Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Ancient Man/Project Gutenberg

Click here.

ANCIENT MAN
THE BEGINNING
OF CIVILIZATIONS
BY HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON


1922.

DEDICATION To HANSJE AND WILLEM.

My darling boys,

You are twelve and eight years old. Soon you will be grown up. You will leave home and begin your own lives. I have been thinking about that day, wondering what I could do to help you. At last, I have had an idea. The best compass is a thorough understanding of the growth and the experience of the human race. Why should I not write a special history for you?

So I took my faithful Corona and five bottles of ink and a box of matches and a bale of paper and began to work upon the first volume. If all goes well there will be eight more and they will tell you what you ought to know of the last six thousand years.

But before you start to read let me explain what I intend to do.

I am not going to present you with a textbook. Neither will it be a volume of pictures. It will not even be a regular history in the accepted sense of the word.

I shall just take both of you by the hand and together we shall wander forth to explore the intricate wilderness of the bygone ages.

I shall show you mysterious rivers which seem to come from nowhere and which are doomed to reach no ultimate destination.

I shall bring you close to dangerous abysses, hidden carefully beneath a thick overgrowth of pleasant but deceiving romance.

Here and there we shall leave the beaten track to scale a solitary and lonely peak, towering high above the surrounding country.

Unless we are very lucky we shall sometimes lose ourselves in a sudden and dense fog of ignorance.

Wherever we go we must carry our warm cloak of human sympathy and understanding for vast tracts of land will prove to be a sterile desert--swept by icy storms of popular prejudice and personal greed and unless we come well prepared we shall forsake our faith in humanity and that, dear boys, would be the worst thing that could happen to any of us.

I shall not pretend to be an infallible guide. Whenever you have a chance, take counsel with other travelers who have passed along the same route before. Compare their observations with mine and if this leads you to different conclusions, I shall certainly not be angry with you.

I have never preached to you in times gone by.

I am not going to preach to you today.

You know what the world expects of you--that you shall do your share of the common task and shall do it bravely and cheerfully.

If these books can help you, so much the better.

And with all my love I dedicate these histories to you and to the boys and girls who shall keep you company on the voyage through life.

HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Scottish Fairy Book/Project Gutenberg


"In preparing this book I have tried to make a representative collection from these different classes of Scottish Folklore, taking, when possible, the stories which are least well known, in the hope that some of them, at least, may be new to the children of this generation.

It may interest some of these children to know that when James IV was a little boy, nearly four hundred years ago, he used to sit on his tutor, Sir David Lindsay's, knee, and listen to some of the same stories that are written here:—to the story of Thomas the Rhymer, of the Red-Etin, and of The Black Bull of Norroway." ~ Elizabeth W. Grierson. Whitchesters, Hawick, N.B.,12th April, 1910.

See here

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Through a Microscope /Project Gutenberg

Through a Microscope by Frederick Leroy Sargent, Mary Treat, and Samuel R. Wells, 1886

SOMETHING OF THE SCIENCE
TOGETHER WITH MANY CURIOUS OBSERVATIONS
INDOOR AND OUT
AND DIRECTIONS FOR A HOME-MADE MICROSCOPE

See here.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Search My Google Books Library with Key Words

I've got 4000+ books in my favorites at my Google bookshelf. All are geared toward education and learning, so if you browse with key terms, you'll get a nice long list of books to search. Only a small portion of these books have been listed here on this blog. You'll find one difference, I put all links here on my blog in HTML so that individual pages or illustrations can be printed.

You can do this yourself if you use the link for my Google bookshelf. Just choose the plain text version of the book(right hand corner of any page in the book), then change the link to HTML by deleting "text" and adding "html". Then you can right click on the images of the pages and save them to your computer.

Click here my Google bookshelf .

This link is also on my sidebar.

Virtual Homeschool Library

Many books categorized by subject and historical time periods. Click here. I'll add this to my sidebar.

