Abstract
WHEN Solomon delivered himself of the sage remark that “there is no new thing under the sun,” his prophetic eye may have been looking up the corridors of time, and seen the “soul-destroying text-books” (as Dr. Armstrong terms examinational literature) of the present day. It is only rarely that a text-book writer goes beyond his brief. He designs his book to meet the requirements of a particular examination, and feels that he has performed his task successfully if future questions set by the examiners are more or less anticipated in the text. Such a writer has little scope for originality. If he departs much from the lines laid down in the examiners' syllabuses, his production fails in its object, and if he keeps the contents within the examiners' bounds, he incurs the censure of the reviewer. Thus it is that textbooks are often mere summaries, and that there is a family likeness between those covering the same ground.
Theoretical Mechanics.
Vol. i., Solids. Vol. ii., Fluids. By J. Edward Taylor. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1894.)
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[Book Reviews]. Nature 50, 474 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/050474a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/050474a0