Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia 1-28./Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary 1-2./Funk & Wagnalls Hammond World Atlas (nem teljes sorozat) [antikvár]

FOREWORD Having spent a good many years as a teacher, I see clearly that education is of critical importance in the rapidly changing conditions in which the world's peoples now live. The task of education is to acquaint people, especially young people, with the total tradition of human thought and experience. Today, however, it is especially important that our minds remain uncluttered and free of the laborious memorization of thousands of facts and figures. Students must keep their minds clear and agile, for their task is to wrestle with the evolving concepts to which all the recently gathered knowledge—generated by new critical insights—is inevitably leading. The valuable facts of the past, accumulated over thousands of years, must be preserved, however, as the basis for new concepts. The preservation of these facts and their easy retrieval is the function of the encyclopedia, just as their interpretation is part of the function of the school. The encyclopedia, intended from the time of the ancient Greeks to contain the sum total of all knowledge, is still a basic tool of education, that human process through which the creative imagination is stimulated and made productive. One important element in this vital process is the development of useful and constructive habits of mind; the deepening of intellectual curiosity; the development of critical faculties; the ability to evaluate a discussion, especially for logical progression and consistency; and the development of the intellectual self-confidence that comes from the feeling that one can apply acquired knowledge constructively and rewardingly. The encyclopedia is essential in supporting this development. The scholars of the Renaissance believed that it lay within the realm of possibility for an individual to learn all knowledge within a lifetime. Today, even the most gifted scholar realizes that a person cannot grasp the entire macrocosm of known facts. With the electronic assistance of computers and their unimaginable memories, the world's knowledge is multiplying so rapidly that the work of encyclopedia editors has become one of selecting and organizing, rather than one of gathering only. The producers of a modern encyclopedia must, therefore, enlist the aid of people who are uniquely knowledgeable in the ever-growing number of special fields. Specialists write about the subject they know thoroughly. What all the specialists have written, once gathered and collated, is then carefully edited. Illustrations and graphs accompany the text to clarify it and to make it more useful. Finally, it is fitted into an overall plan, the purpose of which is to help people easily find correct and readable information. As an educator who has used encyclopedias for years, I know that they must be accurate, objective, and free from prejudice if they are to fulfill the needs of students as well as those of the casual reader. Although encyclopedias differ considerably in certain ways, all strive to provide the reader with information on a multitude of subjects. Some encyclopedias are designed to provide very detailed information; others are prepared exclusively for children; still others limit their scope to one area of knowledge or concern. Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia has been designed as a general encyclopedia, not giving preference to any one field but providing a well-balanced variety of information on questions of contemporary concern. The adult reader will find the encyclopedia an indispensable companion throughout life. The student will find the facts required for studies, reading, and discussion. The name Funk & Wagnalls has become synonymous with the American image of dependable reference works. Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, it seems to me, has been designed and edited in this tradition. It is consistently reliable, fascinatingly illustrated, and easy to use. I am sure that this Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia will, as did its predecessors, long hold an honored place and a well-deserved reputation among English-speaking people everywhere as outstanding among reference books. George N. Shuster Late Trustee and Assistant to the President of Notre Dame