HT to Sarah

Google Books Limiting Downloads

It seems Google Books is now limiting access to book downloads on some of their free books, some of which are listed here on this blog. If you have trouble finding a download here, let me know, and I will try to find one elsewhere.

Although Google Books has a greater variety of free public domain educational books, Project Gutenberg is much more liberal with their downloads(and less complicated). I may begin posting more books from Project Gutenberg, and steering away from Google Books, when possible.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Eclectic School Geometry/Google Books

Title The Eclectic School Geometry
Authors Evan Wilhelm Evans, James Jesse Burns
Publisher Amer. Book Co., 1884
Length 149 pages
Click here.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

A Kipling Primer/Google Books

This little book has been written in the hope that it may minister to an intelligent appreciation of Mr. Kipling's prose and poetry. The world has never before witnessed the spectacle of a collected edition of an author's works issued within a dozen years of the date on his earliest title-page. A body of criticism is bound to grow up around the writings of a genius so commanding and brilliant. If the Primer serve as an unpretentious forerunner of this literature, it asks nothing more...
Appended to the abstracts of stories and ballads, in Chapter Three, will be found, in many cases, brief criticisms from well-known authorities. These are included for their suggestiveness rather than for any value as final estimates. Indeed, the editor has been at no pains to add them to all or even to most of the outlines, nor has he in any case endeavored to harmonize them with one another. While in the main they are astute, and doubtless trustworthy, in many instances they will be found chiefly to illustrate the fact that opinions even of high authorities are merely personal estimates and frequently prove to be very wide of the mark.

Title A Kipling Primer
Author Frederic Lawrence Knowles
Publisher Brown and company, 1899
Length 219 pages
Click here.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Live Language Lessons, Book 3/Google Books

Title Live language Lessons, Book 3
Volume 3 of Live Language Lessons, Howard Driggs
Author Howard Driggs
Publisher The University Publishing Company, 1914
Click here.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

McGuffey's New First Eclectic Reader(1857 version)/Google Books


Title McGuffey's New First Eclectic Reader
Author William Holmes McGuffey
Publisher Sargent, Wilson, Hinkle & Co., 1857
Length 60 pages
Click here

Friday, October 14, 2011

Cookery for Little Girls/Project Gutenberg

COOKERY FOR
LITTLE GIRLS
BY
OLIVE HYDE FOSTER
NEW YORK
DUFFIELD & COMPANY
MCMX
Copyright, 1910,
By Duffield & Co.


Preface

This book has been prepared with the special purpose of assisting mothers throughout the country to train their small daughters in the art of cookery. Scarcely any child can be trusted to take a recipe and work alone, as the clearest directions need the watchful supervision of an experienced woman, who can detect the coming mistake and explain the reason for doing things in a certain way.

All children like to experiment in the kitchen, and instead of allowing them to become an annoyance, they should be so directed that their efforts will result in immediate help to the mother and prove invaluable life lessons to the little ones themselves. Nothing is really more pitiable than the helpless woman who, when occasion demands, finds herself unable to do ordinary cooking. And that young wife is blessed indeed who has been prepared for her duties in the home by a conscientious mother. Therefore let no woman think it too much trouble to teach her child the preparation of various kinds of food, impressing on her at the same time the dignity and importance of the work.

The following articles, though considerably lengthened and rearranged, were written at the request of the Editor, and ran for a year in Pictorial Review; and the encouraging letters they elicited from women and children everywhere, prompted this publication in book form. The intention has been not to make a complete manual of cookery, but instead to create interest in enough branches to enable an otherwise inexperienced person to successfully put together any good recipe. Thanks are also due for the use of material appearing in The Circle and Harper's Bazaar.
Olive Hyde Foster.


Click here.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Short Stories of the New America for High School(post WWI)/Project Gutenberg

SHORT STORIES OF THE
NEW AMERICA
INTERPRETING THE AMERICA OF THIS AGE TO
HIGH SCHOOL BOYS AND GIRLS

SELECTED AND EDITED BY
MARY A. LASELLE
OF THE NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS, HIGH SCHOOLS
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1919

PREFACE

The purpose of this book of short stories of modern American life is twofold.

