On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our third installment from “Philip’s Principles, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge, published 1898. Philip and his father try some buoyancy experiments involving a wooden plank teetering on a sailboat. Father’s physics professor friend laments that lecturing as a teaching method is a waste. Small group study and interesting practical problems are the way to go. If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear father and son use triangles to measure the size of their estate compared to the local golf club. 

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our second installment from “Philip’s Principles, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge, published 1898. The father, teaching his son at home, reflects on whether it would be better to send Philip to a school where he might pick up boldness and spirit from being with other boys, though he would also encounter dull teaching and bad influences. Mother, through her example and pure thoughts, endows Philip with a choir of angels that will sing to him when temptation comes, as it will to young men. The local schoolteacher stops by, lamenting how parents “dump” their responsibility on him. If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear about some experiments with buoyancy involving tumblers hung from the ends of a stick with string. Really? 

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus reading of an essay by Edgar Allan Poe. Please go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras, and thank you!

On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, we begin the reading of an entire book: “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home” by John Trowbridge (1898). Today it might be called homeschooling or unschooling: A father describes how he developed in his son Philip “the ability to do things.” In this first episode, forgettable classroom lectures and books are put aside in favor of natural curiosity, observation and practical experience around a country home. First, Philip is required to make a drawing of some observed object every day. Progress is slow at first, but the father’s motto is “faint but pursuing,” and in time Philip not only draws better but becomes a sharper observer of the natural phenomena around him. The entire book will probably run about twelve half-hour episodes. 

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus reading of an essay by Edgar Allan Poe. Please go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras, and thank you!

The latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep brings you tips on how to run a hotel in 1913. Author John Tellman notes the demise of the American Plan hotel, where you paid a combo price for a room and meals, as founded in "a period of extravagance and waste in America not known in recent times of any other country." The new thing was the European plan, where you select meal items from a menu and pay by the item. If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear how one of the hotel steward’s jobs was to steer guests away from steaks, chops, and roast beef, which had become so expensive that there was almost no chance of earning a profit from them.

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus reading of an essay by Edgar Allan Poe. Please go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras, and thank you!

The latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep brings you instructions on how to install a radio in your home in 1926. Listen to step-by-step details for connecting the antenna and batteries in the right order, so your Montgomery Ward Airline Conqueror Radio Receiving Set will bring you wonderful radio programs, market reports, and weather forecasts, without instantly destroying the vacuum tubes. If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear how to use the volume knob and the balancer knob together to get rid of a loud whistling sound, unless two stations are broadcasting on nearly the same wave length.

You can support The Forgotten Bookshelf and get a bonus reading of an essay by Edgar Allan Poe. Please go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theforgottenbookshelf/extras, and thank you!