PRACTICAL SCIENCE OF LIVING THINGS, Book I. Life Stories of Everyday Animals and Plants. Illustrations by F. I. Noble, The Gregg Publishing Company Ltd. Gregg House, Russell Square, London, W.C.1 [1940]. [offered together with:] Practical Science of Living Things. Book II. The Structure of Animals and Plants. Illustrations by F. I. Noble. The Gregg Publishing Company Ltd. Gregg House, Russell Square, London, W.C.1. [n.d. but ca. 1938?.] [offered together with:] Practical Science of Living Things. Book III. The Functions of Animals and Plants. Illustrations by F. I. Noble. The Gregg Publishing Company Ltd. Gregg House, Russell Square, London, W.C.1. [1951]. [offered together with:] Practical Science of Living Things. Book IV. Biology and Man

Mixed set, four volumes, 8vo; I. pp. 128, with unnumbered photograph on contents verso and 96 text diagrams, illustrations and photographs; II. pp. 125, [3] blank, with unnumbered photograph on contents verso and 80 text diagrams, illustrations and photographs; III. pp. 128, with unnumbered photograph on contents verso, four half page photographs and 66 text diagrams; IV. pp. 158, with unnumbered photograph on contents verso, 10 full and half page photographs and 14 text diagrams; all four volumes, aside from some occasional light foxing and minor soiling, clean and bright; each volume with contemporary ownership signature or label; all four in contemporary decorative publisher's cloth, with series motif of swallow and butterfly on upper cover, in orange, green, red and blue, spines all a little sunned, head and tail of spines lightly rubbed and worn with some minor loss, with further light rubbing and surface wear; an appealing set. Offered together an appealing, though mixed, set of this series of biology text-books aimed at secondary school pupils. The series was begun in 1936, with the present set including two later editions of Books I and III (1940 and 1951), with what we believe to be first editions of Books II and IV (1938), although neither volume is dated. The books effectively take the students' through four years of study, and deal with the life stories of animals and plants, their structure, function and concluding with the applications of biology to practical problems. 'Demonstrations and lectures are not enough for children, and the whole book has been based on experiment and observation which they can make for themselves. If they follow out the scheme of "Things you can do at Home or at School," they will not only be more interested in the work, but will be brought into direct contact with the creatures they are studying and will acquire regular habits of observation. We have particularly kept in mind the needs and conditions of schools in the industrial towns and cities, and have not assumed that every school has the advantage of a special Science room' (Book I, p. 5). The final chapters of Book IV are devoted to the lives of some notable biologists, including Aristotle, Antony van Leeuwenhoek, Carl Linnaeus, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Lord Lister and Jean Henri Fabre. Reproduction is touched upon in Book III, but confined to animals and with no mention of human reproduction. The prefaces each make mention of the books leading up to a course of Hygiene, which may well have tried to address these more delicate matters. Morgan was the author of a number of pedagogical works, including a series of mathematics for senior school girls entitled 'Real-Life Arithmetic for Girls' (1936), and 'The teaching of mathematics in the secondary modern school' (1959). In 1952 she had collaborated with J. Williamson to publish the 'Arithmetic Tool Box', which comprised of 244 cards, which dealt with the elementary processes in number, fractions and British Money, and which was followed by 'The Decimal Tool Kit' issued in 1964.…