First, these narratives give an interpretation of certain great forces and movements in the life of this age. All the authors represented are especially qualified to describe with force and feeling some phase of contemporary life.

Thinking people everywhere realize that it is not enough to place before the pupils in the schools the bare facts in regard to community and national life. The heart must be warmed, the feelings must be stirred, before the will can be aroused to noble action in any great movement.

President Wilson has urged school officers to increase materially the time and attention devoted to instruction bearing directly upon the problems of community and national life. This was not a plea for the temporary enlargement of the school programme, appropriate merely to the period of the war, but a plea for the realization in public education of the new emphasis which the war has given to the ideals of democracy.

The first aim of this book, then, is to help to place clearly before young people the ideals of America through the medium of literature that will grip the attention and quicken the will to action.

Second, librarians have stated that there are very few compilations of modern short stories of interest and significance with which to meet the needs of young people who turn to the libraries for help in reading.

It is hoped that this book may be of real value in the schools, by clothing the dry bones of civics with significant and interesting material, and that it may also supply a need of the libraries and the homes for a book of live and valuable short stories.


Click here

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

A History of Art for Beginners and Students/Google Books

Title A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture
Author Clara Erskine Clement Waters
Publisher F.A. Stokes, 1887
Click here.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Stories of Old Kentucky/Project Gutenberg

Click here.

PREFACE

To be easily assimilated, our mental food, like our physical food, should be carefully chosen and attractively served.

The history of the "Dark and Bloody Ground" teems with adventure and patriotism. Its pages are filled with the great achievements, the heroic deeds, and the inspiring examples of the explorers, the settlers, and the founders of our state. In the belief that a knowledge of their struggles and conquests is food that is both instructive and inspiring, and with a knowledge that a text on history does not always attract, the author sets before the youth of Kentucky these stories of some of her great men.

This book is intended as both a supplementary reader and a text, for, though in story form, the chapters are arranged chronologically, and every fact recorded has been verified.

MARTHA GRASSHAM PURCELL.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Science for Beginners: An Introduction to the Method and Matter of Science New-world Science Series/Google Books

Title Science for Beginners: An Introduction to the Method and Matter of Science
New-world Science Series
Author Delos Fall
Publisher World Book Co., 1918
Length 388 pages
Click here.

From the Introduction:

The teacher is asked to keep in mind that the chief purpose of this book is not to give the pupils a large amount of information, but rather to introduce them to a method through the use of which they will acquire the habit of gaining information for themselves. The scientific method, by which is meant that methodical procedure which is more and more coming to be used in all lines of human activity, is most easily applied in the field of the natural sciences, and the pupil can best learn the method of the scientist by using the material with which the scientist works.

The author makes no apology for the constant use of the direct address. The book is a direct message to the user of it, and it is to be hoped that the teacher will encourage the idea that here is the boy's and the girl's own book.


Saturday, October 1, 2011

The Boy's Book of Heroes/Project Gutenberg

The Boy's Book of Heroes by Helena Peake

Contents:

HEREWARD—LAST OF THE SAXONS 1

THE CID 17

LOUIS IX., KING OF FRANCE 49

GUSTAVUS VASA, KING OF SWEDEN 82

BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN 110

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 144

THE CHEVALIER DE BAYARD 192

SIR MARTIN FROBISHER 225

SIR WALTER RALEIGH 242

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 257


Click here.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

The Natural Speller: Higher Grades(Early Middle School)/Google Books

There is no mention of grade, but it looks to be a speller for grades fifth through six, possibly through seventh grade.

Title The Natural Speller: Higher Grades
Authors Augustus Hill Kelley, Herbert Leonard Morse
Publisher C. Scribner's Sons, 1912
Length 153 pages

Click here.

Monday, September 19, 2011