gravity is the weight to be compared weight of an equal
volume of or that is the weight of a body compared with the weight
of an equal volume.
The law of fluid pressure divide the different forms of organized bodies
by the form of attraction and the number increased will be the
form.
Inertia is that proberty of bodies by virtue of which it cannot change its
own condition of rest or motion. In other words it is the negative
quality of passiveness either in recoverable latency or insipient
latescence.

If a laugh is fair here, not the struggling child, nor the
unintelligent teacher,—or rather the unintelligent Boards,
Committees, and Trustees,—are the proper target for it. All through
this little book one detects the signs of a certain probable fact—that a
large part of the pupil’s “instruction” consists in cramming him with
obscure and wordy “rules” which he does not understand and has no
time to understand. It would be as useful to cram him with brickbats;
they would at least stay. In a town in the interior of New York, a few
years ago, a gentleman set forth a mathematical problem and
proposed to give a prize to every public-school pupil who should
furnish the correct solution of it. Twenty-two of the brightest boys in
the public schools entered the contest. The problem was not a very
difficult one for pupils of their mathematical rank and standing, yet
they all failed—by a hair—through one trifling mistake or another.
Some searching questions were asked, when it turned out that these
lads were as glib as parrots with the “rules,” but could not reason out
a single rule or explain the principle underlying it. Their memories
had been stocked, but not their understandings. It was a case of
brickbat culture, pure and simple.
There are several curious “compositions” in the little book, and
we must make room for one. It is full of naïveté, brutal truth, and

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