A Complete Course of Problems in Practical and Plane Geometry, adapted for the Use of Students preparing for the Examinations, &c

Abstract

A NEW class-book on Practical Geometry commends itself to our attention. Mr. John Palliser, of the Leeds School of Art and Science, has produced one of those educational works which a demand created by Government examinations has recently brought to our aid. Reserving our opinion as to the final tendency of an epidemic for what are called practical results, we must, in justice, say that this class-book of Mr. Palliser's is the very thing for cheapness, conciseness, comprehensiveness, to rapidly possess the student with a ready-handed ability to answer all demands of the examiner. The work is not encumbered with demonstration, for this, in view of the proposed end, would be out of place; it is a laboratory of experimental formulæ. We have a recipe for constructing all conceivable polygons within the compass of a single circle, for drawing lines to invisible points, and for trisecting the most obdurate angles by the magic of a slip of paper. Faith is all that is demanded of the student, faith in the formulæ before him, and industry to get them by heart. Not troubled with the Why, he has only to remember the How; but he must be careful, exact, and neat-handed; and this, if not mental training, is next of kin to it. The arrangement of the book is generally good, the style concise in the extreme, the letter-press wonderful at the price, and the diagrams, with their faint, dark, or dotted lines, are highly effective and intelligible, not less so from the fact of the lettering being (what we very seldom find it) correct.

A Complete Course of Problems in Practical and Plane Geometry, adapted for the Use of Students preparing for the Examinations, &c.

By John William Palliser, Second Master and Lecturer of the Leeds School of Art and Science. (London: Simpkin and Marshall.)