ASTRONOMY FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 18

ASTRONOMY FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN.

Dr H. M. Levinge, 8.A., of Okato, New Plymouth/ waited on the Educational Institute en Wednesday with a simple little instrument which he has recently patented, and which he is desirous of seeing introduced into the schools of the province. It is made of wood, with accurate protractors fixed on vertical and horizontal dials. A fine silk thread suspends a plumb which, when the instrument is' in use, hangs exactly over the pivot on which the stem and vertical circle are supported. However, to give an intelligible description of the instrument, which Dr Levinge calls the altazimuth, it must be seen and handled. It is claimed for it. that it will find the meridian, the local time, the latitude, the declination, the azimuth, the altitude, and the zenith distance. It may be used for surveying as well, for finding 1 the height and distance of objects, and the things for which a transit instrument or a theodolite are used. Briefly, the principle is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of the circle. Dr Levingo rightly contends that one of the objected of modern educational methods is to give an outline of the way all scientific work is done. The theodolite, he thinks, ie too complicated an instrument to be easily understood by children, hence his altazimuth, which is certainly simplicity itself while giving eurpriaingly accurate results. By it, said the doctor, if installed in the schools, as it had been extensively up north, the children might be taught to regulate their own clocks by the sun, moon, or stars alternately, and many other useful branches of knowledge could be undertaken with the altazimuth. Surveying, as he points out. is a most important thing for country children, especially when it is robbed of the usual tangle of figures. The instrument should also prove a boon to amateur astronomers. Dr Levinge "intends to bring the matter under the notice of the Education Board at its next meeting, with the object of having the instruments introduced into the schools throughout Otago. The Wellington and Hawke's Bay Board's have placed the instrument* in a large number of their schools, and* 27 were ordered by the South Canterbury Board quite recently.

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