Excerpt from A Family Encyclopedia, or an Explanation of Words and Things Connected With All the Arts and Sciences It is often said that superficial acquirements mark the present age - that abundance of abstracts and compendious methods of obtaining knowledge, in some degree exclude the necessity of dili gence and patient thought, and that innumerable facilities and mechanical helps encourage indolence rather than incite to appli cation. To this it may he replied, that those who without these helps would know nothing beyond the narrow range of their own observation, may now, for a small expense of time and money obtain a considerable fund of information from this book, and from many others of a similar character and design. The minds df children, and persons of neglected education, can here be furnished dd!panhnflarfiunshnldummxthacflqnnhmgninlflahunlffibumx, and in Intellectual Philosophy, that may Open the senses to new per ceptions, may stimulate curiosity, may turn the I mind instead to the cultivation of its own ability, and may suggest the wisdom of God's laws, and the bounty of his providence. Such being the use of which this work is susceptible, and its execution being as faithful and perfect as its limits permit, it will be fmmd serviceable as a school book - its simplicity of definition and variety of matter strongly recommending it to those engaged in Education. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.