It tells only what everyone should know, and it does this in a straightforward, concise, and interesting manner. It takes into consideration the character of high school needs and conditions, and, throughout, lays particular emphasis upon the intimate relation between physics and everyday life.
While the subject matter, as a whole, is unchanged, the order of topics in many cases has been altered to adapt the development of the subject to the habits of thought of high school pupils. Instead of beginning the treatment of a subject with the definition and proceeding to a discussion of the sub-topics, the author starts with a discussion of well-known phenomena and leads up to the definition of the subject discussed. The text, wherever possible, has been simplified, more than fifty topics having been amplified, expanded, or reworded. More familiar illustrations of the topics treated are given, and the demonstrations of many of the experiments are simplified by the use of materials that are readily obtainable in the classroom.
There have been added a number of new topics, mostly in connection with the recent advances in applied science. The number both of questions and problems has been greatly increased and the data in these all relate to actual, practical, physical phenomena. More than one-fifth of the illustrations in the book are new, many of the pictures of apparatus having been redrawn to show modern forms.