MENSURATION FOR ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE CLASS SCHOOLS. BEING A SERIES OF GRADUATED LESSONS, LONDON AND GLASGOW: PREFACE. It is to be deeply regretted that, although Mensuration is both an interesting and useful study, it has hitherto been almost entirely excluded from the sphere of elementary education; and that many of the teachers themselves, in our elementary schools, are unacquainted with it. The reason of this general neglect of so important a subject is, no doubt, mainly that it has been the custom of our mathematical teachers to postpone it until their pupils have such an acquaintance with Trigonometry, Geometry, and Algebra, as will enable them readily to understand and apply general and distinctly scientific proofs of the rules which are to be employed. This postponement, however, in the case of elementary schools, has necessarily amounted to banishment of the subject altogether from the range of teaching; and most of the recent text-books on Mensuration have been designed solely for the learner who has made some advance in the study of Mathematics. Mensuration may be of great service to thousands of persons who will never know anything either of Trigonometry or Euclid, and for these learners of lower attainment this little book is designed. The author has endeavoured to treat the subject simply, in a series of graduated lessons, such as |